Books on Trains

There is almost nothing I love so well as reading books on trains. I recently picked up Lonely Planet's Amazing Train Journeys, which is a genre I usually don't go for: 100 Places To See Before You Die, 75 Death-Defying Treks You Must Take In Your Life, You Will Be Dead Soon If You Don't Instagram These Sites and I Will Personally Murder You Upon Your Having Visited The 400 Cities Arbitrarily Listed In This Book all feel some blend of bullying/goading/chaotic/glib to me. Well, and I made them up, obviously, but you've seen this sort of thing. Anyhow: the Lonely Planet train books was different, because TRAINS.

(I should say: it's actually a lovely book, with only some of the drawbacks of those compilations: a bit of "this journey is in here so you can aspire to badassery even though you're probably not going to this remote corner of the world for a 45 minute train ride." But it's pleasantly informative, with great photography, and so for this year of more-daydream-than-travel it's a nice fit. ANYWAY, past the jump, more about books n trains.)

Kanazawa

I'm awful glad I made a stop in Kanazawa on the way to Tokyo from Osaka. After the jump, I'll tell you why, but first, here's another dumdum video with a song that was not stuck in my head during my visit, but somehow felt immediately perfect when I heard it as I was piecing the footage together. Music: who cares about it!

Naoshima

The tl;dr of this post is: go to Naoshima if you even slightly think you can weave it into your travels in Japan. The as-I-say-not-as-I-do is: spend the night! After the jump, the longer ramble about this gorgeous and wonderful spot.