If there’s one thing all Japanese guidebooks, concierges and expats can agree on, it’s that tourists from overseas should make an effort, at some point during their stay, to visit the basement food floors of a major department store.
Seven years ago, I bit into a delicate variety of seaweed called umi-budō, or “sea grapes.” I remember sampling a few dishes at Unjami, an Okinawan-style izakaya off Nakano Broadway in Tokyo (5-55-1 Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo; 03-5345-5836), but the umi-budō stood out as something ...
The city of Ibaraki in the north of Osaka is home to Tadao Ando’s Church of the Light, a modernist concrete masterpiece. Out of the spotlight, another architect in Ibaraki has been quietly but busily breathing life into buildings whose glory days would otherwise ...
My first glimpse of Koza was a burned out car on a monochrome print I picked up at a recycle shop in Naha. I would see the image again when I visited the history section of the Okinawa City Hall, where there was a ...
Start your Mario Karts Nintendo’s famous racing game returns, and with the best-looking graphics the series has ever seen. “Mario Kart 8″ features HD graphics running at a crisp 60 frames per second. This is one pretty Wii U game. As in past entries, ...
Isshin is deceptively big, dimly lit and madly busy; but the staff are on their game. More impressive is that the kitchen produces such high-quality fare in such a demanding work environment.
Smog-hit China is set to pass a new law that would give Beijing more powers to shut polluting factories, punish officials and even place protected regions off-limits to industrial development, scholars have said. Long-awaited amendments to China’s 1989 Environmental Protection Law are expected to ...
The Anrealage experiment continues Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Tokyo wrapped up with some off-schedule shows at the end of March, which included popular local brand Anrealage.
My friend Naoki has a new strategy when it comes to getting dates; these days he says the best bet is to kusuguru (くすぐる, tickle, or appeal to) a woman’s sense of aikokushin (愛国心, patriotism). This seems like a risky undertaking, considering that aikoku ...
As counterculture groups around the world celebrate annual April 20 marijuana festivals, we examine the country's historical and cultural links to the much-maligned weed.
“If you use beautiful things every day, you will naturally cultivate an eye for beautiful things without giving it a second thought. In the end, you will be repelled when you encounter the ugly and the fake. If only all Japan would come to ...
