Traditional Japanese Crafts Workshops

The Japan Traditional Craft Center in Tokyo is hosting workshops where, for a small fee, interested people can try their hand at a selection of traditional Japanese crafts. From August 24 through September 5th a variety of "hands on" classes will be offered, including: Nara brush, Gold-leaf hourglass in the Hikone Butsudan style, Handkerchief in the Tokyo Yuzen dyeing style, and several others. For more info call (in Japanese) at (03) 5954-6066 or visit the website.

Want more info on traditional Japanese crafts? Check out the "Handbook for the Appreciation of Japanese Traditional Crafts".

Japanese Food & Culture The Video Way

Videojug is cool new site similar to Youtube and Google Video and learn on your own crowd. , looks at videos for the DIYTheir video selection on Japanese food & culture, though westernized, can still provide some insight for newcomers to the Kanagawa area. I particularly liked the video on serving and drinking sake!

Tokyo Food Page

Everything you wanted to know about eating in Japan and didn't know who to ask.......

Found a great site for anyone interested in eating, and who isn't , right? Tokyo Food Page has a lot to offer. If you want to know about Japanese food, interested in restaurant reviews and recommendations throughout the Kanto area, or even want some quick and easy recipes so you can try to do "Japanese" at home, this site is a great resource for you. Enjoy!

How to Finally Use All Those NWA Frequent Flier Miles

If you've lived in Japan for awhile you've probably accumulated quite a few frequent flier miles on your favorite airline. If you're like me and managed to acquire a boatload of miles on Northwest Airlines, here's a nice tip on how you can actually USE them..... Try for mileage awards on domestic (in Japan) travel via JAL. If you have a mailing address in Japan (even if you're in the US military you can use the base's Japanese address) this works great. Go to the English language page of Northwest Airlines' Japan website and click on Award Travels under Reservations. It should get you here. Go ahead and start your search for convenient flights, just remember when you get towards the bottom of the page and are asked to "Select and airline..." be sure and select "Japan Airlines".

Except for a few very high traffic times of the year (Obon, New Years, etc.) if you plan a month or so out you can almost always use your accumulated NWA miles to buy intra-Japan air flights on JAL. Best of all, round trips will cost you just 15,000 miles! So where can you go from Haneda? How about Kyoto? Or Nagasaki? Or one of my favorite places in the world, Naha, Okinawa.

Mt Fuji & Google Maps

Even if you can't or won't climb Mt Fuji this year, check out Google Maps for a satellite view that's just amazing!

Mt Fuji Climbing Season Ends Soon!

Climb before August 31st......

There's a famous saying along the lines of "Fool me once...." for Mt Fuji, suffice to say that the Japanese believe everyone should climb Mt Fuji ONCE..... If you're planning to climb Fuji-san this year, the official climbing season ends at the end of the month, August 31st.

Negishi Bon Odori..... Bon Dancing, Expats & American Pizza!

The US Navy base in Yokosuka hosts their annual Bon Odori Festival in Negishi, Naka-ku, Yokohama on Saturday, August 26, from 3:00 to 9:00PM. The gates will be open to the public so pretty much anyone is welcome to enter and enjoy the festivities. Always a favorite for Japanese guests and your everyday American expats is the giant America pizza for sale. Check it out!

The Alternative to Cable - SkyPerfect TV

Yes, even in hyper-modern Kanagawa Prefecture (home to Yokohama as well as Yokosuka) there are still some locations that don't have cable TV. This is especially true in the beach communities of Hayama, Zushi and Kamakura. Probably the best alternative I've found is SkyPerfect TV. They have a pretty good users guide, and most electronics retailers can provide installation at a reasonable cost. For around $70 (7,000 yen) a month you can get CNN, Fox, BBC News, several movie channels (with English), and the option of multiple music, sports, and other channels of interests. Yes, it's a bit expensive, but this is Japan after all and until IPTV really allows us to stream content to our televisions via the Internet we have to make do. I bought my SkyPerfect setup from Kojima, the one near the "Homes" store in Yokosuka, but they have stores everywhere. Delivery and installation was around $50 (5,000 yen).

More Chopsticks..... A How-to Guide

One of my favorite sites, wikiHow, has a very useful tutorial on how to use chopsticks. Just think how impressed your friends back home will be when you show them how to "properly" use chopsticks! Enjoy.