PEOPLE I’d like to say so long to one of our fellow passengers, Hilton Hotels’ Oded Lifschitz. After six years in Japan…

PEOPLE Sad to hear that Christian Hassing, GM of the Mandarin Oriental will be leaving soon after eight years here. His new…

PEOPLE Banjiro Uemura Moving on slightly, I would like to congratulate Banjiro Uemura, the founder of Tohokushinsha (the company which owns The…

PEOPLE Recently, we celebrated the 34th anniversary of a small funky club I’ve been affiliated with since it first opened. It started…

PEOPLE Congratulations and domo arigato to HIP Entertainment president Massy Hayashi for packing out Tokyo Dome City Hall for three Lenny Kravitz shows. I’ve…

Republic of Kosovo 4th Independence Day Reception To celebrate his country’s independence, Kosovan ambassador Sami Ukelli hosted a well-attended reception at the…

PEOPLE Vietnam’s diplomatic couple the Nguyens bid sayonara After over 40 years of writing this column you’d think it would be easy…

PEOPLE First, there was Ben Affleck. I spent considerable time with this great guy whenever he visited Tokyo. On one of his…

PEOPLE Catching up with old friends With so many things happening in Tokyo, breakfast meetings are the newest way to catch up…

PEOPLE Zac Efron here for Warner Brothers Young actor Zac Efron took time out of his busy schedule and flew to Tokyo…