Kitchen Ishigaki

Well, I’m all tired out today and can’t work up any concept for today’s post. On the other hand, I was really impressed with Kitchen Ishigaki (KI; I like to think it means ‘rock oyster’, but the kanji doesn’t appear anywhere) and would recommend it to you for lunch if it weren’t a good 10-minute […]

Shintaku, Murakami (新多久)

Sunday, after leaving the lovely onsen, we went a bit farther north and out almost to the coast and the town of Murakami. This is a good model for tourism in the time of swine flu; the town has really pulled together to maximize the interesting elements and create enough attractions for visitors to make […]

Hakujuji, Niigata

True, I normally make it a rule not to go to places like this – but if you look closely you’ll see that Hakujuji was established in 1946 and is a Coffee Shop for the Exclusive Man. This being the morning of my birthday, old things for exclusive men seemed to be in order. Plus […]