It’s Golden Week, four holidays in one week. It started Saturday with the birthday of the late Emperor Showa Hirohito, followed by...

Pa and I were tired when we arrived Friday afternoon, but a very pleasant woman greeted us in English with a Japanese accent, and one...

We’re on the afternoon bus to Hita, a city of 65,000, 72km southeast of Fukuoka. Locals call it the "Kyoto of Kyushu,” a smaller version...

Pa was always a walker. Up to the day he closed his practice, he walked almost every morning from the big house on Penn Avenue to his...

Stepping off the plane at Fukuoka International, it felt a little different. Pa noticed it too. Quieter for sure, and orderly. There...

It’s an interesting story, oftentimes bloody, as to how China’s greatest art treasures ended up in Taipei. The first chapter is simple....

We’re back in Taipei, long enough to visit the National Palace Museum. Before moving on, Pa and I want to see its vast collection of...

People come to Yingge for the pottery and the ceramics. Known in Taiwan as a center for both, kilns have fired here for more than a...

We arrived in Yingge five hours and twenty minutes after departing Tainan. Unbeknownst to us, the young man who helped us at the 7-11 had...

We’ve stopped in Tainan. No particular reason except that it’s Taiwan’s oldest city and on the way to Yingge. Tainan was originally a...

Lao-tzu, “the Old Master” probably wasn’t the first Taoist. And like Homer, probably never existed. But the earliest Taoist thoughts to...

At 90 degrees the streets of Taitung were too hot to explore, even by bike, so we headed out of town to ride the Forest Park Trail. For a...

The Tiin Tinn Inn (remember Rin Tin Tin?) is in the heart of Taitung, the little city people come to because of the slow pace. It has...

Pa and I both had an itch to hop on a train, to ride the rails to an unknown destination. Having only experienced Taipei, we didn’t know...

In preparing for Taipei (Pa was of little help) I read an article about Maokong, a quiet community not far from the city. For more than...

After a day of rain, we were ready for a night out. Jaden, the young man at the front desk, suggested we visit Liberty Square. “There’s...

Some say man is a myth maker; that what separates us from other primates are the stories we tell to make sense of things. I don’t know...

When Walt was away, I made an executive decision. Rather than Vietnam next, and temperatures near 100, I’d travel to Hong Kong and...

Pa and I spoke at breakfast. I sensed something was bothering him and so asked how he was feeling. “I’m fine, but thank you Fred for...

Standing before it, I wondered what the Buddha would think, this oversized, exaggerated likeness that likely bears little resemblance....