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Just back from Miyazaki, Japan. Where? Miyazaki is both a city (Miyazaki-shi) and an entire prefecture of dozens of towns and villages (Miyazaki-ken) on the southernmost island of Kyushu. It is in the south-east corner of the island, with a Pacific coast on the Hyuga Sea, is tropical, and the lively downtown district of the city is filled with palm trees. The prefecture itself is an area of outstanding natural beauty, mountainous and thickly-forested, with gorges, hot volcanic springs, and astonishing waterfalls. The district is also the home of almost all Japanese legend. The Shinto gods were supposed to have lived there when they first came down to earth, and most of Japan’s myths, folklore, and even ghost-stories are based in the area. Little English is spoken in the city, absolutely none outside of it, my Japanese amounts to forty words at best and my phrasebook got half-ruined in a rain storm … in spite of all of which, I was treated with enormous friendliness and kindness everywhere I went. If anyone from Miyazaki ever drops in on this site, then arigato gozaimasu and also kampei!