Search - things-to-do

 
 
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 17, 2010

Kan taps Okada for party's No. 2 post

Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Thursday tapped Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada as the party's secretary general, in what amounts to a test of whether Kan can achieve party unity after Tuesday's presidential election.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 16, 2010

Scarred lay judges battle stress

In late November last year, Iwao Takasu, 55, became one of the first six people in Ibaraki Prefecture to serve as a lay judge in a criminal trial.
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 12, 2010

Aging through the ages

"If only, when one heard That Old Age was coming One could bolt the door Answer 'not at home' And refuse to meet him!" (Anonymous, "Kokinshu" Imperial poetry anthology, 10th century)
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BY THE GLASS
Sep 10, 2010

A cooling splash of New Zealand

A bit like having a water pistol shot straight in the face, a cool glass of Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand can slap you right out of your late-summer stupor.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 10, 2010

Roberts finally makes it to Japan — but was it worth the wait?

Does Julia Roberts hate Japan? The local media were obsessed with this question prior to the Hollywood star's first-ever trip here last month to promote her new film, "Eat Pray Love," based on Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling memoir about her journeys to Italy, India and Indonesia.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Sep 8, 2010

Despite the big spender image, Japanese actually love to save

There's this image that the Japanese are drop-dead, go-all-out kaimono-chūdokusho (買い物中毒症, shopaholics), despite whatever the latest dreary news bulletin on the global recession says. While that may be true, it's also a fact of our collective lives that the Japanese hate spending, with every...
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Sep 7, 2010

Don't blame JET for Japan's poor English

The Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme, touted as the world's largest cultural exchange scheme, has brought thousands of non-Japanese into the country to teach at local boards of education. These days, with many government programs being told to justify their existence, a debate is raging over whether...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 5, 2010

What Japan must do now to survive the coming U.S. conflagration

It is no secret that the tectonic plates of the American empire are slipping dramatically, though the vast majority of Americans are blissfully unaware or in denial of what may soon occur.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 5, 2010

Take it slow — but only if it suits you

Slow Life Japan is a sort of movement, or rather an antimovement, that sprouted here and there in the 1990s, little islands of quietude amid the ultra-fast life that had come to seem as unquestionable as modernity itself. Production, consumption, growth, activity, exhaustion — all very well, but what...
Japan Times
SOCCER / World cup
Sep 1, 2010

Zaccheroni wants players to speak up

New national team manager Alberto Zaccheroni has targeted a top-three finish at next January's Asian Cup, and intends to use a velvet glove rather than an iron fist to get there.
SOCCER / World cup
Aug 30, 2010

Oliveira wants to manage Japan

SAITAMA — Kashima Antlers manager Oswaldo Oliveira wants to take charge of Japan's national team and is prepared to walk out on the J. League champions to do so.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Aug 29, 2010

Ramirez eyes 2,000 hits

Alex Ramirez has his eyes on the future.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Aug 26, 2010

Objets d'art with a purpose in life

Working across the grain
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Aug 15, 2010

Silent but deadly in the RAW ring

There is a saying among pro-wrestlers that your true opponent is not the person facing you in the ring, but everyone outside the ring — in other words, the spectators in the stadium and, for some bouts, the millions watching on television.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BY THE GLASS
Aug 13, 2010

East meets West at the dining table

Matching wine with Japanese food can be fraught with difficulty. A refined, oak-aged Bordeaux paired with a cool plate of sashimi, for example, can come across as brash and overbearing, completely drowning out the subtle spectrum of seafood flavors. But that's not to say great matches are impossible....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Aug 10, 2010

Of Charisma Men and Western Women

Last month, The Japan Times invited readers to send in their thoughts on "Charisma Man," originally a comic strip that ran from 1998 in The Alien, a Nagoya-based magazine, but lately something of a byword for the stereotypical nerdy Western guy with the beautiful Japanese girlfriend.
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 8, 2010

Lost worlds of Japan

The sound of bells echoes through the monastery at Gion Shoja, telling all who hear it that nothing is permanent. The flowers of the sala trees show that all that flourishes must fade. Proud men, powerful men will fall, like dreams on a spring night, like dust before the wind.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 7, 2010

Why not ride the sushi train to work?

It is not the fault of the Seto Inland Sea islands themselves that they are suffering from declining populations. It's the glossy brochures put out by local governments that are to blame.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 6, 2010

Hippies and hipsters brave a soggy Fuji Rock

When you're talking about a music festival whose inaugural event was literally wiped out by a typhoon, it can feel a bit petty to complain about the weather. All the same, campers arriving at Fuji Rock Festival in Naeba on Thursday last week might have hoped for a warmer welcome than the torrential downpour...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 31, 2010

Long journey to safe harbor in an unpredictable world

Knowing Japanese troops had caused the deaths of her father's parents and siblings in World War II, Japan was about the last place Ha Thi Thanh Nga expected to end up. Today — some 30 years after arriving here as a refugee — Nga, 49, is helping other compatriots make lives for themselves here.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jul 30, 2010

Japanese dietary tips to prevent summer lethargy

Anyone who has spent a summer in Japan will likely be well- acquainted with natsubate, or "summer fatigue" — a general state of lethargy and tiredness, lack of concentration, sleeplessness and even mild depression.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 30, 2010

LCD Soundsystem bring some edge to Fuji Rock Fest

Share your experience at Fuji Rock with The Japan Times Be sure to check out our live online coverage of the 2010 Fuji Rock Festival at tokyo.japantimes.co.jp. We'll feature interviews with some of the acts, reviews of all the major performances and lots of visuals.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 29, 2010

Fresh vegetables in heart of the city

O n Saturdays and Sundays, a small group of vendors sets up stalls filled with fresh vegetables and fruit outside the Kotsu Kaikan Building, a shopping complex in front of Yurakucho Station, in central Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward. The Kotsu Kaikan Marche, which started in April, is the latest of a growing number...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2010

Living life by the numbers

NEW YORK — Recently I learned that I don't have cancer. My doctor called and said, "I have some good news!" Fortunately, we were in the middle of a fire drill in my office at the time, so no one noticed as I blinked back tears of relief.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jul 27, 2010

How can you beat that summer heat?

Brian GillilandTeacher, 27(American)It's all about the G-string. When you feel like your bottom is naked, that makes you feel cool.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 25, 2010

Computer addiction dulls wits at work

Differences in familiarity with computers are creating ever-wider gaps within the ranks of Japan's salarymen. Evening tabloid Nikkan Gendai (July 17) reports on the emergence of a new type of person at companies who never stops typing on his PC, even while being spoken to by a colleague.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Jul 22, 2010

iPhones become ice-breakers at gokon dating parties

iPhones are helping to lubricate the interaction at Japanese gokon dating parties.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat