While cruising through the valley, we paused briefly at a small village, Nagoro , with around a dozen residents and hundreds of scarecrows . An elderly woman, Tsukimi Ayano, has transformed the village into a town of the unliving to keep her company. It was both beautiful and somewhat eerie; not a place to visit on Halloween, but perfect for a Friday the 13th sequel.

We attended a dance performance in the town of Tokushima  at the Awa Odori Kaikan Museum . Dance has been a significant aspect of theie local culture for 400 years. The dancers were graceful and athletic, and although it was not like seeing an evening of Balanchine and the NY City Ballet, they were enjoyable to watch.

We traveled along the steep slopes of the Iya Valley to a ravine with a 300-year-old thatched farmhouse, part of the Chiiori Trust , a unique project that seeks to preserve age-old rural traditions in the valley. A delightful 80-year-old lady prepared our lunch and entertained us with a traditional folk song. She truly embodied the essence of life in a blue zone. The tempura was amazing!! We continued on to have tea in a village in Ochiai, a community featuring traditional ho

Japan has lots of islands. We took a ferry to Honshu and then traveled by high-speed train to Hiroshima.   Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park and the Peace Memorial Museum serve as solemn reminders of the atomic blast that devastated the city on August 6, 1945. Within the park lies the skeletal remains of a building now called the Atomic Bomb Dome , which was originally the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall built in 1914. The structure has been preserved as it was

A ferry transported us to the small island of Naoshima, which has become a hub for contemporary art and architecture. The Benesse Art Site was established through the collaboration of an industrialist and a mayor, aiming to highlight this small island in the Seto Inland Sea by developing a venue where contemporary art and a beachfront hotel merge, allowing guests to experience staying in a museum. On our Nat Geo trip, this hotel stood out as the best in terms of design and

Taking a ferry is a very pleasant way to get to your next destination. We proceeded to Mount Koya and the Iya Valley by ferry across to Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s main islands. First we will talk about highlights from the Iya Valley. We attended a dance performance in the town of Tokushima at the Awa Odori Kaikan Museum . Dance has been a significant aspect of the local culture for 400 years. The dancers were graceful and athletic, and although they weren't on par wi

We then traveled to Tokyo via bullet train for the final four days of our Intro to Asia tour. We checked into The Okura Tokyo , a stunning hotel rebuilt in 2019, situated across from the US Embassy. After experiencing subpar accommodations (in my opinion) with National Geographic, we finally enjoyed a lovely, spacious, and elegant corner room on the 29th floor with a view of Tokyo. I was quite satisfied and didn't feel the need to request a third room, as I sometimes do. In

We arrived in Kyoto from Singapore a day before the National Geographic Inside Japan tour to acclimate and explore on our own. Before discussing Kyoto, I must mention the ordeal of getting through Osaka Airport. Our Singapore Airlines flight was excellent as usual, but the immigration process in Osaka was chaotic. We spent two hours in a line moving at a snail's pace, seemingly due to more visitors than available officers. There is a “ Visit Japan Web QR code ” we could hav

Mount Koya is the central hub of the Shingon Buddhist sect. Buddhism consists of three primary schools: Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana, each with numerous sects, subsects, and movements. The core tenets of Buddhism focus on understanding suffering, identifying its causes, and pursuing a path to liberation through mindfulness, compassion, and ethical behavior, all aimed at achieving nirvana (enlightenment).   We wandered through an enchanting cemetery nestled among tower