The old and new towers running together at Tokyo Marathon today among 36,000 runners. The red Tokyo Tower was built in 1958 and it’s now too short for broadcast antennas.…

Takahashi Naoko was giving an interesting talk at the Tokyo Marathon Expo at Tokyo Big Sight today. She gave marathon tips to a large crowd. Nicknamed “Q-chan,” she was the…

Last Sat. in Yamagata city, I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Takahashi Yoshio (高橋義夫), a prominent, Naoki Prize-winning novelist whose favorite story themes include samurai history and…

Spa Resort Hawaiians in Iwaki, Fukushima is a Hawaiian-themed, hot spring and water park that suffered heavy earthquake damage on March 11, 2011. They partially reopened in Oct. 2011. Finally…

I made this to compare Japan with the US East Coast. Area-wise, Japan is about the same as Montana. But as you can see, it is very spread out, making…

Happy spring! Feb. 3 is Setsubun, which celebrates the coming of spring (even though it’s still freezing here). Every year, I visit a different shrine to watch them throw fuku-mame…