A wise man climbs Mt Fuji once, a fool twice Mt Fuji is one of the few mountains to have a proverb about it and it is repeated in a self-deprecating manner by those who have climbed it more than once. Self-depracation is the humour of the humourless, and generally comes across as an attempt at lame conversation. To each country its obsession and to Japan it is climbing Mt Fuji quite like avoiding all sorts of strenuous physical activity in India(self-deprecation?). Almost everybody in Japan has tried it or at least thought of trying it . I first visited the [View Full Entry]

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I have not written any blogs recently mainly because I have not gone anywhere. So after a long time and many messages from travelblog saying We want you back I am writing again. If you wonder at the strange title for the blog, my explanation is as follows. We live in depressing times. It’s a never ending stream of bad news showing neither any signs of slowing down nor changing its course. Factories are on a lay-off sprees, each competing with the other in the daily announcements. As someone recently said its doom and gloom everywhere To take a holiday in [View Full Entry]

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It all started with a mail from an old colleague coming to know that I was working in Nagoya, he asked how Nagoya Castle was?And the fact that in spite of staying for 2 1/2 years in Nagoya I still haven't visited Nagoya castle hit me. Though I have visited many places in and around Nagoya, been to Kyoto a million times and have been to much farther and less accessible places, but I have not really got around to Nagoya Castle. There are reasons though. First of all Nagoya castle is hardly 40 years old!!! Its true, the original [View Full Entry]

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Nabananosato is a tongue twister which takes a couple of days of saying to perfect and a few more to figure out. The information available over the internet is sketchy at the best, and there are more photos than details. It is around 25 kms from Nagoya where I stay and takes around 31 minutes by bus. There is a train route also, taking the Kintetsu line from Nagoya Station, you need to get down at Kuawana Station and take a taxi or bus from there. But bus is the most convenient as it drops you exactly in front of the [View Full Entry]

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What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare I doubt if William Henry Davies ever visited Kamikouchi, but surely if I had met him here I would have shaken his hand and told him that I understood exactly how he felt. But I digress even before I begin. Kamikouchi is located in the Nagano prefecture around central Japan. It is around 30 kms from Matsumoto and around 200 kms from Nagoya where my journey began. Metitetsu Travels offers the Dragon Pack tours to Kamikouchi, with lunch and no lunch options. I did not [View Full Entry]

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The Golden Week starts during the last week of April and goes on till early May. It starts from April 29 which is the greenery day and ends on May 5 which is the children’s day. Combined with weekends and kindly employers who give the remaining days of the week off it becomes a long set of holidays. The Japanese even have a word for it Renkyu, which means consecutive holidays. Earlier days people used to travel to their homes in the countryside, but with the progress of the Japanese economy record numbers travel abroad every year. So to make it [View Full Entry]

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