So this is what the inside of the Huong Giang Hotel looked like 20 years ago. (The rooms have since been painted and spruced up.)Somehow that screen up front transformed into a mosquito net frame and hidden poles around the other corners of the bed sprang into action to hold … [Read more...]

I've been on a Vietnam novel kick for the past couple weeks. And when I read about Vietnam, I can't help but think back to my trip there 20 years ago. It was one of the highlights of my then-20 year life (and still is, although I'm not 20 anymore).When I arrived in Hue in … [Read more...]

When I came across some slides labeled Thomas Glover's house, I wondered if my mom and her friends had met another old Japan hand in Nagasaki and were invited over for tea or something.So I googled Thomas Glover and learned he was a Scottish trader straight out of a James … [Read more...]

I came across this image early on in my slide scanning project, but I've often thought back to it 500 slides later.My mom took this photo around Halloween 1964 at her school picnic at Shinrin Koen (which translates into forest park). She'd been teaching at the Nagoya … [Read more...]

My mom took this photo in Miyajima, an island off the coast of Hiroshima. She traveled there on New Year's Day, 1965.Unlike many Asian countries, Japan celebrates the new year on January 1 of the Gregorian calendar (this practice started in the 1870s when Japan stopped … [Read more...]