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Category Archives: Japan Travel
Welcome to Nagano
Welcome to Nagano AJET Who we are: Nagano AJET is a group for anyone living in Nagano who wants to be part of the international community. We organise monthly gatherings, such as camping trips and barbecues in summer, Thanksgiving Dinner … Continue reading
Posted in Events, Japan Travel, Lifestyle, Nagano AJET, Outdoors, Snow and Ice, Sports
Tagged Featured, IYC, Ski, Snowboard, Winter
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Nagano Summer Music Festivals
photos and write-ups by Whitney Conti Ueda Joint August 6,7,8: Ueda Castle, Ueda Sandwiched between the Ueda city outdoor skate park and Ueda Castles’ high stone walls, Ueda Joint combines earthtones with skateboards and psychedelic jazz with jam band rock. … Continue reading
Posted in 5 Sound. JuneJuly. 2010, Hakuba, Iiyama, Japan Travel, Kiso, Nagano, Places, Ueda
Tagged Peaceful Garden Festival, Sagawa Festival, Ueda Joint Festival
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Nagano in a Nutshell: N,S,E,W,Central
photos and text by Whitney Conti Nagano is the kind of inaka which attracts famed artists, first class alpinists, and a rich culture based around local food and unique landscape. However, the prefecture’s English tourism information is limited and often … Continue reading
Posted in Azumino, Hakuba, Japan Travel, Kamikochi, Kiso, Matsumoto, Nagano, Nagano City
Tagged Nagano
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Zen Soba Bar and Restaurant, Hakuba
Zen is frequently recommended by locals for its combination of traditional architecture and the diversity and locality of its menu. Local wine and sake, traditional soba with mountain vegetables, and newer variations like octopus with spicy olive oil and garlic … Continue reading
Posted in Hakuba, Japan Travel, Japanese, Nagano, Places
Tagged Hakuba, soba, zen restaurant
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Kiyousumi-Shirakawa: Escaping Tokyo’s Heat withContemporary Art and Traditional Gardens
photos and text by Whitney Conti Accessing Tokyo’s best arts can mean massive crowds, busy train stations, and oceans of concrete, but it doesn’t have to. The 15 minute walk to Tokyo’s Museum of Contemporary Art, or MOT, from Kiyousumi-Shirakawa … Continue reading
Posted in Japan Travel, Tokyo
Tagged Featured, Kiba Park, Kiyosumi Garden, Kiyosumi Shirakawa
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Getting in and Out of Nagano: Highway Buses, Trains, and Tolls
There are 3 main forms of transportation around Nagano prefecture: 1) JR Trains ( Check www.hyperdia.com or www.jorudan.co.jp for train times and stations) 2) Highway Bus 3) Car (Driving Directions: maps.google.com) -The InterChange or I.C. is often the fastest and … Continue reading
Posted in Transportation, Travel Japan
Tagged Highway Bus, Highway Rest Stops, JR trains, Transportation
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The Buisness and Burritos of Surviving as a Community Art Space in Tokyo
by Whitney Conti Traci Consoli is an idealist and a workaholic. Ten years ago, she was an active painter living in Tokyo, but since opening Shibuya’s international art mecca and burrito haven, The Pink Cow, she works 100 hours a … Continue reading
The Hidden Kaiten Gem Under Shinjuku Bus Terminal
photo and text by Whitney Conti When a friend in Nagano told me that her favorite sushi in all of Tokyo was located below Shinjuku’s highway bus terminal I thought I had misunderstood her Japanese. However, if you venture down … Continue reading
Toyooka, Crab County, Where the Crab is Plenty and the People Are Genki.
By Tajima Correspondent Esperanza Urbaez They came from far and wide to witness the grand display of the freshest, biggest and most delicious crab in all of Hyogo at the 19th Toyooka Tuiyama Port Crab Festival. Held by the Toyooka … Continue reading
Posted in Festivals, Hyogo
Tagged crab, Festivals, japan, mochitsuki, Toyooka, Tuiyama
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U.S. for Okinawa Report
From April 1st to April 4th US for OKINAWA, a Tokyo-based peace action network, organized a study program to Okinawa’s main island. The goal was simple: to experience what is really happening in regards to the U.S. military’s Futenma Air … Continue reading
Posted in 4 Smell. April. May. 2010, News, Okinawa, Politics, The YomoYama
Tagged activism, Featured
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Tokyo’s Cat Cafes
Cattery Will Get You Nowhere by Michael Richey When some friends asked me and my wife if we wanted to go to a cat cafe, I did as I should have and shrugged a “Sure,” as my wife jumped up … Continue reading
A Ramentary Diptych
By Andrew Tamashiro This article is sort of a two-in-one. I visited Makoto Ramen in Himeji earlier this year, but found no good reason to write about it before. I guess it’s time to start talking about ramen I actually … Continue reading
April’s Reason Why Awaji Kicks Ass (Epicure Edition): Takoyaki Shack
By Jonathan “Ruggles” Cooper. Takoyaki. A single takoyaki is much like our planet Earth. At the center you have a core of octopus meat. Then there is the searing, loose batter portion (also known as the mantle of the takoyaki), … Continue reading
Miki Horseland Park
By Ferra-Lynn McCaffery The sun briefly filters through the canopy of deciduous trees above us, speckling dead leaves littering the path below with golden hints of warmth. However, what sunshine there is does little to warm me, as the biting … Continue reading
Onbashira Festival First Hand
The early morning buzz rose through the streets along with the smell of tako-yaki and yaki-ika as the festival stalls opened shop. Sake was being offered all around before a group of us set off to get optimum seats to … Continue reading
Posted in Festivals, Nagano, Suwa
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5 Weekend Travel Ideas from Toyama
By Jon Perry Now that the New Year traveling season is over, and you have come back from whichever exotic locale you chose to see in 2010, you might be thinking that your next trip anywhere outside the prefectural boundaries … Continue reading
Posted in Travel Japan
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Ramentary
By Andrew Tamashiro If you’re a ramen freak like me, you’ve probably picked up the latest Kansai issue of Ramen Walker, a magazine that comes out every year (I think) in various regions throughout Japan highlighting ramen places you should … Continue reading
Sapporo’s Yuki Matsuri
Travel Japan: Sapporo By Lauren McRae Sapporo, being the main city of Hokkaido, is a large, modern city but without the crowds. Once a year, Sapporo takes advantage of the sub-zero temperatures and creates a wonderful world of ice and … Continue reading
Posted in Festivals, Hokkaido, Snow and Ice
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Know Your Ponkan from Your Mikan
Conversation Starters By Hannah Hunt As an ALT coming up on two years in the middle of nowhere, I feel I’ve become somewhat inured to the frequently asked, ‘Hannah-sensei, what do you call (insert random object here) in your country?’ … Continue reading
Hiroshima: Better Know A Ken
By Gail Meadows When most JETs think of Hiroshima, two places spring immediately to mind: the Atomic Bomb Dome, and Miyajima, the island world famous for its “floating” torii gate, which you all have no doubt seen featured countless times … Continue reading
Hokuriku Highway Blues
By Jon Perry On Saturday morning, myself and Toyama’s best dressed man, Ally Lomas, set out from Uozu city with a fairly hazy plan of hitchhiking towards Niigata, finding some sake breweries, and consuming as much of Japan’s favourite rice … Continue reading
The Scam Bus
The worst way to get to Cambodia from Bangkok. Continue reading
March’s artistic and edible offering, Yashouma
Yashouma is the rice flour (komenoko) Japanese sweet that is not sweet. The ornately designed, plain flavored mochi is a fascinating imbalance between decorative art and flavor. The neon picture inlaid in the center of the hockey puck shaped mochi … Continue reading
Togakushi’s The Base Festival
by Whitney Conti What do bingo, group salsa instruction, ninja fireworks, ojisan face painting, and college students dressed as godzillas and french maids have in common…a 200 yen nomihodai (all you can drink) tradition at Togakushi’s the Base winter festival. … Continue reading
The Pets and Posers of Urbanism
Pets are wonderful things. There is certain innocence about pets; they are like children, yet slightly more responsible. They possess an honesty that human beings lose as we allow life to damage us into an affected fortress of “sophistication”. Humans … Continue reading
Third-World Petting Zoos: The Catch-22 of Orphanage Funding
Children need guardians. Orphans are children without guardians. Orphanages provide guardianship. Orphanages, therefore, are the solution. . . right? Wrong. From UNESCO to grassroots NGOs, sources assert that funding orphanages actually creates “orphans”. How can this be? And if the … Continue reading
The Asian Gaelic Games
By John Scanlon There is an annual event held every year in Asia. It is called the Asian Gaelic Games and it is truly a sight to behold. Now, you are probably wondering–Asian Games, Gaelic, Irish, Asian people? Well, all … Continue reading
Off the coast of Nagasaki…Fukuejima
by Charlotte Ford Out and about in Kyushu? Why not hop on a ferry to the beautiful island of fukuejima? (福江島) Located some 80km west of Nagasaki, Fukuejima is a member of the Goto archipelago. A four hour ferry journey … Continue reading
Posted in 1 Out. Oct. Nov. 2009, Travel, Travel Japan
Tagged Fukuejima, nagasaki, Travel
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A Snapshot of the Trans-Siberian Railway
by Matt Little With stuttering thuds, my sleep was broken. From beneath the blind daylight was attempting to creep its way into the cluttered apartment. Staggering to my feet, I throw back the door and blink into sunshine swarming the … Continue reading
Posted in Reflections, Travel
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There’s Just Something About Those Mountains:
There’s Just Something About Those Mountains: A Reflection from the Gay, Jewish Cheerleader by Jon Reimer It occurs to me in writing this that, although it has been only a year since I left the JET Programme to pursue other … Continue reading