Impressions of daily life in Japan
Last night I experienced an earthquake for the first time. It was a small one, only 2 on the Shindo scale. 'The what-scale' you say? Don't I mean Richter scale? After some research I found out that the Richter scale measures the energy released at the focus of the earthquake. The Shindo scale measures the... Continue Reading →
An izakaya - best compared with a tavern or a bar that also serves food - seems to be a great place to meet people. In a previous post you could read about our encounter with Asahi-san on our first evening in Japan (click here to read the post). A few nights ago, we had... Continue Reading →
Today and yesterday typhoon nr. 6 passed through Japan. Typhoons are given a number rather than a name. The news on television is all about the typhoon. Even on the shopping channel, they show a little map indicating the typhoon's progress. Based on all this fuss, I was expecting quite a storm. Tuesday I made... Continue Reading →
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 →
The Japans 