Travel

In schoolyards across Japan during annual Sports Days, children face off in friendly tug-of-war competitions, their parents cheering them on.
Although quite a scene, these schoolyard battles pale in comparison to the Naha Giant Tug-of-War, where 15,000 competitors pull on a 650-foot, 43-ton rope in front of 270,000 spectators.

Thousands of visitors from all over visit Ocean Expo Park and Churaumi Aquarium – the world’s third-largest aquarium – annually. But many visitors to Motobu’s famed park miss another remarkable attraction – the Oceanic Culture Museum.

For the first time visitor, Hong Kong can seem overwhelming at first.

A few weeks ago, I was bouncing down a bumpy Mongolian highway seated in a Russian-made UAZ van with my wife and two friends. Our driver was a larger-than-life character named Oyunbaatar, or Ogii. He wore a beret and as he gripped the steering wheel, dodging potholes, he’d occasionally bark out streams of mystifying Mongolian.

I have always associated the northern city of Niigata with frigid weather and heavy snowfall, full of the steep-roofed buildings essential for rugged wintery locales. However, when I visited this capital city of the prefecture with the same name in early September, I was pleasantly surprised.

The Southern Cross refuses to be typecast. Is it a home stay, a youth hostel, a bed and breakfast, ryokan or beach front resort? It is all of them and yet none of them at the same time.