Tokyo is the largest city in the world at 33,200,000. Just like the bamboo in Kyoto, the tulips in Holland, the glaciers in New Zealand, the chocolate department in Harrods…something about vast volume of anyone thing hits you over the head. This is this way with Tokyo- its massiveness is a site to see. The subway map alone boggles the mind. It was not a love affair with Japan for me when I first arrived. It snuck up on me unaware. The 1960's cigaret...

I went to the Louvre, walked right into Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres' painting The Turkish Bath and spent some time as a cherubic-bodied nude in the Japanese baths (onsens) in Hakone. Public naked bathing. Check. We leave life on the tatami mat (bamboo matted on-the-floor living) at our ryokan (traditional Japanese guest house) and return to waist high living on beds, chairs and couches in Kyoto. Kyoto is a couple of hours south by Shinkansen bul...

Last night we travelled from Hong Kong to Japan. The Hong Kong MTR is so smart..there is a place right in town where you can check your bags for all the major airlines. This means you can easily take the MTR from the center of town to the airport without lugging a ton of bags on and off platforms. When bag-lugging is out the equation it is a no brainer to take public transport. It was a 4-hour Cathay flight. I already wrote about the hour after we landed. ...

As you might have noticed I typically have a period of adjustment when we switch locations. My back is wrenched from travel, the bed always seems to provide a challenge and I need to find a work around. I am cognizant of this and landed here in Tokyo fully expecting to break this cycle. We have sweet accommodations for the night with, I'm sure, a stellar bed. We head out at a respectable hour in the morning by bullet train which sounds very cool. I hear the Japa...