Impressions of daily life in Japan
Japanese people are very concerned with safety. One of the first Japanese words I learned after arriving in Japan was anzen (安全 ), the Japanese word for safety. A well-known example of this concern with safety is the method of 'pointing and calling', shisa kanko (指差喚呼), used by public transport operators in Japan. Japanese train... Continue Reading →
When driving along the highway in Japan, one often comes across signs warning drivers about animals that could possibly cross the road. While in Belgium such signs almost always depict a deer, in Japan the sign can show all sorts of animals. The Japanese love to be specific! The sign that surprised me most was... Continue Reading →
During our recent trip to Hokkaido (see post about Hokkaido) we covered quite some distance by car. At one point we drove all the way from Hakodate to Kushiro, about 585 kilometers in one day. A large part of this route included highway, which is closed off by toll booths at the beginning and end.... 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 →
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 →
The Japans 