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Nihon Tips — Life in Japan — Page 4

  • travel/ May 14, 2026

    Heian in the Streets

    Kyoto's oldest festival is a near-silent walk in Heian court dress — the one nobody films, and the one locals quietly prefer.

    A heart-shaped green leaf tied to a weathered twig in soft, dappled woodland light.
  • food/ May 9, 2026

    Kissaten: The Slow Coffee Holdouts

    A food critic's case for the dim, wood-panelled coffee houses where one hand-dripped cup takes four minutes and nobody hurries you out.

    Coffee dripping from a cloth filter into a white cup, steam rising against a dark wooden background.
  • culture/ Apr 30, 2026

    The Great Migration

    Four holidays nobody thinks about, a whole country on the move at once, and a returnee weighing collective rest against the kind she chose.

    A silver hard-shell suitcase standing in a dim entryway, viewed through a partly open sliding door.
  • culture/ Apr 25, 2026

    Carp in the Wind

    A Kyoto native on the carp streamers of Children's Day — and their quiet migration from home balconies to the country's rivers.

    Colourful carp-shaped streamers in black, red, blue and green flying from a pole against a blue sky above a tiled roof.
  • daily-life/ Apr 18, 2026

    The Cargo Bullet

    JR East just put parcels on the Shinkansen. The train is easy; the question of why a passenger railway is now in the freight business is the story.

    A metal roll cage loaded with strapped boxes inside the empty sunlit aisle of a train carriage.