FindJPN blog
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The spiffy #allnewfindjpn website!
FindJPN was started to help you discover Japan and its culture through unique travel experiences. Today we’re excited to announce a redesigned website that we hope will help you surface interesting activities faster and become your perfect tool to exploring Japan.
Discover even more
Our new discover page allows you to view even more activities at once. It features large pictures in a redesigned box that give you a feel of each experience and allows us to feature the most important information about it: a short description, the number of reviews, its host, and an accompanying price. And with endless scrolling, you never have to leave the page if you don’t want to!
Are you a foodie? An adventurer? A culture geek? Find what you’re in the mood for
With our drop down menus, we’ve made it incredibly easy to browse popular categories, narrow down experiences by location, and even sort them by popularity, reviews, or price. Dig down and unearth exactly what you want!
This is just the beginning
If you poke around, you’ll probably be able to guess a few of the features we’ll be adding in the coming weeks, like changing your preferred language. We’re a small team, but we’re hard at work on additional features, signing up new hosts, and an all-round better experience for you. We’ve got so many exciting things planned for the summer, so stay tuned!
In the meanwhile, go ahead and give our redesigned website a spin; who knows, maybe you’ll find an experience you like and try something new! And, please let us know what you think by tweeting, facebooking, or emailing us! -
Go to Sushi Jiro in Ginza
Whenever I ask people the best place to eat top-notch sushi, people tell me: “Go to Sushi Jiro”.
Sushi Jiro. Have you heard of this place?
This place is written about in numerous blogs, numerous books (in Japanese), and has recently even become a movie called “Jiro, Dreams of Sushi”
The sushi restaurant is called “Sukiyabashi Jiro”. The owner, 82 years old, is Ono Jiro. His store has received a three star rating from the famed and prized Michelin Guide. What’s even more special is that his restaurant is by no means fancy.
Located in the basement of an office building, this place even hard to get to – but when you do, and finally sit down for some sushi, you’ll understand why this place has indeed three stars.
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How to Get From Narita Airport to Central Tokyo – Quick, Easy, and Cheap
How’s it going? This is Dyki from FindJPN. I’ve been an intern at this company for over 8 months making pop culture related activities, writing blog posts, and just having a really great time.
This blog post is a how-to blog about “How to get from Narita airport to Central Tokyo”.
Narita Airport is not located in the Capital of Japan, Tokyo prefecture, but instead in Chiba prefecture; this is why it takes around 1~2 hours to get from Narita Airport to Central Tokyo.
There are a few ways to get there but this time, I’d like to share three ways:
- An easy route
- A cheap route
- A fast route
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Making an Edo Wind chime in Mizue, Tokyo
Summer in Japan is damp, hot and moist.
If I didn’t know Japan well I would advise visitors to stay away from the hot summer months of July and August but having lived in Japan for most of my life (I’m 21 right now), I can say with confidence that summer is, in fact, the best time to visit.
Creativity flows in and out of Japan during the summer - the fireworks at Edo River, the “matsuri” (festival) in Asakusa, eating shaved ice and the way Japanese people find bliss during the heat.
“It takes three years to be able to make a glass ball – 10 years to make it perfectly round ”
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How to Ride a Train Using a Metro Prepaid Card in Japan (Suica/Pasmo)
Tokyo is really famous for the complicated transportation system. Sometimes even Japanese people sightseeing Tokyo can’t figure out how to buy tickets and transfer trains.
But if you have a PASMO/SUICA card, you can deal with almost any money transaction including transferring for trains and buses - even shopping!!
A PASMO/SUICA card is 500 yen (5 dollars) to buy.
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Learning to become a Geisha in Tokyo
Hi, this is Rei Sandy, and I’m an intern at FindJPN. For a while now, I’ve been tagging along a couple of FindJPN activities to report back how these activities turned out.
So early morning on a day in April, I went to go see a FindJPN customer become a geisha along with another colleague. The transformation that unfolded was amazing, and I want to share this with you all.
FindJPN’s customer arrived at around 10:15. Her long blond hair waving as she crossed the traffic light under drizzling rain in Tokyo. Her name is Alison – a woman with a wide smile that breaks out at times when she talks. But Alison seemed anxious as she found and slowly approached us.
There was a short silence between us– a moment of “wait, this is who I’m meeting right?”
But soon this awkwardness left us as she talked to us about how she could not wait to transform into a Geisha. Feeling honored by how enthusiastic she was with traditional Japanese culture our anxious feeling turned into anticipation and excitement.
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A Detailed Report of a Tea Ceremony in Ginza
My name is Rei Sandy, and I’m an Intern at FindJPN.
On April 2nd, I went to see a tea ceremony held in Ginza hosted for two of our customers Alison and Kavin. All the people at the tea ceremony, including the teacher, were great so I want to tell you about them as well as the ceremony itself.
Around 8:45am that day, after going up four flights of stairs up an office building, I was in front of the tea ceremony room.
Alison sitting in the “seiza” posture and Kavin in the “agura” posture.
I opened the door to a breeze of incense, into a dimly lit space separated into two rooms. I was half-expecting a strict conservative person to greet me, but I was wrong. I was pleasantly surprised as a beautiful, gentle lady greeted me - her slick black hair tied up in a knot, dressed in beige “kimono” and equipped with an infectious smile and laugh. Her name is Fumi Kojima, a tea ceremony teacher who has been practicing tea since she was nine years old.
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Learning What Lolita is with “Pochi”
Over the next three posts, I’ll be writing about the many interviews I did with the club I talked about last week – “The Gothic, Lolita, and Punk Club”.
I’ll be writing about what lolitas do every day, why they wear Lolita clothes and other information that may help to understand who Lolitas are.
Our first guest is “Pochi” who is the sub-leader of the club.
Dyki: Thanks for having this interview with me!
Pochi: No problem! It’s a pleasure.Her encounter with Gothic clothes
D: First off, I want to ask you when you first started wearing Gothic and Gothic Lolita clothes.
P: I started to really wear Gothic clothes when I went to College. But ever since I encountered visual-kei clothes in high school, I’ve always wanted to wear Gothic clothes – but because I didn’t have money, I couldn’t. That’s why I only started in college when I started to work part-time.
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Getting to Know the “Gothic, Lolita and Punk Club”
For this blog, I’d like to report back my meeting with the leader Ai and sub-leader Pochi from the “Gothic, Lolita, and Punk Club” at our office in Ebisu.
But first, I’ll briefly explain what Lolita and gothic fashion is.
Lolita Fashion is a trend that incorporates France’s Lococo-style fashion while arranging it to a Japanese style.
The picture below is an example of Lolita Fashion!
On the other hand, Gothic Lolita fashion is basically the same as Lolita Fashion except for the fact that it mainly uses black clothes.
In Japan, there is a club that gathers these lovers of Lolita, Gothic and even punk fashion. The name of this club is rather straightforward – “The Lolita, Gothic and Punk Club”, founded by Ai (leader) and Pochi (sub-leader) in 2009. It’s a student organization, but they are as active as a full-fledged club.
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Toshimaen (としまえん）Cosplay Event Pt.2 : Interviews
Last week, I wrote about the としまえん Cosplay Event and held off the interviews to this week. So, here are the interviews! Please enjoy! ;)
Out of the many Cosplayers I took pictures of, I interviewed a couple
The questions I asked the cosplayers are the following:
- How long have you been a cosplayer?
- When and what was your very first cosplay/outfit?
- What are some things that you took special care of for the outfit you’re wearing today?
- What would you like to say to fellow cosplayers around the world?
Here’s the interview!
華猫 (Kaneko) (FullMetal Alchemist: Kimblee)- I’ve been dressing up for about a year now.
- My very first cosplay was TK from this anime called Angel Beats.I’ve always wanted to dress up as this character, so I just did it!
- Well..It would be my all-white colored costume.
- Let’s cosplay together!
白雪みみ (Shirayuki Mimi) (FullMetal Alchemist: Roy Mustang)- I started about a year ago.
- My very first cosplay was Rudolph from this Takaradsuka play called “Elizabeth” at an event called “冬コミ”(Fuyucomi) about a year ago. [Fuyucomi – an event where amateur and professionas get together to sell manga, anime, and games]
- My costume is hand-made from top to bottom!
- I’d like to “cosplay” with people all over the world!
ロココ (Lococo) (FullMetal Alchemist: Edward Elric)- There’s a period where I didn’t cosplay at all, but I started five years ago when I was a junior in middle school.
- I started because I’ve always admired the world of anime.
- My red coat’s beautiful, right?
- Together, let’s create a new world!
I would like to thank Mimi, lococo, kaneko, kazuki, tamutamu, and Hana for helping with this interview!
As a side note, this time around at the event I didn’t see any cosplayers participating or coming from different countries other than Japan, but all are welcome to join! So please do!
And again…
At FindJPN, we offer a plan that will have the cosplayers I interviewed for this blog actually take you to this “Toshimaen としまえん” event! Through FindJPN, our guides will make sure you have no trouble using Japan’s confusing train system or communicating to people at the event!
Written by: Dyki Ogawa
Translated by: Rei Sandy
