Let the truth be known, one of the main reasons Monika and I wanted to visit Japan was to see the amazing Snow Monkeys. In the frigid valley of Japan’s Shiga-Kogen (Shiga Highlands) near Nagano, the site of 1998 Winter Olympics, there is a thermal spring that has been discovered by a troop of Japanese Macaque monkeys. […]

At 8:15 AM, August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber carried out the World’s first atomic bombing. The bomb was about 3 m, (9.8 ft.), long and weighed about 4 tons. It was called “Thin Man” at first because of its long thin design. When the actual bomb turned out to be shorter than expected, […]

In case you never get to visit Japan, we wanted to give you a quick glimpse of some of the amazing parks and temples we saw. While every big city in the world has beautiful parks, those of Kyoto were spectacular. It seemed that almost every leaf and twig and branch had been exactly trimmed. […]

Food is such an important part of traveling to new countries. While we do most of our own cooking in our self-contained camper, we never miss the opportunity to try the local specialties. Wandering through the market place in Kyoto, without a translator standing next to us, the question was, “What is it?” While there […]

Whatever images might come up when we think of Japan, Toyotas, Nikon cameras, Sony TVs and Sushi, the beautiful and mysterious Geishas should be included. When Monika said she wanted to go to Japan to see the Snow Monkeys, I immediately imagined going to spa and having a nice massage by a Geisha. Well, that […]

With The Turtle V safely on its way back to California, we had a little time to burn. One of the countries we had always been interested in visiting was Japan. Being so close to South Korea it was easy to take the overnight ferry to Osaka and the “bullet train” to Kyoto. The Bullet […]