A historic gold medal etched into the story of Japanese figure skating 🇯🇵✨ In a moment that changed the course of Japanese figure skating history, the miraculous pair ⛸ Rika Miura × Ryuichi Kihara (known as “Rikuryu”) pulled off a dramatic comeback after placing 5th in the short program. With a flawless free skate, they […]

2026.02.05 In my previous blog post, I introduced an innovative idea for bringing home “memories of Japan.” Today, as a continuation of that topic, I would like to write about another issue that every traveler has struggled with at least once: storage space. For those who travel by airplane, traveling often feels like a constant […]

2026.01.22 When you hear the word collection, what comes to mind?Figures, tableware, travel magnets, postcards, commemorative medals, coins, stamps?But collections aren’t always something you can physically see. In Japan, you can find stamps in all kinds of places—train stations, museums, parks, roadside stations, tourist information centers, and more. When I was little, I used to […]

Even though I got my flu shot in December, I ended up getting sick one after another this year—Flu A → Flu B → and then a stomach flu. Because of that, I spent far too many days in bed as we entered the New Year. How did you spend your year-end and New Year […]

Now that it’s January, the weather in the U.S. has been bitterly cold day after day. When winter feels endless like this, I suddenly start craving the mazesoba I used to enjoy in Japan. That’s when I thought, “Could I make mazesoba using ingredients I can actually find at American supermarkets?”—so I went online and […]

Coming of Age Day is a national holiday in Japan, celebrated on the second Monday of January. It is a day to honor and encourage young people as they recognize they have become adults and begin stepping forward into their own lives. In Japan, the legal age of adulthood was lowered from 20 to 18 […]

The Resonance of sounds  It has been two months since I returned from Japan, yet I still have not managed to organize my photos. Nearly three years’ worth of images sit on my phone, each filled with memories so vivid that I hesitate to sort through them. Every time I revisit those photos, I am […]

🍐 What Is Karin? Have you ever heard of the fruit called “karin” in Japanese? Karin is a wonderfully fragrant fruit that ripens from late autumn into winter. In my grandmother’s generation, karin syrup and honey-preserved karin were well-known as a homemade winter remedy that worked very well for sore throats. As I wrote in […]

As autumn’s breeze slowly turns into winter’s chill, this week brought CARE STL’s Fall in Love Adoption Event.CARE STL (Center for Animal Rescue and Enrichment of St. Louis) is the city’s official animal shelter partner and a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides medical care, protection, and adoption services mainly for dogs and cats—though over the years […]

１．Introduction Living in the United States, Halloween has become one of the most familiar and beloved events of the year for me. In this article, I would like to share my personal journey from my university days to the present, reflecting on how Halloween has evolved in Japan—and introduce two uniquely Japanese celebrations that embody […]