Despite offering some of Japan’s most beautiful scenery, Shirakawa-ko isn’t all that famous. “Wait a second,” you might be saying, “isn’t that village in Gifu Prefecture with the thatched roofs one of ...

I was living in Tokyo in the 1980s when the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery came up with a new concept: shinrin-yoku, translated as “forest bathing.” The idea was to get ...

The city of Tokorozawa outside Tokyo plans to buy the 3.5ha "Totoro Forest" for US$19mil (RM84mil), with crowdfunding covering just a small portion of that, a city official said.