{"id":2,"date":"2009-02-23T13:44:42","date_gmt":"2009-02-23T18:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shiga-ken.com\/blog\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2025-08-10T20:36:57","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T11:36:57","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/shiga-ken.com\/blog\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About shiga-ken.com"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"song<\/a>
Lake Biwa Rowing Song<\/em><\/a> monument, Kyoto University. Click image to enlarge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Updated: Aug. 2, 2025, by Philbert Ono<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to shiga-ken.com!<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A personal website introducing Shiga Prefecture<\/a>, Japan with thousands of photos, videos, sightseeing information, news, and articles all in English. “Shiga-ken” (\u6ecb\u8cc0\u770c) means “Shiga Prefecture” in Japanese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shiga-ken.com provides a large number of photos for the subjects covered. Official travel guides and travel blogs do not include as many photos of Shiga as we do. More photos mean better understanding, and better understanding means you can make better travel and planning decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This website is for foreign tourists and residents. An ongoing project as I constantly add and improve the content. Shiga-ken.com is the most comprehensive website about Shiga Prefecture you’ll ever find in English created by an individual. Unless indicated otherwise, all the content was created by me, Philbert Ono<\/strong>. This is how it’s organized:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The home page<\/a> has three main menus: “What’s New,<\/strong>” “Trending,<\/strong>” and “Popular<\/strong>.” “What’s New” lists the latest content added to shiga-ken.com. “Trending” lists content for the current season or upcoming events, and “Popular” lists popular posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top menu bar<\/strong> links to the major sections and pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About <\/strong>has links to pages giving an overview of this website, Shiga Prefecture, and other basic information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cities & Towns<\/a><\/strong> are overview pages for all 19 cities and towns in Shiga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photos<\/a><\/strong> is a large collection of photos (17,960+ as of Aug. 2025) for each city and town in Shiga. The photos are in albums (photo sets) showing festivals, temples, shrines, historic sites, gardens, townscapes, flowers, etc. They are part of my online collection of 70,690+ images (as of Aug. 2025) of Japan at sister site PHOTOGUIDE.JP<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, the app used by Photos is somewhat outdated and not completely compatible on cell phone screens. It might be cumbersome to view on a smartphone. Best to view on a horizontal smartphone screen instead of vertical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blog <\/a><\/strong>has blog posts covering Shiga Prefecture’s history, culture, sights, festival and event information, etc. Updated irregularly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

News <\/a><\/strong>(Shiga Headlines)\u00a0used to use Twitter\/X to present Shiga’s major\u00a0news headlines\u00a0carefully curated\u00a0from\u00a0local Japanese news sources<\/a>. I also tweeted about website updates and my travels in Shiga. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I left Twitter\/X in Dec. 2024 and started using BlueSky in Jan. 2025 as a replacement. BlueSky works almost the same as the old Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can still read my old\u00a0tweets on\u00a0my old\u00a0Twitter page<\/a>. I compiled the tweets into a blog post under Shiga History<\/a>. (This makes it searchable online.) The tweets go back to July 2013 when I started\u00a0Shiga Headlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Videos<\/a><\/strong> is an index to my YouTube videos (mainly festivals) of Shiga. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel<\/a> (user: photojpn) that features mainly festivals in Japan. Most of the Shiga videos are also embedded in my Shiga photo albums and articles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maps<\/strong> show individual maps of each city and town in Shiga. The maps pinpoints the city\/town’s major sights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Articles<\/a><\/strong> is an index to my in-depth, text-heavy articles about Shiga and Japan. The major articles are listed under the side menu on the home page, such as “About Shiga” and “Cities & Towns.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions and comments<\/strong> about this website or Shiga are always welcome. See\u00a0my\u00a0contact page<\/a>. Sorry, but due to spammers, the user registration and commenting functions have been disabled except on YouTube and BlueSky. (Even on YouTube, all comments are subject to approval before they appear.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Much of<\/em><\/em> shiga-ken.com<\/a>‘s content is presented under sister website PHOTOGUIDE.JP<\/a> which also covers all the other prefectures in Japan.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"tanuki\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

FAQ<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Q1: Who is behind shiga-ken.com?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q2: Who sponsors shiga-ken.com?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q3: What made you decide to start shiga-ken.com?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q4: How are you able to maintain shiga-ken.com?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q5: You really got a lot of stuff about Shiga in English. How did you amass all this content?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q6: Who contributes the content at shiga-ken.com?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q7: What about Facebook and other social media for shiga-ken.com?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q9: So where do you recommend to visit in Shiga?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q10: Do you offer sightseeing tours in Shiga?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q11: Do you work with the Shiga Prefectural government, visitors bureau, tourist associations, etc?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q12: What\u2019s your connection with the Lake Biwa Rowing Song (Biwako Shuko no Uta)?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q13: How did you become fluent in Japanese?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q14: Any advice for learning Japanese?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q15: How about making shiga-ken.com bilingual?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q16: How many hits do you get?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q18: Any advice on how to take nice pictures?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q19: How do you organize and store your photos?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q20: What are your ideas or concepts behind your Shiga videos?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q21: What do you think of other websites, blogs, etc., that write about Shiga in English?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q22: What other content are you planning for shiga-ken.com?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Q1: Who is behind shiga-ken.com?<\/strong>
Hello, I’m Philbert Ono, a Japanese American born and raised in this most beautiful and unique US state<\/a> with both parents from Shiga Prefecture. I’ve been living in Japan for a good number of years. I’m quite fluent in Japanese: speaking, reading, and writing (with a computer), although not as good as a native Japanese since I’m not a native Japanese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professionally, I do a number of things. I take travel photos, shoot\/edit videos, do translations, write travel articles, and other things. I’m a content creator, not a content aggregator like too many people. I take pictures and also write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I live and work in Tokyo, I visit Shiga a few times a year and stay at my parents’ home. Each time, I go out and see a place, festival, eatery, or attraction I’ve never seen before in Shiga or a neighboring prefecture. I’m especially interested in traditional Japanese things such as National Treasures (temples, shrines, etc.), festivals, historic sites, traditional arts and crafts, performing arts, seasonal scenes (flowers, etc.), and anything else that is beautiful or interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever I learn, I also try to share with others. So this website is geared for you to learn something new. My websites are therefore good for me, good for you, and good for all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Q2: Who sponsors shiga-ken.com?<\/strong>
Nobody except me. It’s a non-profit, voluntary project. All related expenses for travel, website hosting, etc., come from my own pocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Q3: What made you decide to start shiga-ken.com?
<\/strong>I just wanted more people to know more about Shiga since it’s a rather obscure prefecture outside the Kansai\/Kinki Region and internationally. There’s also too little quality information in English about Shiga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the foreigners writing about Shiga or Japan do not read Japanese. So they can never really go deep into whatever they are writing about. And most Japanese who write about Shiga cannot do it in English or in good enough English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Q5: You really got a lot of stuff about Shiga in English. How did you amass all this content?<\/strong>
Well, I started shiga-ken.com in 2005. (Amazing how fast the years go by.) So that’s how long I’ve been doing it and with each passing year, the content naturally and gradually grows while I visit more places and upload more photos and articles. I don’t think there’s any foreigner who has been doing something like this for this long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like to create content that can remain\u00a0relevant in\u00a0the long term. It has to have\u00a0a “legacy” potential where it can be useful even 10 or more years from now. Even if some photos or text become outdated, it still serves as a historical record and reflects that time in Shiga’s history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also build on previous content by expanding or updating it with more photos, information, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another major factor is my fluency in Japanese. By being able to read and understand Japanese, I automatically have direct access to the huge amount of information in Japanese. I can talk to Japanese people of interest directly. So I have a lot to draw on and work with. I still have loads and loads of Shiga content just waiting to see the light on my website. It’s infinite. Shiga-ken.com is still far from complete, and it will never be complete. It’s infinite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you cannot read Japanese well, you would have very little to work with and your content would be very limited in both scope and depth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These days, I notice that the younger generation, when they start a website, blog, Facebook page, etc., they want to snap their fingers and like magic, instantly have all the content they need and attract hundreds\/thousands of followers or Likes in a short period. They also want other people to do the grunt work and contribute content. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They love to start something, but want to have other people\u00a0finish it or flesh it out, which usually does not happen.\u00a0This phenomenon is rampant at Wikipedia with so many stub pages. I call them the instant-ramen generation who demand instant results and don’t take the time to cook up something better. They don’t\u00a0prepare the\u00a0vegetables, there’s no meat, and so there’s no proper nutrition\u00a0nor growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Q7: What about Facebook and other social media\u00a0for shiga-ken.com?
<\/strong>For shiga-ken.com, the only social media I\u00a0use is\u00a0Bluesky (previously used Twitter). I use it as a convenient content management system for very short posts (news headlines and tidbits). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social media is a numbers game and too many people are obsessed with how many likes, followers, friends, subscribers, comments, etc., they can get. In-your-face “PLEASE SUBSCRIBE\/LIKE” notices are also very annoying. For shiga-ken.com, I don’t use any other social media like Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, etc., because of the following reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n