Japan's Meteorological Agency calls on people to brace themselves for heavy snow and a big drop in temperature while cabinet members call on Prime Minister Kishida to dissolve the Lower House within the National Diet and call a general election. In Ueno Park, the theatre director Daniel Kramer brings his modern take on Puccini's final opera “Turandot” to Tokyo next month as it opens at the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan with sets designed by the Japanese collective TeamLab.

Japan has re-submitted an application for the mining complex on Sado Island to be included on the UNESCO World Heritage list. In Tokyo, tour operator Hato Bus is re-starting its Chinese language bus tours throughout the city just in time for the lunar New Year. In Tsukuba city, Japanese researchers have developed a 99.98% light-proof black pigment that can absorb almost any visible light that hits its surface, while Takasaki Masaharu's 1995 building, the 'Kihoku Teikyukan' observatory and telescope based in Kagoshima, Kyushu, looks skyward as it awaits to hear whether it wins this year's JIA 25 Year Award for a building that has contributed to both the community and environment for the past 25 years.

A Japanese patrol ship ran aground off the Niigata coastline on Wednesday in search of a working lighthouse. Meanwhile, the price of eggs is on the up as bird flu spreads through parts of country. In Jakarta, a Japanese company has opened a school to send workers to Japan but cryptocurrency platform Coinbase Global is halting its Japanese operations. And while sports cars here are coveted abroad, electric scooters will soon be rideable by anyone over-16 without a driving license. And while sports cars are being stolen for their exclusivity, electric scooters will be rideable without a license by anyone over-16. And with a weekend's worth of art exhibitions to go visit, spare a thought for “Kaleidoscope of Books”, a series of digital exhibitions from the National Diet Library of Japan, each telling their own story.

China decides to tentatively approve a number of visas for citizens from both countries, while Ehime prefecture begins harvesting its crop of ‘Kanpei’ orange in Matsuyama. And with January 17th marking the 28th anniversary of Kobe's Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, the Ikebukuro Life Safety Learning Center gives a sense of what future earthquakes might feel like. Elsewhere in Ikebukuro, Chinese 'Gachi' restaurants give an authentic flavour to Chinese food and Aloha Whisky demonstrates its rare, unfiltered array of Whisky from the comfort of a small 3rd floor bar nearby.

The car maker Toyota outlined its conversion from fossil fuels to electric motors at last week's Tokyo Auto Salon, while the Japanese government is considering to lift the request to wear masks indoors, a policy change that may come into effect this spring. In parts of Hokkaido Spring is also making an earlier than usual appearance with unseasonable weather causing avalanches on Mt. Yotei last Friday which took the life of one foreign skier. The weekend also bid farewell to Yukihiro Takahashi, legendary drummer with YMO, the Yellow Magic Orchestra, who sadly passed away at weekend aged 70.

As consumer prices rise, the price of chocolates is also on the up with Valentine's Day fast approaching. Meanwhile, Japan starts 2023 with the world’s most powerful passport. As worldly as some institutions like the Tokyo National Museum are, they can also struggle to to make ends meet, safeguarding artefacts in its possession. Other museums on the other hand are battling the belligerent weather. Museums, like Aomori's Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art, currently showing Yoshitomo Nara, and Towada Art Center, hosting Aya Momose. But despite their challenges, time is on their side, unlike 3331 Arts Chiyoda in Tokyo which closes this March. Beforehand, it will look back over its 13-year history with the exhibition <a href="http://3331.jp/schedule/005813.html" target="_blank">“3331 Transformed Art into …”</a>.

Against the backdrop of yet more troops to be stationed on the island of Okinawa, countering future movements by China in Japan's southwestern waters, Fujitsu has developed a new ultrasound tool using AI for measuring the freshness of frozen tuna, a fish expected to become even more popular over the next 5 years. In Fukuoka, the 'Onisube' fire festival at the Dazaifu Tenmangu Temple is dramatic, mysterious and stirring stuff, with visitors invited to takes the temple's burnt ashes home, warding off the threat of misfortune. Rural and seasonal, Japan also prepares for the year ahead in Yamagata, leading up to its International Documentary Film Festival this October. All this and more, as Hirokazu Koreeda releases a new series on Netflix and prepares to release a new film, Monster, later this year.

'Seijin-no-hi' celebrates those who turn 20 on what is the first bank holiday of this year. Meanwhile, travel disruption, some planned and some unexpected, has affected both trains and planes. The JR Yamanote line was partially suspended over the past weekend as portions of track were moved, while a Jetstar flight from Tokyo en-route to Fukuoka was rerouted due to a bomb threat. And with the "Visit Japan Web" entry procedure now greeting foreign visitors who arrive at Narita and Haneda, the alternative art space and hostel Center, just north of Tokyo, welcomes two analogue film makers this week from MONO-NO-AWARE, a non-profit organisation that specialises in film from New York.

Welcome back and hello 2023. Some Japanese companies are pessimistic about business this year while Elon Musk's SpaceX launches its 'Starlink' service in Japan targeting rural areas where the internet is next to non-existent. And with the New Year holiday continuing for some until next week, we dig into the archives of the National Diet Library, Kasumigaseki, and look at old Japanese 'Sugoroku' board games from the Edo period, with 'ban-sugoroku' (Backgammon) and 'e-sugoroku' (Snakes & Ladders) featuring domestic landmarks and the aspirations of one day traveling aboard.

Foreign travellers to Japan have increased 2-fold since borders reopened in October. Heavy snow though is hampering the winter sport season for Niigata with roads closed throughout the prefecture. And while tourism slowly returns to normal, some, it would seem, are taking their love for the country a little too far. "I Love You" was reportedly carved into the historic Kintai Bridge of Yamaguchi Prefecture, while the monthly festival Shimai-Kobo took place for the final time this year at Kyoto's To-ji Temple. And with this episode of NOTEBOOK being the last of 2022 , we look at the year ahead and what lays in store for arts and culture in 2023.

Japan's Foreign Ministry revealed this week that Tokyo had joined other cities in unknowingly playing host to a secret Chinese police station, monitoring Chinese citizens living in Japan. Meanwhile, a ceremony that centers on the traditional New Year’s Eve dish of soba was given at a shrine in Uozu City, Toyama Prefecture. And while not unusual for certain days of the week to carry some extra significance in Japan, December the 20th was no different, otherwise known on as “buri-no-hi”, named after the Japanese species of Yellowtail fish, buri.

North Korea launched two more ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan on Sunday, while international cruise ships operated by Japanese shipping companies finally left harbour last Thursday on their first voyage in almost three-years. And as the end of year festivities get underway with comedy a regular feature of the holiday season, Suehirotei theatre in Shinjuku-sanchome remains one of the last places in Tokyo to still put on twice daily performances devoted to both the stand-up double act of Manzai and the solitary storytelling skill of Rakugo.

Looking back at a week of Boxing success and the a man climbing the peaks of Nara only to be attacked by bears, Monday's note visited Tokoname and the ceramics company INAX, while Wednesday's note visited an exhibition on Film Posters and Horror Cinema at the National Film Archive of Japan. Today's note visits the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum in Meguro and a new exhibition on Modernism and the Moderne style of Art Deco, along with Fuyumi Murata who has two exhibitions happening this weekend, "Hang" at 4649 in Sugamo and "Down" at Decameron in Shinjuku, both charting different stylistic paths.

Japan’s annual “Kotoshi no kanji” or Character of the Year, was unveiled Monday during a traditional ceremony at the Kiyomizu-dera temple in Kyoto. And following news that the American composer Angelo Badalamenti had passed away this week, an exhibition of “Film History in Horror Film Posters” opened at the National Film Archive of Japan in Kyobashi, while a program of films by the late filmmaker and poet Shiroyasu Suzuki are being screened with English subtitles this coming Saturday the 17th and Sunday the 18th at Shibuya's Image Forum Theatre.

With space and extreme heat experienced this past weekend by Hakuto 1,a lunar lander developed by Tokyo-based venture company 'ispace' hoping to becoming the world's first of its kind and algae developed by a Japanese research team for extracting gold from hot spring water, thoughts now turn to older innovations that once made a pottery town on the southern Aichi coast of central Japan the very epicenter of modern innovation, from the surface-scratched ceramics and the pottery kilns of Tokoname which fired ceramics on the incline of a slope.

Looking throughout the week, away from news of the Japanese government training members of the Myanmar military or Hokkaido's Shirogane Blue Pond illuminated for the first time this season, Monday's note looked forward to today's screening of “2/Duo” (1997) by Nobuhiro Suwa in New York and “Neko-mimi” by Jun Kurosawa in Tochigi, while Wednesday's note looked back at the winter dish O-den alongside a house fire in Nagasaki. Now Today's note looks at the work of two photographers; Go Itami with his exhibition "Don Quixote" at CAVE-Ayumi Gallery and Mikiko Hara with her photo book "Small Myths" published by Chose Commune, both uniquely bringing chance to photography that focuses on everything and nothing at the same time.

The Japanese government will hold off on its plans to raise taxes, funding defenses in its southwestern region but still plans to triple the number of Self Defense Force troops in the region. Not far from the action on the main island of Kyushu a two-story wooden building was engulfed by flames close to the old Nagasaki Streetcar and Sofukuji Temple built in 1673, whose grand Chinese style entrance gate has lived through more than its fair share of fires, the last of which was in 1849. And with the end of year just weeks away, thoughts are turning to food and O-den, a decision-making dish you eat on the way to eating something else. End-of-year celebrations are fast approaching, and eating O-den is the perfect way to bid this year farewell … soul food for thinking of the year ahead.

An Indonesia villages evacuated following the volcanic eruption of Mount Semeru in East Java over the weekend and three British men arrested in Britain over their alleged robbery of over 100 million yen worth of jewelry from central Tokyo in 2015. In Japan, two lost gems of Japanese cinema are brought back to returning to cinemas this month, with “2/Duo” (1997), directed by Nobuhiro Suwa celebrating its 25th anniversary at Metropolis in New York this coming Friday, December 10th, while “Neko-mimi” (1994) directed by experimental filmmaker Jun Kurosawa will be screened at Center, an Alternative Space and Hostel in Kanuma city near Nikko later this month on December 17th.

With a week of back and forth, Mars was at its closest to Earth this week, while “Furyu-odori” folk dances were added to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list earlier this week. And following Monday's note on Christo and Jeanne-Claude at 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT and Wednesday's note on the late director Yoichi Sai, today's note reviews the exhibition series Roppongi Crossing at the Mori Art Museum that reflects on the back-and-forth of a post-pandemic world with the latest edition “Coming and Going”. And with that, every note this week reflects on events and people looking for stability in unstable surroundings.

Following World Cup news of Japan’s 1-nil loss to Costa Rica and other news suggesting World Cup frenzy is putting a strain on Qatar's camel industry, the Lithuanian filmmaker Jonas Mekas took place over the weekend with a day of film screenings at the University of Tokyo. However, attention turns to the late Japanese film director Yoichi Sai, best known for his depiction of Koreans living in Japan with his debut “Mosquito on the 10th Floor” (1983) a controversial landmark that describes the fall of a character upholding the law while consumed by vice and the changing face of contemporary Japan. For Sai as well as Mekas, the exploration of social outcasts were filmed in infinitely different ways, but they are experiences that are thankfully being revisited and remembered.

All eyes are trained on the middle east this year. The FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar is finally underway, while November marks the 100th anniversary of the British archaeologist Howard Carter breaking open the tomb of King Tutankhamen near the Egyptian city of Luxor. This year a Japanese research team concluded an iron dagger found in the tomb had, in fact, been forged from a meteorite. Meanwhile, west of Luxor and east of Qatar, the largest and only permanent artwork is being designed for the Abu Dhabi desert: The Mastaba, a project conceived in 1977 by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the duo known for their environmental installations. Their final project is now on display at 21_21 DESIGN SITE at Tokyo Midtown until February 2023.

With a month to go before Christmas, an aquarium in Gifu is powering Christmas lights with an electric eel, while the oldest fossilized dinosaur eggshell in Japan has also been found nearby. And following Monday's note on Akira Kurosawa at the National Film Archive of Japan alongside news of Gateway orbiting the moon; and Wednesday's note on Velvet Overhigh’m d.m.x in Shinjuku, Super Dommune in Shibuya, and the lunar lander 'Omotenashi'; today's note looks at the art space Goya Curtain and painter Patrick Lundberg along with painter Shinro Ohtake and musician Yamataka EYƎ. As Puzzle Punks, Ohtake and EYƎ release their first album in 26 years. While all four tell tales of the unexpected triggering connections, some earthbound and some celestial.

A Japanese government panel of experts called for further tax hikes on Tuesday, urging the public to shoulder a heavier burden as Japan builds up its national defenses. Meanwhile, its space agency, JAXA, said Tuesday it’s given up landing the country's ultra-small probe on the Moon after communication with the lander failed following its launch last week. Back on Earth, Velvet Overhigh’m d.m.x, a bar in Shinjuku’s ni-chome, and Super Dommune, a live streaming studio and online channel across town in Shibuya’s Parco department store, aim to fill the communal void of space (or Social Distance) with something more intimate and purposeful.

Both Japan and the United States signed an agreement Friday to send a Japanese astronaut to Gateway, a lunar-orbiting space station to be built by NASA. Closer to home, Japanese documentary filmmaker Toru Kubota returned to Japan last Friday after being released from a Myanmar prison the previous day. And screenplays written by Akira Kurosawa are on display at the National Film Archive of Japan in Kyobashi, a display of artefact and historical record with scripts written for other directors and rediscovered unscreened screenplays that combined reveal the secrets of Akira Kurosawa, the screenwriter.

Exactly 100 years after Albert Einstein touch shore in Kobe and Japan for the very first time, the Japanese government has announced that it will be ing readmitting foreign cruise liners to Japan following a 2-year ban during the pandemic. And following Monday's note on the Fugaku supercomputer and uncovering the Pompeii of Japan and Wednesday's note on film director Kazuki Omori and amphibious drones patrolling waters off the Senkaku islands, today looks to Kyoto this weekend with Art Collaboration Kyoto, Artist Running Festival as well as "50 Seconds" at Soda that channel innovation and invention to reach an international audience.