Yabusame: The Japanese Art of Horseback Archery

Horses and archery probably aren’t the first things that come to mind when you think of Japan, but in fact, bows date back to Japan’s prehistoric Jomon era (14,000-300 BC) and historical records of… Read More →

Mitama Matsuri: Festival of Lanterns

Every July, Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine celebrates the souls of the departed at the Mitama Matsuri. As you may already know, Yasukuni Shrine is rather infamous–the souls of Japan’s war dead are enshrined there, including 14 Class-A… Read More →

Places in Japan: One Fantastic Day in Historic Takayama

Reesan from loneleeplanet has started up a new blogging festival called J-Festa to showcase the best of Japan, and this month’s theme is “Places in Japan.” I thought I would use the opportunity… Read More →

Dreaming of Spring: Children’s Day and Koinobori

I’m getting a little tired of the winter weather here in Tokyo, so since this month’s Japan Blog Matsuri (graciously hosted by loneleeplanet) is themed “famous Japanese events”, I thought I would choose… Read More →

Wordless Wednesday #2: Temple of Snow, Sapporo

Gigantic Replica of Nara’s Horyu-ji Temple, Odori Park, 2006 Sapporo Snow Festival In honor of the 62nd annual Sapporo Snow Festival, which kicked off on Monday. More pictures My original post about the… Read More →

Yokohama Port Opening Festival and Ocean Day

Yesterday, I attended the annual festival commemorating the port opening of Yokohama. 6,000 fireworks were released over the course of an hour and 10 minutes, which made for a pretty good show. My… Read More →

Omi Shrine Festival

So, I promised that I’d post pics from the snippet of the Omi Shrine Festival that I caught this weekend, after my triumphant return from Okinawa. There were apparently a lot of costumes… Read More →

Sapporo Snow Festival

So, despite a long workweek, Rosalind and I flew off to Sapporo on Friday for the 57th Annual Sapporo Snow Festival. The flight from Niigata to Hokkaido took a mere hour and after… Read More →

The Big Snake Festival

Click here to view more photos Originally uploaded by kristi-san. Yesterday, the JET crowd hit up yet another local summer festival. This time it was the “big snake” festival out in Shitada, a… Read More →

Sado Earth Celebration 2005

On Friday, I went over to Sado Island for the annual Earth Celebration Festival with Aaron, Grace, and some of the other ALTs. We drove down to Joetsu and took a ferry to… Read More →