For Americans, there has rarely been a better time to visit Japan. After years of pandemic-related closure, the country reopened in the summer of 2022 with a sense of renewal, thanks largely to the Tokyo Olympics the previous year, which had brought a flurry of hotel openings and infrastructure improvements, not just in the capital…
Miso soup with matzo balls? Lotus root tempura with matzo cake meal? Japanese sweet potato kugel? These exciting dishes aren’t the work of chefs, but rather came from the resourcefulness of 1,000 or so Jews in Tokyo, a city of 28 million. One of Japan’s tiniest minorities, they’re creatively adapting traditional recipes for Passover, the…
In the foothills of Mount Asama, one of Japan’s most active volcanoes, jagged lava formations dot the landscape — remnants of a 1783 eruption that swallowed villages and permanently scarred the land. A nearby park pocked with dark volcanic rock is called Onioshidashien, or Expelling Demons. Nearby, a crop of angular polyhedrons appeared last year,…
If you’ve longed to indulge in elegant rail travel, but thought the days of lavish cars and live music were over, you’re in luck. New trains as well as new routes, amenities and special events are rolling out, enticing travelers to sit back, Champagne in hand, and glide through some of the world’s most beautiful…
At the entrance to Akan-Mashu National Park, known for its lakes and bubbling mud pools, red torii gates stood out against the white snow that had blanketed this part of eastern Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost main island. On a park path, I suddenly saw a Yezo sika deer, with its spotted brown coat and fluffy white…