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Hugh
For Hugh's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Oct 8, 2002
Nature's poster-bear on the brink
No animal, with the possible exceptions of the dolphin and the whale, has won more hearts and minds for the cause of wildlife conservation than the giant panda.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Sep 24, 2002
A cape designed by God with wine in mind
Rule No. 1 for a Cape Wine Route tour is: Find someone else to do the driving.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Sep 10, 2002
Studying Sri Lanka's simian soap opera
Scientists at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Ga., are sewing the eyelids of infant primates shut to see how that affects their behavior. At the New England Regional Primate Research Center, a database is maintained of self-inflicted wounds -- fingers bitten off, holes chewed in arms -- among populations of normally social monkeys kept in solitary confinement.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Aug 27, 2002
A rainy spell, and a desert blooms
For much of the year, most of Namaqualand is hot, dry, dusty and all but dead.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Aug 6, 2002
Pick a Palau isle and call it your own
The boat is fueled. Frosted beer bottles glint in the ice boxes. The provisions are stashed, and we are about to go and find ourselves our very own desert island.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jul 23, 2002
Two Crocodile Dundees find a wild world in South Africa
The reeds ripple. There is a throaty, menacing, hiss.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jul 23, 2002
Two Crocodile Dundees find a wild world in South Africa
The reeds ripple. There is a throaty, menacing, hiss.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jul 9, 2002
Chengdu, Sichuan's city of contrasts
Tonight, our guide Desmond assures us, there is going to be "a very exciting party." The Tibetans are planning a neck-wrestling competition. And you, Desmond adds, as the first foreigners to visit the newly opened hall of Tibetan games and dance, are going to be invited to participate.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jun 25, 2002
The monks and the markets of Mandalay
The Ayeryarwady flows smooth as oil, dark as coffee, wide but shallow, with occasional ripples and tucks where the sandbars nudge the surface. There is none of the hectic frenzy of river traffic that smothers many of Asia's great waterways in fumes and oil slicks -- Myanmar moves to a different rhythm, as it always has -- but there's movement nevertheless.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jun 11, 2002
On the pagoda path of the Irrawaddy
"On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin' fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the bay." -- Rudyard Kipling.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
May 28, 2002
On the front lines of bird conservation
It may say as much about the status of politicians as it does about that of birds, but one of the more striking demographic statistics to emerge from the United Kingdom is this: There are currently more members of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds than there are members of all British political parties combined.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
May 6, 2002
A safari of jungle trails, animal tales
As readers of our last column know already, we are currently floating gently down the Lower Zambezi in canoes. And though it might sound recklessly intrepid, it's really a piece of cake.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Apr 23, 2002
Thrills (but no spills) canoeing the Zambezi
"This isn't a car document," the customs official says, his forehead creased in suspicion.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Apr 9, 2002
Biblical reserve echoes Noah's 'two by two'
A visit to Israel is probably not high on your list of tourism priorities at the moment, but should the situation calm down and the killings and fighting stop, here's one to consider: The Biblical Wildlife Reserve of Hai-Bar Yotvata.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Mar 12, 2002
Fairy-tale castles dreamt up by a mad king
King Ludwig II (1845-1886), absolute ruler of Bavaria, had his little ways.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Feb 26, 2002
Beauty in the land of blood and bones
Angola is not a tourist destination for the faint-hearted. In fact, it's probably fair to say that it's not a tourist destination at all. Period.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Feb 11, 2002
California prehistory mired in La Brea tar pits
LA BREA, Calif. -- The world, 40,000 years ago -- The weather's perfect. A warm breeze from the Pacific rustles the palms, there's the sharp tang of juniper and pine in the air, and the nameless mountains, which rise beyond the plain that will one day be Los Angeles, glow mauve in the early morning sun.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jan 29, 2002
Learning Spanish under the volcanoes
Fancy learning Spanish? We're pleased to suggest four options.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jan 15, 2002
The hippy haven that actually worked
In 1951, the Llwyngwern slate quarry in central North Wales closed down, causing many redundancies.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jan 1, 2002
Getting lost and feeling hungry in the Amazon
Tour Operator One (hereafter TOO) would romp through auditions for Mistah Kurtz, should anyone decide to remake a movie version of Joseph Conrad's fable of moral rot, "Heart of Darkness." He works and broods from a decaying river boat on the Beni River.

Longform

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