author

 
Menu
Search
 
November 21, 2024
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

Meta

Chris Bamforth
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 28, 2013
In the realm of the Fujiya Hotel
It's a different matter with ryokan, Japan's traditional and often premium-priced inns, but outside the stellar class of regular hotels charging astronomical rates, their down-to-earth cousins aren't usually the kind of places to feel too strongly about. You generally expect little by way of character...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 9, 2013
Stairway to heavenly Haguro
Some of the more interesting spots in Japan are the ones that are not really on the way to anywhere else at all. A sense of remoteness and being firmly off the beaten track lends them a particularly beguiling character.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 16, 2012
Mount Fuji's lacustrine Gang of Five
Among Japan's many physical features, none comes even close to matching the manner in which its loftiest peak has carved out the fondest niche in the national psyche. The Mount Fuji name and image are evident practically everywhere in Japan today — as they have been one way or another over the centuries....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 23, 2012
Adrift from Kyoto's Amanohashidate on Heaven's Floating Bridge
The Japanese have long had a fondness for categorizing impressive features of the world around them into numbered lists. And in this enterprise, trios hold particular fascination. Thus, in addition to the Three Great Festivals and the Three Great Night Views, among well over 100 prestigious triads are...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 1, 2012
Feline fine in Iriomote's unspoilt wilderness
For the jaded traveler, arrival in one place in Japan can often seem suspiciously like arrival in any other. After quitting a station building, you can find yourself viewing thoroughfares lined with familiar-looking stores, with it all appearing instantly similar to other places beheld elsewhere the...
LIFE / Travel
Dec 19, 2010
Savor Yufuin's peaceful charms
Set your travel planning to autopilot and — if you are in northern Kyushu in need of the thermal succor only a hot-spring bath can lend — you are sure to be drawn by the gravitational pull of Beppu, the brash town in Oita Prefecture that is the onsen king of Japan and knows it.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 5, 2010
Lofty tonic in the heat
So what do you do when it's summer in Japan and the heat and humidity have become just plain silly?
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 1, 2010
Old Japan lives on at Ikaho Spa
The ways are various in Japan for having one's sense of local pride bolstered by recognition on some official list.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 16, 2010
Nara still boasts its ancient lure
In a geographical battle for the hearts and minds of Japanese people, Kyoto would win hands down as the wellspring of so much of their culture for which they feel such reverence.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 21, 2010
Where history whiffs in the air
As anyone with even a scant knowledge of Japanese history is probably aware, the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 was the "Big One." The absolute victory of Tokugawa Ieyasu made shoguns of him and his successors, who kept their hands firmly clutching the reins of power until they were wrenched away in 1868's...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 14, 2010
A winter's tale of time-warp Takayama
After a while you tire of the easy destinations — the usual spots with their inevitable touristic clutter. So you decide on somewhere different — somewhere that's far from the madding crowds and far, too, from the yet more madding megaphone-toting tour guides.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 10, 2010
Going to pot down Mashiko way
For the most part, visitors to Tochigi Prefecture hit the well-trodden tourist track to the rococo extravaganza of grandiose Toshogu shrine in Nikko. Yet those in search of a more refined showcasing of the Japanese aesthetic would be better directing themselves to a spot in the prefecture's southeast....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 22, 2009
Dancing in the Tokushima streets
After being in Japan for a while, you get to know a place by its festivals.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 18, 2009
Pottering down Chita way
It dangles down from Nagoya, dividing Ise Bay from Mikawa Bay in the inglorious shape of one of yesterday's socks. While the upper, northern end soaks up the industrial overspill from Japan's fourth-largest city, its southern half works as a calming antidote to the madding metropolitan crowd. It goes...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 23, 2009
On a high road of old
In stark contrast to many of today's passport-toting Japanese, their compatriots of old weren't a well-traveled bunch.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 19, 2009
History in a stunning setting
It may be hard to imagine of a Saturday night in the gaijin gulches of Tokyo's seething Roppongi entertainment district, but back in the 16th century, foreigners — especially of a Western ilk — were a complete novelty in Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 14, 2009
Oranges and felons
The 19th-century Scottish novelist and poet Robert Louis Stevenson got it spot on about traveling when he noted that to do so hopefully was a better thing than arriving.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 20, 2007
The wax and wane of Uchiko
To the enormous surprise of absolutely no one except the most irrepressible Pollyannas in or closely connected with the construction industry, the 19 years since the opening of the first of the gargantuan civil-engineering white elephants that go by the name of the Honshu-Shikoku bridges have not witnessed...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 23, 2007
Roofs raised in prayer
Most people are only too aware of the devastating effects of global warming -- the breaking up of polar ice shelves, weather patterns going haywire, glaciers in retreat, that documentary starring Al Gore. But the thermal consequences of all the carbon that humans assiduously upload into the atmosphere...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 26, 2007
Jewel of the north country
At its northern tip, Japan's main island of Honshu sprouts what looks like a massive pair of pincers that reach up into the Tsugaru Strait toward Hokkaido. The point at the southern end of Hokkaido that the twin peninsulas seem to be homing in on is the port of Hakodate.
Ishiba delays meeting with Trump, citing legal restrictions
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba waves upon arrival for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, in Callao, Peru, on Friday.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Rising sex tourism exposes loopholes in Japan's anti-prostitution law
While financial misfortunes during the COVID-19 pandemic may have driven some women to work the streets, others simply want more money to spend — or want to pay off their debts — at host clubs.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

Podcast

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

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’
SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER