Handmade bra growing popular with rain-displaced evacuees in western Japan
An easy-fitting bra made from a long strip of cloth that doesn't look like a bra when hung out to dry has become popular with rain disaster evacuees stuck in shelters in western Japan since last month. Mitsuko Watanabe, 52, is one of many using ...
An Antipodean friendship fortified in Japanese floodwaters the color of 'Australian beer'
After his own rescue, one Kiwi resident of flooded Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, returned to the rising waters to look for his Aussie friend's stranded family.
One man's labor-of-love museum captures Seto Inland Sea island's storied stone history
Build a stone museum and they will come? That's the idea behind the K's Labo museum on Kitagi Island in Okayama Prefecture.
Japan's public policy is killing rural entrepreneurship
While big-ticket tourism projects in Japan thrive, those involved in smaller-scale projects can feel starved of government support.
What do Western tourists want from Japan? Try asking one
How many other countries would attempt to lure Western tourists without at least having a tete-a-tete with a woman in their target audience who has lived for over 20 years in the very place they're hoping to attract people to?
Edo Period 'post town' in Okayama re-imagines its past and reaps tourism dividends
Yakage is the only preserved town along the Sanyo Road that survives in it's near-original form, and tourists are flocking there.
'Alien' life forms in Japan's Seto Sea
Forget the neons of Tokyo. For an otherworldly light experience visit the bioluminescent ‘sea fireflies’ on the beaches of the Inland Sea.
Okayama girl, 5, honored for knowledge of 'yokai' monsters
Five-year-old Mana Umemoto has become the youngest person ever to receive the title Doctor of Yokai Monsters. Umemoto, from Bizen, Okayama Prefecture, has passed the beginners' level exam that tests knowledge of the yokai creatures of Japanese folklore. These are spiritual beings that inhabit tales ...
Hoodie Monks mix beats with their Buddhism
The Hoodie Monks bring together two cultures that might at first seem like unlikely partners: Buddhism and hip-hop.
Between a rock and an art place in Kurashiki's merchant quarters
Timing, as they say, is everything. With a bad habit of turning up to places and appointments too early, I often find myself wandering through train stations and pocket parks, and past the shuttered doorways of shops. I've done it again — 7 a.m. is ...
Kibiji bike path: eating local in the slow lane
It doesn't take a great mind to read a map, and neither does it take one to get lost. I found myself doubting my direction three times as the Kibiji bike path — one of Japan's top 100 cycling roads — wound its way ...
