The 2008 kanji character of the year in Japan is hen (pictured on the right) – ‘change’ in English.  The announcement was made my by Seihan Mori, chief monk at Kiyomizu temple in the ancient capital of Kyoto (via Yahoo! News).  Japan Probe presents a  video of the announcement (in Japanese) and shares the runner up Kanji -following hen came ken ‘gold’ and raku ‘fall’.

Tokyotopia presents an interview with Atsushi Nakamura, or Ats, the founder of Cycle Tokyo.  He talk about cycling in Tokyo and how the city is very small when touring via bicycle.  He says, “believe it or not, central Tokyo is within a 5-10km radius, which is a very short distance on a bike”.

If you are visiting Japan and need to bring hostess gifts or presents for your colleagues (omiyage in Japanese) you will want to read through Tokyo Mango’s list of gift ideas.  Her list is specific to New York but the principles can be applied to almost any city.

Last week I tole you about a rare opportunity to enter Japan’s Imperial Palace in honor of Emperor Akihito’s birthday on December 23rd.  He will be 75 this year and has recently had to scale back his public appearances and official duties due to health issues and reported controversy in Japan’s royal family.

With the end of the year comes some great warp-ups and What Japan Thinks presents Yahoo! Japan’s “Best of 2008” which lists the most clicked headlines of the year.

Paper-making traditions have survived for centuries at the World Heritage site of Gokayama in Japan.   The article presents an accompanying paper-making video that is very interesting and informative.  Did you know that there are 13 steps required to make paper and that the process takes a week to complete?  Watch the video and the read about the beauty of washi right here at The Nihon Sun.

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