Featured Posts

The 'Buddha Hall' at Tofu-ji Temple, Kyoto

Tofuku-ji Temple, Kyoto

Tofuku-ji Temple, Kyoto is not a place to hurry through. It is a place to walk slowly, stop often, and let the design reveal itself in layers. Water is everywhere, even when it is not present. It is heard in the raked white gravel of the Hojo South Garden. It is remembered in the “Eight Seas.” It moves below Tsuten-kyo Bridge in the maple-filled ravine.

Japanese Gardens

7 min read

From Mushigame to the World: TAKO•Maru Trading and the Quiet Work of Koi Trust

Sitting at almost the highest point in Yamakoshi, TakoMaru Trading belongs to this landscape as a modern bridge, a koi trading and export business bringing Japanese koi to the world

Koi Breeders

5 min read

Japan Bans Power Banks on Airplanes

Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) has moved to ban the in‑flight use of portable power banks from April 2026, after repeated incidents of mobile batteries smoking or catching fire during flights.

Koi Travel

4 min read

TRAVEL NOTES

Window seats at the Riverside Cafe Muni look out over the Katsura River

Riverside Café Muni, Kyoto

Riverside Café Muni, Kyoto offers a refined yet relaxed dining experience. The café overlooks the historic Togetsukyo Bridge and the surrounding natural beauty of Arashiyama

New Accommodation Tax in Kyoto

New Accommodation Tax in Kyoto: March 1, 2026

Year of The Horse

In Japan, 2026 is the Year of the Horse. The image of the Horse symbolizes vitality, success, prosperity, and luck. For this reason, 2026 is considered a promising year and a good time to take on new and demanding challenges.

Onn Japanese Sweet Shop

Onn Japanese sweet shop or Wagashi in the Gokomachi district of Kyoto opened late 2023 by owner Suzuka Yamaoka. The goal was to provide an experience that warms both the body and soul of it’s customers.

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JAPANESE GARDENS

Tofuku-ji Temple, Kyoto

Portland Japanese Co. CEO, Aki Nakanishi opens the Living Traditions 2026 Symposium

Living Traditions: The Water That Holds Us

Living Traditions: The Water That Holds Us, not as a topic politely contained inside a lecture, but as a living force that shapes cities, landscapes, and the way communities recover, reconnect, and remember.

Moss covered stone at the Portland Japanese Garden

Moss Matters in Japanese Gardens

Moss Matters in Japanese Gardens, it is not a minor detail. In many places, it is the calm surface that allows rock, water, and maple to feel like one scene

Red Leaf on Moss at Saihoji Temple, Kyoto Japan

Kyoto’s Garden of Origins and Journeys

Saihoji Temple—better known as Kokedera, the “Moss Temple,” is the kind of Kyoto place that refuses to be rushed. It isn’t designed for a quick loop and a few photos. Kyoto’s Garden of Origins and Journeys is designed for practice, for quiet, for the old understanding that the best journeys begin with a steady mind.

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KOI BREEDERS

From Mushigame to the World: TAKO•Maru Trading and the Quiet Work of Koi Trust

Sitting at almost the highest point in Yamakoshi, TakoMaru Trading belongs to this landscape as a modern bridge, a koi trading and export business bringing Japanese koi to the world

Kevin Warren

5 min read

Yamakoshi Mushigame is Koi Genesis

Yamakoshi Mushigame is Koi Genesis because from those same ponds came Yamakoshi’s other world‑shaping legacy, nishikigoi—aka koi. Japanese Koi Farms began here in Yamakoshi.

Kevin Warren

2 min read

Koi are walked thru the bidders to get one last look before bidding at the Dainichi Harvest Auction

Japanese Koi Breeder Harvest Auctions

For koi dealers, brokers, passionate collectors, and investors, the autumn harvest auctions at Japan’s top breeder farms mark one of the most anticipated chapters of the year.

Kevin Warren

3 min read

Koi mud pond harvest involves carrying bagged koi to a truck with water tank to transport them back to the farm

Koi Breeder Mud Pond Harvests

Every autumn in Japan’s koi-breeding regions, the quiet mud ponds begin to come alive. Koi breeders—farmers in their own right—walk the mud-pond banks before sunrise, checking on their prized Nishikigoi and the condition of the ponds themselves.

Kevin Warren

2 min read

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KOI PONDS

Hugo Torii, Portland Japanese Garden, Curator stands over the Koi Pond

The Portland Japanese Garden Koi Pond

The Portland Japanese Garden and koi pond combine, causing visitors to linger, captivated by the colors and calm movement of the fish.

Kevin Warren

6 min read

Lotus in Japanese Garden Ponds

Across tranquil ponds and water gardens worldwide, the lotus flower has long captured human imagination and respect.

Kevin Warren

9 min read

Japanese Garden Koi Ponds

The life of Nishikigoi beyond the mountain ponds of Yamakoshi and Ojiya in Niigata Prefecture began mostly in Japanese Gardens...

Kevin Warren

1 min read

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TRAVEL

Japan Bans Power Banks on Airplanes

Kevin Warren

4 min read

The lanes of Tsukiji Outer Market, Tokyo, are full of people most everyday of the year

Tokyo’s Kitchen Tsukiji Outer Market

Today, Tokyo's Kitchen, Tsukiji Outer Market still describes itself as Japan’s “Food Town,” where wholesale and retail shops share the streets with restaurants, and where new culinary trends are “born” in the middle of old routines.

Kevin Warren

6 min read

Silk on the Sidewalk: Kyoto’s Kimono Rentals

By late morning in Higashiyama, the transformation is already underway. Silk on the Sidewalk: Kyoto’s Kimono Rentals are marked by a row of sandals sat at the entrance of a kimono rental shop like punctuation marks.

Kevin Warren

5 min read