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April 16, 2025
 

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When you stare into the abyss at the bottom of the No. 3 shaft of the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel, the abyss stares back.
LIFE / Travel
A new tour of Tokyo’s most underground attraction
From April, the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel will offer guided treks of areas previously inaccessible to the public.
LIFE / Travel
Heaven from hells: The sulfuric pleasure of Unzen Onsen
Located deep within Kyushu’s Shimabara Peninsula, this hot spring town offers dramatic scenery worth the effort it takes to get there.
LIFE / Travel
Osaka Expo-bound? Take your pick of the city’s new luxury hotels.
Increased capacity makes lodging a buyer’s market, as intense competition keeps prices down and encourages hotels to differentiate themselves from the pack.
Scenes like this snow-covered bridge leading to the village of Shirakawa-go are what make the Three-Star Road worth traveling — its name notwithstanding.
LIFE / Travel
Mar 29, 2025
Traveling the Three-Star Road, the tourist route made from thin air
By Owen Ziegler
Linking mountainous Matsumoto and coastal Kanazawa, this clunkily named route includes nonetheless fantastic sites.
An expanded multilevel pond and devices spraying cold mist have been installed at the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum to protect against the dangers of warming summers on the institution's trees.
LIFE / Travel
Mar 24, 2025
World’s first public bonsai museum reopens after renovations
By Erik Augustin Palm
After a five-month refurbishment, the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum believes it’s better suited to care for its trees during intensifying summers.
The Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art is just one of many hidden art and architectural gems across the Kagawa coast.
LIFE / Travel
Mar 15, 2025
‘Resorts for the spirit’: Touring Kagawa’s art and architecture
By Jennifer Pastore
The seaside cities of Takamatsu and Marugame are home to a heritage of beauty, from the monolithic to the modern.
A glimpse at the entrance of Golden Gai, where the vibrant streets invite you to explore its lively nightlife and rich culture.
LIFE / Travel
Mar 3, 2025
Stories from behind the bar at Shinjuku's Golden Gai
By Mika Inoue
Once the home of Tokyo's black market, this 6,600 sq. meter district has nearly 300 tiny bars packed into it.
The luxury Seven Stars in Kyushu train trades the hyper-efficiency of typical rail travel in Japan for a slower, more decadent version.
LIFE / Travel
Mar 1, 2025
Aboard Japan’s most luxurious train, the journey is the destination
By Erik Augustin Palm
For those with yen to burn, the Seven Stars in Kyushu is one of the most luxurious ways to experience some of southern Japan’s best hidden gems.
Tokoro Ruins Museum Director Yuuki Nakamura says that 'most Japanese people don’t know' the history of the Okhotsk culture, but he and others are betting that travelers might be intrigued enough to visit and find out more.
LIFE / Travel
Feb 22, 2025
Bear skulls and pit dwellings: Hokkaido aims to sell ancient history
By Justin Randall
The Okhostk culture thrived in northern Hokkaido from the fifth to ninth centuries and may have provided the Ainu with some of their best-known rituals.
In Sakaiminato, Tottori Prefecture, an entire street is dedicated to Japanese spirits, monsters and ghouls — a sign that the overall region is rich in spine-tingling tourist draws.
LIFE / Travel
Feb 22, 2025
Shimane and Tottori to bewitch tourists with supernatural charms
By Zoria Petkoska
The two prefectures are leaning on spooky folklore to draw more travelers.

In a first, Japan issues cease-and-desist order against Google
The Google logo is seen at the company's Bay View campus in Mountain View, California. Japanese authorities on Tuesday issued a cease-and-desist order to Google over an alleged violation of the country's anti-monopoly law.
'Chikan' incidents rise as Japan grapples with mental health and cultural challenges
Overcrowded trains and a lack of legal consequences for groping in Japan have led to a rise in "chikan," or groping, which has been linked to a mental condition and compounded by cultural stigmas.
China halts critical rare earth exports as trade war intensifies
Workers transport soil containing rare earth elements for export at a port in Lianyungang, in China's Jiangsu province, in October 2010.
A new tour of Tokyo’s most underground attraction
When you stare into the abyss at the bottom of the No. 3 shaft of the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel, the abyss stares back.
Japan’s population shrinks for the 14th consecutive year
Japan’s population has been falling year on year since 2011 after peaking in 2008.
A new tour of Tokyo’s most underground attraction
When you stare into the abyss at the bottom of the No. 3 shaft of the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel, the abyss stares back.
Two-thirds of fourth to sixth graders in Japan use social media, survey finds
The survey showed that more children are starting to use social media at an earlier age.
Osaka Expo-bound? Take your pick of the city’s new luxury hotels.
The Four Seasons Hotel Osaka opened in 2024, just one of many new luxury accommodations the city boasts ahead of the 2025 World Expo.
Heaven from hells: The sulfuric pleasure of Unzen Onsen
While Unzen Onsen's "hells" can be visually striking, locals describe them and their effects as "a source of emotional healing."

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.
By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)
BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)

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