Experimental Walking Tours in Tokyo and Beyond
Journey from the known into the unknown, navigating through the city using experimental means aimed at showing another side of the urban environment. You’ll see the city in new ways, and learn some new skills you can apply to your explorations, no matter where you go.
Photo Walks and Workshops
Photo walks and workshops aimed at enhancing your experience of Japan while sharpening your skills. Workshops and walks draw on my extensive experience as a photographer, educator, and enthusiastic explorer of the Tokyo area.
The Travel Book Project
Based on a decade’s worth of personal experience and observations, I have some thoughts on how to get more out of a visit to Japan. Honestly, I’m not sure when it will be finished, because I’m figuring out how to write it as I go, with a focus on quality over speed.
Recent Essays
Dispatch № 71: Troublesome Gaps
While it is entirely possible that, by the time we visit again, new buildings and businesses will occupy those spaces, it is also possible that they will remain empty for a long while.
Dispatch № 70: Rainfall
Greatest among the differentiating factors is that of the surface upon which the rain lands, drops of rain like tiny hands striking the skins of myriad drums.
Dispatch № 68: Have Camera, Will Wander
This kind of rest is a sort that must be earned, in that it only exists on the far side of intense focus. It is found only after the work is done.
Dispatch № 67: Continuity
It has been there for more than a dozen generations, and it may remain there for at least that much longer still.
Dispatch № 66: Smooth Pursuit
Over time, stacks of these fragments string together and hang upon the backdrop from which they were extracted.
For Medical Reasons, Somewhere in Japan Temporarily Delayed
I’m sitting in a hospital waiting room at about 11:30 PM on a Monday night because I’ve got a messed up knee, can barely walk, and I’ve got a high fever. Super-duper not comfortable.
Dispatch № 65: I Am a Visitor Here
Not a fish out of water, but a fish temporarily in the wrong body of water. I’m a trout in a tide pool.
Dispatch № 64: No Plan, Best Plan
We lingered there for a time, suspended in the moment, before continuing on, enjoying the snails and mushrooms in the undergrowth, the swaying of the forest canopy, and the trickling of a hillside stream.
Dispatch № 63: No Return
The already-slippery concept eventually all but entirely lost its meaning after years as an emigrant and only regained some of its significance years after settling in Japan.
Dispatch № 62: The Bike of Theseus
But it was a bike, and it was mine. A ticket to personal mobility and a way to get out of my apartment and get out of my head.
Dispatch № 61: But Only Just
It falls on stone statues with both facial features and inscriptions worn indecipherable by centuries of exposure to the elements.