When the Yomiuri Giants won the Japan Series last autumn, the sigh of relief from millions of fans and the domestic media was almost audible. After a gap of seven years in which relative upstarts and ‘minor’ names such as the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters and Chiba Lotte Marines from the Pacific League lifted aloft…

Saitama has nice little mountains and pretty rivers, but not having beachfront property seriously diminishes the prefecture’s status on the recreational scale. Kanagawa is famous for its beaches and rolling hills. But fame has a hefty price in terms of fighting the weekend crowds. For down-to-earth fun, Chiba is the place to go. CHIBA IN…

For centuries, the Japanese – like many in Europe and elsewhere with a similar length of recorded history – never ventured far from their birthplace. Subsistence farming was for so long the norm in both regions and for much of the rest of the planet, leading to local area specialties forming regional staples and a…

Japan’s affluence grew in the late seventies and throughout the eighties. Hordes of people moved out of their cramped apartments and into more palatial dwellings. With the dream houses and condominiums came the pets – a surefire way of announcing to your friends and neighbors that you were in the money. And so started Japan’s…

 Where there are shrines, temples and other holy places in Asia, invariably there are markets. In this respect, Japan is no exception. Commerce flows, as it were, in through the temple gates and then out, a cordial division of profits that is to everyone’s satisfaction. You could sneak through the back streets of Dazaifu in…

How do you spot the sole artist in a room? Besides the telltale clues like a sketchpad and beret (well, I’m kidding about the beret), he’ll likely be chuckling to himself about some joke that’s lost on left-brainers. Or perhaps he’ll be pointing out the bad design that prevents your spoon from scooping out the…

Culture is a fluid thing. It washes through history, sweeping up customs and practices on the periphery and incorporating them into the aptly named mainstream. It ripples between classes, seeps across borders, and, like all liquids, flows from the top down. Japanese history can be looked at as a series of waves of adoption and…

I always look forward to our family’s annual Disney pilgrimage, and I’m never disappointed. As someone who neither likes roller coasters or Mickey Mouse, let me explain the many ways that Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea appeal to me. Disney parks are pop cultural museums. A 50-year-old artist friend once said her dream project would have…

Rebecca Rayborn was born on March 6, 1984. Her father is British. In 2008, she replaced Ueto Aya as Japan’s ‘CM Queen,’ an accolade which is awarded to the star who appears in the most TV commercials in a year – in other words, Japan’s most marketable face. Never heard of her? Don’t worry, under…

With the world’s lowest infant mortality rate, Japan appears to be an ideal place to give birth. But having baby is more than a medical procedure, and personal beliefs play a huge role. If you can accept Japan’s cultural idea about childbirth, then you can take advantage of the impressive post-partum care at many hospitals…