“We like to think of ourselves as winegrowers, not winemakers. We offer the support that is needed for the grapes to develop naturally. We do the same for our students”
COCO Farm and Winery is situated in Ahikaga, about an hour by train outside of Tokyo. Built upon the above philosophy, it provides lodging, care and employment for over 100 adults with mental disabilities ranging from autism to down syndrome. In the process, they produce some highly complex and very tasty wines that are unique to Japan. The winery:s vintner, Bruce …

“Maybe what she was feeling now was what her civics program had called culture shock. She felt like everything, every little detail of Tokyo, was just different enough to create a kind of pressure, something that built up against her eyes, as though they’d grown tired of having to notice all the differences: the little sidewalk tree that was dressed up in a sort of woven basket, the neon-avocado color of a payphone, a serious looking girl with round glasses and a gray sweatshirt that said *free vagina*. She’d been …

This past Sunday saw six time champion yokozuna Asashoryu from Mongolia beat the Bulgarian sekiwake Kotooshu in a playoff bout to win the Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament. The number of foreigners in this traditional Japanese sport has been increasing rapidly over the years with 12 of the current 42 wrestlers in the top makuuchi division being non-Japanese. There is even talk of making it an Olympic sport. Interestingly, when you speak to the locals about sumo they respond with a look of indifference, telling you it is an old man`s …

We are in the final hours before our flight to Beijing. Plans to blog while on the trip are foggy at best. I may try to fire off a few quick impressions of the digital skylines and cybernetic crowds but I will have to see how it all plays out. As a last blog entry, I leave you with photographer Michael Wolf’s website, a series of photographs and collected posters that best represent the contents of my dreams over these last days before my imminent departure. Mata ne.

If anyone has any recommendations for restaurants that we should be checking out while in Shanghai, it would be great to hear from you. At the moment, the plan is to check out Cloud Nine for the view at the very least. The other restaurant that caught my eye is Tou Ming Si Kao which looks like something straight out of a Wong Kar Wai movie. As for Beijing, we will probably take most of our meals at the night market. Mmmm…deep fried scorpion.

Jane and I are heading to Asia this Friday so we have been busy doing a ton of reading and research not mention brushing up on our etiquette skills. This site, how-to-bow.com is quirky and bizarre and deadly accurate when it comes to Japanese do’s and don’ts. (via Coudal)

It seems a few tracks have leaked out into the blogosphere from Franz Ferdinand‘s highly anticipated sophomore effort due out October 4th. The video for their first single “Do You Want To” can be viewed here.