Travel to Japan
How Much Money to Bring to Japan
Three daily budgets with what each one buys, the taxes that rose in 2026, and the tax-free change on 1 November that moves your refund from the till to the airport.
Japan Know How archive
Author: Megan Rothwell
Japanese Culture
Japanese Gift Giving: Occasions, Wrapping and Taboos
Omiyage, temiyage, ochugen, oseibo, and two kinds of envelope that mean opposite things. New notes for a wedding, old notes for a funeral - and why the knot decides.
Japanese Eras
The Four Japanese Years That Belong to Two Eras
1912, 1926, 1989 and 2019 each split between two eras on a specific day. The exact boundaries, and why Showa 64 lasted a week.
Japanese Eras
Showa, Heisei and Reiwa Year Tables
The tables you can scan instead of calculating, the anchors worth memorising, and how a new era name is actually chosen.
Japanese Eras
Japanese Era Years: Meiji to Reiwa, Explained
Japan runs two calendars at once. Five eras, one subtraction each, and the two details that turn a simple conversion into a wrong answer.
Japanese Phrases
Japanese Politeness Levels, and Which One to Use
Casual, polite and formal are built into the verb, not added with tone. What each level sounds like, what keigo actually is, and why visitors should live in the middle.
Chinese Zodiac
The Five Elements and the Sixty-Year Cycle
Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water: how to find yours from the last digit of the year, why the cycle is sixty and not twelve, and where the elements turn up in daily Japanese.
Writing & Language
How Many Kanji Do You Actually Need?
The official answer is 2,136. The useful answers are thirty, a hundred, and a thousand, depending on what you want to read. What each threshold buys, and the official lists explained.
Writing & Language
Romaji Explained: Three Systems and Which One to Use
Hepburn, Kunrei-shiki and Nihon-shiki disagree about a handful of very common syllables. How to tell them apart, which to use, and what to do about long vowels.
Writing & Language
Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji: How Japanese Writing Works
Three scripts in one sentence, each doing a job the others cannot. What each one is for, why Japanese never dropped kanji, and how to read the layout before you read the words.