Culture & History

Eight million people visit this shrine every year. Most of them are students. They come with the same desperate hope […]

For 200 years, this was the only window between Japan and the Western world. A fan-shaped artificial island about the

I heard it before I saw it. A deep, rolling thunder coming from somewhere behind the covered shopping arcades of

The dragon was 5 metres tall and it was coming straight at me. Fifty men in white happi coats were

Most people who visit Beppu never make it to Kitsuki. It is only 25 kilometres up the coast, but the

I had no idea what was happening. Thirteen people in silk robes were sitting on red felt mats beside a

The first time I watched a Noh performance, I did not understand a single word. The language was archaic Japanese,

I bought my first Hakata doll from an old man in a workshop behind Kushida Shrine. He had been making