A red-eyed horse sculpture that killed its creator greets motorists as they approach Denver International Airport, where public art and conspiracy theories converge in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. The 32-foot blue mustang sculpture—nicknamed “Blucifer”—looks like one of the four horses of the apocalypse, rearing up on its hind legs outside America’s biggest airport, which is twice the size of Manhattan. It’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to provocative art and civil engineering at this airport, a busy hub steeped in the kind of folklore that galvanizes gabby Uber drivers at 2 a.m.

This post mainly covers Japan-related travel writing, all the best pieces I have that don’t pertain to movies (which receive their due elsewhere in my Movie-Lover’s Guide to Japan portfolio). There are 130 links here, some inbound, others outbound to Explore.com and two GPlusMedia sites, GaijinPot and Japan Today. In 2023, I poured more effort into the site you’re now reading, The Gaijin Ghost, while expanding the focus of my freelance assignments to include other places in Asia and America.

Gaijin means “foreigner” in Japanese, with GaijinPot catering to the melting-pot readership of foreigners in Japan, and The Gaijin Ghost existing as my personal portfolio: the internet ghost of an American expat named Joshua Meyer.

“It feels like a coming home,” said director Jon Favreau after walking out onstage on the opening day of Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025. It was the morning of Friday, April 18, and Favreau was there to promote The Mandalorian & Grogu, the first new Star Wars movie since 2019’s The Rise of the Skywalker. Yet his comments about this homecoming-like occasion (a nod to the franchise’s Japanese inspirations) also summed up my personal feelings as I had my own full-circle moment with Star Wars in Japan after ten years.

On Tuesday, November 5, 2024, I had a front-row seat for the fall of the new Roman Empire. No, I’m not talking about the result of the U.S. presidential election. I’m talking about my position in the theater at Gladiator II’s Asian premiere, which served as the centerpiece screening of this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival. Before the lights went down, Denzel Washington, returning cast member Connie Nielsen, and franchise newcomer Fred Hechinger were on hand for a stage talk with producers Lucy Fisher, Douglas Wick, and Michael Pruss.

The day before, the three actors appeared at a press conference with Paul Mescal, who stars as Lucius, the retconned exiled son of Russell Crowe’s protagonist in the first Oscar-winning Gladiator film. Variety was there (as was I), but there’s a lot they missed, quote-wise. Of particular interest to me were some cast quotes that implicitly drew a parallel between the cinematic excess before Rome’s fall and what’s happening in the world now.

That’s just my takeaway, and it could be the Election Day hangover talking. But at the premiere, as actors dodged questions about the film’s “message,” Wick also chimed in to say, “The one thing that we’ve learned is ancient Rome is a great mirror to our time now.”

For six years, /Film was my home for film and television criticism. From June 2017 to June 2021, I contributed to the site on a freelance, article-by-article basis. From July 2021 to July 2023, I maintained an hourly News Writer position. More recently, I’ve branched out and contributed to Inverse and Dread Central. Pull-quotes from my movie and TV reviews have appeared on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, in the Television Academy’s Emmy Magazine, and in official AMC and Toho promos.

Usually, Tokyo’s Rainbow Bridge is illuminated white at night, which may be disappointing for some visitors who have seen dynamic photos of it lit up in actual rainbow colors. According to Japan Airlines, the bridge’s real name is “Tokyo Bay Connector Bridge,” but that was news to me when I first heard it, and I’ve never heard anyone call it that. In years past, the Rainbow Bridge did sometimes live up to its unofficial name in late December.

There’s another pic here, before the fireworks video, where you can see the bridge at sunset and it’s legitimately rainbow-colored. However, when I was there last night on the north promenade, the sun went down around 4:30, and when the lights came on at 5 p.m., it was just “warm white,” the usual winter lighting pattern that they have from November to March. Tonight, it was the same color in the live webcam view from the Fuji News Network’s Odaiba headquarters.

It wasn’t until 7 p.m. last night that the lights went off and then came right back on again, with the bridge rocking the rare rainbow lighting pattern, as it did back on August 26, 2023, when it celebrated its 30th anniversary. This was part of a special, five-minute fireworks show that took place over the Rainbow Bridge on the first four Saturdays of December. The final show last night synchronized the fireworks to Christmas music, and afterward, they left the rainbow illumination on for the weekend holiday crowd to enjoy.