Last weekend, a couple of friends and I took a day trip down to Nagasaki for the annual Lantern Festival, a veritable mosh pit of glowing paper sculptures and steaming Chinese street food. It was a lovely excursion, as Nagasaki turned out to be much more charming and fun than you might expect from a city that boasts a slope as one of its prime tourist destinations. Getting there and back took almost eight hours total due to a series of unforeseen delays, but it was worth it. Besides, getting there is half the fun, right?
The Nagasaki Lantern Festival 長崎ランタンフェスティバル
5 Mar- Comments 1 Comment
- Categories Food, Parties, Festivals, and Holidays, Travel
Velkommen/ようこそ
Your Guide: Tim Andersøn

Beer geek, bon vivant, Wisconsinite, Londoner, Japanophile, winner of MasterChef 2011.
Viking Tweets
- @TheSCGuy @thepubgeek Jesus. That is scary. 36 minutes ago
- And now I've come home to HUGE deliveries fro @BeerRitzByMail and @BeersofEurope. I am having a nice day. 37 minutes ago
- Nopi was really delicious! Many thanks to @KikkomanUK for lunch. 37 minutes ago
- @hanpanman I just might do this... 41 minutes ago
- Off to Nopi for the first time today. Looking forward to it! 4 hours ago
Greatest Hits
-
The War on MSG
“No MSG.” This self-congratulatory proclamation adorns countless food packages around the Anglosphere. We’ve all seen it, on bags of potato chips or Chinese takeout menus, on instant noodles or those “just add meat and sour cream” Mexican meal kits. Oh thank heavens, we think when we spot it. This food is safe. This food is [...]
-
The Fukuoka Beer Guide ザ・フクオカ・ビア・ガイド
This is another article for FukuokaJET.com. Each establishment’s address, phone number, and opening hours can be found at the very end of the post. Please leave a comment if you need directions! In response to comments graciously informing of new beer developments in Fukuoka, I have updated this article on September 23, 2009. Kyushu is [...]
-
Soul Food for Thought
On my recent, brief trip to New York to visit family and friends, I had a checklist of specific foods I wanted to eat there; I wanted nothing but good food experiences – nothing mediocre, nothing mundane. To these ends, the trip was beyond satisfactory. Fork-tender Greek-style grilled octopus, colorful piles of Ethiopian curries on [...]
-
An Introduction to Ramen (In Fukuoka Prefecture) (福岡県の)拉麺入門
This is an article I’ve been working on for FukuokaJET.com, a resource website made for JETs living in Fukuoka prefecture, especially new recruits. The information here focuses on Fukuoka, but I think it’s a fairly good survey of the major ramen styles for anybody who’s interested. Tonkotsu (Pork Bone) 豚骨・とんこつ Tonkotsu ramen is the richest [...]
-
Rebuilding the Japanese Food Pyramid 日本のフードピラミッドを建て直す
The other day at one of the middle schools where I work, a certain poster caught my eye. It advocated “balance” in your daily diet and featured a graphic that reminded me an awful lot of the USDA’s food pyramid:


