Kan Yasuda's tactile art brings new life to Bibai

Kan Yasuda's art somehow draws in the landscape, and entices in people, so that it is natural to explore the view through his structures and keyholes, to sit awhile atop a sculpture or to pose within their frames.

Travel | BACKSTREET STORIES

Wisteria wanderings in Kameido

by Kit Nagamura

Each year, I tell myself I have to make time to enjoy the famed trellises of wisteria blossoms at Kameido Tenjin in Tokyo’s eastern Koto Ward. Then, I blow it. This year, I enlist my mother-in-law, who’s savvy about such things, to get the ...

Environment | OUR PLANET EARTH

Mr. Abe: Bag the nukes and heed the Keeling Curve

by Stephen Hesse

Dear Prime Minister Abe, As you ride your recent wave of popularity, I know you are well aware that waves end, either in a crash or a fade. And you are luckier than most to have another chance since being elected as prime minister ...

Travel

Travel | HOTELS & RESTAURANTS

Japanese afternoon tea; Beatles and disco dinner party; eat off Kutani porcelain

Japanese afternoon tea at Peninsula In line with the hotel’s theme “Enriching Your Life,” the Peninsula Tokyo is holding special promotions relating to food and culture at each of its restaurants, through August. For example, at its continental dining space The Lobby, a special ...

Digital

Is computing speed set to make a quantum leap?

by John Naughton

“Our imagination is stretched to the utmost,” wrote Richard Feynman, the greatest physicist of his day, “not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things that are there.” Which is another way of saying that ...

Food & Drink

Food & Drink | JAPANESE KITCHEN

Springtime beans aim for the sky

by Makiko Itoh

Throughout most of Japan, June is the rainy season. While all that rainfall is great for rice paddies so that we can have delicious new harvest rice in the fall, it makes it a rather dull month for seasonal produce: The summer’s bounty of ...

Environment

Environment | WILD WATCH

Dwarf bamboo's no pushover whatever the season

by Mark Brazil

An unseasonably cold spring wind blasts in from the north shaking all before it. Oak trunks tremble; mast-like young white birches sway alarmingly and ineffectively rattle their branches at it.

Style

Style | ON: FASHION

Retro makes a comeback, while subcultures seep into high fashion

by Misha Janette and Samuel Thomas

Phillip Lim’s new collection speeds ahead When New York-based designer Phillip Lim showed up in Tokyo last week, it brought out major fashion players but raised eyebrows at the same time. What was the special occasion? “Well, we are celebrating the fifth anniversary of ...

Language

Language | BILINGUAL

Product names show language creativity at work

by Mark Schreiber

Recently I was asked to write a blurb for a new liquid plant-nutrient. As soon as I saw the name of the product, 早根早起（Hayane Hayaoki), I smiled at this example of linguistic creativity.

Lifestyle

Lifestyle | CHILD'S PLAY

Kids love park life in the summer

by Jason Jenkins

At long last, warm weather has arrived, which means more playtime in Tokyo’s parks — from your scrappy, local patch of dirt to the manicured opulence of Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. My family’s favorite is Yoyogi Park. While not the most pristine public space ...

People

People | WORDS TO LIVE BY

A fortunate life among hot springs

by Judit Kawaguchi

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 ...