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The consumption tax increase next April will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people's financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the impact of the hike, experts say.
Every parent is all too familiar with The Tantrum. The screaming, the flailing arms, the angry head butting — and the timing (normally in the most inconvenient public place possible).
International events undermine Japan's democracy. Shame on the International Olympic Committee for being a party to it.
Tucked away behind the main museums in Ueno, the Tokyo University Art Museum may not be on most people’s radar, but it is definitely one of the city’s top museums in terms of curatorial quality. Whenever I go there, I am always delighted by ...
Francisco Liriano showed up at PNC Park on Tuesday afternoon in a suit with his suitcase packed for a trip St. Louis. The message reverberated through the Pittsburgh Pirates clubhouse. After 21 years away from the playoffs, it was time for the best story ...
Tokyo has seen more and more restaurants recently open with the express purpose of offering casual, light bites, rather than elaborate full-course meals. Close to home is fine, as long as we can nibble and graze, ordering a dish or two at a time, ...
“Hamburger shops are a dime a dozen in Tokyo these days, but there are very few places doing barbecue,” said Lauren Shannon, owner of Bulldog Barbeque (www.bulldogbbq.jp). By barbecue, Shannon doesn’t mean any old thing thrown on a grill, but rather the tradition of ...
You’ve gotta love a city whose primary motivation is to accumulate wealth then promptly squander it through the time-honored pursuit of kuidaore (eating oneself to bankruptcy). Now, with the opening of the massive Grand Front Osaka commercial, residential and entertainment complex on the north ...
On a Saturday evening in late July, Wine Aid for East Japan began, appropriately, with a toast. Now in its third year, the event, organized by professionals in the wine industry to raise money for charities in the Tohoku region, featured over 100 premium ...
It’s summer: You’re not supposed to have an appetite. All you feel like is eating noodles? Welcome to the club. Here’s one place where I’ve been finding nourishment in this most difficult of seasons. In the muggy heat of a Tokyo evening, six or ...
Who eats chocolate in summer? Very few people who I know. It’s not just that chocolate bars melt in seconds: The taste can seem too heavy and the texture too cloying. It simply doesn’t seem to suit Japan’s muggy heat. But there’s one exception ...
As Japanese families return to their hometowns for the traditional summer holidays, cries of "Atsui!" ("Hot enough for ya?!") give way to feelings of natsukashii — a sense of nostalgia triggered by the sights, sounds and tastes of childhood.
Now that most of Japan is in the midst of a hot, sweltering summer, it’s a good time to take a look at the traditional cuisine of a part of the country that lives with warm weather throughout the year: Okinawa. Okinawans are renowned ...
Okinawan food is — for me at least — the food of summer. When the days are short and chill, I have little interest in the flavors of Japan’s southwestern isles. But when the heat and humidity build like a thunderhead, that is the ...
“There are no palm trees. It looks like a typical Caribbean restaurant. Like home, not the beach,” says Petra Laptiste, a Canadian of Caribbean descent, describing her favorite Caribbean restaurant in Tokyo, JamRock (1-21-15 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; 03-3478-2364; www.jamrockcafeonline.com). JamRock doesn’t peddle hackneyed images ...
Under his fitted black vest, the man beside me on the train wore a white shirt, with long lapels and cuffs trimmed with black piping. A purple silk cravat billowed beneath his chin. Judging from his attire, I’d surmised (correctly) that we were both ...
One of the first phrases you should learn when you set foot in Japan, before all the trivial stuff like “excuse me” and “where’s the hospital?,” is “nomihōdai.” The holy grail of budget boozing, it’s an all-you-can-drink offer, provided in many Japanese clubs and ...