Kurashi - News From Japan

If you like herbs, and if you like gardens, do pay a visit to the Seikatsu no Ki Herb Garden in Hanno, Saitama... Nice shop, cafe, medial herbs, natural healing garden, special Sri Lanka treatments, aroma therapy, Ayusha, Ayurveda products, and a lot more. The Hanno garden itself is a work of art, you walk up through roses and all kinds of flowers, a tiered theme park, with so much fragrance to enjoy... Each month has new surprises... A very special place. The medical garden tour in Hanno is just 1050 yen plus your lunch... The Tree of Life company stretches around the globe, talking to the staff, I got some sense of how they got so big! I like how they do both seminars in the city and guided trips in the forest. Founded in the early 1960s, some 50 years ago, this is a company that has grown to have 100 shops all over Japan. Never heard of Tree of Life? You are missing out. Do visit Hanno and the unique herb garden, really, it is a small park, and you will not be disappoi...

Koma, a small town in rural Saitama, Japan has an amazing story to tell, and if you visit the small Koma Shinto shrine , you will be told that this tiny hamlet was the place where a bunch of survivors from a war on what is now the Korean peninsula - I have no idea what it may have been known as back then - some 1300 years ago. People escaped from all the way across the ocean, and ended up safely, here? In fact, even today, people are confused about what to call that Korean region. Even more seriously, Communist China appears to try to claim large parts of the region (which is now to the north of North Korea, if I understand things correctly). Here is what Koma, Saitama looks like today , while the wikipedia entry for "Koma" redirects to Goryeo, the ancient Korean kingdom from 918–1392. Ken has this to add: This shrine is also very old and was founded about one thousand and two hundreds years ago. It is said that the prince, Jakkou, of the ancient Korean dynast...

The Hamaoka Nuclear Plant near Tokyo is in the news again, with The Mainichi reporting that anti-reactor restart mayors have been victorious in nearby towns. Glad to hear that. Best of luck to the campaigners in Shizuoka prefecture who have fought so hard for so long against this particular nuclear folly. Check Hamaoka here on Kurashi and it is probably the one nuclear plant I have blogged about most often over the years... Municipal elections delivered wins on April 21 for two incumbent mayors against the restart of the nearby Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station, joining two other cities in the region against reactivating the plant's reactors. Mayoral elections were held in the cities of Iwata, Kakegawa and Fukuroi, and anti-restart incumbents in the latter two were returned to office. The mayors of nearby cities Kikugawa and Yaizu have also declared they "will not recognize" any move by plant operator Chubu Electric Power Co. to restart t...

I don't fly much these days, I feel I have more or less used up my miles when I was younger, and thinking about the planet, we all ought to travel more climate-friendly (and travel less). Be that as it may, there is also something subconscious about flying - I dream about hovering, levitating, using nothing at all to be air-borne. Might have something to do with watching Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future, 25 years ago? Remember all those hover skateboards escapes and cool cars that didn't need any roads? Or how about Kiki's Delivery Service , a wonderful Ghibli feature from 1989, set mostly in the imaginary skies over Visby, Gotland, a small island in Sweden. Kiki battles her reluctant broom as she saves the day. I like how they used that airplane in the beginning, a  Handley Page , only a handful were built in the UK. G-AAUD, production number 42/3, was named after the Carthaginian explorer Hanno the Navigator , who explored the Atlantic coast of Africa in approx....

I was lucky enough to walk through the Earthday market in Tokyo today, a regular Sunday. If you haven't tried it, you haven't experienced the more aware youth in Japan, all the NGOs, the amazing farmers markets, the hemp clothes, the organic tea, the hippie vibe. This is a city that cares about the environment, the state of the planet, the wholeness. We are all connected. More Tokyo farmers markets here .

I'm more and more impressed by the amount of debate about the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations in Japan. Here are a few links. The Mainichi: Japanese participation in TPP talks bad news for everyone involved Michio Ushioda, Expert Senior Writer notes: The TPP has such great value precisely because it is aimed at complete tariff elimination and trade liberalization, without exception. Demands for special consideration risk watering down this basic principle and producing a weak agreement. In other words, it may be better for the rest of the world if Japan were to turn down TPP participation. Soichi Yamashita is a Hokkaido farmer who knows of what he speaks. Do read his heartfelt appeal: The Mainichi: Farmer to urban dweller over TPP: 'You would starve if Japan's agriculture collapsed' "There's no problem as long as you can buy food. However, if Japan's economy went bankrupt, you would starve without the domestic agricultural indus...