Andy in Tokyo's Feed - Page 1 of 2

Last week former North Korean spy Kim Hyon Hi was flown into Japan for talks with government officials and the relatives of Japanese nationals abducted by Pyongyang. It was believed that she might have information about the abductees, who were kidnap...

Last weekend saw me in Inuyama, Aichi prefecture, for my sister-in-law’s wedding. It also mysteriously coincided with the daring escape of a number of monkeys from Nagoya University’s research institute, which is just a few minutes’ drive from my par...

My, doesn’t time fly in the world of Japanese politics? It seems like only yesterday that Yukio Hatoyama and the DPJ finally managed to chuck the pork-barrellers of the LDP out of power, and yet here we are, just months later, with yet another unelec...

I received an email from the HR department this morning to announce the beginning of Cool Biz. This means that male employees can forego neckties for the next three months, while office air conditioners are turned up to 28°C to reduce running costs (...

Tokyo’s Chiyoda ward is not renowned for fishing, but this particular pond is always popular. In fact, part of it has been specially kitted out for city-dwelling Ahabs. The greenness of the water makes me wonder if any normal (ie, one-headed) fish ca...

For those of you who regularly watch BBC World News (come on, it can’t be just me!), you’ve probably noticed an eerily similarity between its Japan-related reports. It seems that no matter what the story, be it whaling, dolphin slaughtering or popula...

On the Chuo line to Shinjuku: Yoyogi Park on a Sunday morning: In the woods in Yoyogi Park: Yebisu Garden Place, Ebisu: Running through the quiet streets of Tokyo’s western suburbs: People taking it easy under a tree in Showa Kinen Park, Tachika...

Having lived in Tokyo for over five years I should really know all there is to know about the place. But I don’t, and the place I probably know the least about is Akihabara. This once shabby district, which is five minutes from Tokyo station, has a g...

Western television reports about Tokyo tend to focus on the ultra-modern. There will, almost without exception, be shots of Shibuya’s Hachiko crossing (above), kids dressed in epileptic-fit inducing outfits and random commuter trains zipping past a n...

Korean newspapers are up in arms (again) following the Japanese government’s endorsement of several elementary school textbooks that label the islets of Dokdo – or Takeshima in Japanese – as Japanese territory. The islets, which are located slap bang...

This coming Sunday is shunbun no hi, or Vernal Equinox Day. Traditionally, on this day Japanese people would visit their ancestral graves and hold family reunions. These days, however, they are more likely to visit Starbucks and hold rat-like Chihuah...

These days it’s not uncommon for people to get all their news from the internet, and for absolutely nothing. Needless to say, this whole ‘free news’ malarkey has proved disastrous for the newspaper industry. Many papers, such as the New York Times, i...

Well, I was convinced that the snow we had earlier this month would be the first – and last – for Tokyo this year, but I woke up this morning to find yet another covering of the white stuff: Related posts:Snow Way Last night’s snow was more robu...

Akebono has had many fine achievements during his forty years on earth: becoming the first foreign sumo wrestler to achieve the rank of yokozuna, winning eleven top division titles, and, err… managing to win one fight out of twelve in his career as a...

Japanese healthcare is a difficult subject that I’ve been meaning to write about for some time. For those of you living in countries without a national health service the idea of paying for hospital stays and operations may be nothing new, but until...

Bought some strawberries today. I think they may have been grown in Chernobyl: Related posts:Mandarin Oriental, Tokyo Continuing with our birthday tradition of spending a night in... Death by Yakiniku Everyone in Japan was eating yakiniku this wee...

The first snow of the season has arrived here in Tokyo. Unfortunately it’s not cold enough for it to lay, which means an unpleasant trudge through slush to the train station tomorrow. Related posts:Swine flu hits Tokyo Japanese organisations, espec...

A young Fukuokan pet shop owner has been arrested in Nagasaki for attempting to steal a penguin from a zoo. Employees at Nagasaki Bio Park in Saikai became suspicious of young Akira Honda’s (24) activities after he became cagey when security guards o...

Continuing with our birthday tradition of spending a night in a fancy Tokyo hotel (see last year’s post on The Peninsula), this weekend my better half and myself stayed at the Mandarin Oriental in Nihonbashi. Rooms are very spacious. Starting from 50...

Best wishes to everyone. Have a great day and get stuck into the important business of opening those prezzies! No related posts.

Want to see what’s going on in Tokyo right this very minute? Here’s a selection of some of the best live webcams. All of the cameras are running in real time (none of that “updates every ten seconds” nonsense), and you can control them yourself. Just...

Jil Sander and Uniqlo clearly know when they’re on to a good thing: from tomorrow (23rd December) those of you living in Japan will be able to get your paws on items from the +J Spring/Summer 2010 collection. The UK gets the collection on the 7th Jan...

Imagine if the BBC created a programme called ‘Cool Britain’, in which a group of foreigners discussed the most mundane aspects of British culture, such as rambling, Sunday Lunch, making a ‘proper’ cup of tea and Shrove Tuesday. The discussion would...

Spring (March, April and May) The first half of spring is one of the rare times of year when the weather in Tokyo is comparable with London. The number of sunny days and average temperatures are about equal throughout March, though by the end of Apri...