Koganji has been drawing hopeful health seekers to Sugamo since 1656. Believers come to pray to the powerful Togenuki Jizo statue.

A journey is not always what you make of it. Often, it's what they make of it -- the people you meet along the way, the lives you fall into, change or in many cases, interrupt.

On my last day in the city, I watched a businessman approach a shrine, waft incense smoke from a pot into his nostrils and then continue on to work, his leather briefcase in hand.

Before the 2002 Winter Olympic games, it was almost impossible to walk past a Main Street storefront that was not boarded-up. Today, thanks to City Creek and other Downtown Rising redevelopment initiatives, there are no boards in sight.

The ancient Greeks and Romans were the founders of Western civilization, and their legacy is visible not only in our political and cultural institutio...