Search - shop

 
 
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jun 22, 2013

Vienna embraces the culture of the bicycle

On the Praterstern, where cars, buses and trams converge from several busy streets on a road that loops around Vienna's central train station, a new digital counter stands under the eye of the Riesenrad Ferris wheel.
LIFE / Style & Design / Japan Pulse
Jun 21, 2013

Fundoshi: the innerwear sanctum of Cool Biz

Wacoal butts into the retro underwear market with cheeky fundoshi.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 20, 2013

Online drugstore chief cheers Abe on in deregulation fight

Genri Goto, CEO and founder of online drugstore Kenko.com, senses victory after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced in his growth strategy earlier this month that the government would relax rules for online sales of nonprescription drugs.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 18, 2013

Turkish unrest could spread as potential flash points abound

The turmoil in Turkey entered a new stage Sunday, with riot police tearing through residential neighborhoods in Istanbul to clear streets of protesters as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered a fiery speech to tens of thousands of supporters on the city's outskirts.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 18, 2013

'Big data' — a digital sea of personal info ripe for the taking?

Shop at Amazon.com and one automatically receives recommendations on books and other items based on previous queries and purchases. Similarly, checking a Facebook entry causes ads for local products and services to pop up.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jun 18, 2013

Quickies on bringing in psychotropics and bags, calling Japan, buying shoes

A variety of queries from readers have arrived at Lifelines over the last few weeks, so we'll address some of them in this column.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 17, 2013

Support grows for Snowden in Hong Kong

Political pressure is growing in Hong Kong for its government to protect Edward Snowden, who has said he will remain in the city and allow its people to "decide his fate."
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jun 16, 2013

Family-crest master fears he's one of a dying breed

Dressed in a black kimono and wearing a pair of eye-catching black, triple-framed spectacles, Shoryu Hatoba straightens his back as he sits on the tatami floor of his quaint studio in Ueno, central Tokyo, holding a pair of bamboo compasses fitted with a brush dipped in ink in place of a pencil.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Jun 12, 2013

Preserving a classic Japanese art form: tokusatsu magic

Our monster is scaly, spiky, reptilian — a cross between a dinosaur and an irradiated insect that shrieks like an angry bird. Our hero is lean, faintly muscular in a rubbery skintight suit with inscrutable praying-mantis eyes. They face one another, stomping left to right like sumo wrestlers, posing...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 11, 2013

Japan's Nigerians see symbol of change in masquerade

Anyone wandering the back streets near Omiya Station at 7:20 a.m. on Sunday, June 2, might have passed a particular office building, unremarkable except for two African men standing on a 2nd floor balcony, rope in hand, lowering a car-sized Ugo (eagle) costume down to the parking lot. One of them was...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 9, 2013

Dark sides of Toyota's drive to be No. 1

Like most corporate giants, Toyota isn't all squeaky clean. Yet in their book 'Toyota no Shotai' ('The True Colors of Toyota') published in Japanese in 2006, Hajime Yokota and Makoto Sataka catalog the Japanese media's timidity when it comes to covering the nation's top advertiser.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 8, 2013

Yoga teacher finds creative voice — and success — in 'surreal' Tokyo

While hammering nails and cutting planks in the prop department at New York's Lincoln Center for the Metropolitan Opera in the early 2000s, Barry Silver never dreamed of a life in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Jun 8, 2013

Upcoming Clinton biopic stirs speculation

The U.S. presidential election may be three years away, but speculation is already rife about the runners and riders in what is sure to be an epic battle for the White House.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Jun 7, 2013

U.S. baby boomers kill selves at high rate

Last spring, Frank Turkaly tried to kill himself. A retiree in a Pittsburgh suburb living on disability checks, he was estranged from friends and family, mired in credit card debt and taking medication for depression, cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure.
CULTURE / Music
Jun 7, 2013

British, U.S. music no longer dominates world

When John Lennon declared that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, it didn't seem that far-fetched. It was 1966, and rock 'n' roll was the new religion sweeping the globe.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS
Jun 7, 2013

Japanese desserts with an alcohol kick

"There are two types of people," my dear old landlady used to say, handing me a bowl of frothing matcha tea: "Those who like alcohol, and those who like sweets."
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / CHILD'S PLAY
Jun 5, 2013

It's lots of tasty, messy fun when babies bake

The master chefs are hard at work: slicing bananas, whisking a sticky mixture in a bowl, squeezing piped cream across a cake.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 3, 2013

Tunisian leader touts investment opportunities

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki on Sunday invited Japan's businesses to invest and play a major role in his country's transition toward democracy and a free-market economy.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 2, 2013

Abe to Africa: Use aid as you see fit

The fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development opens with a look back over the forum's past 20 years and discussions about its future.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 2, 2013

Language no barrier to multimedia Jon Kabira

With a long rousing cry of “Goooooooood Mooooorning Tooookyoooooooooooo!” Jon Kabira launches into his weekly radio show “JK Radio — Tokyo United” every Friday at 6 a.m. on J-Wave.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 2, 2013

The mathematician who could be a movie star

Amid the scandals swirling through the U.S. news media, you might have missed the announcement that one of the great puzzles of number theory had been solved.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 2, 2013

Fun with frugality plus competitive money saving; CM of the week: Parinko

On the variety show "Shiawase Bonbi Garu" ("Happy Poor Girls"; Nippon TV, Tues., 10 p.m.), celebrities look at how much fun it is to live the impoverished life. The women who are the subjects of the show grew up during the recession, so saving money is as natural to them as breathing. The point is to...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jun 1, 2013

Ecological disaster looms for rain forests of Sumatra

Our small plane had been flying low over Sumatra for three hours but all we had seen was an industrial landscape of palm and acacia trees stretching 50 km in every direction. A haze of blue smoke from newly cleared land drifted eastward over giant plantations. Long drainage canals dug through equatorial...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 1, 2013

Destroyer of domestic chaos charts way for others to lead organized lives

Jo Ebisujima describes herself as "a hybrid of MacGyver and Martha Stewart."
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
May 30, 2013

Lottery operators still looking for last year's winners

Seven 2012 grand prize Takarakuji winners still haven't picked up their money.
CULTURE / Music
May 30, 2013

Is the stream less green than CDs, albums?

Technology changes everything, but it seems to change music the most. Four or five generations of recorded music technology have passed in my lifetime. As a child, I listened to Marlo Thomas's "Free to Be You and Me" on vinyl. During middle school, I bought Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock on cassette. Then...

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake