Japan Navigator

Japan Newbie has a nice piece on a kushikatsu restaurant in Juuso, Osaka, run by an elderly couple. The cook wears berets and the wife is extremely forgetful, but the taste is great.
The New York Times features Mori Minoru of Roppongi Hills fame in The Builder Who Pushes Tokyo Into the Clouds. Yes, Mr Mori [...]

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As suits an international city, the Kobe City Museum is devoted to the themes of “International Cultural Exchange” and “Contact Between and Changes in Eastern and Western Cultures.” It has been accommodated in a former bank building with Dorian columns from the nineteen-thirties. The museum opened in 1982 after the merger of two museums that [...]

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Although I had been living for a year in Kobe, I had not yet made my way to that part of the city where the hot springs of Arima are located. There was no need to play the tourist, I thought, but last weekend curiosity drove me if not to the baths themselves, at least [...]

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What is this year’s sakura timetable? You will find the best English guide here, at the Japan Metereological Agency!
But don’t leave just yet, as here are some more interesting sakura links:
Stories from Japan Navigator:

Sakura, sakura – some literary associations from the cherry front

One of the best sakura viewing spots in Kyoto: Nishiyama

An even better [...]

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Look here for a sakura (cherry blossom) timetable!
As spring finally draws near, the first warm days bring a certain giddiness. And expectation. The great “sakura (cherry blossom) wave” is about to roll over our heads, enveloping us in its pinkish extremeties… sake and sakura, what better combination could there be?

[Sakura. Photo © Ad Blankestijn]
The sakura [...]

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I am starting a new series where I will look into the regional varieties of Japanese sake. The first one is Kyoto!

[Fushimi sake district, Kyoto]
Kyoto Prefecture is in volume the second sake producing prefecture in Japan – after Hyogo’s Nada district. That is all thanks to the breweries in the southern part of the prefecture, [...]

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As the International Herald tribune reports, foreign minister Komura Masahiko has appointed Doraemon as Japan’s first cartoon ambassador.

The robot cat, who is especially popular in Asia, promised:
Through my cartoons, I hope to convey to people abroad what ordinary Japanese people think, our lifestyles and what kind of future we want to build.
Perhaps the [...]

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The Mitsukoshi Department Store has bought a small Buddhist wood statue carved by famous Kamakura-period master Unkei at Christie’s in New York for $12.8 million. The Dainichi Nyorai (Cosmic Buddha) figure brought in more than ten times the estimated price – this is the highest price ever offered for any Buddhist artwork in the world [...]

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Shunbun no Hi or the “Vernal Equinox” (when day and night are of equal length) is a Japanese national holiday established in the Meiji-period “so that people could commune with nature and show their love for all living things.” It is usually celebrated on March 20 or 21. Similarly, in September, there is an Autumnal [...]

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Toyotomi Hideyoshi built Osaka castle in 1585, five years before he completed the reunification of Japan. The donjon was five stories high on the outside and eight on the inside, making it a fitting symbol of the generalissimo’s rule.

[Osaka Castle - Photo © Ad Blankestijn]
After his death in 1598 Hideyoshi had himself deified and [...]

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