Lava rocks topped with creamy mist... Apocalypse landscape lost in the Nagano prefecture. Welcome to onioshidashi stone magma park, born from the eruption of Mount Asama in the XVIII Century.

Apocalypse now

I let you appreciate the stunning mix between the green and the black...

New planet

Still so many eerie landscapes to discover in the archipelago...

Happo-en event space (Shirokane, Tokyo) Taiko & Geisha show

BEAUTY

It starts with the shade of a paper umbrella

And then she appears

Raising in the midnight sun light

She open the ball of amazement

Dominating the beat of the drums

Multipliying

Being light and being shadow

Like a floating opera

And finally retreating behind the paper umbrella.

Beauty is inspiration. Find it everywhere. Let it radiate.

Two years ago, I visited Fukuoka, the main city of Southern Kyushu island, in October : the place was still smelling like summer, with its glowing seashore in the sunset, and its people walking the street late in the night. This time, I had a radically different glimpse of the city.

New Year sales celebrations

Foxes dressed for winter

Naked cherry trees around the castle's ruins

Illuminations at Hakata station

Sparkling Canal City

Empty and quiet yatai (street booth)

Never forget that tourism in Japan means... food, food, food, and food again !

Hakata ramen

Meat and veggies of the yatai

Seafood

Fish eggs (here, ikura in paella)

Sweets (OK, not typical, but still enjoyable ! Happy New Year!)

But guess what, winter or not, there is still something you can expect from Fukuoka... Sun, baby !

Sunglasses on  Happy 2014, everyone!

For ages, I have wanted to go South until Nagasaki, the western port-city of Kyushu island. I'm happy to announce that my first resolution for 2014 has been to fulfill this wish.

Sadly famous world-wide for being the second and last city to date to have experienced a nuclear attack, Nagasaki is actually, just like Hiroshima, a very lively, bright and colourful city. Even if the memory of the atomic violence has not faded yet, the city seems determined to celebrate its history in a positive way. For a long time, Nagasaki has been one of the very few gates to Japan for the foreigners, espacially for Europeans. The old fisherman village became a meaningful town when the Portuguese tarders and missionaries settled there in the 16th Century; in the early 17th, the Dutch came too, and later the British. Strangely, in addition with their own economic interests, the Europeans also participated to the China-Japan business relations, when diplomatic matters were forbidding the two nations to communicate with each other.

Welcome to the cosmopolitan port of Nagasaki!

Sofuku-ji, a zen temple in Nagasaki

One of the most famous landmark of Nagasaki is the Megane-bashi, with its double arch that makes like a pair of glasses. Build in 1634, ans still standing!

Megane-bashi, the "spectacles bridge"

Because of the Portuguese and the Dutch communities who have been living there, Nagasaki is strangely ponctuated with pointed church roofs. It feels so weird to see their familiar and unexpected figures in the skyline...

Is it Japan here, really?

On the top of Glover Garden hills, old Dutch mansions have been conserved in memory of these Europeans who decided to start a new life in Japan, in these old times when there were no phone, no internet, no plane to keep connected to your hometown. I'm always moved to discover the life of these pionneers who suceeded in make Japn adopt them, in such circomstances.

Glover Garden Dutch heritage

The Portuguese preached two things in Japan : Christianism and castella (castillan cake). Well, the second grew definitely more popular than the first. Castella is a smooth, sweet sponge-cake, absolutely delicious with a cup of tea. It's funny because the recipe disappeared in Portugal, and is now the very best sweet speciality of Nagasaki.

But as always when it deals with international Japanese cities, you can't deny the Chinese touch.

Nagasaki Chinatown

Nagasaki Chinatown offers the most delicious street-food ever : kakuni-manju. So yummy I could have cried. Imagine a piece of meltingly soft braised pork, inside a tasty manju. Oh my, oh my.

And now, the big show. I told you Nagasaki enjoys celebrating its roots; let me introduce the most Dutchy-dutchy place ever out of the Netherlands : Huis ten Bosch, the mini-Holland, an enchanted world of tulip, mills and gouda cheese!

Huis ten Bosch, Deutch paradise

That's all for today! Don't miss the chance to go Nagasaki if you can. Some places have this ability to make you feel alive...

Let's face it : Christmas in Tokyo just can't compete with Christmas at home. Japan is not a Christian country, so there is no suprise. Despite the overdose of Christmas songs in the shops, the so-called crhistmas menus in the restaurants, and the girls wearing red and white mini-skirts on the street, will, it dosn't feel the same. December 25th will be a noraml busy day, and all the snowy decoration will disappear in a blink at the end of the day. Fortunately, illuminations can save the night - if you don't go during week-ends or rushing hours : yesterday, it was a two-hour queue in the cold wind just to have a look at Roppongi Midtown Christmas lights. Ah, Japan.

An ocean of blue lights at Shiodome

A red and gold light cone at Roppongi Hills

Christmas inside

Stags and mooses are the ultimate stars this year (Maison du Chocolat)

Cosmic Christmas lights at Roppongi Midtown

Christmas Love

Wish you all a Merry Christmas !

Last week on the Japanese morning news, between two essentiel pieces of information like where to find the best pop-corn in town or which combini is offering the most competitive pumpkin pudding, there was a program about this year's autumn leaves. Be strong, because this is going to be a shock : as we had an especially rainy month of October because of the succession of typhoons that stroke the archipelago, the momiji (Japanese maple trees) are not as gorgeously colourful as they are supposed to be. The TV program was even comparing pictures of the same spots between last year and now, and the cruel reality is : 2013's autumn leaves are darker, irrugularly coloured, and more damaged than they should be. The Sunday photographers are bitterly disappointed, and the general public is lost, wondering if some areas have been preserved from the bad weather and could save the week-end letting see decently coloured autumn trees. That's a national tragedy, friends, a real national tragedy.

But don't loose faith. Never give up. The program was also delivering the results of a careful investigation, that revealed the few places where the tradition of watching koyo would be as great as usual. And in the ranking, they mentioned the Showa Kinen Koen that I visited first time last spring - remember the neverending field of cosmo ?... As a pathetic media-victim, I followed the instructions and paid a visit to this beautiful park located close to Tachikawa station. Behaving like a sheep ? Maybe. But have a look at this purely perfect autumn scenes and tell me if it wasn't the right thing to do.

A spoiled season ? Oh, come on...

Not too ugly for a bad year, uh ?

Showa Kinen Koen, the right place to be

And now, my favorite ginkos, my brothers and sisters the blond trees!

There may be a second round, so wait for the next autumn porn serie !

Every year you're dying to see them again : the splendid koyo are coming again soon! Preview!

Let me introduce you this strange fruit coming from the mountains of Tohoku, the Northern part of Honshu island : Akebi.

Akebi is amazingly purple, it really looks like and alien fruit. When you open it, the flesh is sweet and milky; you can eat it raw, like passion fruit. But the skin is fresh and bitter, and you can cook it like vegetable. I mixed it with beef, onion, miso, sesam oil, soy sauce and sugar to prepare my hiking obento. Love the taste!

Bon appétit !

After the sea, the mountain! Mount Mitake is a 929 meters high mountain located 90 minutes away by train from Tokyo, and a great playground for the city rats. The perfect week-end deal when you are looking for fresh air and green landscape. Take your bento, grab your friends and let's climb it all!

The royal way

Totoro is hidden in these pictures. Can you find it?

View from the top

Down in the valley

No more 3-days week-ends for September, but October will come soon! Follow me!

Every five years, the whole African continent invades Japan. Peacefully, of course. This is the moment of TICAD (Tokyo International Conference on African Development), through which Japan is giving money and investing in the developement infrastructures in Africa. As one of the biggest donator in Africa, Japan needs the African resources, especially its oil and underground products; and it also needs China not to controle everything on the continent. For African countries, despite the many situations, everything is to build, everywhere. Japan's money is used to finance health, education, transportation, energy, peace building and good governance. But Japan also needs to discuss how its millions of yen are used on the field, so TICAD exists in order to let both parties express themselves on this matter. The Presidents, the Ministers come to thank the Japanese government, and to advertise their countries' interests. They come with assistants, advisors, protocol staff, journalists - and a few brothers, sisters ans cousins too. I have never seen such a concentration of African people in Japan. Yokohama, which in quality of "most opened and international Japanese city", is hosting the event, turned into a colorful and spicy location.

I have let the diplomats of my Embassy to handle the Malian VIP official, for the protocol etiquette is not exactly my cup of tea, and I prefered to focus on an important side-event of TICAD : African Fair 2013. African producers meeting Japanese distributors, showing their local products and making connections. I welcomed with pleasure the delegate from APEX-Mali, the Malian Agency for the Promotion of Exportations, Mr. T, who I have been talking with by phone for almost one year in order to organize the event. So many regulations to deal with when you enter the Japanese territory with "new" products, especially food... Poor Mr. T had the longest trip from Bamako with his heavy boxes of fresh mangos he had to pay for at every stop, and which was finally taken by the Japanese customs. But he didn't loose his smile in the process, and his genuine motivation to seize every business opportunity to support the Malian producers. There is still dried mango and delicious mango jam to show to the Japanese businessmen, and also baobad fruit, honey soap, shea butter, arabic gum, and beautiful traditional "bogolan" textile.

Our booth is ready!

Beautiful Malian painted cotton textile

The unexpected face of Mali

Naturally, African Fair is also a VIP event and guess who came to cheer up the exhibitors?

Prime Minister Abe on the stage!

The Japanese PM, the President of Burkina Faso...

... and Africa!

And Japan!

As usual, the best part of it: food. Food. Food!

My reward for my dedicated service

TICAD V is going on until Monday!