I came across a couple of interesting new words for me at work yesterday.U-turn, J-turn and I-turn… The UJI-turn phenomenon. They wanted me to translate it for a small button for their webpage and as you can imagine, I had no idea what this was all about. The thing about Japan, and the Japanese language [...]

Just a few more image of the earthquake aftermath in Kashiwazaki, Niigata. I believe that this tall structure is the chimney to the incineration plant. But as you can see, the chimney is slightly tilting, and there’s a huge crack by the base of the chimney. I wonder if they are able to [...]

Well, I took a week off work to go hiking out in the northern Alps of Nagano prefecture. But unfortunately the weather was not really cooperating with my needs. Cloudy, foggy, and rain…. . My original plan was to hike from Shirouma-take to Oogisawa, the eastern range of the northern Alps,… just east of [...]