Lost in Translation

Our group for skiing. A good bunch of people. This month I again went with my colleague and good friend Mishina to the famed Shiga Kogen sk...

The sun reflects off the gym at the end of another school day at Nakatsu High School, December 2007.

The folks at Nakatsu High are planning to build two new buildings over the next couple years, so they brought in a demolition crew in Decemb...

A few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with one of the history teachers of the school, and he knew that I had studied history at unive...

The top picture is the scene that greeted me the morning after I returned from the majestic snow-filled vistas of Nagano, and the other two ...

God bless the Japanese Alps. With Anthony at Hakuba.

As Ed and I made our way to the lift early in the morning last Sunday, we were accompanied by a light dusting of snow. It made for a beauti...

These lovely ladies are two paper dolls made by me and the Hongster as Christmas presents for my mom and step-mom. As we did in June, we jo...

Mount Ena, my favorite local mountain and the friendly and benevolent overseer of our town. This view was taken about a month ago, right af...

Okay, folks, I just can't take it. I think it's time for a full-on boycott of 24-hour cable news networks. I just cannot stand the...

So after spending many fabulous days in my hometown of San Diego, where the temperature didn't drop much below 78 degrees during the day...

Looking across Lake Biwa from the Eastern shore. Hong and I drove north and west to Fukui Prefecture on the Japan Sea coast last weekend, a...

Tonight we all went out to Gandhis, our favorite restaurant, and then afterward we drove out into the middle of nowhere to here. The town ...

The sunset from the old post town of Magome, high in the hills above Nakatsugawa. I savored the sunset by myself after walking all the way ...

We just had to. These were our costumes for our friend Ed's Halloween party a few weeks ago. I hit on the bright idea the morning of t...

When I set out to climb Mount Fuji 6 months ago, I had the vague idea that it was extremely difficult and that it had to be undertaken with ...