Hugh - The Japan Times

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For Hugh's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

May 15, 2005

Close encounters of a wild sundowner kind

It was sundowner time -- that precious moment on an African safari when the gin and tonics come out, along with the nibbles and camp chairs. The day's adventures are over, and those of the night have yet to begin.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Apr 17, 2005

Make no bones about it, this place is like nowhere on Earth

The view is daunting. Colossal. Inland, thunderheads loom over distant mountains signaling heavy rains in the interior. To our left, considerably nearer, a thick bank of billowing sea fog rises several hundred meters high. The sun is just visible behind it, pale and wan; a ghostly eye peering down on one of the world's most formidable wilderness areas.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Mar 20, 2005

One man's vision is a paradise of plants

Tim Smit, still in his 30s but already a millionare record producer for artists including the Nolan Sisters and Barry Manilow, moved from London to "retire" in rural Cornwall, south-west England in 1987. He had the vague idea of opening a recording studio. Or a rare breeds farm. Or something.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Feb 20, 2005

There's big, and Hoover Dam big

Take 4,360 cubic meters of concrete (enough to pave a single-lane highway from San Francisco to New York), add 21,000 workers (but deduct an average of 50 a day due to injury or death), stir in 5 million, 8-cubic-meter buckets of cement and 950 km of steel piping, then garnish the lot with a dog that has its own bank account. What have you got? A bunch of immediately forgettable statistics and one of the seven wonders of the American engineering world: the Hoover Dam.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Jan 16, 2005

There's white gold on them thar African isles

'Where there's muck, there's brass." In the north of England "brass" means "cash," but the old adage about dirt and money still rings true. And you don't get much muckier than an overcrowded seabird colony on a small Atlantic island.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Dec 19, 2004

A tourist jaunt to horrors past

Kanchanaburi (pop. 58,000) could be just another semi-rural town in Thailand. There are touts with strong ideas about where you might like to stay. There's the smell of someone flash-frying beef somewhere -- chilies, garlic and basil; a few feckless chickens are pecking at bits and pieces in the middle of the road; and the sun's hot.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Nov 21, 2004

Taking on the Kalahari's wilderness of wonder

Khaudum National Park has a reputation for being tough stuff. Even the name has a slightly ominous ring to it. Pronounced "Kowdoom," it sounds like a bad neighborhood in Mordor. The park's deep Kalahari sand tracks are contenders for Top 10 listing in "The Worst Roads in Southern Africa Atlas." Accommodation is described by optimists as rustic, and visitors are officially required to have a minimum of two vehicles in case of a serious screw-up.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Oct 17, 2004

Venturing intrepidly to a tropical idyll

As soon as the taxi driver pulled out into Singapore's Orchard Road, he began to talk. Babble, actually.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Sep 19, 2004

Wat a middle-aged way not to get so wet

There are good times to arrive in Bangkok weighed down with expensive camera gear, recording equipment and a snappy new tropical suit just tailored in Singapore.

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Aug 15, 2004

Mad Max and a mango make for a mind-bendingly memorable city tour

After half an hour of clinging to the back of Mr. Tuc's scooter, the question needs to be asked. It really does.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Jun 11, 2004

Mind your step at Cu Chi, a tourist trap with a twist

We are standing in the partial shade of a young teak tree peering gormlessly at the forest floor.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

May 30, 2004

On a desert driveabout in search of somewhere

We hit Botswana with no particular place to go.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Mar 21, 2004

Little reason to gush about showy Sun King's fountains and gardens

King Louis XIV's finance superintendent, Nicholas Fouquet, decided to build himself a cha^teau on a grand scale. No expense was spared. The finest architects of the day were summoned and put to work. Landscape designers, too. And when the Cha^teau Vaux-le-Vicomte was finally complete, well, it was only natural Fouquet should decide that a house warming party was in order.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Dec 21, 2003

Of death and glories

The stench! That was what got me first as I pushed my bike up the steep, narrow lane: the reek of burning hair, bones, hooves and flesh.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Nov 21, 2003

Lowdown on the Top End

One interesting thing about Darwin is how often this city in the so-called Top End of north tropical Australia has been destroyed. Indeed there are those who contend that this is the only interesting thing about Darwin.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Oct 17, 2003

Animals without borders in transfrontier parks

It was snowing in Berlin that day in November 1884, but the conference delegates around the horseshoe-shape table in Prince Bismarck's house on the Wilhelmstrasse had little thought for the local weather. Africa had their full attention.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Sep 19, 2003

The facets and the faults

Morning dawns to the background crash and suck of the Indian Ocean's waves breaking into scuds of foam on the beach. Sunlight bathes the bedroom; there is bird song audible from the hotel's tropical garden, and I draw back the lace curtains ready to inhale Sri Lanka's heady mix of sea salt, heat and flowers.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Aug 22, 2003

Wanted in Kafue: tourists, not poachers

The rains had just broken over the Zambian capital, Lusaka. Lightning was tearing open the skies. And we were sitting on a tiled veranda listening to the bedlam of water crashing off the tin roof, the thudding percussion of thunder and the thrilled shouts of children in the street beyond the hibiscus hedge.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Aug 10, 2003

Making tracks across moor and marsh

In the autumn of 1865, two Victorian gentlemen set off on foot from the Yorkshire town of Settle. They walked north through moorland haunted by the lonely cry of rooks, struggled through marshes, scaled mountains, skirted lethal potholes, were lashed by shrieking winds and stinging rain and, for most of their walk, never saw another living soul. This was, and still is, one of the remotest parts of England.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL

Jul 27, 2003

Close-up with a Cathar

Back in the 12th century, some Christians began to question the status quo. They looked at the leading figures of the Roman Catholic world and they decided that the Church establishment was missing the point.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.

The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Leading Japan’s sustainability from Tokyo

Leading Japan’s sustainability from Tokyo

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