Japanese Food
Vegetarian, Vegan and Allergies in Japan
The problem is not the meat, it is the fish stock underneath almost everything. What is safe, what to ask, the eight allergens Japanese labels must declare, and where the law stops.
Japan Know How archive
Author: Kaori Miyata
Japanese Food
Sushi vs Sashimi: The Difference Is the Rice
Sushi is a word about rice, not about fish. Which is why a cucumber roll is sushi, a plate of raw tuna is not, and a seafood rice bowl still is not.
Japanese Food
Japanese Food for Beginners: How to Read a Menu
A Japanese menu lists techniques, not ingredients. Learn six characters and most of it explains itself - plus what to order first and how each kind of restaurant works.
Travel to Japan
The Best Time of Year to Visit Japan
The best weather and the biggest crowds fall in different months, and that gap is the whole opportunity. Month by month, plus the three weeks the entire country travels.
Japanese Culture
Bowing in Japan: The Three Angles Explained
Eshaku, keirei and saikeirei - fifteen, thirty and forty-five degrees. A visitor spends almost the whole trip inside the first one, and here is when that stops being true.
Japanese Culture
Japanese Etiquette for Visitors: What Actually Matters
Japanese etiquette splits into rules of form, which nobody minds you getting wrong, and rules of boundary, which everybody notices. Only one of those lists is worth learning.
Japanese Eras
How to Read a Date on a Japanese Document
Seven slots, always in the same order, and five character pairs to recognise. After that, any form in Japan becomes readable.
Japanese Eras
Kazoedoshi: Japan’s Other Way of Counting Age
You are one at birth and everyone gains a year at New Year. A baby born on 30 December is two years old on 2 January - and that count still decides four ceremonies.
Japanese Phrases
Ordering Food in Japanese, Start to Finish
The six-step script that works from a ramen counter to a department store, plus the two conventions that surprise Americans and the allergy phrases worth screenshotting.
Japanese Phrases
Essential Japanese Phrases for Travelers
Ten phrases, and three of them do most of the work. What to say, how to pronounce it, and the one thing phrasebooks leave out: which register to use with whom.