Rinkaru, the mascot of the Rinkai line. There are copious blog posts by foreigners in Japan writing about the various mascots invented to lend color and personality to various aspects of Japanese soc...
Though I lived in a country which is seen (often justifiably) as a conformity factory, all countries and even individuals expect you to react and behave in a certain manner within that culture. Even ...
OK, Im pretty sure I can read these boxes. Some people are going to react with incredulity that I spent such a long time in Japan and never became fully literate. Well, judge away, my friends, if tha...
An infamous video lesson teaching people the phrase "Ive got a bad case of diarrhea". One of the textbooks that I used to teach from had a lesson about slicing cheese. A waggish teacher cro...
If you travel, and you think that train stations are a snapshot of ethnic diversity in Japan, youre forming the wrong impression. You see more concentrations of foreigners in public transport areas t...
When I was growing up, I was a rabid KISS fan. Some of my more attentive readers with good memories may recall this fact from some of my previous ramblings. One of the reasons I loved being a KISS fa...
Shortly after returning to the U.S., I went into a little shop that sold panini and wine. It was small and had one long bar with about 8 stools around it. It was the type of tiny little place that wi...
Yes, this is a store, despite the fact that it resembles a warehouse. Shops in Tokyo often optimize their display and storage space but putting open boxes of products in front of shelves or at the en...
Im not really talking about this kind of food (processed food). Im talking about things like bread, cured meat, etc. Im sure these are relatively chemical cornucopias. I used to scoff at the idea tha...
One of the things I had to repeatedly correct with my students when I was teaching English, both in writing and when speaking, was how to use "and". Despite what Im sure are years of studyi...
Every several months, applications for automatic payment of various utility bills were put in my mailbox. Every several months, I recycled the forms. Though the Suica and Pasmo pre-paid cards are cha...
Im not saying itll turn your hair green, but just using this picture because this lovely woman has awesome hair. Back when I first started working in Japan, one of my British coworkers at Nova was ha...
Now that Im back in the U.S., use of the future tense in these posts seems a bit odd, but Im sticking with it for the sake of consistency. Ive done over 800 posts in the future tense and swapping now...
Hawaiian sumo wrestler and former champion (ozeki), Konishiki, once said in an interview that he found the bananas in Japan very disappointing. He said that they were relatively flavorless and paled ...
If youve lived in Japan long enough, and especially if you have lived in Tokyo as I have, you know the instant you are dealing with someone who was born in Osaka. The way in which they communicate wi...
Obviously, having never been to an onsen, I dont have a picture of one. However, this is a picture of water located in Japan. Theoretically, one could bath in it. Sorry, its the best I can do. Japane...
Ultraman soft drinks being sold in a vending machine in Tokyo. When I was a kid, there were two Japanese things which I saw on television on a regular basis. One was the Saturday afternoon Godzilla m...
A recent headline asserted that the Emperor played tennis for the first time since his heart bypass operation. This is what passes for news in Japan when it comes to the royal family because the main...
A poster for the Koenji Awaodori festival, which takes place in the sweatiest time of year. Now that I no longer live in Japan and have to worry less about overtly revealing my location, I can say th...
Obviously, this is a spider, not a dani bug. Strangely enough, they didnt feature animatronic dani bugs at the local tanabata festival. This was the closest I could come to a picture of an annoying i...
Im currently living in an area which is more of a vacation/resort area in which many people spend their summers at second homes. Its a quaint little area full of nice people, nature, and herds of dee...
Im not sure what the most dreaded word in the English language is. It might be "audit" or, depending on your feelings about such things, "marriage" or "pregnant". The la...
You can see by the illustration that my description of isnt inaccurate. Imagine that you are walking down the street and you see miscellaneous blobs of food in different colors and someone offers you...
Im mentioned about a million times before that I cant speak to any other persons experiences in Japan. Its not only about the subjective nature of experience and how feelings and perceptions vary fro...
Some things become more awesome because they are unfamiliar. Its stupid, in a way, but it remains true. Stamps from most countries are pretty cool regardless of where they come from, but the kawaii (...
Shortly before my husband and I left Japan and were dealing with the hassle of getting an address change, we were led up to the super secret sorting area of the main ward post office. The time at whi...
This is Soup Curry from Dominika in Shinjuku. It is awesome, and unslurpable... at least until you eat all the big pieces. Ethnocentrism makes itself most obvious at the dinner table. Its one of the...
A "sakura teritama" burger. Its a ginger teriyaki pork burger with lemon sauce. The "sakura" part doesnt mean its stuffed with cherry blossoms, but rather that theres a pale pink ...
When my husband and I first came to Japan, my mother insisted on giving us a gift to take with us. It was a talking digital clock. These days, electronic devices seem to be incapable of shutting up, ...
I knew when I returned to America that a lot of things Id never thought of when I was living in Japan would come to mind in terms of what I would and would not miss. One of the things that I never dr...
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