Source Have any of you guys experienced a Japanese onsen (hot spring) before? Obviously, Japan is world renown for its hot springs, and so it’s super easy to find onsen all over Japan, but if you plan on visiting one yourself, you’ll need to differentiate between onsen and sento (public bathing houses). They’re easy to...

Imagine this: You spend nearly a day of traveling to get to an island nation that is like no other. You arrive early in the morning and have your day planned out but it turns out everything is closed. How do you feel? Devastated, miserable, confused, or maybe angry? It turns out that Japan happens...

Source The end of the year is approaching quickly! And it only means one thing: Christmas and New Year celebrations are coming. Perhaps in your part of the world, preparations to celebrate the festivities are already being made. Streets full of Christmas lights, gingerbread cookies in the oven, a trimmed Christmas tree standing tall… even...

Take a look at the picture above and take a guess: are they real or not? From weird burgers and DIY snacks to cute bread art, Japanese food culture is highly creative. And this is especially true for Japan’s highly realistic plastic food models. You can find these mouth watering fake foods, called ‘sampuru’ in...

Although Japan is a modern country, there are still many ancient traditions practiced today. A notable one is the Japanese tea ceremony–known as sadō (茶道). This ceremony is a ritual steeped in history. Participants will discover a stylized way of preparing and drinking green tea (matcha), typically in a tea room with a tatami floor....

Source Halloween might have passed, but there’s one thing we can not get enough of: horror stories! Some of you might have heard about yurei and yokai, two kinds of Japanese ghosts that have haunted people since ancient times. Yurei refers to spirits of the deceased who didn’t rest peacefully and yokai refers to kinds...