Most five-year-old boys in Japan harbor an ambition of becoming a doctor, pop star or professional baseball player but relatively few are able to pursue such dreams throughout their school years and beyond. One individual who has managed to buck this trend is up-and-coming pianist Takashi Yamamoto, who started piano lessons at the age of…

With his lavish silk mandarin jackets and trademark long blond locks of hair, celebrated flower arranger Shogo Kariyazaki looks for all intents and purposes to be the embodiment of his own maxim, ﾔbeauty begets beautyﾕ. And yet this self-proclaimed badge of honor was fostered long before he made regular appearances on TV chat shows, giggling…

If there is one place in Japan that makes the most of its unfulfilled destinies, it has to be Matsue, a luminous city along the atmospheric but otherwise lugubrious Sanﾕin coast. Corroborating this view is its massive castle, Matsue-jo, and its graceful Historical Museum, built in 1903 as a villa to accommodate the Meiji emperor,…

The image I had conjured up of Miss Universe Japan was of an exquisite creature cocooned in an ornate Rococo setting complete with a Greco-Roman water fountain and dainty nibbling sweets from a silver platter. But the office of IBG Japan was on the fifth floor of a non-descript building in Omotesando. Construction of the…

Ice hockey, considered by most to be the purview of toothless Canadians, black-eyed Minnesotans and bloodied Russians has been popular in Japan for years and its popularity has been spreading both in Japan and throughout Asia. Asia League Ice Hockey was formed in 2003 when the Japan Ice Hockey League expanded to other Asian countries…

Last spring my friends and I decided we would stretch our legs a bit and drive down to see the natural and spiritual sights of Kumano in the southeastern part of Wakayama prefecture. The highlights of our trip included a short Kumano Ancient Road experience (kumano kodo), Kumano Hongu Taisha (Kumano Grand Shrine), and the…

A lot of people don’t much like Nagoya, at least on first contact. The complaints about its heat and lack of greenery usually come later. The first thing most people feel when they alight at Nagoya Station is bewilderment. If you like this sort of thing — infinities of shops, the hum and thrum of…

As new amusement facilities burgeon in Tokyo, yesterday’s trendy spot soon becomes forgotten. Yet in the Shitamachi, the old part of Tokyo, there are shops and crafts that have endured the test of time to claim a history of being in business for over 100 years. Funabashiya is an unassuming shop that boasts a history…

If you expect this creator of breathtaking aesthetic spaces to be coiffed in the same sensibility as his works, you will be in for a surprise. Takashi Sugimoto has little regard for superficial appearances. No matter who he is meeting with, he dresses in the same casual manner. He wears Birkenstocks with socks, a charcoal…

The last few decades have seen a literal expansion in people; not in numbers, but in size. Worldwide, particularly in developed nations, people have been getting fatter and less fit. Sedentary lifestyles and cheap, high-fat food has led to this trend, with predictions now that in North America, more than twenty five percent of adults…