Lifestyle
The story behind the launch of SAKEGEEK by Sake Lovers Inc
In 2018, two Japanese female sake sommeliers, Yuki Imanishi and Kyoko Nagano, launched Sake Lovers Inc to spread the love of sake and to support the small craft sake breweries in Japan by exporting their products. While sake has more than 2,000 years of history and is Japan’s national drink,… Read
How your emotional response to the pandemic changed your behavior and sense of time
The COVID-19 pandemic, now in its 19th month, has meant different things to different people. For some, it’s meant stress over new school and work regimes, or anxiety over the prospect of catching COVID-19 and dealing with the aftereffects of an infection. But for others, it’s created space and freedom… Read
Super Mario and Pikachu join forces for new parade at Universal Studios Japan
Even if you’re not into Hollywood blockbusters, there are some pretty compelling arguments for planning a visit to Universal Studios Japan. The Osaka park has been rapidly allying itself with one Japanese video game or anime franchise after another, and now they’ve got so many stars in their corner that two… Read
Growing American football on Japanese turf
How do you grow a sport in a nontraditional market? On a cool and rainy October afternoon at Fujitsu Stadium Kawasaki, the ball is snapped and pitched out wide. Two lines of enormous men collide: some trying to clear pathways, and their opponents trying to seal them. The ball carrier… Read
U.S. college student learns the hard way to get your Japanese kanji tattoo checked by an expert
When choosing a design for a tattoo, most people want something that’s not just cool or beautiful, but meaningful as well. And since you’re going to have the thing forever, an aesthetic that’s already stood the test of time is preferable to some trendy symbol that might feel played out in… Read
New project turns kimonos from 1950s and ’60s into high-fashion dresses
As beautiful as expensive, fancy kimono are, you may only get a handful of opportunities to wear one. They tend to be associated with special holidays like the first shrine visit of the New Year, graduation, or special events. So the sad fact is that unless your kimono is specifically tailored to be… Read
Survey picks Japan’s most attractive prefectures – Familiar spots at top and bottom of rankings
On a map of the world, Japan looks like a pretty tiny place. Zoom in to a map of just Japan, though, and you’ll see that it has 47 different prefectures, and every year Japan’s Brand Research Institute conducts a survey asking respondents to rate the attractiveness of Japan’s prefectures. To… Read
Kansai area people more genetically predisposed to liking coffee than elsewhere in Japan
As the old saying goes, “you are what you eat,” but recent research is showing that “we eat what we are” might be more accurate. In other words, our tastes and dietary habits might have more to do with what’s embedded in our DNA than we had previously thought. One… Read
How the pandemic has changed classroom learning for the visually impaired
Avoiding risk of infection during the pandemic means reducing contacts in our routines, but the sense of touch has been crucial for visually impaired people, so how have they been adjusting, particularly in the classroom? Rie Kiyono started teaching her community English class in Tokyo’s Takadanobaba area on a Saturday… Read
Time Out reveals the World’s Coolest Neighbourhoods right now
Time Out has revealed that Nørrebro in Copenhagen tops its fourth annual World’s Coolest Neighbourhoods list: the cultural and culinary hotspots that are leading the way as we begin to emerge from the pandemic. Since 2018, Time Out’s World’s Coolest Neighbourhoods list has been collated using responses from the Time… Read
