Last week, I went to Claude Monet’s Garden. However, I didn’t go to France but to Shikoku in southwestern part of Japan. The garden locates in Kitagawa Village, Kochi prefecture. The climate is quite different from that of France, where mo…

The other day I went to Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Herb Garden (Tokyo-to yakuyo shokubutu-en). It is a medical herb garden for education and experiments purpose, and thus the real medicinal herbs as well as dangerous plants are planted. No…

I have heard that Japanese furikake is now booming overseas. Furikake is a dry Japanese condiment sprinkled on top of cooked rice and so on, according to Wikipedia. Small packaged furikake is useful for boxed lunch. We usually eat boiled r…

At a supermarket in Tokyo I saw a demonstration, in which the whole tuna fish was cut into chunks using a broad-bladed knife. Such an event is sometimes held at a fishmonger’s in a department store or a supermarket to attract customers. Th…

In this blog I have mentioned Shinjuku-Gyoen park several times. I visit this park often, especially in the cherry blossoms’ season. This park has many kinds of cherry trees, which have flower even after the famous Japanese Somei-Yoshino c…

After leaving Tallinn I went to Helsinki, Finland by sea. Not only being famous for Moomin and Marimekko, I found the town of Helsinki clean, safe, and anything huge. Buildings were much bigger, and sizes of parks, stations, open spaces, a…

Last week I went to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Tallinn faces the Baltic Sea and most of the sightseeing spots concentrates on Vanalinn, the old town. From the top of a hill The center of the town was Raekoja Plats, which was surround…

《The Seven Herbs of Spring》 Japan has a long-lasting custom of eating rice porridge with seven herbs on the morning of January 7th. Now, it is impossible to grow or pick up those herbs in the city and a package of herbs is available at s…