Food and drink 
Japan: Dolls everywhere – the Hina-Matsuri Festival(0)
Dolls, dolls, dolls everywhere! From small and plain to very fancy, I kept seeing them everywhere. So I investigated: starting in February and up to March 3, families and businesses display their often handed-down-through-generations dolls in honor of “Hina Matsuri Festival” on March 3, also called the “Doll’s Festival” or “Girls’ Day”. The tradition goes [...]
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Kanazawa, gold-leaf capital of Japan
Have you ever seen a gossamer-thin leaf of gold? Blow on it ever so lightly and it will fly away, catching the sunshine, if you are lucky, and creating an ephemeral moment of magic. Put a few flakes in tea and transform an ordinary “cuppa” into a drink of luxury. There are even those pundits [...]
Japan: Delicious white strawberries!
Ever on the lookout for new gourmet taste sensations, I found these white strawberries in Tokyo’s famous wholesale Tsukiji food market. Beautifully packaged, as they should be for the price of 800 Yen for 6 strawberries in early February (that’s about $10 or 8 Euro). Amazingly, they really tasted like strawberries, as did the red [...]
Japan: Tokyo’s “cat cafes”
By now it is a known fact that pets can help to combat stress symptoms. So it is a logical conclusion to combine two pleasurable activities in order to achieve a positive result: have a tea or coffee break and pet a cat to feel relaxed. The Japanese solution: visit a “Cat Cafe”. What can [...]
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