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LIFE / Travel
May 10, 2000

Postcards from the flip side of Japan

Think of the antithesis of Japan. A place where there are few people, an abundance of unspoiled natural beauty, a low standard of living and, perhaps most importantly for the visitor, sparkling blue oceans teeming with fish and alive with coral reefs.
LIFE / Travel
May 7, 2000

Hayama, Kanagawa: A spring abound with vermillion azaleas

Hayama is a picturesque seaside town located about 4 km south of Kamakura. Favored with a mild climate and scenic coasts, it sports a neighborhood of upscale houses and sophisticated restaurants facing a small yacht harbor. A chain of quiet beaches stretches south along the rock-strewn coast; inland,...
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

'Manga' role-playing draws date-seeking 'otaku' together

The model who goes by the alias Ai O-totsu, or Bumpy Love, is dressed in the crimson high school uniform of her video game personality today, but instead of acting out pubescent fantasies on the computer screen like her electronic double, she's posing for pictures, smiling bashfully and giving out name...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Apr 20, 2000

Loose lips can sometimes sink skips

After the New York Mets lost their season opener in Tokyo last month, a few players headed to Roppongi for some beers. On their way to hailing a taxi, one of the team's starting infielders turned to his teammates and said: "I'll tell you one thing about Bobby Valentine. He's the smartest mother (expletive)...
MORE SPORTS
Apr 18, 2000

Cowboys star Emmitt Smith running after NFL records

Nobody will argue that Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys is one of the premier running backs in National Football League history.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Apr 6, 2000

MLB should think big after success of Japan games

Congratulations to Major League Baseball on the successful 2000 season-opening games between the Chicago Cubs and New York Mets at the Tokyo Dome last week. It was great to see the big boys finally playing regular-season games here in Japan.
BUSINESS
Mar 31, 2000

Daiei negotiating sale of hotels to Goldman Sachs

The struggling supermarket chain Daiei Inc. is in the final stage of talks aimed at reaching an agreement on the sale of almost all of its group's Japanese hotels to the Goldman Sachs Group of the United States, industry sources said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Mar 24, 2000

Toyota, GM, Yamaha tie up on Web

Toyota Motor Corp. is planning to advertise on its Web site cars manufactured by General Motors Corp. of the United States and motorcycles made by Yamaha Motor Co., company sources said Thursday.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 23, 2000

In the realm of the culinary senses

Some people celebrate the cherry-blossom season in doggedly internationalist mode: Aoyama cemetery or the Tamagawa embankment; a few bottles of bubbly with cheese and crackers; maybe even some beluga roe if they're feeling flush. Others prefer to stagger down the well-worn path of traditionalism: Ueno...
CULTURE / Music
Mar 18, 2000

Shakuhachi tips and tunes to welcome in the spring season

If you want to learn more about the shakuhachi and various performance techniques, observe a variety of instruments for sale and hear a selection of original pieces played by young performers, then I recommend the Senshu Kobo Sunday Clinic and Open Lesson.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 15, 2000

The marketing that made Japan

ASSEMBLED IN JAPAN: Electrical Goods and the Making of the Japanese Consumer, by Simon Partner. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000, 317 pp., $19.95/12.50 British pounds (paper). I was standing on the corner by the Hachiko exit of Shibuya Station, looking at two giant television screens...
CULTURE / Art
Mar 12, 2000

Dutch design innovations for the future

NAGOYA--"I designed a new way of living," says Jill Marie Hanssen, by way of introduction. She is a 1999 product design graduate from the Academy of Visual Arts Maastricht, so the hyperbole may have been the unintended result of speaking in English, her third language, but I took the 22-year-old Dutch...
JAPAN
Mar 7, 2000

Toyota to purchase 5% stake in Yamaha's motorcycle unit

In a bid to improve cooperation in the development of engines, Toyota Motor Corp. will soon purchase from Yamaha Corp. an equity stake of about 5 percent in motorcycle maker Yamaha Motor Co.
COMMUNITY
Mar 7, 2000

Town makes returns on back of boomerang boom

TOKAMACHI, Niigata Pref. -- Uninformed visitors to Tokamachi might be forgiven for thinking the small, central Niigata Prefecture city has a problem with UFOs.
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 7, 2000

J. League boss Kawabuchi defends format of two-stage championship

The chairman of the J. League, Saburo Kawabuchi, believes last season's dramatic penalty shootout between Jubilo Iwata and Shimizu S-Pulse has increased the "worldwide appeal" of Japanese soccer.
EDITORIALS
Mar 6, 2000

Aiming at a million

It had to happen. The slick but savvy TV quiz show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?," which first took Britain by storm and then went on to conquer America, is poised to invade Japan. Fuji Television announced last month that it will begin airing a tailored-for-Japan version of the show -- to be called...
JAPAN
Mar 5, 2000

IOC wining-dining ban puts Games bid in bind

OSAKA -- Enthusiasm for Osaka's 2008 Olympic bid continues to fade after the International Olympic Committee announced strict conditions on candidate cities.
JAPAN
Mar 4, 2000

Parents sue to learn truth of son's death

The parents of a 14-year-old boy who was killed in what a family court deemed to have been a one-on-one fight with another boy are to file a damages suit next week against the state and Ibaraki Prefecture, claiming the investigation was unfair, it was learned Friday.
MORE SPORTS
Mar 4, 2000

Olympic wrestler fights for money to fuel dream of reaching Sydney

Dan Henderson wishes he didn't have to compete in last weekend's King of Kings no-holds-barred tournament in Tokyo. But the stocky American has an Olympic dream, and if he wants to realize it he needs money.
JAPAN
Mar 3, 2000

German ambassador focuses on promoting G8's success

Building seems to be very much on Uwe Kurt Kaestner's mind.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Mar 2, 2000

Major League Baseball teams in Japan an improbable dream

Last week former Yokohama BayStars executive Tadahiro Ushigome spoke at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo on a wide range of baseball issues, including the possibility that Japan may one day be home to one or two major league teams.
BUSINESS
Mar 2, 2000

New vehicle sales rise for second month running

Sales of new vehicles rose 1.5 percent in February from a year earlier to 362,830 units, the first two consecutive year-on-year monthly increases since the April 1997 consumption tax hike, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said Wednesday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 1, 2000

Conversation: enough said

I heard once that the average male speaks 2,000 words a day, while the average female speaks 7,000.
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Feb 24, 2000

JFA flash: Don't follow us, we're lost too

Boing! Boing! Boing! Boing! Boing! Boing! Yes, today we're playing ping-pong with Frenchmen.
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 23, 2000

Building tropical paradise on a trash heap

Yumenoshima is a man-made island in Koto Ward, Tokyo.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Feb 17, 2000

Somebody stick a fork in the J. League; it's done

Some things are just not meant to be: the Buffalo Bills will never win the Super Bowl, Hideo Nomo will never develop a personality, Ichiro Suzuki will never trade in his bat for a sumo mawashi, and Fred Varcoe will never grace the cover of GQ magazine.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Feb 16, 2000

Real convenience

The big Net play in Japan these days is convenience stores. Name your neighborhood favorite and you can rest assured it has just rolled out some new e-commerce business scheme.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Feb 10, 2000

Olympics strike out with baseball format

In last week's installment of Sports Scope, my esteemed colleague David Picker took Orix BlueWave star center fielder Ichiro Suzuki to task for showing no interest in going to the 2000 Olympics. Well, I'm with Ichiro.

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