Susan Spann's Blog

Over the weekend, I headed out to the Shimo-kitazawa neighborhood in southwest Tokyo to visit Gotokuji (also known as the “cat temple”); afterward, we walked over to Shirohige’s Cream Puff Cafe for some of the cutest cream puffs in Tokyo (if not the world). Shirohige’s is famous for totoro cream puffs, but the downstairs take-out shop also sells a variety of Ghibli-themed cookies, and some cakes, which change seasonally. The shop and cafe are located in a two-story house that looks like it popped right out of a Studio Ghibli film: The cafe is on the second floor, while the

Over the weekend, I met up with some friends who are visiting from the States and headed down to Shibuya to check out Lost–a speakeasy-style bar located on the second floor of the Grand Tokyo building in Shibuya, about a 3 minute walk from Exit A3 of Shibuya Station. We took the elevator up to the second floor, and emerged directly in front of a bank of Lost-themed gatcha machines. If you didn’t know better, you’d think this was just one more of Shibuya’s many, many walls of gatchapon. However, if you slide the wall of gatcha machines to the

In June, some friends from the United States and I decided to beat the sweltering afternoon heat (or at least reduce it) with an adventure I’d been meaning to try for quite some time: a walk across Tokyo’s famous rainbow bridge. (And fortunately, no pets were lost in the making of this adventure…this isn’t that rainbow bridge!) Although most people refer to the 798 meter-long suspension bridge as the “rainbow bridge” (レインボーブリッジ) its official name is 東京港連絡橋 (Tōkyō Kō Renrakukyō) – which translates “Tokyo Connecting Bridge.” We took the Yurikamome line to Shibaura-futō, descended the stairs, and headed for the bridge.

A peach picking adventure at the beautiful Miharashien orchard and vineyard in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan

(Click here to read about the previous hike in this series: Nakasendō Day 8: Itahana to Yokokawa) On the morning of February 23, I woke up at 5:45 a.m. and was out the door at 6:35–a little later than planned, but I stayed in my room at Oyado Tokyoya until the temperature rose to a balmy -7° C (20° F)–it was -10° when I woke up, and I wanted to let the sun warm the air a little bit before starting the walk. The first historical site of the day was only three minutes from the ryokan where I spent

The eighth leg of my 2025 Nakasendō journey was also the start of my first overnight stage of the trip. (For the previous installment, click here.) For the most part, the distances from my home in Tokyo are now too long to make day trips possible, and I was excited to start this new phase of the hike. Since this stage also involved a long trip up and over the Usui Pass (on Day 9), I planned to end this segment at Oyado Tokyoya, a lovely little minshuku near Yokokawa station, in Gunma Prefecture, not far from the Usui Pass.

The seventh leg of my ongoing walk of the Nakasendō from Tokyo to Kyoto took me though some interesting sites in Gunma Prefecture--and almost to the 200,000 step milestone. It was also the first hike for which I took the shinkansen to reach the trailhead, due to the distance I've walked from Tokyo...

On February 15, I left home at 6:20 a.m. to start the next section of my ongoing hike along the historic Nakasendō, one of the five Edo period travel roads (collectively called the go-kaidō) of late medieval Japan. The Nakasendō actually is far older--it connects several older roads, some of which date back at least a thousand years. But I digress...

I love snowmen. I always have. And, to my delight, Japanese people seem to love them too. Curiously, while Western snowmen have three spherical sections (a head, a torso, and a lower “body”) usually of different, but proportionate, sizes, I’ve noticed that Japanese yuki daruma generally only have two sections (presumably, a head and a body) although they still seem to require eyes, a nose, a mouth, and “arms” – along with any other decorations the builder sees fit to add. I’ve also noticed that, in general, any time there’s enough snow to scrape together, someone’s going to use it

Last weekend an unexpected change of travel plans, and record-breaking blizzards near the Sea of Japan, combined to give me an unplanned, but magical, trip to Kanazawa castle in the snow.