While planning for our year, both in advance and on-the-go, TripAdvisor became our sixth family member. We poured over reviews and suggestions of restaurants, apartments, hikes, hotels, trains, and self-guided tours. As a school writing assignment, we even studied what makes a good review and...

Big mystery from today in Takayama, Japan: At 1:30 in the afternoon, we heard music played on — it seemed — a loudspeaker mounted on every other lamp post in the city’s wide valley. Then … a voice began saying something. Echoes from that voice bounced from loudspeaker...

Years ago before a seventh grade math class, a newly sharpened pencil started rolling down my pitched desk. I moved quickly to catch it before it landed in my lap. I missed … the pencil landed eraser end down … and the lead tip dug deeply in to my left palm. A mark has been inside...

According to legend, the floors of Nijo Castle in Kyoto, Japan were crafted to squeak like the song of a nightengale — to warn the Shogun and his bodyguards of prowling ninja. Here’s a brief clip of the that sound (presented here on the website). H, W and I visited Nijo Castle...

This morning was lazy, unplanned — and glorious. I went for a long stroll along Kyoto’s central river walk. It was unhindered time. Whole groups of falcons soared in circles above. I passed families eating picnic lunches. A cormorant came in for a landing next to me in the river,...

While riding one of Japan’s bullet trains between Kyoto and Tokyo earlier this week … S and I employed a tried and true parenting/teaching tactic to get some substantive schoolwork done: If you write four haiku poems about ANY experience so far in Japan, you can play on the...

When our Kyoto landlord asked W, H, and E this week about some of our trip traditions, they told him about what they have come to call “forced marches” — required journeys and hikes and walks through beauty or history or both. Their description of the phrase got a big laugh...

Since last July, our three boys have lost a total of 13 teeth. E lost our latest Wild tooth yesterday — after visiting Tokyo’s Sensoji Temple. We celebrated with ice...

I had the most beautiful ice cream cone the other day. The rain was just stopping, and the Kyoto street colors were accentuated by the wet. Red lanterns, dark wood, carefully arranged potted plants, flocks of bright umbrellas. As I savored both the green tea color AND flavor, I remembered...

A memory of my maternal grandmother, who used expressive words and expressive gestures to carry everyday conversations so well: Mama Liz often worked in references to music in her stories. She would say something like “Dah dah dah dah dah” in a particular rhythm, and her hands and...

When you think of Kyoto, Japan — you think of a “hamburg(er)” restaurant decorated like an Alabama southern cookin’ joint playing “You make me wanna roll my windows down” to a host of empty booth tables, right? Pass the fried chicken. Seriously. At...