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Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KANPAI CULTURE
Sep 9, 2014

Green fairy leads to Tokyo absinthe bar

Five years ago, Hiroyasu Kayama developed a fascination with absinthe. Shortly before opening his bar Ben Fiddich in July 2013, he took a pilgrimage to the famous absinthe-producing town of Pontarlier, which lies on the French border with Switzerland. Now, the 30-year-old mixologist wants to start an...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS
Sep 9, 2014

Wakuden: An early lunch of budget kaiseki cuisine

Wakuden in Kyoto Station opens for lunch at 11 a.m. Who eats lunch that early? To answer I arrived minutes after 11, thinking I would be dining tout seul. Far from it: The queue was out the door. The reason: Wakuden serves pricey kaiseki (haute cuisine) — sets starts at ¥6,000 — but every day there...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS
Sep 9, 2014

Soba Rojina: Noodles handmade with care

Soba Rojina opened earlier this summer, and in a few short months it has garnered a reputation for its high-quality handmade soba. It's a busy spot and food takes time to arrive — not too long, but longer than some people might want to wait during the precious lunch hour.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Sep 9, 2014

Fueling drug gangs' impunity, unidentified corpses pile up in Mexico

In Mexico's blood-soaked northern state of Sinaloa, a simple gravestone adorned with pink, blue and yellow plastic flowers marks the tomb of 42-year-old assistant carpenter Carlos Montano.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 8, 2014

City rankings out of touch with 21st century reality

These days there are so many news stories about disease, disaster, doom and death that some media apparently want to lighten the gloom by reporting silly surveys on the most pleasant city to live in.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 8, 2014

New sanctions on Iran to hurt peace prospects

New U.S. sanctions recently announced against Iran are aimed at making life difficult for Mahan Air and other entities. But the limitations are unlikely to move Iran to freeze its nuclear program and will instead damage prospects for peace.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 8, 2014

As the chances of a U.K. split grow, the true costs become more clear

Until last week, almost nobody outside Scotland took very seriously the possibility that Europe's most stable and durable nation — the only big country not to have suffered invasion, revolution or civil war at any time in the past 300 years — might soon be wiped off the map.
LIFE / Language / WELL SAID
Sep 8, 2014

Natsuyasumi-chū, hitotsu-mo jiko-ga nakatta

Today, we will introduce the meanings and usage of the suffix uff5eu4e2duff08u3061u3085u3046uff0fu3058u3085u3046uff09 meaning 'in.'
Japan Times
JAPAN / ADVANCES IN PROGRESS
Sep 7, 2014

Drone enthusiasts see bright future but legal hurdles await

Last December, Amazon.com Inc. created a buzz by releasing a video of a drone delivering a package to a customer's home. If Amazon launches its Prime Air service as planned in 2015, we could soon see unmanned aircraft whizzing through the skies to deliver purchases in as little as half an hour.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / ADOPT ME!
Sep 7, 2014

A cat named Tore: It's about balance

Tore was in poor shape all-around when she arrived at the ARK shelter, but she cleaned up very nicely. She's now a lady you could take anywhere.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Sep 6, 2014

Yoshio Taniguchi: thriving in the shadow of greatness

Architect Yoshio Taniguchi generally doesn't like having his photograph taken for use in the media. In a way, it's a logical extension of his approach to his work, which could be described as architecture by subtraction. Having painstakingly removed everything extraneous from a design, and having overseen...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 6, 2014

Line fends off fury ahead of lucrative IPO

"What's so exasperating for the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry ... is the current situation in that platforms, terminals and apps have become dominated by foreign entities," remarked an unnamed writer for a trade publication. "The ministries...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Sep 6, 2014

A tale of two parks, and their preservation

As I sit in my study here in Kurohime in the hills of northern Nagano Prefecture, through the window I can see 2,053-meter Mount Kurohime, a dormant volcano that's forested to the top.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 6, 2014

Veteran Tokyo editor turns his mind to crime

"Japan has her secrets, as you well know," a Kyoto art dealer named Takahashi tells American Jim Brodie. "Many are open secrets. We Japanese are aware of them, are ashamed of them, and don't speak of them often, if ever. Our embarrassing moments remain, for the most part, confined to these shores. The...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
Sep 6, 2014

Trio of NPB teams hit it big with midseason acquisitions

The Seibu Lions were fielding a toothless lineup early in the NPB season while Ernesto Mejia was up to his usual hard-hitting trick on the other side of the world with the Gwinnett Braves, the Triple-A affiliate of the Atlanta Braves.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2014

Will China's tough stance backfire in Hong Kong?

The Beijing government may think that by blocking Hong Kong's progress toward the democratic election of a chief executive, it is safeguarding both the region's and the nation's economic interests. But it is quite likely to have the opposite effect.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Sep 5, 2014

Innovative products rethink generic design

Be prepared with Nosigner
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Sep 5, 2014

A Scottish 'yes' vote may not be such a big change for the queen

Scotland's vote on independence this month means Queen Elizabeth II faces a division in her kingdom not seen since the days of her namesake, Elizabeth I, at the start of the 17th century.
WORLD
Sep 5, 2014

Ailing Great Dane in Oregon packed his belly with 43.5 socks

Veterinarians who operated on an ailing 140-pound (64-kg) Great Dane in Oregon removed 43-1/2 socks from its stomach in an emergency surgery that likely saved the pooch's life, an animal hospital said on Thursday.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Sep 4, 2014

Toyota edges Ryukyu in exhibition

The preseason began in earnest for the league's 10th season on Wednesday. But this time with a twist.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 4, 2014

Jaga Jazzist brings the sound of Oslo to Tokyo Jazz Festival

Trying to slot artists into specific trends, genres and an ever-expanding number of subgenres is a constant obsession for meticulous music fans looking to define what they're listening to. Journalists categorize, sometimes to the dismay of the bands they're covering, to make things simpler for their...
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 4, 2014

Scottish independence would mean harsh consequences for U.K., economist says

A Scottish vote for independence from the United Kingdom this month could have serious consequences for the Scottish and U.K. economies, Goldman Sachs said in a research note on Wednesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 3, 2014

A quarter century of Japanese films in review

In 25 years of reviewing Japanese films and interviewing Japanese filmmakers for this newspaper, I've written 1 million words, give or take a few. This is clearly something no normal person would do, but for me it beats working.
SOCCER / SOCCER SCENE
Sep 3, 2014

Aguirre ready to start work rebuilding Japan from scratch

Japan begins a new era on Friday night as manager Javier Aguirre leads the team out for the first time, and if first impressions of the Mexican are anything to go by, the next four years should be an interesting journey.
Reader Mail
Sep 3, 2014

Cram schools have their place

The Aug. 31 editorial "Is it twilight for cram schools?"made me think of young people's education and the future of Japan. The editorial points out that at cram schools "students learned how to compete with people rather than cooperate."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Sep 3, 2014

Giving up your seat on a train is a public affair

A recent article in the media in Japan about the attitudes and behavior of able-bodied passengers toward reserved seating on trains reminded me of one of the few negative experiences I have endured as a disabled foreigner in Japan, and it pertains to the tricky art of acquiring use of the "priority seats."...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Sep 3, 2014

'Abenomics' appears headed for trouble as challenges build

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's plan for the economy to generate self-sustained growth on the back of his three policy "arrows" of massive monetary easing, spending and reform appears to be faltering — but no magic solution is in sight.

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person