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初弘法 Toji Temple in south Kyoto is best known for the large pagoda that can be seen from the bullet train as it pulls into Kyoto Station. Toji was created in 796 C.E. and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Toji Temple is also famous for its monthly flea market. On the 21st of each month, the temple hosts a large outdoor market known as "Kobo-san." The market is held in honor of Kukai, the founder the temple. Kukai's full name was Kobo Daishi. He died on the 21st of March; therefore, the flea market is held on the 21st. Stalls are set up and sell antiques, food, pottery, crafts, art, clothes, etc. On the first flea market of 2012, it was cold and rainy. However, over 100,000 people showed up. Information Kujo Subway Station (Karasuma Line). 1 Kujo, Minami-ku, Kyoto. Tel: 075 691 3325 Free Admission. (9am-4.30pm). Toji is a short walk or cycle ride west from Kujo subway station along Kujo Street or from Toji Station, one stop south of Kyoto Station on the Kintetsu Line. Buses #202, #207, #208 and #19 pass by the main entrance to the temple. © JapanVisitor.com Like this blog? Sign up for the JapanVisitor newsletter Books on Japan Tags Japan Tokyo Kyoto Toji Temple Japanese

The cover-up has come to an end! Prime Minister Noda has removed his eye patch:

He’d been wearing the patch for the last two weeks:

Complete with patch – more surgical than piratical — the premier later explained to reporters that the self-inflicted blow came in the dark as he rushed to try to pick up an unexpected call.

“The phone suddenly rang in the middle of the night,” the prime minister explained, “so I got up and rushed to get it, and then bumped into a pillar.”

Now he’s just wearing makeup to hide the bruises.

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Like most cities that don’t get a lot of snow, a few centimetres of the white stuff caused all kinds of trouble in Tokyo this week. Trains were delayed. Schools closed. And the TV continually told us how terribly treacherous it was under foot.

But, in older, more traditional Tokyo, rather than chaos it instead created a comforting sense of serenity.

And an absolutely sublime silence.

The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles' Masahiro Tanaka and the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters' Yuki Saito were named to the 24-man Japan roster on Thursday for a charity game against Taiwan at Tokyo Dome on March 10. The game will be held the day before the first anniversary of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in eastern Japan, and Taiwan has been chosen as Japan's opponent because of its devoted fundraising activities.

A Tokyo doctor was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison for purchasing an illegally harvested kidney, and his wife was jailed for 30 months over her involvement. The Tokyo District Court found Toshinobu Horiuchi, 56, and his 48-year-old wife, Noriko, guilty of purchasing the kidney in violation of the organ transplant law.

Reliever Koji Uehara has refused a potential trade from the Texas Rangers to the Toronto Blue Jays, ESPN Dallas reported Tuesday night. According to the report, Uehara's contract includes a limited no-trade clause allowing him to reject trades to six teams, one of which is Toronto.

Survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings during World War II have begun a 100-day voyage to relate their experiences to the world and share lessons from the Fukushima nuclear crisis to spread their message against both nuclear power generation and weapons. Around 950 people left Yokohama port Tuesday.

The global economic slowdown will affect Asia this year but the region will remain the economic powerhouse of the world, led by China, India and Indonesia, the head of the Asian Development Bank said. Haruhiko Kuroda said in an interview Wednesday the bank expects Asian economies — excluding Japan, Australia and New Zealand — to grow by around 7 percent this year, down from about 7.5 percent in 2011 and 9 percent in 2010.

Business has been lean over the years for many of the horse breeders in Hokkaido, Japan's leading region for producing thoroughbreds, as the popularity of racing declines. But breeders now see a ray of hope in China, where an increasing number of wealthy people are aspiring to own their own racehorses and thus acquire a new status symbol.

An American serviceman is trying to locate the owner of a Japanese flag brought home by his late grandfather, who served in the Philippines during World War II. Michael Reid, a member of the U.S. Navy Reserve in Minnesota and currently stationed in the navy's Yokosuka base in Kanagawa Prefecture for training, wants to return the flag to its original owner or those associated with it.

Japan is gradually recovering from the March 11 catastrophe, largely because of the strong bonds people formed in the aftermath of the twin disasters, actor Ken Watanabe told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday. "The sea, which was so beautiful and had given us much fortune, swallowed up lives and swept away everything," Watanabe told the annual WEF meeting in Switzerland. "What was left were survivors with nothing to call their own.

Former Japan Sumo Association chairman Kitanoumi is all but certain to return to the governing body's top post, sources told Kyodo News on Wednesday. The 58-year-old Kitanoumi will replace Hanaregoma, who will step down as part of Monday's JSA board reshuffle since he reaches the retirement age of 65 in February 2013.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Jan. 17 that it will seek an average 17 percent hike in electricity rates from April for some 240,000 enterprises having contracts for 50 kW or more. It hopes to raise some ¥400 billion annually through the hike and to use the revenue to finance part of the fuel costs of increased thermal power generation necessitated by the Fukushima nuclear crisis. The rise of power costs will affect not only major manufacturers and non-manufacturers, including department stores, but also medium and small factories, supermarkets and hospitals.

Quiet mourners lined the route of Joe Paterno's funeral procession Wednesday, watching with grief and reverence as the electric-blue hearse carrying the Penn State coach's casket slowly drove by. Some took pictures with their cell phones, or waved to his widow. Others craned their necks hoping for a better glimpse through the crowd sometimes four deep or more.

A former seasonal worker at Mazda Motor Corp. pleaded guilty Thursday to hitting and injuring eight people with a car at a two-factory complex of the carmaker in Hiroshima Prefecture in 2010 but said he was innocent of the death of a man during the rampage and injuries to two others. "I acknowledge (guilt) until the eighth person, but not from the ninth, as I don't remember," Toshiaki Hikiji, 44, said at the first session of his lay judge trial at the Hiroshima District Court. He is charged with murder and attempted murder. The dead man was among the 11 people hit by the car he was driving.

Eitetsu Hayashi, a pioneer in the field of taiko (traditional Japanese drumming), plans to showcase the results of 40 years of experience at a performance celebrating his 60th birthday next week. The program is called "Goringu: Ashita no tame ni" ("Five Rings: For Tomorrow") a title derived from what Hayashi says are the universal elements (earth, water, fire, wind and sky) on which we live, or fight, for the future.

Mizuho Financial Group Inc. has invested several hundred million yen in a food maker in Iwate Prefecture through a fund designed to support the reconstruction of disaster-hit northeast Japan, industry sources said Wednesday. The ¥6 billion Mizuho Tohoku Industry Development Fund, launched by Mizuho Financial Group's Mizuho Bank and Mizuho Corporate Bank last August, purchased a bond issued Wednesday by Nakamuraya, a maker of processed seafood in the city of Kamaishi, logging its first investment.

Opposition lawmakers grilled Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Thursday over planned social security and tax reforms and his "inability" to keep his party's campaign pledges, and pressed again for him to call a Lower House election. Just two days into the current 150-day ordinary Diet session, Liberal Democratic Party President Sadakazu Tanigaki blasted Noda for breaking a promise to the public in attempting to raise the consumption tax, which was not part of his Democratic Party of Japan's 2009 campaign platform.

Together with French luxury skin-care brand Orlane Paris, the Conrad Tokyo is offering a special accommodation plan focusing on beauty called "Beauty Hunter Conrad Meets Orlane," throughout 2012. The plan offers several beauty-oriented features, such as Orlane Paris' top-class Creme Royale antiaging facial cream and other skin-care products, in addition to the hotel's usual amenities, a welcome drink and a dessert containing honey and gold dust. The Conrad Tokyo also offers discounts of 40 percent (20 percent on weekends) on body treatments at its spa.