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JAPAN / WHEN A CITY GOES BUST
Mar 2, 2007

Once Tokyo's spa playground, Atami fading fast

ATAMI, Shizuoka Pref. -- Tamae "Meme" Ono remembers fondly the late 1980s when the hot spring resort of Atami was a glamorous place to be.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 2, 2007

Brasserie Paul Bocuse Le Musee: given the museum treatment

The wraps came off the new National Art Center in late January, revealing Kisho Kurokawa's tour de force in all its glory. The sinuous, bulging facade is remarkable enough, but it's the vast atrium inside that undulating skin of celadon-green glass that really stops you in your tracks.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Feb 23, 2007

Put on your red shoes and dance

In December 1981, a small bar named Red Shoes opened in the basement of a building next to the bus stop near Nishi-Azabu crossing. Though only a stone's throw from what is now a busy intersection, in those days as soon as the sun went down the area was deserted. In terms of partying, Roppongi was the...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 11, 2007

Mammon and myopia: Japan's governing '70s legacy

Over the past three weeks I have looked back in this column at the decades leading up to the 21st century, which has to date seen a marked shift in Japanese domestic and international policy back toward a not-so-new form of nationalism. In this last article I discuss the 1970s, when critical decisions...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 9, 2007

Treading on thick ice

Among the places in Japan where, over the years, my trusty old backpack and I have poked about in Japan -- from the southern tip of Okinawa Island, to the far-flung Ogasawaras 1,000-km south of Tokyo, and to Wakkanai and Rishiri Island in northern Hokkaido -- very high on my list of top 10 destinations...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 11, 2007

Rooms for art

The hotel, be it flophouse or five-star, is what distinguishes cosmopolitan man from the nomad. Yes, it may be a humdrum need for shelter and food that brings us to hotels. But when we slip into that unfamiliar room, and for one night make it our own, we can also find ourselves transported to a different...
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 10, 2006

Politics at the grass roots

Judging by the society pages of certain publications in Japan, politicians at both the local and national levels seem to spend a lot of their time being photographed with ambassadors, captains of industry, assorted aristocrats, passing film stars and all manner of other folk.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Dec 8, 2006

Sitting on the dock of the bay

Occupying a space comparable to that of Tokyo Dome, the newly opened Urban Dock LaLaport Toyosu is officially Tokyo's largest shopping mall.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / LIFE LAB
Nov 28, 2006

A feast for fish in search for beauty

Growing up in the countryside, a lot of my youth was spent swimming in lakes and rivers for as many summer days as the weather would provide. I had no fear of cannon-balling off high cliffs, I was never bothered by the scrapes of underwater rocks and boulders, and no matter how how fast the current,...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 26, 2006

Time to sink or swim for TV fish pundit Sakana

In September, the TV personality known as Sakana-kun was appointed to the position of guest assistant professor by the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Nov 17, 2006

Sakura Sakura: After dark in the alleys of Kagurazaka

NOTE: Sakura Sakura is no longer in business.
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2006

Banned goods to North listed

goods that are likely to be used by (government and party) executives, and those they are likely to give to their subordinates," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki told a news conference. "North Korea's leaders need to be sent a strong message from the international community" and abide by the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Nov 10, 2006

Gucci hits Ginza

Gucci's new home in Tokyo is the first store built specifically to house the Italian superbrand. Last week, Gucci opened the doors of an eight-story glass-and-steel flagship store in Ginza.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Nov 3, 2006

Citabria: Fine dining that really takes flight

Special people deserve special occasions. But finding exactly the right place for that celebratory dinner is easier said than done -- especially when your criteria are as stringent as ours.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 1, 2006

Temples grope for gimmicks to stay relevant, flush

The Kamiyacho Open Terrace cafe in central Tokyo has all the trappings of a trendy establishment -- good coffee, homemade desserts, an airy terrace.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Oct 31, 2006

Slow food, an attitude as much as a meal

In the 1960s, Japan's first instant ramen changed people's eating habits significantly by making it possible to get dinner in as little as three minutes. Even putting fast food and microwave dinners aside, eating has become easier and more functional since those days, due either to higher living standards...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Oct 6, 2006

Animal magic in the jungle of Setagaya

Taxi drivers claim that, unless you've lived there all your life, Setagaya is nearly impossible to navigate. Major thoroughfares pulse straight across the second largest of Tokyo's 23 wards, but off the highway a maze of tapering, winding one-way alleys will often as not dead-end you in someone's back...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Sep 29, 2006

Finding the finest foods from afar

Tokyo is not just one of the world's great restaurant cities, it's equally good for those who prefer to cook at home. Name the country or cuisine: Chances are you can find whatever ingredients you need, if not at your local supermarket, then certainly without having to leave the metropolis.
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 24, 2006

Koizumi's Shake, Rattle & Roll

Elvis impersonator? Japan's Thatcher? Faction buster? Nah, as the curtain falls on the Koizumi show, he will be remembered above all for his missed opportunities and self-indulgent gestures at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo -- that, and steamrollering the Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9 into oblivion....
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Sep 17, 2006

Noodles with attitude

Chairman Mao Zedong -- who back in 1935 wrote that his nation's basic task was "to oppose the attempt of Japanese imperialism to annex China" -- obviously had some, shall we say, issues with the Middle Kingdom's diminutive neighbor to the east.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 15, 2006

Fishing around for a piece of history

"Enjoy it while you can," says Professor Theodore Bestor of Harvard University. He's referring partly to Tsukiji's famous fish market and partly to sushi and to the fact that "some species are at risk of becoming commercially extinct."
BUSINESS
Sep 8, 2006

Newspapers to set up joint Web site

A group of 51 newspaper publishers in Japan including The Japan Times said Thursday it will establish a new company this month that will create a Web site containing news and regional information.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 8, 2006

Shizuka Gozen dances the dance in Kamakura

The Tokyo-based Public Art Forum is organizing a day of cultural activities in Kamakura on Sept. 30. The forum is organizing a lecture on the role of women who lived in samurai society, including a walking tour of places in Kamakura where these women frequented, such as Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine, and...
JAPAN
Sep 7, 2006

Fans, patients, shop owners weigh in on Imperial birth

Amid heavy security Wednesday, the media, Imperial enthusiasts and well-wishers swarmed to prestigious Aiiku Hospital in Minato Ward, Tokyo, during the wee hours to wait for Princess Kiko to give birth.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 20, 2006

A nation of animal lovers -- as pets or when they're on a plate

The Japanese consider themselves a compassionate people when it comes to an animal's fate. Memorial stones have been erected in whaling villages since the early Edo Period (1603-1867), as they are today at slaughterhouses. Buddhist priests are hired to read the sutras before altars set with incense and...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 6, 2006

Superstar spituralist in Fuji's "SMAP X SMAP" and more

Superstar spiritualist Hiroyuki Ehara is the special guest this week on "SMAP X SMAP" (Fuji, Monday, 10 p.m.). The boy band will host him in the SMAP Bistro, where he orders "spiritual potato cuisine," saying that the lowly spud is "spiritual food" since it "boils up human energy," whatever that means....

Longform

Yasuyuki Yoshida stirs a brew in a fermentation tank at his brewery in Hakusan.
The quake that shook Noto's sake brewing tradition