According to the Shitamachi Museum, the area of Tokyo known as “Shitamach”, less a physical entity to many than a state of mind, comprises the actual districts of Fukagawa, Honjo, Asakusa, Shitaya, Nihonbashi, Kyobashi and Kanda. That said, the exact boundaries of this area are still contested. Geographically, for example, the Ginza lies within the…

Kosuke Kitajima certainly has presence, so much so that on meeting him my hands unexpectedly shake as I fumble for my business card. It is the way he walks, the way he stands, the way his white Coca-Cola training suit does little to conceal his evident strength Ð an aura totally at odds with his…

The skies of Provence are, to be sure, a rare and unique phenomena. The light they cast down over the sycamore, cypresses, plane trees, baked roof tiles and the high, aerial villages perched on their improbable rock escarpments, provides just the right touch of chiaroscuro and drama to enhance all the best loved components of…

It is often said that opposites attract, and nowhere does this aphorism hold truer than in the relationship between the land of the rising sun and the land of the tricolore. On the face of it, one would be hard-pressed to come up with two more starkly dissimilar cultures: the former is generally characterized as…

Customers of world-renowned French chef Joel Robuchon, dining at the Chateau Joel Robuchon at Ebisu Garden Place or any other establishments under his name in Tokyo or other countries, obviously marvel at the great cook’s success and uniqueness. Little do they know that in order to carve out a niche for himself here in the…

Adventurers with a penchant for physical exertion simply must free up a couple of days in the schedule, grab a pair of sturdy boots and head off to conquer Mount Fuji. The official climbing season runs from July 1 to August 27 and although climbing outside these dates is not, strictly speaking, illegal, it is…

The America’s Cup is arguably the most difficult trophy in sport to win. In more than 150 years since a yacht named America, representing the New York Yacht Club, beat the best the British could offer and win the Royal Yacht Squadron’s 100 Guinea Cup, only three nations other than the United States Australia, New…

Welcome to the world of Nobuyoshi Araki, Japan’s infamous bad boy of photography. When one meets renowned artists for the first time, one often notices a disparity in expectation and reality, where the individual they are meeting is in actual fact nothing like the person they imagined beforehand. In the case of Araki, however, the…

Shoichi and Colleen Sakurai have a keen eye for beauty lurking in the outmoded and old, things they can rework and incorporate into their unique illuminated sculptures. Together they reimagine found objects and manipulate them to create witty, imaginative works of art. Much of the Sakurais’ work incorporates parts of old Japanese farm buildings and…

 It seems like It seems like yesterday that environmentalism was a fringe issue, dismissed by some and comfortably ignored by many. Ideas of sustainability and conservation were considered the stuff of radicals and bohemians – stuck on the periphery outside the consciousness of the mainstream. The ravaging effects of that inaction are starting to be…