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May 04, 2024
 

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BACKSTREET STORIES

Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Mar 31, 2013
Suites, treats and backstreets of the Imperial Hotel
The Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, or 'Teikoku Hotel,' has occupied the same privileged location, across from Hibiya Park and minutes from the Imperial Palace, for over a century.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Feb 24, 2013
Spring training in Mukojima
It's hard to think of February as springlike, what with snowfalls, freezing winds and a dusting of dead leaves everywhere. But I know from experience that the intrepid Prunus mume, or plum tree, blooms this month, and a trek to see some blossoms seems de rigueur. From the Tobu Isesaki Line, I get off at Higashi Mukojima Station to search out Hyakkaen, a garden that has showcased plum trees for centuries.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jan 26, 2013
Mining gems in Okachimachi
On early maps of Edo, as Tokyo was known prior to 1868, Okachimachi is rendered as a town (machi) densely packed with the tiny dwellings of okachi — low-ranked, poorly paid samurai infantry.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Nov 25, 2012
The fall fires of Nishigahara
Burning to see fall colors, I head to Tokyo's northern Kita Ward, where Kyu Furukawa Teien, the former estate of copper magnate Ichibei Furukawa, features not only a traditional Japanese garden but also Western-style flowerbeds of autumn-blooming roses. At this time of the season, it should be ablaze.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Oct 28, 2012
Seeking out what's in store for Kuramae
Back when Tokyo was Edo and Tokugawa shoguns ruled the land (1603-1867), the burgeoning city's most vital staple, rice, was protected in kura (storage houses) along the right bank of the Sumida River. Then, by the simple expedient of adding mae (in front of) to "kura," the area facing the white-washed, thick-walled granaries came to be known as Kuramae.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Sep 30, 2012
Casting around for the past on Fish-basket Slope
Hoping to find traces of the fishing village that was Edo (present-day Tokyo) before the first Tokugawa Shogun chose the site for his new political capital in the early 1600s, I head to Gyoranzaka (Fish-basket Slope) in the city's central Mita district.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Aug 26, 2012
All the fun of the fair — and that's just the temples
Inspired by this summer's Olympic quest for gold medals, I opt to go for the gold myself. Toshimaen amusement park in Tokyo's northwestern Nerima Ward is home to Carousel El Dorado, one of the world's oldest hand-carved wooden merry-go-rounds. Named for an imaginary city of gold sought by 16th-century Spanish conquistadors around the Amazon basin, the El Dorado I seek is nonetheless real, and located near the piranha-free Shakuji River.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jun 24, 2012
Over the top ambitions in Mukogaoka
The neighborhood of Mukogaoka — literally, "Yonder Hill" — huddles under clouds clustered like violet hydrangea blossoms the morning I arrive to explore.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
May 27, 2012
Rolling around Sendagi
The Yanesen district of central Tokyo, whose name features bits of the names of the three neighborhoods it comprises (Yanaka, Nezu and Sendagi), charms visitors with its temple-studded streets, craft shops and prewar architecture. Oddly, though, maps in either Japanese or English rarely guide visitors west of the Chiyoda subway line's Sendagi Station, which is where most of Sengagi is to be found. Intrigued, I set off to explore.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Apr 29, 2012
Foxtrotting around Asukayama
Rising amid flat farmland, Asukayama had long been an untended haunt of foxes and their small prey when, in 1720, Yoshimune Tokugawa, the eighth shogun to rule in Edo (present-day Tokyo), had the hilly upland planted with 1,200 cherry trees, 100 maples and 100 pines, to create a public park for flower-viewing. It still draws spectators today.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Mar 25, 2012
Plum nuts about Ikegami
Whether you call the Prunus mume a plum or an apricot (it is related to both), the flowers are plum elegant on their leafless, shiny branches and help cheer us through winter's finale. To enjoy them to the full, I seek out Ikegami Baien Garden in southern Tokyo's Ota Ward, having hopped the Tokyu Ikegami Line to Ikegami Station and taken the only exit.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Feb 26, 2012
Venturing into the zone on Showajima
In his "Meditation XVII," the English Metaphysical poet John Donne wrote in 1623 that "no man is an island, entire of itself." Well, yes — but some islands are entirely more manly than others.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Nov 27, 2011
Blazing trails in Chiyoda's gardens
With November drawing to a close, I head to the East Garden of the Imperial Palace and the adjacent Kitanomaru Koen park, hoping for fall colors and a mental breather before the season goes nutcrackers with parties and shopping.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Oct 30, 2011
Yea! As I walk through the valley of Todoroki . . .
Todoroki Valley Park, a protected green swath along Tokyo's only ravine, strikes me as an interesting and possibly quite sheltered destination on a brisk and breezy fall day.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Sep 25, 2011
Discoveries to delight on the very doorstep of The Japan Times
There's an expression in Japanese — Todai moto kurashi (The base of the lighthouse is dark) — which occurs to me as I leave the headquarters of The Japan Times in Shibaura. Though I regularly dock here, I realize I'm in the dark about the surrounding area, Minato Ward's manmade flatlands in Tokyo's southeast.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Aug 28, 2011
Building excitement in Shirokanedai
Exiting the Nanboku Line at Shirokanedai Station in west-central Tokyo, my sandaled feet immediately start to sizzle. So instead of walking to Meguro's Institute of Nature Study as planned, I bolt down the first shaded slope I find.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jul 31, 2011
Shooting galleries in Nihonbashi
Summertime, and the living's less easy than queasy as Tokyo's temperatures and humidity soar. It's like that as I exit the Hibiya Line's Kodenmacho Station, in Chuo Ward, headed for Jisshi Koen, the area's sole park.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jun 26, 2011
Morishita: treats in place of the trees
Sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees. According to Akinori Saito, a historian in Tokyo's Koto Ward Office, the area known as Morishita (lit. "forest below") was most likely named for woods that surrounded the yashiki (residence) of a feudal lord named Saemon Sakai (1564-1619), a retainer of the first Tokugawa shogun, Ieyasu. However, as I emerge from Morishita Station, on both the Shinjuku and Oedo subway lines, it's into one of the least forested places I've ever seen.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
May 29, 2011
Casting around in Tsukudajima
From Tsukishima Station on Tokyo's Oedo subway line, I launch myself northward toward Tsukudajima. A mere sandbar in the early days of the Edo Period (1603-1868), Tsukudajima long ago began to be expanded with boulders and landfill on the way to creating the area we now know.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Apr 24, 2011
Gaming Moto Azabu
Rather than dwell on the dark side of life at this time, I decide to get my game on by heading to a store just off Azabu-Juban's main shopping street in central Tokyo's Minato Ward. Max Game, at the foot of Kurayamizaka (Dark Slope), is surrounded by kids of all ages sitting at tables, strategizing and laughing over decks of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Vanguard and Dream Master trading cards.
Biden calls ally Japan ‘xenophobic’ along with rivals China and Russia
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in Syracuse, New York, on April 25.
Yen swings stir talk that Japan is in the FX market once again
An electronic screen in Tokyo displays the yen exchange rate against the U.S. dollar and the graph showing its recent swings, on Thursday.
Harajuku strives to reclaim its former glory — and surpass it
Laforet Harajuku, which celebrated its 45th anniversary last year, has been a witness to the district's evolution over the years.
Weak yen fattens tourist wallets in Japan
People visit the Ameya Yokocho market in Tokyo's Ueno district during the Golden Week holiday on Tuesday.
Japan's May 1 intervention may have cost ¥3.66 trillion, BOJ data suggests
An electronic screen displays a graph showing Japanese yen exchange rates surging against the dollar amid signs of intervention by authorities, in Tokyo on Thursday.
Kishida sets sights on energy and climate in South America trip
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will use a policy speech in Sao Paulo to set out his vision for ties between Japan and South America, almost 10 years after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe advocated for stronger ties between the two in the same city.
Yellow sand allergy: A health issue made worse by climate change
A screenshot of the Meteorological Agency's satellite image of clouds and yellow sand (in pink) on Sunday.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.

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