My mother turned 84 this year. In June she fell in her room and broke her hip. After my father passed away, she joined a swimming club and took good care of herself. It must have been quite a shock for her to not be able to walk for a while because of the fracture. For a stretch there were days that she was depressed and didn’t socialize with anyone. Her strength waning, her muscles weakened, she stopped going to rehab. I received worried calls from her grandchildren. They pleaded with me to stay by her side as much as…
Author: Seasider
As we move into October, our excitement continues to grow for the imminent conversion of our magazine to NPO status. In addition to publishing the magazine and website, we’ll be engaging in an array of community activities, too. This will include sponsoring artists for public work or supporting neighborhood projects that seek to bring residents together. If you’re a business that would like to support us or cooperate in our activities, please reach out. If you’re an individual, you can provide support via our Patreon page (details below) or by simply attending any of the events. We’ll feature them in…
As revealed in the July issue, Yokohama Seasider Magazine has embarked on several significant initiatives including our transition toward Non-Profit Organization (NPO) status. One of our goals is to support the growth in community arts projects connecting local and international artists with Kanagawa residents. In this first of a series of articles, we interview contemporary artist Eitoku Sugimori concerning a public wall mural painting project in downtown Yokohama. How did you get involved with this project in Yokohama? Through online art news, I read about Yokohama’s community art projects such as Koganecho Art Bazaar. I checked further to see if there were any other…
Brewpub Libushi Bashamichi occupies the first floor of one of the historical neighborhoods’s renovated, brick buildings. In contrast to the facade, the bright, airy interior is one of modern elegance. Activity in the shiny new brewing area is visible through the glass behind the long bar. Libushi is an extension of Anglo Japanese Brewing (AJB), which was founded in 2014 in Nozawa Onsen, Nagano by Tom and Emiko Livesey. The name Libushi is simply a katakana reading of their family name. AJB brews a wide range of styles, as reflected in the variety pouring from Libushi’s 15 taps (½ pint…
The picturesque hills of Yamate-cho (“The Bluff”) are one of Yokohama’s prime tourist destinations. With sweeping vistas of the harbor far below, they abound with verdant parks and gardens, reconstructed Western-style houses, and a historic cemetery. In the 1860s, there was another attraction: the higher altitude promised relief from the pestilential swampland in the original Foreign Settlement, now Yamashita-cho. Attacks by rogue samurai, coupled with a catastrophic fire in 1866 and outbreaks of malaria, prompted foreign merchants and diplomats to petition the feeble Tokugawa authorities to open a second residential area close to the British and French army camps. The…
We hope you enjoy this issue’s content, especially considering it marks another step in our evolution toward more long-form articles about local culture and history. This shift in our approach–ongoing for a while–is also connected to our transition to an official NPO. We expect that registration process to be completed soon. We’re quite excited! Whether you are a business or individual, please consider supporting us. For individuals, please visit our Patreon page (web address below). If you’re a business, please email us about partnerships (advertising, distribution, etc). Thank you so much!
The Great Kanto Earthquake approaches 99 years on the first of September and already the city is planning events to mark the centennial throughout 2023. Through the many writings recorded by survivors of this natural disaster, the devastation and aftermath of this day left an indelible stamp on their memory. Particularly in Yokohama, where nearly 80% of the city was destroyed by the quake and ensuing fires, rebuilding the city quickly with an attention to safety became the priority of the local government. One new area that was a result of the earthquake is Yamashita Park–the site was selected as…
A recent mini-boom in wild game meat (jibie, from the French gibier) has hit Japan, and boar and venison are no longer rarities on a menu. While horses are hardly wild, horse meat has been popular in Nagano and Kumamoto for centuries. From 2017 to 2020, a brewpub called 29BY specializing in horse meat was a fixture in Yoshida-machi, but the deterioration of the building forced a move to suburban Hakuraku in 2021. Its sparkling new location, just minutes from the east exit of the Toyoko Line station, features a modern brewery and kitchen and room for 30 guests. Brewmaster…
In today’s rapidly changing world, many people who have traditionally stayed in their present jobs for a long time have suddenly made changes in their work in search of a more rewarding life. Kazuhiko Abe is one such person. He is the owner of Made in Hands, a gourmet burger shop in Hiyoshi. After graduating from the University of Tsukuba Graduate School, Abe received a position at a major foreign consulting firm. There, he gained practical experience in a wide range of areas, including improving the efficiency of client companies’ IT-based operations and supporting their global expansion. However, he had…
It has been a difficult few years, but experts are finally looking past the vagaries of numbers which continue to rise and fall in pockets, and to start planning a return to normalcy in a post-pandemic world. For well over two years, the coronavirus pandemic has colored our lives. Our work environments, vacations, schools and every social occasion have all had to take the most damaging global health crisis in more than a century into consideration. Today, however, aggressive vaccine programs coupled with a majority of the public heeding common-sense precautions mean that the crisis appears to have peaked in…