Author name: manjirosan@gmail.com

Up in the northern reaches of Nagano, where the mountains seem to fold gently around the town of Iiyama, there’s […]

As I put on the amado storm screens in preparation for winter, I keep discovering the same stubborn little intruders

Winter in Shinshu arrives with a quiet certainty. The rice fields turn pale and dry, the mountains settle into their

Autumn in Shinshu begins close to the ground, where the damp earth softens and mushrooms begin to rise through the

When early summer arrives in Japan, sidewalks in many old neighborhoods turn a mottled purple. The stains come from fallen

After a long, gray October in Tokyo—the wettest one I can remember—I finally returned to Shinshu. Usually, October in Japan

Mid-October, warm and clear after days of rain. I drive to Arai on my weekly shop, soon crossing the high

It’s October and I am sorting out logs in the woodpile—sawing them into lengths to split for the wood stove.

A perfect summer, the best I’d ever seen here, with unbroken days of blue skies and sunshine, ended abruptly. A