Japanese summers, south of the Tohoku and below five hundred metres, are notoriously hot and tropically muggy. In the heat islands of the major cities, things get particularly steamy: August temperatures in Tokyo are generally over thirty degrees Celsius; nights rarely dip below the mid twenties. Osaka and Kyoto are typically a few degrees warmer,…

Though today’s city is a pleasant, relaxed enough place, Aizu-Wakamatsu’s strongest ties are to its past, a history that it draws nourishment from in the present and uses to fill out the otherwise rather featureless contours of the city. A major castle town on the all important trunk road north from Edo, the city’s fortunes…

“Are you sure you’ve got the right Chuck Wilson?” The man across the table is obviously joking, but the question still gives me a moment’s doubt—the Chuck Wilson I had arranged to meet is a power lifting champion, judo expert, and former television personality. The man I’m talking to is large, but not remarkably so,…

The International Rugby Board Junior World Championship (IRB JWC) is the world’s most prestigious competition for international teams at the U-20 level of the game and on Friday, June 5 this tournament, comprised of sixteen of the world’s finest teams, will kick off at stadiums in Tokyo, Aichi, Osaka, Fukuoka and Saga prefectures. Not only…

With their massive dark wooden beams, whitewashed exteriors and grass-thatched roofs held together without the support of a single nail, bolt or piece of metal, it’s easy to see why architects from around the world marvel at the craftsmanship of traditional Japanese minka farmhouses. Unlike modern Japanese houses, which typically are around for only 20…

Among other claims to fame, the town of Kishiwada has the dubious honor of being the setting for director Miike Takashi’s ultra-violent, 1997 movie, Young Thugs, Innocent Blood, a harrowing account of growing up in a severely dysfunctional family. It’s difficult matching the scenes in the film with the tranquility of today’s town, though its…

It is practice day for the Tokyo Apaches. Although you may be a professional basketball team, because your league is new and an upstart (Japan’s new BJ League), you have to practice at the local YMCA. You can’t linger long after practice either because a very serious group of middle-aged badminton ladies have the gym…

For slam-dunks, sweet jumpers and non-stop end-to-end action, the National Basketball Association (NBA) is the league to watch. Going all the way back to 1946, the NBA has been the top men’s professional basketball league in North America with support and fans growing every year. The NBA has grown from a league low of just…

You breathe in steam, the smell of soap. The water around you is so hot that it feels like it is melting through your skin, dissolving the knots in your calves and the tension in your shoulders. When you step out of the water, skin steaming, you are clean and utterly refreshed. This is the…

You might say there are two Okinawa’s. The first we all know because it is tirelessly promoted on TV, milked to the last drop by tour operators. The other is a little harder to define: small islands out of the mainstream, where life goes on without the fuss and flurry of activity that precedes the…