Japan is a country full of smokers and quite lax rules about smoking. For example, you can smoke in every restaurant — even fast food joints like KFC and McDonalds. There are smoking rooms in the stations on open platforms and smoking areas at waiting spots. You can buy cigarettes from vending machines pretty much… [Read more…]
February 6, 2012
Sleeping on the train in Japan. Why is it such a popular/normal/acceptable thing to do? Everybody sleeps on trains in Japan. Old people, young people, business people, students. It seems to be something that is conditioned into them, that when you get a seat on the train, it’s sleepy time. Time to catch up on… [Read more…]
January 19, 2012
I have a confession to make — sometimes I don’t answer the phone. Not because I am afraid of stalkers, or because I am too busy making love or something, no it is because of a much simpler reason. My Japanese sucks! So I can speak a little bit of Japanese, and read a little… [Read more…]
January 11, 2012
As you may have heard, Japanese people are very serious about cleanliness. In the movie ‘The Last Samurai’, when Tom Cruise gets captured and taken to the village, he makes a big faux pas by walking into the house wearing his dirty muddy boots, and quickly learns one of the most basic ground rules of… [Read more…]
January 10, 2012
The old saying goes that a picture says a thousand words, so I’m going to save myself the hassle of actually writing a thousand words and just show you some pictures instead! 10 shots of this week in Tokyo… . .
December 27, 2011
If you’ve ever been inside a Chinese grocery, or a Chinatown, or any Asian country for that matter, you may have noticed a little cat statue with an upraised paw, beckoning you inside. Some are small, some are big, some have mechanical arms to make the arm move up and down. The basic premise… [Read more…]
December 25, 2011
Last night for Christmas Eve I went with a friend for Korean food. Yes, Korean food on Christmas Eve in Tokyo, and no, it’s not some kind of weird tradition to eat bibimbap on Christmas Eve. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. We walked past a few KFCs last night en route to the restaurant… [Read more…]
December 18, 2011
I WOULD!!! So yes, I’ve eaten some ‘strange’ things in Japan, like raw horse, for example, but one of my favourite bar snacks which would be considered strange in the west is shishamo, which are smelt fish (?) that are only eaten when full of eggs. Yup, delicious pregnant fish. They can be grilled… [Read more…]
December 17, 2011
In the months of December and January, Setagaya City where we live holds what is called a Boro-Ichi (世田谷ボロ市）which literally translated means Setagaya Junk Market. It’s a big two-day event that attracts a lot of people, as they turn the streets into a massive pedestrian zone of vendors selling everything from sake to second-hand kimonos.… [Read more…]
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February 11, 2012
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