14th century Italy, ten young men and women flee Florence to protect from the Black Death or plague epidemics, and find a shelter in a remote villa in the countryside. Continue Reading
Someone once said that when you spend a month in a foreign country and culture, you are likely to want to write a book, having spent at least six months Continue Reading
You may remember the movie “The Last Samurai”, where Tom Cruise was playing a US captain who joins to fight alongside the last samurais in Japan. What you may not Continue Reading
A conversation in the office after the Golden Week (as you may know, Japan had a record long Golden Week this year given the change of the Emperor and the Continue Reading
While spring has been slowly arriving to Japan, bringing the annual round of changes (those who work in Japan and Japanese companies will understand), I squeezed in an opportunity for Continue Reading
Coming back after long holiday is always tough, even more so if this marks the start of yet another year and carries the weight of the widely common “new year, Continue Reading
While Japan is already living the first day of 2019 and has already greeted the very first sunrise, I am still counting the remaining minutes of 2018 and keeping my Continue Reading
“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris Continue Reading
“With clouds and mist In a brief moment a hundred scenes Brought to fulfillment” (Matsuo Bashō, translated by D. L. Barnhill) I have always been the one to claim that Continue Reading
Imagine a samurai in Saint-Tropez, a coastal town in the French Riviera. Sounds like a scene from a comedy movie? That was my first reaction as well. The fact remains Continue Reading