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November 22, 2024
 

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Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
May 15, 2005
Close encounters of a wild sundowner kind
It was sundowner time -- that precious moment on an African safari when the gin and tonics come out, along with the nibbles and camp chairs. The day's adventures are over, and those of the night have yet to begin.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Apr 17, 2005
Make no bones about it, this place is like nowhere on Earth
The view is daunting. Colossal. Inland, thunderheads loom over distant mountains signaling heavy rains in the interior. To our left, considerably nearer, a thick bank of billowing sea fog rises several hundred meters high. The sun is just visible behind it, pale and wan; a ghostly eye peering down on...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Mar 20, 2005
One man's vision is a paradise of plants
Tim Smit, still in his 30s but already a millionare record producer for artists including the Nolan Sisters and Barry Manilow, moved from London to "retire" in rural Cornwall, south-west England in 1987. He had the vague idea of opening a recording studio. Or a rare breeds farm. Or something.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Feb 20, 2005
There's big, and Hoover Dam big
Take 4,360 cubic meters of concrete (enough to pave a single-lane highway from San Francisco to New York), add 21,000 workers (but deduct an average of 50 a day due to injury or death), stir in 5 million, 8-cubic-meter buckets of cement and 950 km of steel piping, then garnish the lot with a dog that...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jan 16, 2005
There's white gold on them thar African isles
'Where there's muck, there's brass." In the north of England "brass" means "cash," but the old adage about dirt and money still rings true. And you don't get much muckier than an overcrowded seabird colony on a small Atlantic island.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Dec 19, 2004
A tourist jaunt to horrors past
Kanchanaburi (pop. 58,000) could be just another semi-rural town in Thailand. There are touts with strong ideas about where you might like to stay. There's the smell of someone flash-frying beef somewhere -- chilies, garlic and basil; a few feckless chickens are pecking at bits and pieces in the middle...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Nov 21, 2004
Taking on the Kalahari's wilderness of wonder
Khaudum National Park has a reputation for being tough stuff. Even the name has a slightly ominous ring to it. Pronounced "Kowdoom," it sounds like a bad neighborhood in Mordor. The park's deep Kalahari sand tracks are contenders for Top 10 listing in "The Worst Roads in Southern Africa Atlas." Accommodation...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Oct 17, 2004
Venturing intrepidly to a tropical idyll
As soon as the taxi driver pulled out into Singapore's Orchard Road, he began to talk. Babble, actually.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Sep 19, 2004
Wat a middle-aged way not to get so wet
There are good times to arrive in Bangkok weighed down with expensive camera gear, recording equipment and a snappy new tropical suit just tailored in Singapore.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Aug 15, 2004
Mad Max and a mango make for a mind-bendingly memorable city tour
After half an hour of clinging to the back of Mr. Tuc's scooter, the question needs to be asked. It really does.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jun 11, 2004
Mind your step at Cu Chi, a tourist trap with a twist
We are standing in the partial shade of a young teak tree peering gormlessly at the forest floor.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
May 30, 2004
On a desert driveabout in search of somewhere
We hit Botswana with no particular place to go.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Mar 21, 2004
Little reason to gush about showy Sun King's fountains and gardens
King Louis XIV's finance superintendent, Nicholas Fouquet, decided to build himself a cha^teau on a grand scale. No expense was spared. The finest architects of the day were summoned and put to work. Landscape designers, too. And when the Cha^teau Vaux-le-Vicomte was finally complete, well, it was only...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Dec 21, 2003
Of death and glories
The stench! That was what got me first as I pushed my bike up the steep, narrow lane: the reek of burning hair, bones, hooves and flesh.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Nov 21, 2003
Lowdown on the Top End
One interesting thing about Darwin is how often this city in the so-called Top End of north tropical Australia has been destroyed. Indeed there are those who contend that this is the only interesting thing about Darwin.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Oct 17, 2003
Animals without borders in transfrontier parks
It was snowing in Berlin that day in November 1884, but the conference delegates around the horseshoe-shape table in Prince Bismarck's house on the Wilhelmstrasse had little thought for the local weather. Africa had their full attention.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Sep 19, 2003
The facets and the faults
Morning dawns to the background crash and suck of the Indian Ocean's waves breaking into scuds of foam on the beach. Sunlight bathes the bedroom; there is bird song audible from the hotel's tropical garden, and I draw back the lace curtains ready to inhale Sri Lanka's heady mix of sea salt, heat and...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Aug 22, 2003
Wanted in Kafue: tourists, not poachers
The rains had just broken over the Zambian capital, Lusaka. Lightning was tearing open the skies. And we were sitting on a tiled veranda listening to the bedlam of water crashing off the tin roof, the thudding percussion of thunder and the thrilled shouts of children in the street beyond the hibiscus...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Aug 10, 2003
Making tracks across moor and marsh
In the autumn of 1865, two Victorian gentlemen set off on foot from the Yorkshire town of Settle. They walked north through moorland haunted by the lonely cry of rooks, struggled through marshes, scaled mountains, skirted lethal potholes, were lashed by shrieking winds and stinging rain and, for most...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jul 27, 2003
Close-up with a Cathar
Back in the 12th century, some Christians began to question the status quo. They looked at the leading figures of the Roman Catholic world and they decided that the Church establishment was missing the point.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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