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Chris Bamforth
COMMUNITY
Aug 15, 2004
Serendipty with suds
Forget that Kanto has a GDP bigger than Italy's. What really fills me with a sense of civic pride is the knowledge that my Tokyo is home to the only museum in the world dedicated to laundry.
Features
Aug 15, 2004
Serendipity with suds
Forget that Kanto has a GDP bigger than Italy's. What really fills me with a sense of civic pride is the knowledge that my Tokyo is home to the only museum in the world dedicated to laundry.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 30, 2004
The kids are all right at these spots
The heat is most definitely on. And with the mercury so high, so are the expectations among the wee ones that you haul them off somewhere that little bit different. Here are a few ideas for Tokyo places where you and they might find some respite during the dog days.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 23, 2004
Do the Dogashima
Less than an hour by shinkansen from Tokyo, touristy Atami is no one's idea of a quiet little getaway. From there down to the tip, Shimoda -- of Black Ship Festival fame -- this eastern side of the Izu Peninsula is the busy, developed one. This is where you go to check out such cultural hot spots as...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 25, 2004
The heartbeat of Aomori
Remoteness is not without its attractions, especially in crowded Japan. And on the main island of Honshu, you would be hard pressed to find a place of human habitation further from the baying crowds than Aomori Prefecture. Curled like a pincer around Honshu's northern tip, Aomori, the capital, is a characterless...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 28, 2004
Ancient port of quiet delights
By the time footsore travelers on the old Tokaido Highway made it to Otsu, the town must have been no unwelcome sight. Many of them would just have trudged some 500 km from Edo (present-day Tokyo), and Otsu was the last of the 53 official way-stations strung out along the great thoroughfare. Just 10...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Apr 30, 2004
When your kids are cooperating, but the weather isn't
Special to The Japan Times You're ready to spend some quality time with the kids. It's raining cats and dogs. Here are 10 places to drag the little ones to when the weather isn't cooperating:
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 23, 2004
Overlooked -- and undervalued
If there is one major spot in Japan that visitors somehow tend not to make a beeline for, it is Nagoya.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 26, 2004
Town of grisly times past
As the unfortunate home to one-tenth of the world's active volcanoes, Japan lacks no variety in these ill-tempered peaks.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 27, 2004
Savor the spirit of ancient Japan
In a far-off age -- long before they were savoring the busy touristic delight of gadding around a dozen European cities in as many days -- the Japanese were a fairly untraveled lot.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 16, 2004
Lost Nambu citadel of the North
With Morioka, you know where you stand from the outset. As the title to the official English guide declares, Morioka is "the castle town of northern Japan."
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 12, 2003
'Land of Fire' with history burning in its mokkosu heart
Few things puff up local pride like a local hero. Sendai dotes on its "One-Eyed Dragon," warrior Date Masamune. Kagoshima loves its plump 19th-century rebel Saigo Takamori. And Kumamoto adores its old daimyo lord Kato Kiyomasa.
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO
Oct 24, 2003
Where time flows slowly
Some places really do have the image thing sorted out. Mention of the name Kurashiki generally conjures up a warm picture of traditional Japan, a town where life trundles along at a gentler pace than elsewhere. What tends not to be conjured up is that Kurashiki is a city of 450,000 people living right...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 5, 2003
The little town with a big name
You've hauled your bags off the conveyor belt onto the cart, you've skulked through Customs and you're staring blankly at an electronic board, trying to fathom which Limousine Bus is going where. You've heard that there is another Narita apart from this one dedicated to air travel, but somehow you've...
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO
Aug 3, 2003
Where the crowds head to cool off
With the rainy season coming to a close, Japan starts to slide into its dog days. As thermometer and hygrometer levels nudge to swelteringly high levels, many Tokyoites feel the burning need to escape the busy, cramped shopping streets of the city and find relief and peace of mind . . . in the busy,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 22, 2003
To the sacred temple-city in the clouds
KOYA-SAN, Wakayama Pref. -- If there is one all-round good guy to emerge from the pages of Japanese history, someone for whom nobody seems to have a bad word, it is Kobo Daishi (A.D. 774-835). Buddhist saint, scholar, spiritual healer, calligrapher, poet, sculptor, engineer, supposed originator of the...

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