Impressions of daily life in Japan
Two weeks ago, friends of ours took us to see the historic town of Arimatsu.It still has a lot of Edo period buildings. Located on the Tokaido (ancient road from Tokyo to Kyoto), Arimatsu is famous for 'shibori' or tie-dyed cloth. The cloth is tied up with rope before dying, thus preventing certain parts of... Continue Reading →
A few days ago I had another encounter with Japanese bugs: mosquitoes this time. We were strolling down the historic town of Arimatsu when we encountered a beautiful grove with stairs leading up to a temple. Little did we know that the grove contained a giant swarm of mosquitoes. At first it seemed like there... Continue Reading →
A collegue of Dennis recommended a nice ramen restaurant to us. Thursday evening we decided to check it out. We consulted the restaurant's website and concluded that it should be about 30 min. by car. The only thing we needed was the restaurant's telephone number, to input into the gps. Japanese navigation systems can recognize... Continue Reading →
Japan's summer is hot and humid. We are currently in the rainy season, which lasts about 40 days during the months of June and July. However, during our first week here we didn't see a drop of rain. Temperatures were very high for the time of year, a few days even up to 37° C,... Continue Reading →
The apartment where we live assigns parking spaces to the residents. The rent for these spaces is included in the rent we pay for the apartment. However, when we got home last night (we had gone to a sushi restaurant by car), another car was standing in our parking space. We were not sure what... Continue Reading →
soap made of cows? i'm not sure what to make of this
The Japans 