Travel to Japan and discover its people, history, cuisine, scenery, culture & arts.

It’s been about 21 years since I lived in Asago, Japan, a town deep in the heart of Hyogo Prefecture’s Chugoku Mountains.  I grieve at the thought of all the photos from those days that I’ve lost.  So many moves and several lives have caused photos, in boxes small and large, in envelopes, in the backs of dresser drawers, to scatter away from me.  I’m slowly scanning-in, digitizing, what hard copy photos remain.

Here are three scenes from January, or February, 1991.  That’s the Bantan Line (播但線), the small train line that runs from Himeji in the south to Wadayama in the north.  A few years ago Wadayama was incorporated and consolidated into Asago (朝来), so there’s no more Wadayama now.

.

.

.               .               .

Just a couple miles north of Asago (and its inner town, Nii / 新井, where I lived) is Takeda, home to the Takeda Castle Ruins.  Here’s a photo from my last year’s post on Takeda . . .

I write at length about Asago and my time there in several stories posted on this site, though I call it “Asaki”  in those tales.  Those who can read Japanese get the Asago/Asaki (朝来) joke.   For further reading I invite you to read “Duty,” “Etsuko,” and “Enlightenment.”