Iruma Air Show
Nov. 3 is when the annual Iruma Air Show is held at Iruma Air Base in Sayama, Saitama Prefecture. It’s one of Japan’s most spectacular free shows. The main attraction…
Japan Blog by Philbert Ono
Nov. 3 is when the annual Iruma Air Show is held at Iruma Air Base in Sayama, Saitama Prefecture. It’s one of Japan’s most spectacular free shows. The main attraction…
The classic-looking hairstyle you see on geisha in Kyoto, etc., is usually called Shimada-ryu. Why is it called “Shimada-ryu?” One leading theory says that it originated in Shimada, Shizuoka Prefecture.…
The current visit to Japan by Kim Hyon Hui, a former North Korean agent who planted a bomb which brought down a Korean Air jetliner in 1987, is reminding us…
L&L Hawaiian BBQ is a restaurant chain based in Hawaii. They specialize in what we call “plate lunches” which typically consists of two scoops of rice, a scoop of macaroni…
After 3 years of neglect, I’ve finally revamped this Japan Blog and hope to start writing here again. The previous blog system was so cumbersome to use, and upgrading it…
Our online photo gallery at PHOTOGUIDE.JP/pix/ has undergone a major makeover upon the upgrade of the software that runs it. It now has a new look and feel even though…
Released in Japan on Sept. 12, 2009, this movie is about Okabe Mataemon, a Nagoya (Atsuta)-based master carpenter who in 1576 was ordered by Japan’s leading warlord Oda Nobunaga to…
I just saw a screening of my friend Peter MacIntosh’s documentary geisha film called Real Geisha Real Women at The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo on June 22,…
Gunkanjima, a small and intriguing abandoned island used for coal-mining in Nagasaki Prefecture, is now open to tourists from April 22, 2009. The large apartment buildings atop the island make…
Spotted this camera phone while I was watching a festival in Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture. It’s not a clamshell type phone. The top slides upward to reveal numeric keys underneath. Such…