As printed in STORIED Magazine Volume 3: The Cedar Issue. Walking through the narrow streets of Tokyo’s Edogawa ward, under the cover of an umbrella in the middle of spring, I notice a transition from skyscrapers to a patchwork of modern, low-rise buildings with a family neighborhood feel. There’s a nursery school, a few soba…

Spiders scurried away as I pulled open the privacy screen in the telephone booth. Shielding my eyes from the rain, I attempted to fit my luggage and myself inside the impossibly tiny space. The 10-yen coin in my pocket bought me about one minute to talk. “Moshi moshi?” I heard on the receiving end moments…

  There is a certain perception of serenity and poise that I have always associated with geisha. In my mind, they were of another world, gliding gracefully wherever they went. Highly skilled in the art of conversation, dance, and music, they exuded elegance and prestige. Though hanamachi (geisha districts) flourished during slightly different times varying…

As published on THE KINDCRAFT. Surrounded by lush green mountains on the island of Kyushu lies the famous porcelain town of Arita. I arrived the day before a typhoon was expected to roll through the island. Inexperienced with natural disasters in foreign lands, I considered if I should change my itinerary and just bunker down…

As published on Fodor’s Travel: “He Built a Temple Complex to Honor His Mother. What Are You Doing for Mother’s Day?” While we all generally want to thank our mothers for bringing us into this world in one way or another, industrialist-turned-Buddhist priest, Kozo Kosanji, might have gone a bit overboard. We should be so…

A visit to Izumi Riki Seisakujo in Sakai, Osaka Japan, as featured on JTCO: Japanese Traditional Culture Promotion & Development. Forged knives have been sought after and revered worldwide for years, which, once you know the process involved, it’s not hard to see why. Recently, I ventured into the old blacksmith neighborhoods of Sakai to…