Winter is a time where we often have more time on our hands than we know what to do with. It is cold, wet, and mostly dark, so we often...[ Click to read more ]
It been a warm winter so far, but it is finally beginning the drop into the single digits. With that said, the possibility of snow begins to come to mind....[ Click to read more ]
While the cherry blossom is the flower that tends to dominate the imagination of Japanese botanic appreciation, it is perhaps the plum (ume) blossom that should be the more celebrated....[ Click to read more ]
Oshogatsu, or New Year, is the most important holiday in Japan. Businesses shut down from January 1 to January 3, and families gather to spend time together. During the New...[ Click to read more ]
Many people arrive in Japan from places where it simply does not get cold and are unaware that they need to worry about things like frozen pipes. In most places...[ Click to read more ]
Let's be honest for a moment: Tokyo is an amazing place, but sometimes all that concrete and urban bustle can get to even the best of us. What does a...[ Click to read more ]
Ramen is a classic Japanese food. If you ask a random person, foreign or Japanese, male or female, what their favorite food is, you are highly likely to get "ramen"...[ Click to read more ]
Japan hosted the first-ever Winter Olympics in Asia at Sapporo in 1972, but the country already had a rich history of playing on snowy mountain slopes. Although you won't find...[ Click to read more ]
Ice skating has a long history as skates made of animal bones dating back 5,000 years were found at the bottom of a lake in Switzerland. It's unknown when the...[ Click to read more ]
The turn of the year is holiday time in Japan when people are off work to celebrate the New Year with parties, family gatherings, culinary feasts, and hatsumode. Hatsumode is...[ Click to read more ]