Day: August 28, 2025

This year brings new twists on the autumn culinary tradition. For centuries, autumn has been tsukimi (moon-viewing) season in Japan, but in the modern era, it’s also the time for…

Let’s be honest, there’s nothing wrong with the default Visual Studio Code theme. It’s clean, it works, and I actually used it for quite a while. That is… until one…

Japan-exclusive Starbucks drink will transport you to Kyoto… then Seattle, if you’re lucky. In September 2005, Starbucks launched its chilled cup series in Japan, pioneering the world market in pre-made…

Mystery toy chocolate eggs leave us with a surprisingly delicious dessert. Japan has a love for mystery purchases that’s perhaps unmatched in this universe. The thrill of the unknown, the…

When you gotta go, you gotta go, and this smartphone service will tell you where to go. At the start of August, Toto, Japan’s largest toilet manufacturer, introduced its new…

Rendered in delicately cross-hatched ink, dozens of figures inhabit towering structures or assemble in crowds in the elaborate scenes of Pittsburgh-based artist Ben Tolman. Evoking the playfulness of Where’s Waldo?…

Never accept offers to race from strangers. Among Japanese prefectures, Osaka is especially famous for its comedy, as seen in its manzai duos and skits known as “shinkigeki.” These are…

Welcome to an (almost) all-goaltending edition of the Red Light newsletter.

For two-and-a-half decades and across five continents, Janet Echelman (previously) has established spaces for gathering, although her approach emerges from an unusual angle. The artist is known for suspending enormous…

Green tea beverages topped with a Zen garden. On 21 August, a new way to get your matcha was born in Kyoto, at A Drop Of Zen Hitotekino Zen, inside…