What are bento boxes? For people who aren’t Japanese, many will be familiar with the word, but you may not know exactly what they are. You may also wonder what one puts in a bento box. Basically, a bento box is a convenient lunch box. Come to Japan for any length of time, you will…
When I order a meal in Japan, quite often my chosen dish is accompanied by some unidentified slop that makes me think… what was that? More often than not, it turns out to be a type of vegetable that is unfamiliar to my Western palate. So what are these strange vegetables – what do they…
Do you feel like you’re eating the same old thing every day? Want to shake it up with something a bit unusual? With a branch in Fukuoka (福岡), you can now also head on down to Kumamoto’s (熊本) new restaurant, Manly Australian Cafe&Bar, to try some unusual items on their Australian-style menu. A popular choice…
When you’re traveling out in the countryside, it’s not uncommon to find yourself driving for hours on end to reach your destination. If your travels take you to Kirishima (霧島) in Kagoshima (鹿児島) Prefecture and you’re in need of a short rest, why not stop off at this pretty little waterfall to take in the…
One of the most challenging things about living in a foreign country is adapting to a new climate if it varies greatly to that of your home country. As both the temperature and weather conditions in the UK are consistently middling, I had never experienced weather of any real extremes before moving to Asia. While…
While the popular cat cafes are usually associated with Japan, you may be interested to know that the first ever cat cafe was actually opened in Taipei (in 1998). However, Japan is where the trend has really taken off and there are dozens of cat cafes across the country, with more than 50 in Tokyo…
Ever feel like you want to stay somewhere with the luxury of a big, fancy hotel but with the quiet, understated charm of a ryokan? There are countless onsen hotels in Amakusa, with Shimoda boasting dozens to choose from. We stayed at the Amakusa Shimoda Onsen Garasha – a small Japanese style hotel with Western-influenced…
When you’re on holiday, do you ever feel like you’ve overdone it a bit? Perhaps you’ve tried to squeeze a five-day itinerary into a long weekend, visited three major museums in one day, and laden yourself down with souvenir shopping. If you’ve pushed yourself to the limit on your trip to Nagasaki and want to…
On my first visit to Tamana in Kumamoto, we headed straight for the popular temple that houses a giant, 40-ton bell (which you can have the pleasure of ringing if you arrive at the right time of day). On the second trip, my friend was keen to see this famous site and we programmed the…
I first tried ‘milk tea’ in China – what we would call ‘builders tea’ in England but made super sweet and super milky, and more often than not with little tapioca balls bobbing around at the bottom of the cup. Served with a jumbo straw through which to suck up the afore mentioned tapioca balls,…
