Mark Brazil's "Birds of Japan" will be a birders' Bible for the foreseeable future and fills the niche for anyone who plans to search out the wealth of birds that this country has to offer.

It seemed like a good idea at the time: With a four-day vacation over New Year's, why not head off to the North Alps in search of ptarmigans, Japan's quintessential birds of its loftiest heights.

Our events are a happening — part social, part business, part elegance," says retail revolutionary Alexander Brenninkmeijer. Worn by German supermodel Claudia Schiffer, James Bond actor Daniel Craig, members of Scottish rock group Franz Ferdinand and other high-flying A-list clientele, Brenninkmeijer's fashion label, Clemens ...

The goal was a lofty one, figuratively: To climb the highest peak within the Tokyo metropolitan area. But those two words — highest peak — are relative: We're not looking at an 8-person, 12-day expedition to a remote snow-capped region, equipped with oxygen tanks, ropes, ...

The three baby goats frolicking in their enclosure, hewn out of northern Okinawa's itajii (evergreen oak) forest, were having a great time. Their open grassy area, set among low hills dotted here and there with tankan (orange) plantations and an abundance of hibiscus bushes, was ...

As Ana and Roberto, my two good friends from Brazil, and myself gorged ourselves through the multicourse kaiseki dinner at the very pleasant and relaxed Tachibana Shikitei, a Japanese-style inn in Ishikawa Prefecture's Yamashiro Onsen, I convinced myself that food, when served on quality ...

For artist Morio Matsui, life has almost turned full circle. After four decades in "exile" in France, this currently Corsica-based Japanese artist's ties with his homeland have strengthened with the opening earlier this year of an art space, Espace Morio Matsui, in Shimo-Meguro, Tokyo. And ...

It seems that when Amami-Oshima, an island in southern Kagoshima Prefecture, was created, there was just one color left on the palette: green. You get a sense of this uniformity when you fly in over the shallow waters that surround the island: The turquoise ocean ...

As the overnight buses roll into the car park at Kamikochi at six on a summer's morning, disgorging disheveled and sleep-deprived long-distance travelers from as far afield as Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka and Kyoto, the whole area is already buzzing with people. Tourists staying at the ...