More glimpses of unfamiliar Japan

Imayama, a small hill not far from Nobeoka Station is home to the main shrine of the area, Imayama hachimangu. A large entrance gate tha...

Nibehime Jinja On the third day of my walk along the Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage I started the day at Shizuma with a visit to the main shrin...

Origunally called Agata Castle, Nobeoka castle was never very big and didn't even have a keep, ony a three-story turret that only la...

Daruma Daruma is the Japanese name for Bodhidharma, a legendary figure who is credited with transmitting Zen teachings from either India...

After leaving the Saigo Takamori Memorial Museum , I still had a couple of hours walk to get into downtown Nobeoka and the pilgrimage te...

After leaving Saba Daishi I headed off down the coast on my 11th day of walking along the Shikoku Pilgrimage. By the afternoon I will ha...

On the banks of the Kitagawa River north of Nobeoka in Miyazaki is the Saigo Takamori Memorila Museum. On this site Saigo nade a tempo...

There are more "cute" mascots per capita in Japan than anywhere else on the world by far. Last year a serious culling took pla...

I started my 18th day along the Kyushu Pilgrimage just across the border into Miyazaki. I started to follow one of the branches of the K...

Hakata at Sunrise 博多 The first time I visited Hakata I woke at 5 am in the morning and seeing as how the hotel's breakfast didn’t st...