The Karatsu Kunchi

The town of Karatsu on the northern coast of Kyushu has been holding a three day kunchi for around 400 years and is famous for its unique, colourful and very large floats. Called ‘hikiyama’, which translates as ‘massive mountains’, the wooden, lacquered floats weigh-in between 2 and 5 tons and are pulled by a team of bearers up to a hundred strong….

Fukuoka & Nagasaki

Our first few days back in Japan after more than a decade. It made us wonder why we’d not come back before….

A jaunt on Jeju

A few days walking on the holiday island of Jeju in South Korea……

Seoul

Ahh, Seoul…. Not the pain in the backside we’d feared, but a wonderful antidote to the madness of Shanghai.