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Nihon Tips — Life in Japan

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The Mountain Takes Reservations

Mount Fuji now runs like a hotel — and that's the most honest thing to happen to it in decades.

Hana Mori's avatar
Words By
Hana Mori
A small blank wooden tag on a dark braided cord lying on a weathered wooden table beside an out-of-focus headlamp, lit by warm lamplight against deep blue pre-dawn windows.
  • culture/ Jun 30, 2026

    Through the Ring of Grass

    A ring of woven grass, a paper stand-in, and a culture that schedules its mid-year reset for 30 June.

    A curving arc of a large ring woven from cogon grass, its strands drying from green to pale straw, against the soft grey light of an overcast morning.
  • daily-life/ Jun 27, 2026

    The Transparent Umbrella

    The ¥600 konbini umbrella as a system: forty seconds to buy, one train ride to lose, two weeks to be legally abandoned.

    Several identical clear vinyl umbrellas, wet with raindrops, leaning together in a metal umbrella stand on a rainy grey street.
  • daily-life/ Jun 25, 2026

    The Endurance Season

    Once the rains lift, the real season begins — Japanese summer as something you get through, not a holiday.

    A clear glass wind chime painted with blue fish, a paper streamer hanging below it.
  • food/ Jun 19, 2026

    The Quiet Half of the Gift

    Father's Day in Japan is Mother's Day's muted sibling — read from the department-store gift counter, where the rule is: give him something to consume.

    A single yellow rose with its stem, lying on a dark grey surface.