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Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 15, 2012

Takazawa: Food for all the senses

Ever since chef Yoshiaki Takazawa opened his bijou restaurant back in 2005, it has been one of Tokyo's most intriguing secrets, more talked about than actually visited. Lauded more loudly abroad than here in Japan, its mystique has been fueled by the setting, the scale and a palpable sense of exclusivity....
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 5, 2012

Much ado, but micro-important

A few weeks ago, as a panelist at a symposium on Japan's accession to the Hague Convention on international child abduction, I found it hard to disguise my ire. One of the speakers was a lawyer opposed to Japan joining the convention, and who refused to even use "abduction" to discuss what she called...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jun 3, 2012

Fighters pleased with choice of Kuriyama as manager

There are three men managing teams for the first time in Japanese baseball this season. Two Central League skippers have had problems getting their teams on track, but another has done an outstanding job keeping his club at or near the top of the Pacific League standings.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Jun 1, 2012

The Peninsula Tokyo summer fair

The Peninsula Tokyo is holding a summer promotion at each of its restaurants, offering special menus to maintain one's stamina during the hot season as well as a variety of cool desserts, through Aug. 31.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
May 30, 2012

Boyish style raises questions about gender roles

Men dressing up as women and women dressing up as men — where will it all lead?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
May 29, 2012

Tokyo: What do you think of the move by two hotels at Tokyo Disney Resort to offer same-sex marriage ceremonies?

C. Sakai
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
May 26, 2012

Young goldfish breeders rise to challenge in Aichi

Breeding goldfish has been a dying industry in and around the city of Yatomi, Aichi Prefecture, but a glimmer of hope remains as a younger generation of breeders are taking over their family businesses.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 25, 2012

Japan's stellar speller ready for global contest

Natural learner Haruka Masuda's secret is reading, reading and reading.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 24, 2012

Wi-Fi, Facebook and all that jazz

Fumito Fukuchi, owner and proprietor of Kissa Sakaiki jazz cafe in Tokyo's central Yotsuya neighborhood, grins as he puts the finishing touches to an online schedule.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 20, 2012

Narai's nostalgic delights revisited

I was thinking about Narai today. It sprang to mind, unbidden, while I was driving somewhere else, and all day visions of the little streets and old buildings haunted me. Memories double-exposed over the place I was really in.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 20, 2012

Japan faces a long, hot, nuclear-free summer

Is Japan — and particularly the Kansai region — going to have enough electric power to get it through peak summer demand? The Meteorological Agency's three-month projection for May through July, posted on its website (www.jma.go.jp/jp/longfcst/000_1_10.html) hedges its bets. For the four main islands,...
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
May 15, 2012

Kura

Dear Alice,
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2012

Five myths about America's conservative voters

We may be six months away from Election Day, but I've already racked up nearly 160,000 km this year crisscrossing the country and listening to voters in more than 20 states. Both President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are in full campaign mode, and opinions and analysis of their chances to win are flowing...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 11, 2012

'Rentaneko (Rent-a-Cat)'

Japanese films, at both ends of the commercial-indie spectrum, are often about extremes. Deadly disease and violence are rampant. Characters sweat bullets and cry rivers. Viewers, including this one, sometimes wonder if their circuits are being permanently fried from all the over-stimulation.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
May 8, 2012

The best of Views from the Street

A pick of some of best —and the rest — of the vox pops over the years, in chronological order:
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
May 6, 2012

Small fry spawn big dreams

The Shinano, at 374 km the country's longest river, empties into the Sea of Japan at Niigata City. Salmon still migrate back from the open ocean to this river of their birth to breed and die, but a few decades ago they would arrive to spawn not only in the main river but also in its many tributaries,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 4, 2012

'Kantori Garu (Country Girl)'

The first time I went to Kyoto, in the mid-1970s, I thought I was in the middle of the biggest school excursion in the country. Thousands of kids from all over Japan were milling about in shopping districts and on temple grounds, and a foreigner such as I was still a sight rare enough for dozens of them...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
May 3, 2012

Bus driver salaries inversely proportional to risk involved

Cheaper bus fares means higher stress factor for drivers
Reader Mail
May 3, 2012

Feeling deregulation's effects

Let me make a brief comment about the Bloomberg article by Jared Diamond, titled "Three reasons why Japan's economic pain is worsening," which ran in The Japan Times on April 28.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Apr 30, 2012

Urban safari in the concrete jungle reveals Tokyo wildlife

Tokyo is a city of many things, but "nature"? Not exactly a word that most associate with the metropolis. When it comes to the city's animal life, most Tokyoites think meiwaku dōbutsu (迷惑動物, pests) rather than yasei-dōbutsu (野生動物, wildlife), associating animal encounters with mischievous...
Reader Mail
Apr 29, 2012

Give all energy-savers a break

Regarding the April 26 Jiji article "Government to roll out new energy-efficiency system for homes": In the future most energy- efficient homes will be located far from downtown urban centers simply because land prices are more affordable the farther you move away from the congested and highly commercial...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Apr 29, 2012

Kamakura's historic 'flowering garden'

When I meander through the gardens of Zuisen-ji Temple, I'm always reminded of a particular haiku by the 17th-century poet Matsuo Basho, which goes: Fading temple bell / The fragrance of flowers strikes / At evening.

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