In the dashboard - go to ‘plugins’ Admin and Site Enhancements (ASE). That’s where you can hide elements, as plugins go it’s one of the better ones as it takes care of numerous small things. In one neat little package that honestly should be WordPress core.
EDIT: Think ASE is breaking email… Yup disabled
Customise link is now visible.
Used the image you uploaded ‘Untitled-design’ cropped it - now being used for the favicon on both the forum and wordpress. Different colour background for it might look better?
Four image block
I wouldn’t use Japanese and Japan
Living in Japan (Life in?)
Experiencing Japan
Culture in Japan
Food in Japan (current image bit too dark?)