NIHON LIFE: Summer Evening on the Wangan
The O-Bon is an annual festival that honors the souls of one’s ancestors. Many Tokyoites head to their hometowns to visit the graves of their forebearers, leaving the city strangely free of its dreaded...
View ArticleNIHON LIFE: Bidding Sayonara to the Hotel Okura
It has no engine, no wheels, and never won any races, but the Hotel Okura is an icon of the Showa Era. Since opening its doors in May 1962, it has hosted every US president since Richard Nixon. In...
View ArticleNIHON LIFE: How to park your car in Japan, Part 01
Finding public or street parking in Japan’s major cities is sometimes chotto muzukashii — a Japanese saying for “a little difficult,” said through clenched teeth with a trailing “iiiii…” it essentially...
View ArticleNIHON LIFE: How to park your car in Japan, Part 02
Sure, owning your own kyuusha in Japan sounds like a lot of fun, but where do you put it? In Part 01 of our damning exposé on the topic of parking an automobile in Japan, we illustrated what was legal...
View ArticleNIHON LIFE: How to park your car in Japan, Part 03
Welcome to the final installment in our multi-part treatise on short-term automobile storage in Japanese society. In Part 01 of the investigation we studied what was within and without the bounds of...
View ArticleNIHON LIFE: How an automaker deals with scandal in Japan
As you may have heard, Mitsubishi Motors experienced a little scandal last year, in which it was found guilty of cheating government fuel economy tests. It sent stock plummeting so badly that Nissan...
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