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Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS
Jan 7, 2014

Hagi: Real-deal burgers from 1970

There can be no doubting that Snow White's beauty derived in part from the Seven Dwarfs' lack of it. But what they lacked in looks, they made up for in charm. This is how you should approach Hagi, a cafe of considerable charm and irretrievable beauty. Located beside a storm drain in a drab neighborhood...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 25, 2013

Kumakawa blends ballet and business — with panache

Being good at business may be "the most fascinating art," as Andy Warhol said — and few likely know that better than Tetsuya Kumakawa, dancer extraordinaire turned extraordinary businessman.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 7, 2013

Fabled strand of 500 pines

Beautiful beaches, we've all seen our share, right? But a beautiful beach that's also historic and sacred? That sounds worth driving out of our way for — especially as the way takes us over a span I've long yearned to traverse: the Ondo Bridge, a delightful crimson structure over the Ondo Strait, a...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Sep 29, 2013

Good morning Miss Kita-Senju, konbanwa Japan

Perhaps there comes a day in many a man's life when he squints and says to himself something like this: 「まずいなぁ、もう少し度の強いメガネがあったら良かった。この距離だと、あの方が女装している北野武さんなのか、ミス・インターナショナルなのか、分からないや」("Mazui...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Sep 20, 2013

Expat ambient musician and artist prefers not knowing what he's doing

Sitting in his home recording studio in Tokyo, surrounded by dozens of instruments that he has collected over the years, Morgan Fisher is in the center of his universe.
BUSINESS / Economy / 'SUMMER DAVOS' SPECIAL 2013
Sep 10, 2013

Advising visitors to truly see Japan with their own eyes

Last summer at age 66, Seiichi Kondo climbed Mount Fuji for the first time in his life. Friends warned it wouldn't be an easy expedition, and it wasn't. But conquering Japan's highest mountain was essential for what he was about to do next.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 9, 2013

Renovating business and hope in Onomichi

The city of Onomichi in the southeastern part of Hiroshima Prefecture, which looks out to the Seto Inland Sea, has a rich and long tradition as a hub of trade. During the Edo Period (1603-1867), it prospered as a key docking point for domestic ships peddling goods, and from the early 20th century it...
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Aug 31, 2013

Nearly 50 years after epic win, Mills backs Tokyo for 2020

Billy Mills' rise to prominence began nearly 50 years ago. Now, as he looks back on his highly successful career as a distance runner, author, humanitarian and motivational speaker, he reflects on how significant a role the 1964 Tokyo Olympics played in his life.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 8, 2013

'To the Wonder'

An intensely personal film by Terrence Malick ("The Tree of Life," "The Thin Red Line"), "To the Wonder" explores the lives and loves of four people, to the near complete exclusion of everyone else. The films revels in solitude and celebrates seclusion with what seems like voluptuous ardor.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Aug 3, 2013

Toyohiro Akiyama: Cautionary tales from one not afraid to risk all

In December 1990, journalist Toyohiro Akiyama made headlines the world over when he blasted off aboard a Soviet rocket to become the very first "space correspondent" in history.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 3, 2013

Revealing the landscaped gems of North America

North America is not a land mass one immediately associates with gardens. China, Japan, Britain and France, perhaps, lay claim to the mind's strongest landscape associations.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 2, 2013

Guts, glory and shaved ice: Koshien baseball

Summer is not summer in Japan without two things: 1. Heat (OK, so maybe it's not the heat, it's the humidity); and 2 . . .
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 13, 2013

A diary washed ashore opens up a world of multiple realities

A good read transcends into the eternal, melding the real now with a timeless present. Ruth Ozeki's "A Tale for the Time Being" is all that and more: a quietly amazing achievement, a careful construct bridging quantum physics and the role of the reader/observer, a Zen eternity of multiple realities...
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Jun 28, 2013

Car friendly Tokyo stays, and plenty of international cuisine treats

Car-friendly Tokyo accommodation The Hyatt Regency Tokyo is offering a special accommodation plan called Summer Stay, through Sept. 30.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 8, 2013

Esther Williams, champion swimmer and film star, dies at 91

Esther Williams, a championship swimmer and lustrous beauty who became one of the world's most popular movie stars in the 1940s and '50s by appearing in aquatic musicals featuring daredevil plunges from pedestals, trapezes and even a helicopter, died Thursday at her home in Beverly Hills, California....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 26, 2013

Kan Yasuda's tactile art brings new life to Bibai

Kan Yasuda's art somehow draws in the landscape, and entices in people, so that it is natural to explore the view through his structures and keyholes, to sit awhile atop a sculpture or to pose within their frames.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
May 22, 2013

A fortunate life among hot springs

Kazuhiro Shiraishi, 66, is a guest-house manager in the Izu-kogen Highlands, a famous resort area on the Izu Peninsula of Shizuoka Prefecture. Looking out onto the Pacific Ocean, and just 90 minutes by train from Tokyo, Izu has a warm climate all year round and a gorgeous coastline dotted with open-air...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 20, 2013

Product names show language creativity at work

Recently I was asked to write a blurb for a new liquid plant-nutrient. As soon as I saw the name of the product, u65e9u6839u65e9u8d77 uff08Hayane Hayaoki), I smiled at this example of linguistic creativity.
CULTURE / Books
May 19, 2013

Ranpo's novella of a desecrated grave continues to send shivers

There has long been a taste in Japan for the bizarre and abnormal. The experimental Taisho Era was no exception. A desire for sensory experience existed even in cinema. During a funeral scene, for example, an attendant might light sticks of incense in the theater, drawing the audience into the ritual....
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Apr 27, 2013

Carping on carp

Whenever you find someone tossing bits of bread into a pond, you have to assume this:
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Apr 24, 2013

Edoya Nekohachi entertains with animal voices

Animal mimicry artist Edoya Nekohachi, 63, is a third-generation Japanese performer whose precise renditions of hundreds of bird species' songs, as well as frog croaks, dog barks and dolphin whistles have been amusing audiences of all ages for more than 40 years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 18, 2013

Smuggling art into fashion

In 1943, in the midst of World War II, a U.S. Army propaganda drop over Berlin distributed leaflets bearing gruesome images of Adolf Hitler's face partially obscured by a calf's skull. Those who dared to pick one up would never have guessed that the artist who created that foreboding picture was born...
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Apr 10, 2013

Pop tourism gains traction

Pre-flight shopping at Narita airport a couple of weeks ago, I passed a mannequin sporting a light-blue necktie and a turquoise wig with pig tails dangling down to its mini skirt. The vision spoke volumes: It was Hatsune Miku, of course, Japan's holographic, animated virtual pop star, beloved fashion...
CULTURE / Art
Apr 4, 2013

"A Profusion of Flowers: The Language of Flowers and the Encyclopedia of Flowers"

This exhibition features pieces that highlight a Japanese interpretation of beauty within flowers, and is divided into three sections: flowers and people in narrative tales, flowers and birds as Utopian visions, and flowers of the four seasons. The works will be juxtaposed with waka poetry and quotations...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 31, 2013

The 'eternal modern' gardens of Matsuo-taisha

When new buildings were constructed in 1971 at Matsuo-taisha in Kyoto, one of Japan's oldest shrines, the largely self-taught landscape master Mirei Shigemori was commissioned to create a series of gardens on the site.
Japan Times
JAPAN / FORUM ON AFRICA-JAPAN RELATIONS
Mar 30, 2013

Regional challenges: what Japan can do to help

The second session dealt with Africa's regional challenges and development in the overall African economy. Ambassadors Ito, Comberbach and Arrour were joined by Ambassador Wasswa Biriggwa of Uganda, chairman of the ADC TICAD Committee; Ambassador Godwin N. Agbo of Nigeria, vice chairman of the ADC Trade...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 22, 2013

Tokyo art blossoms in spring

It seems that this year everything is coming together for the Tokyo art world, literally.

Longform

Eme-Ima Kitchen is one of over 10,000 kodomo shokudō in Japan. A term first used in 2012 to describe makeshift eateries offering free or cheap meals to disadvantaged kids, it now refers to a diverse range of individuals, groups and organizations working to provide not only food but a sense of belonging to both children and adults.
Japan’s ‘children’s cafeterias’ are booming — but is that a good thing?