Impressions of daily life in Japan
Around the middle of April it was cherry blossom time in Japan. Needless to say I had been looking forward to this for a while. When foreigners think of Japan and typical Japanese things, the beauty of the cherry blossoms is one of the first things that comes to mind. My anticipation was only increased... Continue Reading →
When walking around in Japan, you never know what you will see next. Like a pimped out turquoise car for example. The car just stood there by the roadside, blasting Japanese hip hop music while the owner was casually making a phone call a little bit further off.
When wandering around the Osu Kannon neighbourhood in Nagoya one summer afternoon, we were lucky enough to stumble unto a 'mochi making ceremony' at a temple (mochitsuki in Japanese). Mochi are sweet rice cakes. The rice is first steamed and then placed into a mortar. One or two people with mallets pound the rice until... Continue Reading →
Every once in a while I need to get in touch with my inner geek. It usually lies dormant, but from time to time it wants to get out. So when we heard about the World Cosplay Summit in Nagoya in July 2011, my inner geek and I decided we were going to spend some... Continue Reading →
When people think of Japanese toilets - as I'm sure many of us often do - they think of the high-technology toilet with all the buttons, that looks more like a space-ship than an actual toilet. Standard functions include two sprays of water (one for boys and one for girls), a blow dryer and preheated... Continue Reading →
Today typhoon nr. 15, a.k.a. Roke, passed through Japan. It's the first typhoon since we've been here that passed directly over Nagoya and Toyota-City, and the first one that really had me worried. Yesterday on the news we watched images of Nagoya being flooded. And that was before the typhoon even arrived. The flooding was... Continue Reading →
The Japans 