Featured Posts

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.

Japanese Gardens

Kevin Warren

8 min read

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

Japanese Gardens

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.

Koi Breeders

Kevin Warren

2 min read

TRAVEL NOTES

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.

Tokyo Streets 'r' Cinema Streets

The streets of Tokyo are vibrant, modern, and fluid. For photographers and people watchers alike, Tokyo Streets 'r' Cinema Streets like an all-you-can-eat buffet of images to be made.

Abandoned Oiwa Shrine Kyoto

Japan has numerous abandoned shrines, or haikyo, as they’re referred to. Often found in rural areas and overgrown mountainsides, they are mostly the result of depopulation, modernization, or disaster. Abandoned Oiwa Shrine, Southeast of Kyoto is the example I’ve shared here.

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JAPANESE GARDENS

Living Traditions: The Water That Holds Us

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.

Water and Moss at the Mitaki-dera temple, Hiroshima Japan

Mitaki-dera: Hiroshima’s Mountain Temple

High on the forested slopes of Mount Mitaki, northwest of central Hiroshima, stands Mitaki-dera: Hiroshima's Mountain Temple, and one of western Japan’s most atmospheric Buddhist temples.

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KOI BREEDERS

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

Manabu Ogata: Japanese Koi Master

In this interview with Manabu Ogata: Japanese Koi Master, we see why Japan, the birthplace of Nishikigoi, remains the center of excellence for the finest koi in the world.

Kevin Warren

6 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

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