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July 12, 2025
 

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Skye Hohmann
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Nov 23, 2014
Once-stopgap market is much-loved symbol of recovery for Tohoku town
Initially a stopgap measure in the absence of local shops, the monthly morning market in Minamisanriku has become a cherished institution.
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 26, 2012
Flashback to the sandy beaches of Izu
Once, after the wet, green month of June — which every year waters the newly planted rice, turns the landscape lush, and makes us long for sunlight and clear skies — my boyfriend and I drove all night just to swim in the ocean.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 20, 2012
Narai's nostalgic delights revisited
I was thinking about Narai today. It sprang to mind, unbidden, while I was driving somewhere else, and all day visions of the little streets and old buildings haunted me. Memories double-exposed over the place I was really in.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 10, 2012
Cambodia experience facilitated aid effort in the Tohoku region
Cathy Hirano says it was "so painful to feel powerless in the face of such a huge disaster," recalling the day a year ago that the Pacific coast of Tohoku was hit by the huge earthquake and tsunami.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 4, 2012
Winter kept us warm in Kamikochi's silence
Emerging from the 1.3-km darkness of the Kama Tunnel, our footsteps echoing eerily, we step into the white silence of Kamikochi's upland basin at the heart of the Chubusangaku National Park, which itself marks the center of the Hida Mountains, long ago dubbed the "Japan Alps."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 7, 2012
Market network helps community bounce back
On a bright, warm late November day, an open-air market hums with activity. Children dart among strolling tourists, vendors cry out their wares to visitors and locals alike, who are looking to stock up on produce, cheap clothes and handicrafts from around the country.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 1, 2012
Enjoy a hot night out at Nozawa Onsen
In the north of Nagano Prefecture, mid-January is the dead of winter. White mountains rise up into cloud. Fields are blanketed in snow, woods are bare and villages are hushed by cold. All along the roadsides, snowbanks rise as high as car windows, their sides revealing layered strata of snowfall after...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 20, 2011
Memories of Mount Takao
Sometimes in the Japanese autumn, when the days are still warm and the air is beginning to smell of persimmons and fallen leaves, my mind stumbles across a day nearly 20 years ago now, and I turn the memory over and over as I try to make sense of how the time since then has passed.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 2, 2011
Yatsugatake wanderings in the wet
The old volcanic peaks of the Yatsugatake Mountains describe a narrow crescent across the forested plains and hills in this corner of Honshu where Yamanashi and Nagano prefectures meet. The southern slope of the range is a near-perfect sweep, a quadratic equation graphing the land up into the sky, and...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 21, 2011
Coming of age in Kamakura
When I first went to Kamakura I was 16 and full of wonder and anger and curiosity; a coiled hope poised at the edge of experience.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 24, 2011
Travel firms feel pinch, pitch in after disasters
Every spring, as the wave of blossoms sweeps up the archipelago from south to north, washing up from the coasts into the higher altitudes, travelers flood into Japan. Rivaled only by the cool autumn months that redden maple leaves across the country, March and April are high season for tourism in Japan....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 9, 2011
Evacuation turns into chance to help victims
OXFORD, England — When the offshore Tohoku mega-quake caused tsunami to slam ashore on March 11, crippling the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, Japan was figuratively as well as literally shaken.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 6, 2011
Those old Snow Country blues
Sometimes I'm not even sure we were there at all. Distance and time often give perspective and clarity, but now when I try to call that day to mind, everything is obscured by a thickening curtain of falling snow.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 6, 2011
Tsumago: Living off its past
Tsumago is, indisputably, a charming place. Low mountains swing the former post-town's main street around in a curve of weathered wooden houses, backdropping the scene with the dark green of the firs that cloak the hills.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 14, 2010
Back in the mists of time
It was November, and the leaves were ocher on the trees swathing the hills behind the reconstructed wooden buildings. Gaggles of chattering exchange students ducked in and out of the faux historical shops and houses, obviously enjoying themselves and their day out.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 10, 2010
It's the history that keeps a growing city from ruin
We first stepped off the train at Matsumoto Station several years ago. It was August and the ripening rice paddies tinted the surrounding farmland chartreuse. Conifers darkened the distant hills. We were greeted by the eerie, long announcement that makes the station famous. "Matsumotoooo, Matsumotoooo,"...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 8, 2010
Getting high in the highlands
High in the Northern Alps of Japan there are snowfields in August. Up above the tree line, wherever the bare geology dips into cirques, thick blankets of dirty white stretch out between the peaks and jagged ridges like caught clouds.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 11, 2010
Takamatsu then and now
In 1988 I was an awkward, dreamy kid with clumsy elbows and scraped knees, and Japan was a place I'd never even thought about. Impossibly far away and altogether foreign, it seemed fantastical.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 3, 2010
Soaking up the simians
Outside the car windows the landscape was a textured patchwork: winter orchards, rice paddies and tile-roofed farmhouses all stitched together by the threads of narrow roads.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 13, 2009
Where myth meets the present
On the edge of town, by a bridge over a stream amid fields of rice stubble, there is a roughly hewn stone Buddha. The path to it is well worn, and though someone has left an offering of the last of the season's quinces at the base of the statue, today there's no one else around and only the sound of...
Tokyo hit by torrential rainfall at rush hour
People line up at Shibuya Station in Tokyo as they try to avoid the heavy rain on Thursday.
Foreign drivers in Japan to face tougher license conversion rules from October
According to the National Police Agency, there were 75,905 people who converted their foreign driver’s license to a Japanese one in 2024, up from 48,885 in 2019.
Chinese fighters came within 30 meters of Japanese spy aircraft, Tokyo says
A Chinese JH-7 fighter jet makes an near an Air Self-Defense Force YS-11EB surveillance aircraft over the East China Sea this week in this image released Thursday.
Air India crash report to offer peek into last seconds
Members of the Indian Army's engineering arm prepare to remove the wreckage of an Air India aircraft in Ahmedabad on June 14.
What Japanese politics could look like after Upper House election
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who heads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (center) waves to attendees as he departs after delivering a campaign speech in Yokohama on Sunday.
New IG Arena set to dial down temperature at Nagoya Basho, in a good way
With IG Arena getting glowing early reviews as the Nagoya Basho’s replacement venue, it may be a while before fans wax nostalgic about the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium.
Once a niche, anime is now mainstream content for Netflix and other streaming services
Though Netflix remains the dominant choice globally for anime viewers, Amazon Prime Video has also invested heavily in anime, steadily adding titles to their catalogue.
NGOs condemn rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric ahead of Upper House vote
Sanseito head Sohei Kamiya holds a board that reads "Japanese First" in Tokyo on July 2. In a joint statement on Tuesday, eight human rights nongovernmental organizations described the far-right party's stance as "hate speech."
Japanese dancers find a home abroad at Houston Ballet
“Giselle” lead Yuriko Kajiya (center), performing with Connor Walsh as Albrecht, is one of six Japanese dancers at Houston Ballet.
From the Abes to the Ohtanis: How siblings shape athletic development
Olympic judoka Uta Abe (second from left) and Hifumi Abe (second from right) with their brother Yuichiro (center) and their parents. “I’m always consciously trying to be a good older brother,” Yuichiro said.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji
By Alex K.T. Martin

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