Japanese Blog

We are planning many events for 2015. Here are ones that have already been scheduled. If you are interested, by all means please keep your schedule open!

Do you all like mountain climbing? Have you ever been hiking in Japan? Every spring and fall, we at Coto Japanese Academy arrange day-trip hiking tours to various mountains in the Kanto region. Ms. Mitsuoka, one of our teachers, served as our guide this time. Mountain climbing is a big hobby of hers, and she […]

Ikebana (the art of flower arrangement) is very well known as one of the traditions of Japanese culture. Have you ever experienced it? There are many ikebana schools, but among them, the most famous one overseas is the Sogetsu school of flower arrangement. We at Coto Japanese Academy would love for everybody to enjoy Japanese […]

Harvest and BBQ tour – Visiting an Organic farm in Chiba Growing and selling of organic vegetables as “safe edible vegetables” has lately become very popular in Japan. With the help of Ms. Tsukada at Vegelink who does delivery service of organic vegetables from farmers to private parties , we visited the farm of Mr. […]

Have you seen those boats that look like houseboats floating on the Sumida River or Tokyo Bay? In Japanese they are called “屋形船 yakatabune.” The kanji characters mean a boat that is shaped like a roof, and they are boats with on-board facilities to hold eating and drinking parties. (日本語の記事はアルバムの下をご覧ください） What is “Yakatabune 屋形船” A […]

{Join Local Japanese Festival in Iidabashi!} Summer in Japan means festival time! A street normally filled with the coming and going of cars and people is closed off just for this day and filled with festival stands. Walk around with unique festival foods and enjoy scenes only viewable on festival days. Festivals were originally held […]

How have you been spending the hot summer in Japan? At Coto Japanese Academy, continuing from last year, we powerfully beat back the summer heat with a beer garden! This year’s beer garden was held at the ultra popular Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi department store rooftop in Tokyo. Taking in the cool evening summer breeze, classmates and […]

Do you know how 日本酒 -nihon-shu (Japanese rice wine, or sake) is made? The basic ingredients are rice and water.Various types of sake are created based on the quality of this rice and water, and on the production method used. As a result, places that are renowned for producing good-quality rice and that have good-quality […]

Our latest Getting to know Japan took us to a fantastic Okinawan restaurant.