Japan

The hospitality industry is making a strong rebound after the pandemic, and many hotel chains are now creating new sub-brands targeting a very diverse band of travelers. Recently I came across a new hotel brand B4T owned by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East). In addition to the highly efficient train system they operate, JR East also runs shopping malls and hotels at train stations. Utilizing contactless self-checkin and checkout machine becomes a norm in Japanese business hotels these days, but what strikes me the most is how much farther the B4T chain goes by introducing cloud reception....

Who are temple carpenters and what do they do? If you have travelled to Japan, you must have visited a traditonal temple or two that was built several hundred years ago. And if you ventured into ancient capitals such as Nara or Kyoto, chances are that you’ve shared ground with a wooden structure that have stood over a millenium. The book Ki no ichi Ki no kokoro ( 木の...

What is Danshari Danshari is a mental model pioneered by Hideko Yamashita via a book series in the 2000s, as a way to organize our lives by making deliberate choices. Per Yamashita, she got the idea from her yoga practice and a pilgrimage stay in Koyasan. I used the term mental model and not housekeeping tactics because I truly believe that this has far more practicality beyond just organizing our...