Shipping up and down the coast of Japan

A regular reader of my blog gave me a gentle nudge today, observing that I haven’t been posting much. What’s worse, she said, I haven’t provided links for my last two columns in The Japan Times. So posthaste, here is the link to my Feb. 17 column about coastal shipping — moving goods within Japan by sea.

The print above shows a ship on one of the old Edo-era sea routes (kairo 海路) for trading goods up and down the coast of Japan. The print is “At Sea off Kazusa” “Kazusa no kairo” 上総ノ海路), from the series “Thirty-six Views of Mount (Fuji Fugaku sanjūrokkei 富嶽三十六景) by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) 葛飾北斎. Kazusa was a province in the area of modern-day Chiba Prefecture. Yes, Mount Fuji is in the picture — look again closely!