Hinamatsuri (雛祭り) is a special festival which is held in Japan every year on March 3rd. This festival, which is known either as "Girl’s Day" or "Doll’s Day" in English, is a family celebration for young girls and is dedicated to their health and happiness.

As you probably know, Japanese has three alphabets: Hiragana, katakana, and kanji. You're going to need all three of those; something I'm specifying mostly because I've met people who insist that just one will do, and you should pick kanji because then you know Chinese too (no, it's not the same, and 'I've been to Korea' just makes things worse).

Setsubun is an annual festival celebrated widely both in private homes and public areas that at first glance seems to consist of equal parts charm and eccentricity. Can you imagine wearing a plastic devil-mask while the rest of your family gleefully pelts you with dried beans? This is a key part of the Setsubun celebration!

Japanese gardens take many forms. There are large, meandering stroll gardens, hilly landscape gardens that can best be enjoyed from a single vantage point, smaller gardens attached to teahouses, tiny interior courtyard gardens, and stony dry landscapes.

The tranquil gardens of Japan are famous for offering their visitors a sheltered landscape in which to stroll, sit and reflect. In this article we will introduce some of the most beautiful and fascinating gardens from across the country.

"I am a Cat" was the famed Japanese author Natsume Soseki’s first novel — written and published in the early 20th century. The main character is a house cat who, with humor and satire, describes the lives of the upper middle-class humans around it in all their pomposity.