Cherry blossom in Japanese is Sakura and it’s the country’s national flower. It heralds the arrival of Spring and has come to symbolize ‘renewal’ and ‘hope’. It is with great anticipation that forecasters keep the public informed, from late March to mid-April, as to the best times to view these blossoms. The cherry blossom season…
Celebrated on March 3 every year, Girl’s Day is a day on which Japanese households with young daughters decorate their homes with ornamental dolls. These dolls have been traditionally used to pray for a girl’s prosperity, health and successful marriage. The third day of March is considered to be a day of purification, on which…
Limex is a new material made of limestone that can be used as a substitute for paper and plastic products. It takes its name from ‘limestone’ and the variable ‘x’. Nobuyoshi Yamasaki and Yuichiro Sumi invented this product and established a company called TBM to develop, manufacture and sell Limex. Limex paper outperforms regular paper…
For years, the Olympic opening ceremonies have been spectacles on a grand scale and for some it’s never too early to start planning. One startup company has a proposal for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo that is literally out of this world: launch fireworks from orbiting satellites to create a man-made meteor shower. This might sound a bit…
The latest robot sensation in Japan is so lifelike that when she stood on the floor of a Tokyo department store recently, she was confused for a human being. “It’s stunning,” Yamamoto says. “I wondered, why on earth all these people were taking a picture of a receptionist. I looked at her carefully and then…