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May 03, 2024
 

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Kit Nagamura
For Kit Nagamura's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jan 25, 2014
History and humor lap Hamamatsucho's shores
Tokyo hosts plenty of pint-size public sculptures, but none so "wee" as the brazen boy standing on the platform between lines 3 and 4 at Hamamatsucho Station in Minato Ward. Just back from a trip to Brussels, I am stunned to glimpse there a bronze replica of the Belgian capital's most cheeky landmark, the Mannekin Pis (Peeing Boy). I hop off the Yamanote Line train to investigate.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Nov 23, 2013
Season's greetings garnered in Tokyo's Yanaka Ginza
On only a budget of u00a520,000, you can generate a lot of warmth with gifts from Ginza — Yanaka Ginza, that is.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Oct 26, 2013
Strolling old Fukagawa, where gardens and true glitterati mingle
I may be jumping the gun a bit on fall colors, but early October's glorious weather has got me craving some autumnal arboreality.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Sep 28, 2013
Solitude is where you find it
Under cartoon-blue skies washed by early-autumn typhoons, I stand at Sendaizaka-ue (summit of Sendaizaka Slope) in Tokyo's Minato Ward. Sendaizaka was named for daimyo lords from Edo Period (1603-1867) Sendai, now in Miyagi Prefecture, who maintained a yashiki (suburban home) on the slope that today hosts the newly rebuilt Embassy of South Korea.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jul 27, 2013
Log-jamming in Shin Kiba
Last month, readers of this column found me frolicking in the sawdust and lumberyards of Shin Kiba — meaning "New Wood Place" — which arose on reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay in the 1970s when the city's timber businesses were moved there from their traditional home in nearby Kiba to make way for rapid urbanization.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jun 30, 2013
Blazing a woodland trail through Shin Kiba
Even if you can't read the kanji for Shin Kiba, you'll sniff out its meaning of "new wood place" the moment you arrive. The Yurakucho subway line's terminus there in eastern Tokyo smells like a cedar closet. Inside the station, a display of Japanese carpentry — including beams featuring dovetail, mitered and tenon joints — plus the giant stone sumitsubo (carpenter's inkpot) outside drive home the local livelihood.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
May 26, 2013
Wisteria wanderings in Kameido
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 timing just right. "It'll be really crowded," she warns.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Mar 31, 2013
Suites, treats and backstreets of the Imperial Hotel
The Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, or 'Teikoku Hotel,' has occupied the same privileged location, across from Hibiya Park and minutes from the Imperial Palace, for over a century.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Feb 24, 2013
Spring training in Mukojima
It's hard to think of February as springlike, what with snowfalls, freezing winds and a dusting of dead leaves everywhere. But I know from experience that the intrepid Prunus mume, or plum tree, blooms this month, and a trek to see some blossoms seems de rigueur. From the Tobu Isesaki Line, I get off at Higashi Mukojima Station to search out Hyakkaen, a garden that has showcased plum trees for centuries.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jan 26, 2013
Mining gems in Okachimachi
On early maps of Edo, as Tokyo was known prior to 1868, Okachimachi is rendered as a town (machi) densely packed with the tiny dwellings of okachi — low-ranked, poorly paid samurai infantry.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Nov 25, 2012
The fall fires of Nishigahara
Burning to see fall colors, I head to Tokyo's northern Kita Ward, where Kyu Furukawa Teien, the former estate of copper magnate Ichibei Furukawa, features not only a traditional Japanese garden but also Western-style flowerbeds of autumn-blooming roses. At this time of the season, it should be ablaze.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Oct 28, 2012
Seeking out what's in store for Kuramae
Back when Tokyo was Edo and Tokugawa shoguns ruled the land (1603-1867), the burgeoning city's most vital staple, rice, was protected in kura (storage houses) along the right bank of the Sumida River. Then, by the simple expedient of adding mae (in front of) to "kura," the area facing the white-washed, thick-walled granaries came to be known as Kuramae.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Sep 30, 2012
Casting around for the past on Fish-basket Slope
Hoping to find traces of the fishing village that was Edo (present-day Tokyo) before the first Tokugawa Shogun chose the site for his new political capital in the early 1600s, I head to Gyoranzaka (Fish-basket Slope) in the city's central Mita district.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Aug 26, 2012
All the fun of the fair — and that's just the temples
Inspired by this summer's Olympic quest for gold medals, I opt to go for the gold myself. Toshimaen amusement park in Tokyo's northwestern Nerima Ward is home to Carousel El Dorado, one of the world's oldest hand-carved wooden merry-go-rounds. Named for an imaginary city of gold sought by 16th-century Spanish conquistadors around the Amazon basin, the El Dorado I seek is nonetheless real, and located near the piranha-free Shakuji River.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jun 24, 2012
Over the top ambitions in Mukogaoka
The neighborhood of Mukogaoka — literally, "Yonder Hill" — huddles under clouds clustered like violet hydrangea blossoms the morning I arrive to explore.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
May 27, 2012
Rolling around Sendagi
The Yanesen district of central Tokyo, whose name features bits of the names of the three neighborhoods it comprises (Yanaka, Nezu and Sendagi), charms visitors with its temple-studded streets, craft shops and prewar architecture. Oddly, though, maps in either Japanese or English rarely guide visitors west of the Chiyoda subway line's Sendagi Station, which is where most of Sengagi is to be found. Intrigued, I set off to explore.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Apr 29, 2012
Foxtrotting around Asukayama
Rising amid flat farmland, Asukayama had long been an untended haunt of foxes and their small prey when, in 1720, Yoshimune Tokugawa, the eighth shogun to rule in Edo (present-day Tokyo), had the hilly upland planted with 1,200 cherry trees, 100 maples and 100 pines, to create a public park for flower-viewing. It still draws spectators today.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Mar 25, 2012
Plum nuts about Ikegami
Whether you call the Prunus mume a plum or an apricot (it is related to both), the flowers are plum elegant on their leafless, shiny branches and help cheer us through winter's finale. To enjoy them to the full, I seek out Ikegami Baien Garden in southern Tokyo's Ota Ward, having hopped the Tokyu Ikegami Line to Ikegami Station and taken the only exit.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Feb 26, 2012
Venturing into the zone on Showajima
In his "Meditation XVII," the English Metaphysical poet John Donne wrote in 1623 that "no man is an island, entire of itself." Well, yes — but some islands are entirely more manly than others.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Nov 27, 2011
Blazing trails in Chiyoda's gardens
With November drawing to a close, I head to the East Garden of the Imperial Palace and the adjacent Kitanomaru Koen park, hoping for fall colors and a mental breather before the season goes nutcrackers with parties and shopping.
Weak yen fattens tourist wallets in Japan
People visit the Ameya Yokocho market in Tokyo's Ueno district during the Golden Week holiday on Tuesday.
Biden calls ally Japan ‘xenophobic’ along with rivals China and Russia
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in Syracuse, New York, on April 25.
Number of vacant homes in Japan hits record high of 9 million
A vacant house in Tokyo is seen demolished in January 2020.
Saudi Arabia steps up Gaza-related arrests as Israel ties edge closer
The arrests for Gaza-related posts indicate Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s regime will take a hard line against citizens not toeing the line when it comes to normalizing ties with Israel.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Kishida sets sights on energy and climate in South America trip
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will use a policy speech in Sao Paulo to set out his vision for ties between Japan and South America, almost 10 years after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe advocated for stronger ties between the two in the same city.
Yellow sand allergy: A health issue made worse by climate change
A screenshot of the Meteorological Agency's satellite image of clouds and yellow sand (in pink) on Sunday.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.

Podcast

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.
[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

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Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree
By Alex K.T. Martin

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