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A sit-in by visa violators and their families entered its second day Tuesday in front of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau with protesters seeking government good will. The action at the bureau in Minato Ward is being organized by the Asian People’s Friendship Society, ...
Kazuhiro Shiraishi, 66, is a guest-house manager in the Izu-kogen Highlands, a famous resort area on the Izu Peninsula of Shizuoka Prefecture. Looking out onto the Pacific Ocean, and just 90 minutes by train from Tokyo, Izu has a warm climate all year round ...
“I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...
Takashi Miike's blood-soaked vengeance tale, one of two Japanese films being shown in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, draws the biggest boos so far, with critics savaging it as overacted and cliched.
Have you ever given your best effort while striving to achieve something but felt like what you were doing was futile? That’s the feeling I’m getting about Tokyo’s bid to host the 2020 Olympics. With just over three months to go until the IOC ...
Less than an hour by shinkansen from Tokyo, touristy Atami is no one’s idea of a quiet little getaway. From there down to the tip, Shimoda — of Black Ship Festival fame — this eastern side of the Izu Peninsula is the busy, developed ...
Remoteness is not without its attractions, especially in crowded Japan. And on the main island of Honshu, you would be hard pressed to find a place of human habitation further from the baying crowds than Aomori Prefecture. Curled like a pincer around Honshu’s northern ...
By the time footsore travelers on the old Tokaido Highway made it to Otsu, the town must have been no unwelcome sight. Many of them would just have trudged some 500 km from Edo (present-day Tokyo), and Otsu was the last of the 53 ...
Special to The Japan Times You’re ready to spend some quality time with the kids. It’s raining cats and dogs. Here are 10 places to drag the little ones to when the weather isn’t cooperating: Children’s Castle (Kodomo no Shiro) An old standby, and ...
If there is one major spot in Japan that visitors somehow tend not to make a beeline for, it is Nagoya. The Japan National Tourist Organization confidently declares in its leaflet on Nagoya that the country’s fourth-biggest city “abounds in places of scenic and ...
As the unfortunate home to one-tenth of the world’s active volcanoes, Japan lacks no variety in these ill-tempered peaks. Some volcanoes, like Mount Fuji, are majestic affairs and have inspired poets and artists for centuries. And then there are others, like thuggish Mount Unzen, ...
In a far-off age — long before they were savoring the busy touristic delight of gadding around a dozen European cities in as many days — the Japanese were a fairly untraveled lot. During the Edo Period (1603-1867), the ruling shoguns believed that home ...
With Morioka, you know where you stand from the outset. As the title to the official English guide declares, Morioka is “the castle town of northern Japan.” Indeed it is a castle town in all senses of the term — except, nitpickers may note ...
Few things puff up local pride like a local hero. Sendai dotes on its “One-Eyed Dragon,” warrior Date Masamune. Kagoshima loves its plump 19th-century rebel Saigo Takamori. And Kumamoto adores its old daimyo lord Kato Kiyomasa. Like the other two, Kato was very much ...
Some places really do have the image thing sorted out. Mention of the name Kurashiki generally conjures up a warm picture of traditional Japan, a town where life trundles along at a gentler pace than elsewhere. What tends not to be conjured up is ...
You’ve hauled your bags off the conveyor belt onto the cart, you’ve skulked through Customs and you’re staring blankly at an electronic board, trying to fathom which Limousine Bus is going where. You’ve heard that there is another Narita apart from this one dedicated ...
With the rainy season coming to a close, Japan starts to slide into its dog days. As thermometer and hygrometer levels nudge to swelteringly high levels, many Tokyoites feel the burning need to escape the busy, cramped shopping streets of the city and find ...