The Ninja Museum If you want to know more about ninjas, take a trip to the Ninja Museum in Igaryu, Mie Prefecture. The museum is made to resemble a ninja house, where the ninjas had meetings, made weapons, and prepared gunpowder. From the outside, it looks like a nondescript farmhouse, but inside, the house is an ingenious mix of hidden pathways and defense systems...
A once quiet residential area near Kyoto Station known as Sujin- shinmachi is being redeveloped and will soon be home to Kyoto City University of the Arts, which is moving in from the suburbs. In the meantime, something called Yatai-Mura has sprung up there. What is Yatai-Mura? A yatai is a traditional Japanese food cart. They can be seen in any downtown or main...
Kobe is a booming modern city with a vital seaport, skyscrapers, and shopping malls. At the same time, it is home to older enclaves where Westerners settled and a thriving Chinatown because of its long history as a trading center. These aspects have attracted more tourists to the city to imbibe the unique international atmosphere. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll find that Kobe...
When I visit Japan, one of the highlights of my trip is to indulge in the delicious food. As I have a sweet tooth, I am especially in heaven with all those confections, from the traditional Japanese sweets to the European-influenced baked goods available in Japan. At the end of the trip, I even check out the airport shops to buy additional sweets to...
A royal warrant is issued to purveyors of food and goods used regularly by His Imperial Majesty and the Japanese Imperial Family. The Imperial Household Ministry (predecessor to today’s Imperial Household Agency) established guidelines for the royal warrants in 1891. Only suppliers that met the Imperial Household Ministry’s standards were eligible to receive a warrant. Contrary to what you might expect from such a...
On May 1, a new emperor ascended the throne in Japan, officially ending the Heisei era and beginning the Reiwa era. This reset the count on the Japanese imperial year, or wareki. In Japan, the year is now Reiwa 1. What does this all mean? We’ll explain. The Japanese imperial-year system has been used since emperor Jinmu was enthroned in BC 660. That’s 2,459...
