Featured

Taisho

A night at the 114-year-old Nara hotel, where emperors, Einstein, and Audrey Hepburn stayed【Pics】

Taisho-era hotel feels like an elegant museum that you can sleep in.

Read More

Akihabara Nagomido manga cafe x Felissimo Cat Division Parlor collaboration café is open meow

Month-long specialty cafe offers the purrfect dishes and goods for cat lovers in Japan’s capital.

Read More

Why do kids in Japan use those large leathery “randoseru” school bags?

A trend a century and a half in the making.

Read More

Cosplay indoors with new range of Taisho Roman schoolgirl costumes from Japan

Now you can relax around the home in a traditional outfit worn by schoolgirls during the romantic Taisho period.

Read More

Tokyo retro kimono photography service provides customers with gorgeous snapshots of the past

Slip into the Taisho Period of Japan’s past as you slip on a kimono from this unique part of the country’s history.

Read More

Itadakimasu! A brief history of the evolution of Japanese school lunches

In the 22nd year of the Meiji era (aka 1889), the very first Japanese kyūshoku (school lunch) was served up at an elementary school in Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture. Although the first menu was very simply prepared, it provided the growing children with an important source of nourishment that not all of them could receive at home.

Fast-forward to 2015–Japanese schoolchildren (and their teachers!) continue to eat school lunches every day, as opposed to children in many other countries who bring their lunches from home. If you’re working in a Japanese school, you should already be familiar with the daily feeling of either excitement or disappointment when you see the lunch menu for the day. But just consider this–would you rather eat the types of lunches served today, or those that were served 100 years ago? Read on to learn about the evolution of Japanese school lunches and decide for yourself!

Read More