{"id":1201,"date":"2009-04-29T21:32:06","date_gmt":"2009-04-29T12:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2009-04-29\/1201"},"modified":"2009-04-29T21:32:06","modified_gmt":"2009-04-29T12:32:06","slug":"heading-south-for-a-few-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2009-04-29\/1201","title":{"rendered":"Heading South for a Few Days…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Japan is known as an “Island Nation” because it does not share a border<\/span>\nwith any country. That tends to make you feel that domestic travel is\nsimple and close to home, even if you actually travel some distance,\nbecause you never leave “the island”. Domestic travel feels less expensive,\ntoo: Japan is a relatively<\/span> small country, and so a trip<\/span> to a far<\/span>-flung\ncorner of it is just a bigger<\/span> version of a trip<\/span> to the local convenience\nstore.<\/p>\n\n

But, of course, “Island Nation” really should be plural, “Islands<\/b>\nNation”, because there are many islands. There are the four huge islands\nthat are collectively known as the Japanese mainland, but there are\nthousands and thousands more.<\/p>\n\n

Some are much further from the mainland than others.<\/p>\n\n

A couple of years ago we spent the early-May Golden-Week holidays<\/a> in snowy\nHokkaido<\/a>. Last year I took Anthony camping<\/a>. This year we're heading south.<\/p>\n\n

We're heading off tomorrow on a short<\/span> trip to one of the “further”\nislands, Ishigaki Island<\/a>. It's a domestic<\/span> trip – no\npassports or three-hour-ahead-checkin required – but during this\ntrip, we'll be closer to Taipei than some people in Taiwan. And everyone<\/span> in\nKorea, North or South, will be closer to our house than we will.<\/p>\n\n

I've packed a few pairs of shorts, a Bill<\/span> Bryson book my mom sent for my\nbirthday earlier in the month, and (of course!) my camera and a small<\/span>\nselection of lenses....<\/p>\n\n

Back in less than a week....<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Japan is known as an \"Island Nation\" because it does not share a border with any country. That tends to make you feel that domestic travel is simple and close to home, even if you actually travel some distance, because you never leave \"the island\". Domestic travel feels less expensive, too: Japan is a relatively small country, and so a trip to a far-flung corner of it is just a bigger version of a trip to the local convenience store.<\/p>

But, of course, \"Island Nation\" really should be plural, \"Islands<\/b> Nation\", because there are many islands. There are the four [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}