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March 14, 2025
 

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A glimpse at the entrance of Golden Gai, where the vibrant streets invite you to explore its lively nightlife and rich culture.
LIFE / Travel
Stories from behind the bar at Shinjuku's Golden Gai
Once the home of Tokyo's black market, this 6,600 sq. meter district has nearly 300 tiny bars packed into it.
LIFE / Travel
Aboard Japan’s most luxurious train, the journey is the destination
For those with yen to burn, the Seven Stars in Kyushu is one of the most luxurious ways to experience some of southern Japan’s best hidden gems.
LIFE / Travel
Bear skulls and pit dwellings: Hokkaido aims to sell ancient history
The Okhostk culture thrived in northern Hokkaido from the fifth to ninth centuries and may have provided the Ainu with some of their best-known rituals.
In Sakaiminato, Tottori Prefecture, an entire street is dedicated to Japanese spirits, monsters and ghouls — a sign that the overall region is rich in spine-tingling tourist draws.
LIFE / Travel
Feb 22, 2025
Shimane and Tottori to bewitch tourists with supernatural charms
By Zoria Petkoska
The two prefectures are leaning on spooky folklore to draw more travelers.
While Japan deals with so-called overtourism, the rest of the world is just getting back to pre-pandemic levels of visits from international travelers.
LIFE / Travel
Jan 24, 2025
Global tourism is back to pre-COVID highs
By Daniel Silva
Global tourism generated nearly $1.6 trillion (about ¥250 trillion) in 2024, about 3% more than the previous year and 4% more than in 2019.
For some time away from Tokyo's suffocating urban sameness, Yamagata Prefecture is home to a soothing array of natural abundance.
LIFE / Travel
Jan 18, 2025
For tourists in search of seasonal sights, Yamagata makes its case
By Johan Brooks
Japan’s much-lauded four seasons aren’t felt as much in Tokyo as they are in the full, rural vistas of Yamagata Prefecture.
Scheduled to welcome its first guests in early 2025, the Waldorf Astoria Osaka is just one of many luxury hotel openings Japan has seen in recent months.
LIFE / Travel
Jan 4, 2025
Japan’s ‘quiet revolution’ of luxury travel nears fruition
By Tan Pin Yen
“The Japanese luxury travel scene has undergone quite the metamorphosis over the past decade,” says one industry insider.
Tonoike Sake Brewery has been gearing their brewery toward tourism since the late 1980s, attempting to lure tourists to the town of Mashiko.
LIFE / Travel
Jan 3, 2025
Traveling for sake's sake: The emergence of brewery tourism in Japan
By Yukana Inoue
While sake consumption has declined in Japan, breweries across the nation are taking advantage of a rise in overseas interest to promote themselves as tourist destinations.
At each shrine and temple, priests create festive, decorative go-shuin stamps, and you can collect the marks of all seven of the lucky gods on one piece of paper (called a shikishi) to serve as a good-luck talisman.
LIFE / Travel
Dec 27, 2024
Start the new year not with one temple visit, but seven
By Zoria Petkoska
The seven lucky gods pilgrimage is a less hurried alternative to the often-crowded first temple or shrine visit of the year.
Visitors to Kyoto walk along a street near Kiyomizu Temple in April. A popular tourist spot, Kyoto has seen what locals feel to be an overwhelming amount of tourists in 2024.
LIFE / Travel / Longform
Dec 23, 2024
Is Japan ready for 60 million tourists?
By Kathryn Wortley
Inbound tourism to Japan reached a record high in 2024, but managing the crowds and ensuring sustainability remain a challenge.

The U.S. says Japan has a 700% tariff on American rice. Is that the case?
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt holds up a piece of paper with information about tariff rates at the White House on Tuesday.
Man arrested in Tokyo stabbing tracked victim through livestream
Kenichi Takano leaves a police station in Tokyo on Thursday to be sent over to prosecutors.
Concerns grow over possible U.S. tariffs on Japan's auto sector
Toyota vehicles are loaded onto a ship at the Port of Nagoya in June last year.
U.S. steered Syrian Kurds toward Damascus deal, sources say
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa (right) and Syrian Democratic Forces commander-in-chief Mazloum Abdi signing an agreement to integrate the SDF into the state institutions, in Damascus on Monday.
China deploys food as a high-impact, low-cost weapon in tariff fight
Boxes of imported pork from the U.S. at a cold storage warehouse in Shanghai
Taiwan’s No. 2 diplomat seeks higher-level ‘unofficial’ Japan meetings as ties grow
Taiwanese Deputy Foreign Minister Francois Wu told The Japan Times in an interview last week in Taipei that he hopes with the island democracy can strengthen ties with Japan and other like-minded nations “at every level.”
14 years after 3/11 disasters, Fukushima vies to become a startup hub
Aizawa Concrete employees work in the Namie factory in Fukushima Prefecture in January.
‘We are not Ukraine’: Top Taiwan officials temper comparisons after U.S. U-turn
People hold a Ukrainian flag and a Taiwan flag during a protest to mark the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Taipei on Feb. 23.
Tokyo’s vinyl experts say overseas buyers are ‘sustaining the scene’
Rintaro Sekizuka runs a record store in both London and Tokyo’s Katsushika Ward.
Slowly but surely, Osaka emerges from Kyoto’s fine-dining shadow
Bar Bota, the 37th-floor watering hole at the Four Seasons Osaka, looks out on a glittering cityscape better known for its cheap eats and drinks.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Wealthier women in the prewar era had been the targets of various media-related health campaigns that mistakenly encouraged them to avoid everything from riding bicycles to reading novels when their monthly cycles came around.
Menstruation in Japan: Breaking the silence, slowly
By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Yamagata’s Zao Onsen Ski Resort is a classic beauty
Yamagata’s Zao Onsen Ski Resort is a classic beauty

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