Many Japanese people have misunderstood or even don't know the spirit of Christmas. Due to the misunderstanding or ignorance, I think we celebrate Christmas in a unique and funny way, like rushing to Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants on Christmas Eve.

Why Are People Attracted to Handmade Products? Do we want to sacrifice others for better quality? In fact, it's not only for quality. We need something else, like meaning or stories behind things.

The king of mashrooms in Japan is definitely pine mushrooms, Matsutake in Japanese. They are very expensive, like about 300 USD for one piece, but funnily enough, it's not popular at all outside Japan. Let's see the long history of eating mushrooms in Japan.

Fascination and awe for fire. We have such slightly conflicting emotions probably because that should be the optimal condition for survival, but now we can fully satisfy our feelings of fascination for fire under a safe environment here in Hokkaido.

In Japan, baseball is still the most popular sport, and the national high school baseball championship (Koshien) is a popular seasonal sport event. It has a long history of about 100 years. The shaved head of high school players is one of the traditions, funnily enough.

Almost all the Japanese people can't help feeling "I have to go home" whenever hearing the Scottish folk song "Auld Lang Syne." The song is very popular and recognized in Japan as a song to inform closing time of shops, restaurants, etc. The Japanese title of the song is "The Light of Fireflies." People in Hokkaido have been working hard to recover the environment to see fireflies again.

Japan and India seem to have their own unique box lunch cultures: Japanese bento and Indian dabba. Among other things, the tidy content arrangement of Japanese bento is one of a kind, while the lunch delivery system (dabbawala) in Mumbai is unequaled in the world.

The biggest festival of design and creativity in Hokkaido was back! Why do we need real communication events like this, though it's not good in efficiency? If efficiency is prioritized most, we have no other choice but to stop living our lives.

Instant noodles were invented in Japan in 1968. The inventor's name was Momofuku Ando, the founder of Nissin, the top instant noodle brand in Japan. Let's see the background story of how he invented instant noodles and his company has been improved them.

Why do we like gossip? As Yuval Noah Harari says, it's because we are first and foremost social animals and designed to feel good by gossiping. We human beings can't live without communication with others including gossiping. The biggest festival of design and creativity in Hokkaido was back after the COVID! We need real communication events like this.