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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Oct 3, 2010

A place in the woods for the world to gather

Construction of the Afan Nature Centre here in our woods outside Kurohime in the Nagano Prefecture hills is complete and the keys have been handed over to us. The beautiful building is the result of a decade of wishing, three years of planning, and a year of onsite building.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Oct 3, 2010

Kusanagi's grass challenge; new faces, new lives; CM of the week: Suntory Torys Whisky

Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, the SMAP member whose drunken, naked midnight lark in a Roppongi park several years ago gave him an extra layer of notoriety, seems more than willing to suffer for his art, whatever that is, on the three-hour TV Asahi special "Neo Variety Matsuri: Kusanagi Tsuyoshi no Tame ni Naru"...
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Oct 2, 2010

Aichi's Centrair Airport looking to cash in on budget airline boom

Budget airlines are finally coming to Japanese skies.
JAPAN
Oct 1, 2010

Parties unite in demanding Senkaku video

The ruling and opposition parties agreed Thursday to ask the government to submit video footage documenting last month's collisions between a Chinese trawler and Japan Coast Guard cutters to the Diet.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Oct 1, 2010

Four-star dinner from three regions

The Mandarin Oriental, Tokyo's Michelin-rated one-star restaurant Signature will be offering a Michelin Star Trilogy dinner, combining the gastronomy of Tokyo with the French cities of Lyon and Nice from Oct. 6 to 10.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 26, 2010

Home truths: To buy or not to buy?

During a recent sojourn in the United States, I talked with friends and relatives about the housing situation, specifically the value of their homes in the wake of the subprime fiasco of 2007-08. Those who bought high just before the bubble burst are feeling queasy now that property values have descended...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Sep 24, 2010

Autumn food festival in Yokohama

Five restaurants at the InterContinental Yokohama Grand will jointly hold an autumn food fair from Oct. 1 through Nov. 30. Each restaurant will be offering its own autumn-themed menu and courses throughout the fair.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Sep 22, 2010

Tokyo Game Show exhibits signs of mobile-game trend

Major video-game makers wowed game fans at the Tokyo Game Show (TGS) on the weekend with products such as Sony's 3-D games, Microsoft's controller-free motion-sensor system Kinect and Capcom's super popular "Monster Hunter" series.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 18, 2010

Hey, you — go home!

This is one of the few modern countries in the world where you can go back in time without ever leaving the current century.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Sep 16, 2010

Government organ sets sights on student-loan scofflaws

The knock-on effect of the recession has led to less job openings for college graduates and more delinquent student loans.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / STYLE WISE
Sep 9, 2010

Fashion that blooms, rocks, roars and parties

Blooming T-shirts!
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 31, 2010

Fingerprint all Japanese, for safety's sake

If you're a noncitizen and have entered or re-entered Japan in the last couple of years, you've undoubtedly been invited to participate in the wonderful, fun-filled world of biometrics. It's safe to say that many of you felt as though you were being treated like criminals — not to mention the humiliation...
EDITORIALS
Aug 30, 2010

Mr. Obama tackles the Mideast

The Middle East has long been a graveyard for the diplomatic ambitions of U.S. presidents. There has been some progress in normalizing relations between Israel and its neighbors, but a real settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the realization of genuine peace between Israel and its neighbors...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Aug 30, 2010

Chinese labor strife frames larger fight over ideology

Since May, a number of factories in China have been hit by strikes and other forms of labor disputes, and an end seems to be nowhere in sight. Most of the plants targeted by the strikers are subsidiaries of overseas corporations. Especially hard hit have been the subsidiaries of Japanese companies, including...
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 29, 2010

Anyone for tennis?

If you've ever had a tennis lesson, your coach likely told you to block, rather than swing at your volleys. That knowledge makes it all the more thrilling to watch someone like the athletic 16-year-old Sanae Ota rush in from the back of the court, leap up to a high, floating ball — before it bounces...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 27, 2010

Orchestra taps dancer Kumagai for cross-genre concert

Thirty-three-year-old Kazunori Kumagai started tap dancing when he was 15. Four years later, he went by himself to New York to attend special training for a role in "Noise/Funk," a Broadway show that traced black history in the United States through tap, hip-hop and funk rhythms. His Broadway dream was...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 27, 2010

Guitarist Watanabe reworks classic for Tokyo Jazz Festival

Some artists never want to experience their work once it's made. U.S. film director Woody Allen famously never watches his own films; perhaps it's because he does not dwell on the past that he has been able to make a new feature nearly every year since 1969 while maintaining a trademark style.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 21, 2010

Voice of the times bridges cultures for seven decades

Most of us would probably be happy to have a handful of memories to reminisce over in our later years, episodes from our youth we could run past our friends while hoping their eyes don't glaze over. Ichiro Urushibara, a British citizen who has spent 69 years in Japan, has enough memories and amusing...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 19, 2010

Problems getting off the ground

In this age of perpetual "War on Terror," we have gotten somewhat accustomed to "disrobing" ourselves at airports. Taking off our watches, necklaces, belts or sometimes even shoes, has become routine when we go through security gates.
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Aug 15, 2010

Pavlicevic sets sail in Shimane

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with personalities in the bj-league, which begins its sixth season in October. Coach Zeljko Pavlicevic of the expansion Shimane Susanoo Magic is the subject of this week's profile.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 15, 2010

A nostalgic trip to Vladivostok, interview with Mikhail Gorbachev; CM of the week: Kirin Ichiban Shibori

Back in the 1960s, before the average Japanese had enough money to travel long haul, a popular foreign destination was the Soviet city of Vladivostok on the Pacific coast. Most of the Japanese who traveled there were young people with wanderlust who also had a romantic attachment to the socialist experiment....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Aug 13, 2010

Explore Osaka-Kyoto 'power spots'

Ramada Osaka offers an accommodation plan that encourages guests to see historic sites in Osaka and Kyoto and visit trendy, faddish "power spots."
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 6, 2010

Animation fest seeks peace

Hiroshima plays host to various types of animated films from all over the world this weekend.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 6, 2010

Hippies and hipsters brave a soggy Fuji Rock

When you're talking about a music festival whose inaugural event was literally wiped out by a typhoon, it can feel a bit petty to complain about the weather. All the same, campers arriving at Fuji Rock Festival in Naeba on Thursday last week might have hoped for a warmer welcome than the torrential downpour...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 3, 2010

Karate teacher has worldwide allure

On first seeing him, it's hard to understand why people cross continents to meet this diminutive 65-year-old wiry gray-haired man, shaking his head in dismay as some of his karate students struggle to get a grip on the art of fighting with sticks.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan