Blog » 2011 Sendai Earthquake and Tsunami

I'm happy to report that we had a successful fundraising event for Tohoku last month. This was our first collaboration with UC Berkeley's Center for Japanese Studies, and we'd all agree that it was awesome. Despite the massive rain that...

For the fifth anniversary of the Tohoku disaster, we are teaming up with the Center for Japanese Studies at UC Berkeley to bring you TOHOKU SPRINGS BACK, an evening of food, drinks, music and dancing.

Japan is a country full of people who work hard and play hard. Many put in 60+ hours into the work week, not including the after hours drinking they are forced to join with their colleagues. But I'm happy to report that they rest hard too....

If you try Googling "Fukushima" you'll get pages and pages of links with words like, "tragedy" "disaster" and "fear" in the title. This is simply fact. On March 11, 2011, Fukushima prefecture was home to an earthquake, then tsunami so devastating that it caused a massive...

Two years after the Tohoku disaster in 2011, memories have faded and conversations about the incident, and what we can learn from it, are rapidly disappearing from the media. As time widens the gap between...

By Shizuka Wakashita One day I had to run errands near a local wine shop and it suddenly occurred to me that maybe this shop has some jizake (sake produced by smaller breweries, or as with beer, "micro breweries"). If they are passionate about wines they must...

Spring is just around the corner, and plum blossoms are bursting all over Japan, California, and beyond. A year after the devastation of the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan still stands, its spirit strong, with people going about its business just like the rest of us....

Yoko and I have been invited to give a presentation at the world-renowned Pecha Kucha forum next Tuesday 1/24 in San Francisco. The theme is "chaos", and we will be speaking about our experiences in Japan last year in regards to food and radiation. In...

After spending three weeks in Japan, the subject of radiation in the water remains a mystery to me. People young and old all had differing opinions about it, and tap water vs. bottled water was a hot topic. When I first arrived in Tokyo, I didn't...

A cat cafe is not a place that serves cat sandwiches. It is a cafe... with cats. Cat Cafes in Japan were very popular in the early-mid 2000s and still remain peppered throughout Tokyo. Building on the otaku culture of manga, maid and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-tTX5ktHFc *This is a part of an ongoing exclusive series on Umamimart, Radiation + Japan. Please check out these other posts and videos for more: Testing of Food in Japan, By Yoko Kumano Interview with Washio, Bar Owner (Tokyo), By Yoko Kumano

Radiation + Japan: Testing of Food in Japan (Video)

Yoko Kumano on Nov 04, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wWPEHuTbYo&feature=channel_video_title

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEYg8KURILk&feature=channel_video_title Washio is one of my favorite nomiyas (watering hole) in western Tokyo. I spent an afternoon with fisherman, enka singer, bar owner extraordinairre Taro Washio and captured it all on video. For more enka pleasure, please watch this amazing music video by superstar Jero.

By Howie Correa Within half a day of arrival from Ireland, I was excited to be heading out of endless Tokyo to visit a radiation testing facility at Natural Harmony, a produce distribution site in Chiba. It was a trip that seemed to be...

Mash-ups has been en vogue for over seven years now. Every time Britney or Gaga release a new smash hit it's instantly mashed up with an old Kylie Minogue or Human League hit. Sometimes, it's because mixing and mashing creates an entirely...

All Photos by Yoko Kumano. About a week after our initial GIFT OF FOOD fundraiser in San Francisco, Yoko and I were approached to help organize a similar event down in LA, to benefit the victims of the 2011 Sendai Earthquake and Tsunami. Could...

Our good friend and talented videographer Joe Stillwater (of Bright Spectrum) joined us on April 5th for our GIFT OF FOOD benefit in San Francisco. We raised over...

Are you ready for THE GIFT OF FOOD, Part Deux??? After the initial benefit we hosted in San Francisco just two weeks ago (raising over $10,000!), Yoko and I have been working with some kickass folks down in LA to organize a similar...

Photos by Travis LoDolce and Wataru Umeda. For an entire week after the Sendai earthquake and tsunami first hit, I was wrapped in an incurable, numbing daze. I would wake up with a pang in the pit of my stomach...

Are ya'll sick of hearing about fundraisers for Japan yet? Well, get over it--Japan needs us right now and we absolutely must do what we can to support it. You don't hear me get all up on my soapbox very often, but for this, Umamimart...