Sunrise over Ajigawa (安治川)

Light shines on Tempozan

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The Maison Hermès Ginza store is already one of the architectural highlights of the capital, thanks to its impressive glass walls. Now the Hermès presence in Ginza just got better with the Hermès Jingle Games event, held at Ginza Sony Park from December 7th to December 25th.

Players can access the dedicated website and then receive customized Hermès Christmas greetings cards. At Ginza Sony Park, visitors can enjoy a Kelly bag-themed playground with the famed Hermès accessory as a retro 8-bit video game character in various sizes. At night during weekends and public holidays, groups of two people can also play interactive games with the projection mapping footage that appears on the neighboring Maison Hermès Ginza store.

Ginza Sony Park is the semi-open-air venue standing temporarily on the former site of the iconic Sony Building, which was demolished in 2017 and will transform into a new structure after the 2020 Olympics.

The event also recalls the giant game of Tetris that people could play on an entire wall of a high-rise in Osaka in late 2017.

Maison Hermès Ginza is far more than just a high-end fashion store. It has some of the best window displays in the city and also hosts …continue reading

    

Earlier this week, the railway operator JR East announced the new name for its brand new station on the Yamanote Line and Twitter had a whole lot to say about their choice of moniker.

The gateway to trouble town

Even without going so far as being a train otaku, most Japanese people are very proud of their trains so the announcement of a new station between Tamachi and Shinagawa stations for 2020 naturally sparked a lot of interest from the public.

Capitalizing on this enthusiasm for the new addition to the Yamanote Line, railway operator JR East declared the name of the station would be decided based on suggestions submitted by the public during 2018.

However, they didn’t quite keep their word.

While the obvious “Takanawa” was the public’s first choice, the railway giant decided to go with “Takanawa Gateway” instead — a suggestion which had ranked a pretty shameful 30th out of a total of 36 entries. Hmmmm.

Rumor has it that “Gateway” is a reference to a construction project near Haneda airport being funded by the Abe administration that they’ve proclaimed will be “a new hub for international exchange” — but not a hub for keeping promises, clearly.

Katakana cop-out

Ultimately, the Japanese public could probably have forgiven the first choice not being picked — business is business after all. But the adjonction of an English word in katakana, following the kanji, made people very アプセト.

Believing that this new station’s name was a disturbing anomaly among the 29 stations that all have very traditional names, @Kurage60 took it upon himself to provide a revised map of the Yamanote Line, renamed the Yamanote Metropolitan Loop Line for consistency.

山手線改め山手メトロポリタンループラインの路線図です。ご査収ください。 pic.twitter.com/Fy0DRxcqXK

— くらげ (@kurage60) December 4, 2018

山手線改め山手メトロポリタンループラインの路線図です。ご査収ください。= Here’s the revised route map for the Yamanote Metropolitan Loop …continue reading

    

Hi Hilary,

I read about your article the other day and I wonder if you can help me with my situation. I’ve met a wonderful funny Japanese guy online and we’ve talked basically almost everyday for more than 5 hours in a day for the past 3 weeks. And he asked me out on a 2 days 1 night trip to an amusement park and close-by attraction sites. He asked me if I want to share a room with him. I politely declined, saying I’d be much more comfortable if we stay in separate rooms. I thought he would ghost me but he didn’t. He keeps talking to me and despite how he points out how it’ll be nice to share a room together one time, it’s still fun talking for hours with him. Should I meet him or shouldn’t I? Thank you in advance. Best regards – A Curious Girl

Dear Curious Girl,

This is an altogether different situation from asking to have a first date at his place and one that, on the surface sounds pretty positive so far. As long as he isn’t trying to pressure you into staying in his hotel room, then I think this sounds like a reasonable idea.

However, if he is trying to pressure you into staying in his hotel room, or says he will book a room for you and tells you the details later — those are two very big red flags that you can’t ignore. If you can’t book your own accommodations for that night (or he doesn’t show you a proof that he had booked separate rooms as per your request before you go), then I think this date should be postponed until sometime in the future for if/when you two are comfortable sharing a room together.

But before all that, it’s …continue reading