2015 Kanji of the Year

Today is December 15th, the day that the Kanji of the Year is chosen in Japan.

The JapanToday website wrote:

The kanji character 安 “an,” meaning peace or safety, has been chosen as the character best representing the sentiment and events in Japan in 2015.
The character refers to the controversial security legislation that the government passed in the summer.

The Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation, a Kyoto-based organization that promotes kanji, conducts the survey nationwide every year. The foundation said 129,647 submissions were received this year, with 安 being the most popular, garnering 5,632 votes.

In an event held on Tuesday, Seihan Mori,the head priest at the world-famous Kiyomizu Buddhist temple in Kyoto, drew the character with a large calligraphy brush, whose bristles were the size of a bowling pin, on a huge piece of “washi” (Japanese paper).

The second most popular character was 爆, “baku” (explosion), a reference to “bakugai,” meaning explosive buying (shopping sprees) by Chinese tourists visiting Japan.

The third most popular kanji was 戦, meaning war, referring to the many conflicts going on in the Middle East and the war on terror.

The best city in the world

Since 1995, “Travel & Leisure” magazine has done an annual survey of travelers to find the best city in the world for tourists.

And, for the second year in-a-row, Kyoto, Japan has been ranked the world’s best city.

Last May, my family and I went there again, (Click here to see my post and photos from that trip), and we agree – Kyoto is a very lovely city!

(This photo of geisha near Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto is from “allworldtowns.com”)

Personally though, I think that Tokyo is the best city in the world…but maybe that’s because I’ve lived here most of my life and I know my way around Tokyo very well. Either way, I can understand why Kyoto is so popular with tourists!

The Travel & Leisure top-ten cities for 2015 are:

1. Kyoto, Japan

2. Charleston, South Carolina

3. Siem Reap, Cambodia

4. Florence, Italy

5. Rome, Italy

6. Bangkok, Thailand

7. Krakow, Poland

8. Barcelona, Spain

9. Cape Town, South Africa

10. Jerusalem, Israel

(Click here to see a news article about the list).

What do you think about this list?
Have you ever been to Kyoto?

Leave a comment!

A few more Kyoto photos

A few more photos from our 2015 May 4-5 trip to Kyoto:

Inside the 新幹線 (bullet train). (That person in this photo isn’t known to us).

A ツバメ (swallow) made her nest in a temple.

Byoudou-in

鯉 (carp) in the pond at Byoudo-in.

Kinkakuji

Kyoto trip

Today is the last day of Golden Week. It’s a series of consecutive holidays in May that are known collectively as “Golden Week”.

We decided to take a two-day trip to Kyoto during Golden Week this year.  So, in early morning of May 4th, we took a fast but comfortable 新幹線 (bullet train) to Kyoto. We stayed in a nice hotel that overlooked 琵琶湖 (Lake Biwa), the largest lake in Japan. And we took the bullet train back to Tokyo in the evening of May 5th.

We had a really good time and got to see many of Kyoto’s famous sites.

Here are some of the photos I took:

We took this 新幹線 (bullet train) to Kyoto from Tokyo on May 4th.

View from the bullet train window.

Even the local trains were a bit different from Tokyo’s.

The famous Fushi-Inari Temple in Kyoto.

1000 torii gates at Fushimi-Inari.

Wisteria at Byoudou-in

The famous Byoudou-in Temple in Kyoto.

This temple is shown on the backside of the Japanese ¥10 coin.

Kyoto Tower

Our hotel had a lovely view of the largest lake in Japan: 琵琶湖 (Lake Biwa).

Delicious dinner at our hotel. 近江牛 (O-mi-gyu Beef)!

The second (and final) day of our trip (2015 May 5th), the weather was much nicer!

The famous 嵐山公園 (Arashi-yama Koen) in Kyoto.

many people wear kimono in the ancient city of Kyoto.

Tenryuuji Temple

The famous 金閣寺 (Kinkaku-ji) Temple is covered in gold.

6PM on May 5th, 2015 at Kyoto Station to take the bullet train back home in Tokyo.

京都駅 (Kyoto Station)…we had a good time!

KISS Japan Tour 2015 goods

KISS is on their way to Japan now to begin their 2015 Japan tour on Monday.
(Click here to see my post about the announcement of this tour, the tour dates, and their special guests for the Tokyo Dome show).

The T-shirts and other merchandise that KISS will be selling for their shows in Japan have been revealed.

I like towels from concerts. These types of towels are unique to Japan, aren’t they?

Click here to see the page with the complete list of official KISS Japan Tour 2015 merchandise (Japanese only).

2014 Kanji of the Year

Every December, a kanji (Japanese (Chinese) written character) is chosen that represents the biggest news of the year that is just ending. It’s called 「今年の漢字」 (“The Kanji of the Year“).

Last Friday, the kanji of the year for 2014 was chosen. It’s 「税」 (zei) which means “tax“.

Every year, when the 「今年の漢字」 (“Kanji of the Year”) is chosen, it’s presented to the public at a special ceremony at a temple in Kyoto where the head monk writes the character and it’s broadcast on TV, newspapers and the internet.

The Kanji of the Year (今年の漢字) for 2014 is 「税」 (“tax”).

The reason that this character was chosen to represent 2014 is because the sales tax in Japan was increased this year for the first time in years.

When I came to Japan in 1990, the sales tax here was 3%. (Until just a couple of years before I came to Japan there was no sales tax here at all!)
It stayed at 3% until 1997 when it was raised to 5% (that year, a law was also passed that the “after-tax” price must be shown on all products).
Japan’s sales tax was 5% for seventeen years. It was increased to it’s current 8% last spring (thus the Kanji of the Year is “tax”).
The Japanese government plans to increase the sales tax again next year (in 2015) to 10%!

Tokyo is the world’s (second) “most livable city”

Monocle magazine makes a list of the world’s most livable cities every year.

Tokyo is ranked number 2 on the list behind Copenhagen, Denmark.

In fact, three Japanese cities, Tokyo, Kyoto, and Fukuoka are on the top ten.

Six of the other seven cities on the top ten most livable cities in the world are European.

The criteria used to judge the most livable cities were:
economics, society, functionality, everyday living, happiness of people, crime rate, health care, public schools, public transportation, access to nature, culture, sunlight/climate, number of electronic vehicle charging spots, ease of starting a new business and tolerance.

Here is Monocle‘s list of the top ten most livable cities in the world:

1. Copenhagen, Denmark
2. Tokyo, Japan
3. Melbourne, Australia
4. Stockholm, Sweden
5. Helsinki, Finland
6. Vienna, Austria
7. Zürich, Switzerland
8. Munich, Germany
9. Kyoto, Japan
10. Fukuoka, Japan

Big Bird came to Japan

I didn’t know that there was a Sesame Street special that had Big Bird visit Japan.

He and his dog got seperated from their tour group in Tokyo which led to a number of cultural misunderstandings … such as Big Bird thinking people were telling him that they were from the U.S. state of Ohio when they greeted him with “Ohayo” (‘good morning’)… until he was helped by a mysterious woman who turned out to be “Kaguya-hime” (a famous Japanese folktale “Bamboo Princess”) and she helps him and his dog get back to Sesame Street in America.

Here’s the special on YouTube:

Japan in January

Japan is beautiful in January … and every other month!

2013’s “kanji”

Every December, a Japanese kanji character is chosen as 「今年の漢字」 (“the kanji of the year”).

You can click here to read my post about last year’s (2012) kanji of the year,
click here for 2011‘s,
click here for 2010‘s,
click here for 2009‘s,
and click here for 2008‘s.

This year’s (2013) Kanji of the Year was just chosen.

It’s　「輪」 (りん(“rin“)).

It means “ring” and was chosen in honor of the Olympics rings because of Tokyo’s successful bid to host the 2020 summer Olympics.