The Tokyo Traveler

Did you know that the use of disposable chopsticks is contributing to the decimation of forests in China? 
Asia’s appetite for chopsticks has resulted in the loss of 25 million trees a year in China and since the start of the decade and the country has exported over 165,000 tonnes of chopsticks, with 15 billion pairs finding their way to dinner tables in Japan and South Korea.  One estimate states that a nation wide noodle chain in China uses 160,000 pair of chopsticks each day.  That’s a lot of trees!
…environmentalists say they (chopsticks) are up there with plastic carrier …read more

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Did you know that there are over 1400 types of chopsticks and 1,100 different ways to hold them? There are even rules about what you should and shouldn’t do with your chopsticks. The Japanese term for chopsticks is hashi and Ginza Natsuno is a store dedicated to everything beautiful about hashi!
On a visit to the branch in Harajuku I was amazed by the variety of hashi available. The walls were covered with hashi in almost every color of the rainbow and there were sizes and styles that I had never seen before.
When you purchase hashi the correct …read more

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