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Let’s start by setting the scene. You’re in Japan and in front of you is a plate of carefully cut sashimi, laced with all the trimmings: soy sauce, chilli, the works. It looks fairly innocent, right? Wrong, this is a deadly delicacy. The fish in question is fugu and it’s the most …
The sun blazed over Tokyo's airport, yet a freak blizzard had hit western Japan. Amid travel disruption almost unheard of in the country, our design writer pressed on towards snowbound Fukuoka and Kyushu.
The Shell House is luminous, a sculptural sweep of white concrete set against rich green. Frozen mid-unfurl, the elliptical tube tapers, separates and spirals lazily around an elderly fir tree to form an ethereal inner courtyard.
Conceived as a shell-like structure floating above the ground, this house redefines coexistence with the wild. Being in sync with nature, its architect argues, is not about yielding to it but about enduring alongside it.
If Japan is considered ahead of the curve, electronically and digitally-speaking then any tech lover worth his salt must, at least once, make a rubberneck tour of Akihabara Electric Town in Tokyo.
It seems that Japan is the one nation on earth with an obsession for making the best toilets. Toto is the nation’s front runner and their superbowls deserve commendation.
Luxury hotels come in many guises. At one end, there are the austere temples of Modernism, contemporary palaces of seduction that put the maximal into Minimalism. At the other, there are the places your grandparents liked to stay, perhaps a little formal and maybe even stuffy, but whose su
For a while, back in the 1980’s and 90’s, in the days when Japan’s economic might appeared unstoppable, a particular kind of news story about the country was very much in vogue. Call it the ‘only in Japan’ story, these were snippets that focussed on the country’s more colourful side; its u
Tokyo is all about superlatives – the politest service, the finest food and the hardest working people. But finding the best place to stay takes flexing some plastic as Nicolas Shammas discovers while staying in the Grand Hyatt.