japanese culture– tag –

Hokkaido is famous for delicious seafood like sushi and sashimi because it's surrounded by the bountiful sea. My hometown Asahikawa is located in the very middle of Hokkaido, surrounded by mountains, far away from the sea, but you can have the best sushi because the town is the central distribution base of Hokkaido.

Did you know that ice hockey goalkeepers have no longer worn the iconic mask of Jason in the Friday the 13th series? Last week I went to see an ice hockey match for the first time. I was disappointed by the fact and somehow thought about Japanese Noh masks (please see the above image) during the match. Both of them are creepy, but in two different ways.

Tokyo Haneda airport has won No.1 since 2016 for the World's Cleanest Airports by Skytrax. Haruko Niitsu, she is a legendary cleaner in the airport who is said to play a key role to achieve the great feat.

I know we have received a lot of benefit from innovation mostly made by courageous or reckless decision-makers, but sometimes I can't help feeling that the value of being the first penguin is overestimated because of its high-risk nature. Think about it for a second: Nobody knows if such innovations can make the world richer. I think it may be better to leave it to some weirdos like Elon Musk.

Have you ever eaten mochi? If yes and you're still alive, you're blessed. Do you know how many people have lost their lives by choking on mochi in Japan? It's 300 averagely every year. We probably should prohibit or at least impose a heavy tax on mochi like narcotics and alcohol, but there has been no such momentum in the National Diet of Japan so far.

Why do bees and hornets build hexagons? If we try to fill a plane surface with a single kind of polygons, there are three options: equilateral triangles, squares, and regular hexagons. Bees and hornets go with regular hexagons because regular hexagons are best in space-efficiency and second best in strength. This is the core point of the theory. What do you think?

Do you notice anything peculiar in the above image of the big forest at the bottom of Mt. Fuji? It's moss. You can see a lot of moss on the ground. It grows on the surface of tree roots crawling on the ground. The forest soil is made of lava. The lava soil is so hard and well-drained that trees can't collect and keep water from their roots without moss.

Have you ever seen a Japanese elementary school bag? It's nationally-standardized in Japan. I'll tell you how Hokkaido kids use the bags to make an ice igloo.

Do you think you can tell good rice from not-so-good one? If you think "Rice is just a foil to the main dish, and there is not much of a difference," that's completely wrong. Today, I'm going to introduce a restaurant famous for good rice in Hokkaido.

I've been traveling around the world and staying in many hotels, though most of them were cheap ones. In my experience, Japanese budget hotels are best in cost performance.