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Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / A Weekend In
Apr 12, 2019

A weekend in Shizuoka: More than the sum of its tea fields

Little-known outside Japan, Shizuoka Prefecture hugs the coast to the south of Mount Fuji. Home to the Tokyo getaway of Izu, the prefecture is known as the starting point for three of the main hiking trails up Fuji, which forms the greater part of Shizuoka's northeastern boundary line, and for the volume...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS
Aug 11, 2018

Tokyo cafes serve up coffee with a side of cyclo-tourism

Although Tokyo's nascent cycling tourism sector is ostensibly aimed at inbound tourists, 'cycle cafes' are designed to create sustainable communities by combining coffee and culture.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Aug 3, 2018

Rocking the hot stuff in weathered Narihira

Although the Tokyo neighborhood of Narihira is slowly shifting toward a younger demographic, a postwar vibe still lingers in its back alleys and keeps its community close-knit.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Apr 15, 2018

Jun Obara: Turning traditional style inside out

In the historic Nakasendo post town of Tsumago, fashion designer Jun Obara uses vibrant color and traditional sashiko stitching to create bold fashion statements.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN?
Apr 14, 2018

Ryoko Hori: The art of massage and crafts

Born and raised in Osaka, Ryoko Hori, 37, moved to Tokyo to study fashion design at the age of 18. As a student she was lucky enough to work for the famous clothing brand Issey Miyake, but she wanted even more experiences in life. She had never been abroad, so after her graduation in 2003, she decided...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / Restaurant Do's and Don'ts
Mar 3, 2018

Getting a restaurant started is hard, but stopping is even harder

We've gotten this far, and now it's time for the final lesson: how to hit the ground running, and how to know if it's time to stop. You're going to need to make sure that when you open, everything is running right, all the food looks and tastes as good as it can, and that little things like your exhaust...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 17, 2018

Nagaya nostalgia: The long and the short of Tokyo's famed 'row houses'

Nagaya have been disappearing from downtown Tokyo for many decades, with row upon row of these "long houses" torn down to make way for more comfortable — and profitable — residential complexes and office blocks.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 4, 2017

Culture and commerce thrive under Japan's elevated train tracks

At dusk, the bars and restaurants that crowd the underside of the tracks at Yurakucho Station come alive.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jan 11, 2017

Secondhand bookshop exorcizing ghosts of the past

The first floor of the crumbling art deco building where my daughter lives in Riga, Latvia, houses a well-patronized secondhand English bookstore. I've bought several titles there. It led me to wondering why a business of this kind, a social space for readers, can thrive in the tiny Latvian capital,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Nov 2, 2016

A portrait of the tattooist as a nice young man

'Otattoo' artist Hori Benny overcame prejudice, poverty and punishing training to blaze an inky trail through Osaka.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 13, 2016

Give me chocolate: Japan's growing obsession with the 'food of the gods'

People with a sweet tooth can get a glimpse of how Charlie Bucket felt when he first stepped into Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory in Roald Dahl's popular 1964 tale by popping into Musee du Chocolat Theobroma in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OBJECT-ORIENTED
Feb 5, 2016

The soy sauce dispenser loved by art museums

Luxury fashion stores line the street from Tokyo's Omotesando Station to the Nezu Museum. Walking from the station, you'll pass the wavy glass walls of Comme des Garcons, Prada's flagship store designed by Herzog de Meuron and many beautiful Issey Miyake shops. But you will also pass a more humble Tokyo...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / WELL SAID
Dec 14, 2015

Going places or staying put with particles 'ni' and 'de'

Introducing the proper use of two particles, u306b and u3067, that are used to indicate places.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS
Dec 4, 2015

Coffee Amp turns the tables on Tokyo's imported coffee culture

For coffee lovers in Tokyo, the past five years have felt like a never-ending bonanza. Where once you might have trekked halfway across town to get a decent brew, now nearly every neighborhood seems to have its own micro-roaster or fancy coffee stand. Yet when Coffee Amp first opened in early 2010, at...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Nov 6, 2015

The ethical butcher of Paris brings his beef to Tokyo

Being a butcher is hardly a glamorous job in any country — unless you are Hugo Desnoyer. No ordinary meat merchant, his business in Paris counts numerous Michelin-starred chefs among its customers, including Pierre Gagnaire, Alain Passard and Pascal Barbot.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 3, 2015

Director Naomi Kawase has finally made a 'real Japanese film'

Sooner or later, many Japanese directors — be they internationally acclaimed auteurs or industry outsiders — end up making what Sion Sono (a noted auteur/outsider himself) once described to me as "a real Japanese film." To put it simply, this sort of film is aimed squarely at the domestic audience,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2015

Noodle-maker revolutionizes ramen culture in the U.S.

At the huge, brightly lit factory in Teterboro, New Jersey, machines from Japan gently mix eggs and flour and turn them into sheets of yellow dough that are then cut into thin wavy ramen.
JAPAN
Mar 6, 2015

Hyogo woman finds ¥1.9 million in used furniture item; police seek owner of the cash

A woman who bought secondhand furniture at a recycling shop in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, earlier this month found ¥1.9 million in the item, and police are looking for the owner of the cash.
LIFE / Language / WELL SAID
Dec 8, 2014

The greatest of all Japanese particles is ne, isn't it?

Today, we will introduce the proper use of u306d, an end-of-sentence particle that shows the feeling of a speaker.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Sep 8, 2014

Casino tax study exposes pachinko to greater scrutiny

The government wants to tax pachinko but the police are in its way.
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 6, 2014

Canadian Christian in China probe may have trained North Korean missionaries

A Canadian man under investigation in China for threatening national security said he ran a prayer and training facility outside the Chinese city of Dandong that was frequented by North Koreans, many of whom became Christians before returning to the isolated country.
JAPAN / Society
Jul 14, 2014

Outside investors eye heirless small Japanese firms

Takeshi Kaneko searched for nine years to find someone to take over the dried-food store his parents opened after they fled the rubble of Japan-occupied China at the end of World War II.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2014

Popularity of 'kendama' abroad spurs trend at home

The traditional cup-and-ball game "kendama" is back, thanks to a new "cool" image mostly nurtured overseas and imported back to Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Dec 12, 2013

Ice-cream businesses fight the winter chill

With temperatures this year that peaked in the mid-30s, made only worse by Tokyo's hair plastering humidity, there were two major topics that were featured prominently on television: how hot it was and what could be done to beat the heat. Cameras showed long lines of people wearing sandals and cooling...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WEEK 3
Apr 21, 2013

Closing time for an old-style watchmaker winding up his career

As cotton-thick snow falls on St. Catherine Street in the heart of the province of Quebec's largest city, Iwao Tsumura works away in his dingy second-floor shop.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / EVERYMAN EATS
Mar 22, 2013

Running with the ramen hunters

Ramen is to Japanese food as school-girl uniforms are to porn — the animating fetish that sustains an entire industry. Helping to scratch the noodle itch is an army of bloggers whose dispatches are consumed with voyeuristic glee. The numbers are against them — with a ramen shop on nearly every street...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 26, 2013

Nothing much compels reader to sympathize with characters

RIVER OF FIRE and Other Stories, by O Chonghui. Translated by Bruce and Ju-chan Fulton. Columbia University Press, 2012, 224 pp., $27.50 (hardcover)

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell