A Peace Pagoda Deserving of Recognition The Tokyo Peace Pagoda (Okutama Bussharitou) has piqued my interest for a number of years after first spotting the 45 metre high monument from a nearby mountain. Set in the rather far-flung Nishitama District...
Early Morning Snowscape Transforms Lake Okutama Lake Okutama is a large water storage located around 60 km west of Tokyo, and was at the time of its completion in 1957 one of the world’s largest reservoirs. Owing to its proximity to central Tokyo...
21 Years of Rock Versus Man and Chisel South-east of the Turkish capital Ankara lies Cappadocia, a harsh landscape where its inhabitants for centuries eked a subterranean existence by tunnelling deep into the soft stone bluffs. On a comparatively...
Terrific Day Trips Within Reach of Tokyo With inbound tourists visiting Japan surging to a record 19.73 million last year means more visitors than ever are looking for avenues to not only escape the crowds, but check out some less familiar...
Hiked on Dec 16, 2015 May 11, 2021 . Mt. Tenranzan 天覧山 – Mt. Tonosu 多峯主山 Duration: 4 hours Distance: 7.6 km Elevation change: 95 metres Highest point: 195 metres Start: Hanno Station (Seibu...
A Simpler Way to Digitize Film Slides with a DSLR Digitizing old print photos is a relatively straightforward way to conserve your images and is usually only a matter of popping them under a flatbed scanner. Scanning reversal film sides on the other...
Fall Colours Transform Koganei Park A nice thing about living in western Tokyo is its expansive planned gardens and parklands. The autumn season is particularly stunning with Showa Park in Tachikawa a major drawcard for locals taking in the changing...
Hiked on Oct 21, 2015 Aug 24, 2023 . Mt. Hodosan 宝登山 Duration: 3 hours Distance: 6.2 km Elevation change: 347 metres Highest point: 497 metres Start: Nagatoro Station (Chichibu Main Line) ...
A Company that Stands by their Word After years of faithful service, quality hiking socks—or any socks, for that matter—tend to wear out. At this point, you would normally discard them or repurpose them as shoe polishers. That is, unless you made...
Hitching a Lift up Tokyo’s Mountains With seventy-two percent of Japan being mountainous it shouldn’t come as a surprise the country contains an extensive network of aerial lifts. In Japan, the term “ropeway” applies to all forms...
Exploring the Outdoors Around Tokyo The scale and diversity of Tokyo makes it hard to condense into a short travel write-up, especially the outdoor scene which caters for all and sundry. Having said that, what follows is a brief rundown of some...
Hiked on Sep 19, 2015 Nov 5, 2022 . Kurotake 黒岳 – Mt. Koganezawa 小金沢山 Duration: 2 days Distance: 15.6 km Elevation change: 1038 metres Highest point: 2014 metres Start: Yamatoten Mokusan Onsen...