Oedo Onsen Monogatari in Odaiba, Tokyo
On my last business trip to Tokyo I went to Oedo Onsen Monogatari in Odaiba, one of the few proper hot springs in Tokyo. (I’d say Spa LaQua at Tokyo Dome is the next-best proper one… though of cour…
On my last business trip to Tokyo I went to Oedo Onsen Monogatari in Odaiba, one of the few proper hot springs in Tokyo. (I’d say Spa LaQua at Tokyo Dome is the next-best proper one… though of cour…
Shiraike Jigoku, the “White Pond Hell,” gets its name because, unlike the Blood Pond Hell, its hot water is white, but it’s actually better known for its aquarium. Piranhas and so on: they us…
I got up early thinking I’d have a soak somewhere, and where I ended up was Beppu’s hell tour. It’s seven hot-spring theme parks, each called a “hell,” but for hot-spring theme pa…
Arriving in Beppu late at night, there was nowhere to go. Especially nowhere to eat. I searched on my iPhone for somewhere good, but found absolutely nothing. And the local favourites all close for Golden Week…
The sky keeps getting darker and I’ve lost my way. At this rate, who knows when I’ll ever reach my destination, Beppu… Kurokawa Onsen wasn’t in the plan at first either, but Yufuin also…
On the way to my next stop, Beppu, which I wasn’t expecting much from, there turned out to be a cluster of famous hot-spring villages. The schedule was so rushed that I hadn’t had a proper lunch, s…
I was in a hurry on the way up for fear of traffic, so I took the photos I couldn’t take then on the way down, in a more relaxed mood. Going up we came from the Kumamoto side and coming down we headed to…
It isn’t that far, but the traffic was terrible and it was a real slog. Anyway, after all sorts of twists and turns – and thanks to the bold decision to drastically cut down our list of stops ̵…
Mt. Aso in Kumamoto is an active volcano. When I actually went, the air was still full of smoke and the smell of sulfur. The volcano itself was fascinating, but the scenery around it is gorgeous and there̵…
In the morning I got up and, on the way to Mt. Aso, stopped by Kumamoto Castle for just a little while. I’d seen how imposing it was the day before, so I couldn’t just drive past. Still, if I took …
You can’t come to Kumamoto and not try horse sashimi. I went into Suganoya, which has a good reputation around here and sits right in the middle of the downtown area, but they said there were no seats, s…
I drove hard down the Nagasaki expressway toward Kumamoto, but maybe because it was Golden Week, there were a few kilometers of traffic jams along the way. I ended up more than an hour behind schedule, and sin…