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JapanVisitor Podcast Podcasts

PodcastDirectory / Travel and Transport / Travel
PodcastDirectory / Regions / AS / Japan

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Tofu vendor on Tokyo's streets

豆腐屋 I was wandering through the streets of Tokyo's beautiful Minami Azabu district yesterday afternoon, a part of the city's Minato ward with perhaps the biggest concentration of foreign embassies.All at once I heard the two unmistakable notes of the tofu vendor's pipe, and, sure enough, there he was pulling his cart of cool, white tofu through the sweltering summer streets.Street vendors are by no means as common a sight as they were even just 20 years ago, but fortunately the tr ...

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Fuji Rock Festival

フジロックフェスティバル'08The line up for this year's Fuji Rock Festival July 25-27th includes My Bloody Valentine, Underworld (again!), Primal Scream, Bootsy Collins, Ian Brown, Lee 'Scratch' Perry and Asian Dub Foundation.The video is Underworld at Fuji Rock 1999.This year's festival - the 11th so far - has an environmental theme.Tickets are 39,800 for the three days or 16,800 for one day.AccessJR Echigo Yuzawa Station is the nearest shinkansen station (90 mins from Tokyo Sta ...

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Kyoto Dialect

京都弁As today is Gion Matsuri we thought we would focus this week's quick Japanese lesson on the Kyoto dialect or "Kyo-kotoba."Admittedly not much use unless you are actually living in or passing through the ancient capital here are a few phrases of Kyotoben (Kyoto dialect).The first thing you might hear is "oideyasu", which is "irasshaimase" (welcome!) in standard Japanese, used in shops and restaurants in Kyoto.Goodnight becomes "oyasumiyasu" from standard Japanese "oyasuminasai" - th ...

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Jero - Afro-American Enka Singer

ジェロJero, aka Jerome Charles White, Jr, is Japan's first black enka singer and a rising star in the Japanese music world.The 26-year-old Pittsburgh native was introduced to enka by his Japanese grandmother and moved to Japan in 2003. Jero mixes hip-hop fashion and dance moves with traditional enka vocals.Jero's first album "Covers" was released last month and is a compilation of seven 1970s enka classics.Jero appears in TV commercials for Kirin "Fire" coffee.Jero official homepageYahoo ...

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Fuji Rock Festival

フジロックフェスティバル'08The line up for this year's Fuji Rock Festival July 25-27th includes My Bloody Valentine, Unerworld (again!), Primal Scream, Bootsy Collins, Ian Brown, Lee 'Scratch' Perry and Asian Dub Foundation.The video is Underworld at Fuji Rock 1999.This year's festival - the 11th so far - has an environmental theme.Tickets are 39,800 for the three days or 16,800 for one day.AccessJR Echigo Yuzawa Station is the nearest shinkansen station (90 mins from Tokyo Stat ...

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Toyako

洞爺湖The recently concluded G8 Conference was held in Toyako (Lake Toya) in Hokkaido.About 80km south west from Sapporo, Toyako is a popular onsen resort, famous for its beautiful mountains and lakes in the Shikotsu-Toya National Park.Lake Toya is a caldera lake with the island of Nakajima at its center. Toyako Onsen is the main resort town on the lake's southern shore. 2km from town are the still active volcanoes of Usu-zan (732m) and Showa Shin-zan (402m), which were formed in the 194 ...

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Japanese kids' drumming troupe

子供の太鼓I was going past Tokyo’s Yoyogi-Hachiman station (Odakyu line) on Sunday when not only distant drums, but the bleating of sheep, too, caught my ear! I parked my bike and went down to investigate.The first thing I saw was a little girl on a pony (photo below), then kids petting sheep and goats in a cage a little further down, then a circle of kids next down all holding baby chickens.As you can imagine, the street was closed to traffic, and, besides the animals, was full of s ...

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Gion Matsuri Kyoto

祇園祭Listen to the sound of Gion MatsuriKyoto's Gion Matsuri is the city's most important festival and there are related events taking place throughout the month of July.The main event is the yamaboko junko, a procession of 32 giant, decorated floats (23 yama and 9 hoko) through the streets on July 17th. On the preceding evenings of July 14-16th, the floats are illuminated by lanterns and nearby houses display their family heirlooms. This part of the festival is known as Gion Bayashi wi ...

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Yoyogi Park Trance Party

Tokyo's Yoyogi Park aka "The People's Park" plays hosts to some pretty bizarre happenings, especially at the weekends, when young and old, sober and wasted, straight and gay head for the 133 acres of green, open spaces in Harajuku.See this open-air rave party at Yoyogi Park.Yoyogi Park AccessHarajuku Station on the JR Yamanote Lane or Yoyogi-koen Station on the Tokyo Metro Chiyoda Line.Yahoo Japan Auction ServiceBook a hotel in Japan with BookingsTokyo Serviced ApartmentsBudget accommodatio ...

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Hiei Jinja shrine's Sanno Matsuri festival, Tokyo.

比叡神社 山王祭りTokyo's Yotsuya area, only walking distance from the National Diet building, the Supreme Court building, and the Imperial Palace, is one of Tokyo's main business districts. All suits and ties and swagger, it seems an unlikely place for anything as colorful and unbusinesslike as a a festival.However, last Friday, a festival is what Yotsuya got. The Sanno (literally "Mountain King") festival came to Yotsuya per kind favor of Hiei Jinja, a Shinto shrine in the adjoinin ...

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Film Preview: "The Witching Hour"

Kobe-based film director and screenwriter Darryl Knickrehm has provided JapanVisitor a clip of his latest film.The film is titled The Witching Hour. Darryl provided a bit of background below.Please come and watch the rough cut of the latest DK PRO short film on Youtube! It is called The Witching Hour. The clip is about 6 minutes long and features the music of Nine Inch Nails (it was made for the Nine Inch Nails film festival up on Youtube).A few of the effects and edits are still a bit roug ...

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Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry & Technology

産業技術記念館After visiting the Toyota Automobile Museum earlier this year, I was inspired to visit Toyota's other showpiece museum in Nagoya, the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry & Technology, not far from Nagoya Station.I was not disappointed; the museum is superb. The museum is housed in the original red brick buildings of the Toyoda (the forerunner of present-day Toyota Corp) textile factory and research center.The museum is divided in to two parts in separate buildin ...

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Kawagoe breakdance

川越市Kawagoe is a historic castle town to the northwest of central Tokyo, about 45 minutes by express train from Shinjuku. Certain streets of the central city are lined with weighty, ornate old merchant buildings, and, of course, the temples and shrines that grace most Japanese cities. It prospered so much in the Edo era from its trade with nearby Tokyo (then known as Edo) that it became known as "Little Edo."Kawagoe is now a tourist town attracting over 5 million visitors a year. It is ...

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Henro Pilgrims

遍路Listen to the sound of henro chantingA familiar sight at the temples of Shikoku are the scores of henro, white-clad pilgrims making their way around the 1,400km pilgrimage route of the 88 Sacred Temples of Shikoku.The pilgrimage covers the island in a clockwise route starting and finishing at Ryozenji Temple near Tokushima. The 88th temple is Okuboji Temple, south of Takamatsu.The pilgrims are retracing the route of Kobo Daishi (aka Kukai 774-835), the Buddhist saint and founder of th ...

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Tanuki

狸There was a tanuki rooting around in my backyard this afternoon. Don't usually see them during the day as they are mainly nocturnal, which is why they are seen so often as road kill.Tanuki are omnivorous, and this one was rooting out bugs or worms. They are quite gentle creatures, rarely aggressive to humans, and this one let me get within a meter of it before it scuttled away.Tanuki are often erroneously referred to as badgers or raccoons, but they are not related to either of those spe ...

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Kuritorisu

栗と栗鼠It’s a balmy spring Wednesday night outside. I’m in Kuri to Risu (“Chestnut and Squirrel”), a lesbian night held every Wednesday at a bar in Shibuya (kuri-to-risu being thekatakanaform of the word 'clitoris'). I’m talking to Fumi-san, a through-and-through Tokyoite in the sense of knowing what’s what. Pizzacato Five. Wolfgang Tillmans. A soul DJ by the name of Takahashi. How China’s mentality is too staid to really lead the 21st century and how it will be a conglom ...

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Trainspotting in Japan

名古屋鉄道1000系パノラマスーパーWith scores of different engine types employed by numerous private railway companies, Japan is a trainspotter's dreamland.Every weekend thousands of mostly young to middle aged men gather at stations across the nation photographing and videoing their speeding steel idols.I rode with a group of spotters in the front seats of a train recently and was amused to see them flashing the V peace sign with their fingers as we roared through stations to b ...

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Kansai International Airport KIX

関西国際空港For those travelling to and from KIX from Kobe or points further west and north, a new connection service has started that cuts down on the journey time AND is cheaper. The high-speed ferry runs from Kobe Airport and takes just 30 minutes to cut across the bay. The fare is 1500yen for adults, 700 yen for kids.Due to Japanese transport systems shutting down through the night, it can sometimes be difficult to get to KIX for early morning flights without having to book a hote ...

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A's, Red Sox get MLB show on the road

Major League Baseball created a lot of buzz in Japan when it opened its 2008 season in Tokyo with two games between the World Series champion Boston Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics on March 25 and 26.The teams split the series, Boston winning a dramatic encounter on opening day 6-5 in 10 innings and the A’s holding on to win Game 2 by a score of 5-1. Both games were played at Tokyo Dome.Former Seibu Lion right-hander Daisuke Matsuzaka became just the second Japanese native to start a ...

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Okinawa jamming in Nakano, Tokyo

中野のストリート・フェアー I was walking back to Nakano Station from a yoga lesson in Heiwa-no-mori Park in Tokyo’s Nakano ward at about 5pm yesterday (Sunday). The street fair I had noticed on the way was still in full swing, and the sounds coming out of it made me check it out.Being late in the day, several people were crashed out on the ground, but it was still buzzing. Stalls were selling food, booze, photos, jewelry, second hand books and magazines, and promoting one or ...

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so desu ne

「そうですね」の使い方There’s a very useful phrase in Japanese that goes: “So desu ne” ("so dess nay"), as in the following conversation between a Boss (A) and a Worker (B). If not convinced, click each "so desu ne" to listen, reading the "translation" in parentheses.SO DESU NEA. Come in, come in. It’s a little cool today, isn’t it? B. So desu ne! (Yes, it is a bit.) A. Looking at the forecast I expected a bit of sun today. B. So desu ne. (Yes, guess I did too.)A. Pull ...

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Peruvian Music At Kanayama Station

ペルの音楽Listen to the music of Peruvian buskersAichi Prefecture along with nearby Shizuoka Prefecture has the largest numbers of South American residents in Japan. Many of them live in small satellite towns surrounding Nagoya, working in the automotive industry, toiling long hours at low pay to produce parts for such giants as Toyota and Mitsubishi.Sunday is usually the only day off during the week for these workers to relax and persue their interests. Occasionally it is possible to ...

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Kunizakari Sake Museum Handa

国盛り、酒の文化館、半田市Listen to a part of the sake museum guided tourJust across the road from the Vinegar Museum in Handa is the Kunizakari Sake Museum. The two liquids are historically Handa's biggest exports and have an intimate connection as vinegar can be made from sake lees - a by-product of sake production.The Kunizakari Sake Museum is free to enter and includes a guided tour of the building with exhibits of historic implements used in sake brewing and an explanation ...

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Feather Museum Seki

フェザーミュジアムListen to the sounds of the Feather MuseumJapan has some bizarre and quirky museums: a sex museum, a ninja museum and even a sand museum.The Feather Museum in Seki, north of Inuyama in Gifu Prefecture, has nothing to do with feathers or birds. The museum is sponsored by the Feather Company that makes razors, shaving and hairdressing equipment as well as surgical scalpels.The whole area of Seki is known as one of Japan's top locations for the manufacture of high qu ...

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Shinojima

篠島Compared to its slightly smaller neighbor Himakajima, Shinojima appears to have seen better days.Listen to the sound of a lay Buddhist chant on ShinojimaA number of the island's ryokan (guesthouses) are closed and slowly crumbling. The island's high school has shut and older children now have to make the ferry journey to the mainland for their education.Slightly smaller with around 2,000 inhabitants, in comparison with the 2,300 people living on Himakajima, Shinojima seems to have a h ...

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NOVA Files For Protection

NOVA:1カ月以内に再建支援企業決定Nova Corp, Japan's largest English conversation school filed for court protection yesterday at Osaka's District Court. The Osaka-based company has estimated debts of around 50 billion yen (US$437m) and teachers and staff have not been paid since September.Nova, which is the largest employer of foreign nationals in Japan with around 4,000 teachers working in 900 schools nationwide, ran in to problems in June, when the company was order ...

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Kameda Come-Uppance

亀田謝罪会見 The spoilt brats of the boxing ring, the Kamedas, have finally had their come-uppance. This morning, the eldest brother, Koki, appeared, shaven headed (a sign of repentance in Japan), on Japanese TV to apologize for the behavior of his younger brother, Daiki, and face a grilling from the press.The three brothers, in particular the elder two, the undefeated flyweight Koki (21) and the super flyweight Daiki (18), are renowned for their trademark crass behavior. Typical pra ...

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Mizunokuni Shimane Prefecture

水の国 、島根県The Mizunokuni Museum 104° is a new water-theme museum near Kawado in Shimane.Set in a beautiful hillside location, the museum offers a series of contemporary art installations centered on the concept of water. Artists featured include Atsuo Okamoto, Masaaki Nishi and Kenzo Tabe.Listen to sounds generated through water.One of the most interesting installations is a sound gallery where various sounds are produced using water. Mizunokuni also offers an echo dome, a vide ...

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Owari Tsushima Tenno Festival

尾張津島天王際Listen to the sounds of Owari Tsushima Tenno FestivalThe 500-year-old Owari Tsushima Tenno Festival takes place annually on the 4th Saturday and Sunday in Tshushima just outside Nagoya.On the Saturday evening five wood and straw boats decorated with hundreds of paper lanterns float on the Tenno river setting the water glittering with reflected light.There are firework displays, flute music and taiko drumming to entertain the thousands of people who attend the festival, ...

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Tokyo Cruise

東京都観光汽船Listen to an announcement on a Sumida River cruiseTokyo Cruise Line, the company that runs boat services on the Sumida River and in Edo Bay is not really a commuting option in Tokyo but is a pleasant way to see some of Tokyo's riverside and bayside attractions.The company runs five water bus lines:Sumida River Line (Red)Asakusa-Odaiba Direct Line (Gray)Odaiba Line (Green)TokyoBig Sight Palette Town Line (Blue)Museum of Maritime Science/Shinagawa Aquarium Line (Purple)Th ...

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Tado Shrine Festival

多度神社の祭りTado Shrine, near Kuwana in Mie, hosts its annual festival on May 4-5th.Listen to Tado festival music piped from loudspeakersThousands of people from the local area around Nagoya flood this rural site each year to witness a bizarre ritual known asageuma.Horses ridden by 12 young men (chosen by lot as representive, albeit, 'juvenile' samurai) ride in a processiontowards Tado Shrine. Horse and rider then try to scale a 3m high muddy slope to the flat square of the shrine' ...

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Denpark Anjo

デンパーク, 安城Listen to the muzak at DenparkJapan makes a specialty of country-related theme parks. Huis ten Bosch is the most famous example in Nagasaki, but there is also a Spain Mura near Ise Shima in Mie and a Villaggio Italia in Nagoya.Anjo, a small, quiet town between Nagoya and Toyohashi has Denpark - a compact theme park based on the architectural and agricultural charms of Denmark.From the piped Euromuzak to the manicured lawns, Denpark does its best to recreate a piece of ...

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Narita-san Temple Inuyama

成田山大聖寺Listen to Buddhist priests chanting at Narita-san TempleWith easy walking distance ofInuyama Castle, Narita-san Temple is worth a visit and has fine views of the Kiso River and the castle. On a fine day it is possible to see theskyscrapers of Nagoyain the distance.Inuyama's Narita-san Temple is a branch temple of the Shingon sect'sNarita-san Temple in Narita, Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo's main international airport.The temple was opened in 1953 and sits upon a steep hill. ...

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Tagata Jinja Hounen Matsuri

田県神社の豊年祭, 犬山、愛知県Watch a video of the 2007 Tagata Jinja Hounen MatsuriListen to the sounds of Tagata Jinja Hounen MatsuriListen to the music of Tagata Jinja Hounen MatsuriThe Tagata Jinja Hounen Sai has grown in popularity over the years. The annual fertility festival held annually on March 15 attracts a boisterous crowd of both Japanese and foreign visitors to witness a 2.5m, approximately 300kg wooden phallus being carried on amikoshi(portable shrine), by team ...

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Koyasan

高野山、和歌山県Listen to the sounds of monks chanting on Mount KoyaLegend has it that Kukai threw his vajra (ritual thunderbolt sceptre) all the way from China and it landed in the mountains of Wakayama, where the monk found it on his return to Japan, when he was searching the wilderness south of the capital inKyoto, for a suitable place to found his religious retreat and spread the word of Shingon (tantric) Buddhism.Even by car the route to Koyasan is long and winding and the jour ...

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National Foundation Day

建国記念日の右翼Watch a movie of right wingers blasting the crowds at Shinjuku Station, Tokyo.Today is a holiday in Japan: National Foundation Day, although the day itself was actually yesterday. It is brought over to Monday just to give the populace a day off.Anyway, National Foundation Day, or Kenkoku Kinenbi, has its roots in Kigensetsu, or ‘Empire Day’, founded by the Meiji Emperor in 1873 to help cement the imperial foundations of recently modernized Japan’s new Western-s ...

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Mystery Tour

初春!旅のビックリ箱ツアーListen to the bus guide's rapI went along for my first ever Japanese bus tour today. It was the Year of the Boar mystery tour!Japanese bus tours are advertised in inserts inJapanese newspapersand are a cheap way to enjoy a day out in Japan. Two adults and child came to a very reasonable 12,050 yen for the day.A 7.30am start fromNagoya Stationwas a challenge after 3 hours sleep and a bottle of Chilean Red (Vina Maipo - highly recommended) from the local ...

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K-Tokyu Announcements

京阪電鉄のK-特急の車内報告Riding on the Keihan train line’s K-Super Express from Kyoto to Osaka is about as civilized a way of going between the two cities as you will find. Less crowded than JR, a more civilized crowd than that on Kintetsu, and better looking cars and stations than Hankyu, Keihan is the most attractive of the four lines. The seats face forward—as opposed to the bench seats facing into the car, and therefore directly at the passengers facing on the other sid ...

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Podcast

初詣Click here for the sound of New Year hatsumode at Toyokawa Inari shrine, Tokyo.Hatsumode - the paying of respects to the gods on New Year's Day - happens at shrines across Japan just after midnight. Tokyo's subways, usually over by half past midnight, run all night to ferry the faithful - vast numbers of whom visit Toyokawa Inari, a grand, 700-year old Shinto shrine in Tokyo's Asakusa district, home to the god of commerce.Lengthy queues formed up the street under the lines of red lant ...

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Yaki-imo

焼き芋Click here for the sound of the yaki-imo (roasted yam) vendor.Today was one of those winter days that revert to autumn. It was too beautiful a day to spend even a minute of it more indoors than I had to, so by 10am I was in Suginami-ku on my bike, soaking in the sunshine that flooded the parkland running alongside the Zenpukuji River.Leaves were still falling from trees, elementary school boys were in their stripes and oversize helmets practicing their swings and pitches, old men l ...

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Nationalist Shamisen

右派の三味線Listen to an old Japanese nationalist playing the shamisen in Yasukuni ShrineI took a walk at lunchtime today up toYasukuni Jinja– the Shinto shrine that former Prime Minister Koizumi’s ‘private’ visits to caused so much trouble for Japan’s relations with its neighbors. It is late autumn now, and the shrine grounds were covered with fallen bright yellow ginkgo leaves, and the air filled with the distinctive odor of the fallen and rotting ginkgo nuts.Something cau ...

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Kawahira Omoto Kagura

神楽Listen to the sounds of Omoto Kagura music We went to another "performance" of Omoto Kagura recently. Actually we went to two, but at the earlier one we left after a short time due to the rudeness of a group of Kyoto tourists.Maybe it was the fact that they were on a group tour---- away from the eyes of their neighbors Japanese tend to not behave as politely-----, or maybe it was because they were from Kyoto. Kyotoites are considered the rudest people in Japan by many, this writer inc ...

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Gero Onsen

下呂温泉,岐阜県Listen to the sounds of Gero OnsenGero Onsen in Gifu Prefecture, a 3-hour drive north ofNagoyaor 90 minutes on the train, is considered one of Japan's top hot spring resorts.The spa town, set in a picturesque wooded valley, has been in the hot water business since the 10th century and is still going strong today.Some reviewers have complained of the "identikit" and "concrete" nature of some of Gero's ryokan and minshuku as well as Filipina call-girls touting for cust ...

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Water Sound

下呂温泉,岐阜県Listen to the sounds of a natural mountain spring at Gero OnsenThis sound is of a natural spring just behind Onsenji (Hot Spring Temple) in the hills at Gero Onsen. This water is not hot and tastes great. Listen to the rich sound of the spring water reverberating in the wooden trough.Books on JapanOnsen in JapanJapanese-English Electronic TranslatorsTagsJapanGeroOnsenspringJapan BlogJapan Podcastwater

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J-League Supporters

Jーリーグの応援Listen to the sounds of Urawa Reds soccer supportersI went to see Nagoya Grampus Eight play Urawa Reds in Toyota in the J-League today. Urawa supporters, from the grim Tokyo suburbs of Saitama Prefecture, have the most fearsome and loudest reputation in Japanese soccer and it is certainly deserved from my experience today.Urawa top the J-League and are on course for their first J-League title. Nagoya, backed by the wealth of Toyota Corporation and playing many of their ...

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Omoto Kagura

Listen to the sounds of Norito (Shinto prayers) It is said that the root of Japanese religion lies in shamanism, though there are only a few vestiges of shamanic practise left in Japan.One such vestige is Omoto Kagura, which took place last weekend in a local village.The intent of Omoto Kagura is to have the local Kami (God), here called Omoto-sama and represented by a rope snake, descend and "possess" a villager so he may be asked questions about the upcoming year. Preparations in the vill ...

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Ise Jingu

伊勢神宮Listen to the sounds of Ise JinguIse Jingu in Mie Prefecture is Japan's most sacred shrine dating back to the 3rd century.Ise Shrine actually consists of two shrines: Geku (外宮) and Naiku (内宮). Geku, which dates from the 5th century enshrines the Shinto goddess of clothing, food and housing - Toyouke Omikami. Naiku, which is two hundred years older, enshrines Amaterasu-Omikami, the sun goddess, the guardian of the nation and the protector of the Imperial family.Both shrin ...

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Kerosene truck

灯油販売トラックListen to the sounds of the kerosene truck, doing the rounds of the neighborhood.With the coming of colder weather, one of the door-to-door vending operations that you see and especially hear a lot more of in Japan is the kerosene truck. It does its very slow rounds of the neighborhood, stopping every few meters for residents to come out with their billycans.Central heating in Japan is not a technology that has ever caught on. Of course there is the unit air conditio ...

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Robot Museum

ロボットカルチャーミュジアム「ロボシンク」Listen to the sound of WakamaruJapan's first robot museum opened in Nagoya this month. The 2-story museum occupies some prime real estate in downtown Sakae not far from the Louis Vuitton store and Softbank and just south of the TV Tower. The site, a former import car shop, actually comprises the museum (which you pay to enter) and an adjoining robot department store - "robot mirai department", a hi-tech interior design shop by t ...

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Nagoya Festival

名古屋まつりListen to the sound of Nagoya FestivalJust got back from Nagoya's biggest bash - the annual Nagoya Festival, which first started in 1954. Nagoya's largest festival takes place over two days in various parts of the city including daily parades of large floats with period costume and accompanying kagura music down Otsu dori celebrating Japan's three great medieval strongmen: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu.Other events include: exhibitions of medieval w ...

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Harvest Matsuri

収穫の祭りListen to the sound of the calling down of the Gods There has been a flurry of activity in the rice fields the last couple of weeks as everyone struggles to get the harvest in. Mostly it is done by machine as in the photo above, but if the crop has been flattend by typhoon winds then it must be done by hand.Now all the work has been done and its time for Harvest Matsuri.The religious activities of the Japanese year has always been based on the agricultural cycle, but nowadays ...

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Kyu-Iwasaki-tei Gardens, Tokyo.

旧岩崎邸庭園Listen to the sounds of the crows at Kyu-Iwasaki-tei Gardens, Tokyo.Yesterday was the second day of the Taiiku-no-hi (Sports Day) long weekend, Monday being the holiday. It was a perfect day, and a friend and I visited the grand 'Kyu-Iwasaki-tei Gardens' in Tokyo's Taito ward. The property was once owned by the founder of the Mitsubishi Group, Iwasaki Yataro. It features his residence, which is distinguished by being the best surviving example of European architecture in J ...

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Gotsu Iwami Kagura Festival

Listen to the sound of the Fox's Dance The Sun Goddess Amaterasu, emerges from the cave to bring back light to the world, a scene from one of the Kagura dances I watched on Sunday at the Gotsu Kagura Festival.Kagura festivals are a modern invention, starting in the post-war period and gaining in popularity until it seems that now every year a new one starts up somewhere in Shimane and Hiroshima. They provide entertainment in the period between the end of the summer matsuri (festivals), and ...

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Ichiyama Kid's Kagura 2006

Listen to the sound of Shinto ritual music Went to the neighboring village of Ichiyama last night for the annual Kids Kagura festival. As we arrived in the village the golden sliver of the new moon was just dropping behind the mountains. As we walked down the dark street, the hypnotic sounds of bell and drum wafted out of a Tenrikyo church. Tenrikyo is sometimes labelled a "New Religion", sometimes a sect of Shinto, and its quite popular around here. At the community build ...

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Tenryukyo

天竜峡、長野県Listen to the sound of the boatwoman's songThe other noise in the background is the sound of the wooden oarAfter visiting Hirugami Onsen in Nagano Prefecture earlier in the year, I decided to return in the summer to try floating down the Tenryu River in a traditional boat.I thought this would be a literally cool way to spend part of the day but it was still baking hot for the most part.From Nagoya, the journey is a pleasant 2 hour and ...

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Bon Odori

Listen to the sound of Bon Odori The past few days have been Obon, one of the 2 times in the Japanese year when many people leave the cities and return to their hometowns. At Obon, the dead, the ancestors, are honored. Graves are cleaned and every community holds the Obon dance known as Bon Odori. In our village Bon Odori is accompanied by a small matsuri. There are only a handful of stalls, but they are manned by locals, so the prices are lower and quality higher than at a b ...

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Hamada Matsuri: the free entertainment

浜田祭り Listen to the sound of Hamada Bushi Woman's Dance The stage entertainment offered at matsuri varies quite a bit. At Hamada the focus was on Bushi, traditional folk song and dance. Before that though we were treated to a performace of Para Para dancing. I must admit I had not heard of this type of dancing before, but apparently it was popular about 10 years ago and spread beyond Japan's shore. It was performed by 4 sisters, ganguro, with short skirts, trademark l ...

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The sights, sounds, and tastes of Matsuri

浜田祭りSummer Matsuri season is in full swing, and this weekend we went to the port town of Hamada.Listen to the sound of festival hawkersWith a population of 60,000, Hamada is big enough to support a MacDonalds, but not big enough to have a cinema. Even so its the biggest town around here, and its matsuri draws visitors from the surrounding countryside.Maybe because out here in the hinterland we lack the plethora of shiny baubles and distractions that "sophisticated" cities need to of ...

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Yosakoi

よさこいListen to the sound of yosakoiLast weekend's matsuri at Kawamoto featured performances by several Yosakoi dance groups.Yosakoi dancing is group formation dancing to fast-paced modern electronic music, but is based on earlier folk dances from Kochi in Shikoku.In 1954, in a bid to revive flagging community spirit, the town of Kochi invented the Yosakoi dance.Since them it has spread all over Japan and changed its form quite dramatically, but to be Yosakoi the dancers must use Naru ...

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Taiko

太鼓Listen to the sound of taiko drums and fluteLast Saturday was Matsuri in Kawamoto, a small town of 5,000 about 20 kilometers up the river from my village. It was a civic matsuri, so lots of free entertainment and plentiful food and drink.First up were 2 Taiko groups. For some, the plaintive wail of the shakuhachi typifies thesound of Japan. For others it may be the ethereal pluckings of the Koto, but for me nothing sounds more like Japan than the thunder of the Taiko drums.Originally ...

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Jumping in Shinjuku.

道で踊るHip hop is big in Japan, and, asI wrote in a previous blog, its aficionados are everywhere, studying their moves in the reflections of shop windows. There is another tribe of street dancers though that doesn't seem to draw inspiration directly from the States. Japan-born though it may be, it is hard to see what aspect or tradition of life in Japan it springs from.First, click here to seeJapanese girls jumping:A long-dyed-haired boy, virtually in punk drag, is squalling Japanese ...

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Cicada The Sound of Summer

蝉Listen to the sound of the cicadasIn the pauses between the rains, the forest and mountains around my home come alive with the sound of Cicadas (semi). For the Japanese, the sound of the cicadas signifies the arrival of high summer.The young cicada nymphs have been underground for anywhere from 2 to 17 years, and once they emerge they climb the nearest tree and shed their exoskeleton. The males then begin the calling for a mate.The discarded exoskeletons can easily be found littering the ...

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Kuromatsu Matsuri

黒松祭りListen to music from the Kuromatsu FestivalWent to an unusual matsuri on Saturday at Kuromatsu, a small fishing village on the Shimane coast near Gotsu City. The central part of the matsuri is the carrying of the mikoshi (sacred palanquin) around the village. At a normal matsuri the mikoshi leaves the local shrine and circles the community before returning to the shrine. What is unusual at Kuromatsu is that the shrine is split into 2 parts, and the part where the Kami (God) resi ...

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Mushiokuri Odori

虫送り踊りListen to music from the Mushiokuri Odori FestivalWent up into the mountains to Iwami Town (Central Shimane) this afternoon to watch a dance that used to be performed all over the country in earlier times, but has now all but disappeared.The dance was part of a religious ceremony that was held to rid the rice paddies of insects, a form of spiritual pest control that is no longer needed due to Japan's heavy use of chemical pesticides nowadays.Starting at 10am in the morning, t ...

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Batting center

バッティング センターCentral to Japanese culture is the idea of ‘kata’, or ‘form’. In the tea ceremony, for example, the actual drinking of the tea has been relegated to what seems like an almost disposable step in the rigmarole of correctly placing the bowl, correctly making the tea, correctly observing the bowl, correctly raising it to your lips, and correctly returning it.Add to that the infamous lack of space in crowded Japan and the lack of free time its workforce i ...

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Mihara Kagura Festival, Shimane prefecture

島根県の神楽Listen to kagura from the Mihara Kagura FestivalMihara, a small village in the mountains of Shimane prefecture near my village recently held a Kagura Festival to celebrate the local groups 60th anniversary. There are several hundred Kagura groups in the Iwami area, though it is hardly known outside this area, which is a real shame as it is very exciting and dynamic and very entertaining. The festival was free, and as I had not seen some of the groups performing we decided ...

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