Category Archives: How to…

March 06

Hacking Hanami: How To Get Yourself Invited To A Cherry Blossom Party

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Kicking back under clouds of pink blossoms in the warm spring sun, eating a picnic and drinking with friends – it’s something you always dreamed of doing in Japan, isn’t it? And then you get here, and you discover that unless you’re a member of a work group that puts on a hanami party, you’ll be […]

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March 24

Where To Take The Best Cherry Blossom Photos In Tokyo

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You know those “Top Places To See Cherry Blossoms In Tokyo” websites that always tell you to go to Ueno Park? Well, this is how Ueno Park actually looks during cherry blossom season: Lots of great flowering trees, not such great photos. The places on those lists do deliver the cherry blossoms, but if you want photos that […]

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July 12

Make Your Own Plastic Food…At Home!

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Okay, as the self-diagnosed Queen of Fail when it comes to Japanese crafts (remember the “rabbit” from the animal lollipops workshop?), I was pretty sure that any fake food I made without the experts at the Make Your Own Plastic Food Workshop would look more like something from the compost bin than a reputable kitchen. But so many people told me they were dying […]

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June 16

Let’s Go To Bunny Island!

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If your squee-meter isn’t totally burnt out after Fox Village, it certainly will be, after we check out BUNNY ISLAND! Okunoshima isn’t easy to get to, but that’s why there’s an entire chunk of land off the coast of Japan where adorable bunnies run free, without fear of being eaten (or, obviously, having their natural urges curbed in any way). Okay, admit […]

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June 10

How To Make The Most Beautiful Lollipops In The World

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OK, I admit, I did not make this lollipop. I went to the workshop taught by the artist who made it, but the thing I ended up making did not remotely, remotely, REMOTELY resemble this lollipop. First of all – to be fair – we weren’t supposed to be making goldfish (which is, like, the Mt. Everest of lollipop making). […]

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March 06

How To Ship A Live Fish

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Today at FoodEx Japan – the once-a-year trade show where everyone from honey pepper vodka producers to octopus distributors show their latest and greatest – I discovered how they ship live fish! The dude in the picture above was just looking around, like, “What’s that strange animal floating around up there? I’ve never seen anything like […]

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August 09

Host Club 101

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I’m happy to report that the geisha world is alive and well in Kabuki-chō…only these days it’s populated by gorgeous young guys decked out in visual-kei style whose job it is to entertain women like the princesses we wish we were. When I first started researching Fallen Angel, I discovered just how hard it is for a foreigner to […]

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