It's been a while since I posted anything from our trip last May to Ishigaki Island in the far south of Japan, the previous post on the subject having been"Anthony Gets Crabby", from toward the end of the trip's third day.

We started off Day 4, the last day of the trip, taking a drive up the center of the island to the fairly remote, complexly-named Yonehara Yaeyama-Palm Reserve (米原ヤエヤマヤシ群落). For us it consisted of a mildly jungle-like path where you can see some tall palm trees that are apparently found only in this part of the world.

Prior to [...]

Recovering now from a third cold in about as many weeks, the photo above represents my backlog of email and blog comments that I have not gotten to in the last month. If one is from you, sorry.

Feeling good enough this evening finally to want to write something (but not enough to want to deal with email), I'll begin the foray into Day Three of our very snowy, fairly photogenic four-day trip over the new-year holiday. My previous post on the trip closed out Day Two, and summarized the 14 posts that came from that day's snowy adventures.

While [...]

I like some kinds of spicy food, such as things with wasabi (a powerful horseradish-esque garnish) and kimchi (Korean spicy pickled veggies), but when incorporated into snacks in Japan, such as kakipi, these spicy tastes get toned way down, to a bland, pedestrian level.

So this evening at the convenience store I saw a corn-chip snack with packaging that lent the feeling of "spicy" (as you can see at right), I didn't pay much attention to what was written on it and threw it into my shopping basket.

I should have paid attention.

The name of the product is boukun [...]

I've got another cold (what is it this spring?) so am a little extra slow on everything... have been sleeping for the last couple of days. Ugh. Not fun. This one seems to be short, though... starting to feel better already.

I ended my previous post, Clearing Roof Snow in Shirakawago, at a cafe in Shirakawago Village. Just outside the cafe they have a little spot that makes for nice photos (and perhaps for nice business for the cafe), and the proprietress was kind enough to take a snapshot for us...

Looking in the other direction from that spot, one [...]

Picking up where the previous post, "First Look at Snowy Shirakawago Village" left off, we had re-forged a trail through thick snow back to relative civilization....

While we were looking at the menu, the proprietress went outside to clean the snow off the part of the roof that threatened the entrance to the cafe (using a rope tied to the roof ridge, as described in yesterday's post). Anthony was interesed in anything involving large clumps of snow, so he went out to watch.

The big stick proved to be too big for Anthony, which was just as well because he [...]