Dec 4, 2012

Note: The other day the local TV station did a feature on this year’s job hunting college students. Seeing the young people’s plain dark suits and faces—full of hope and uncertainty, fear and anxiety—reminded me of long ago, when I was among them. I wrote this article in retrospect, interspersing the text with photos of Ginza, Tokyo where the...

Oct 3, 2012

The Oktoberfest has come to town! Yey! Several of these are held around Japan in October: the one in Yokohama is the nicest of them all 🙂 I say this because the venue is at the Yokohama Akarenga-soko, red-bricked warehouses turned event complex. These are historical buildings completed during the turn of the 20th century. What could be a more appropriate...

Sep 21, 2012

Where to go when you want to see night views overlooking Yokohama Bay in Japan? The obvious choice would be the 60+-storey Landmark Tower’s observation deck. But the admission fee is rather expensive there. If you’re pinching pennies like me then place to be is the Yokohama Marine Tower. It’s right at the end of Yamashita Park, offering a...