Category: Japan
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Sakura on the walk home
The other day, while walking home from Jiyugaoka, I was struck by how pretty the Sakura were on the main shopping street. I snapped a few pictures, and of course since the weather was nice there were lots of people lined up for Crepes at the cute little crepe stand. There were also some nice […]
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Ishiyama-dera
Dragon’s Hole Pond Entire Ishiyama-dera photo set on Flickr.com After the Japanese Natural Language Processing Conference, I had a few hours before returning to Tokyo, so I went to the nearby Ishiyama temple, which is said to be where the Japanese author Murasaki began writing the Tale of Genji. It is a really beautiful temple, […]
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Review of Wataya Risa’s “Keritai Senaka” / 綿矢リサの「蹴りたい背中」
Winner of 2003 Akutagawa Prize Wikipedia page on Wataya Risa Excerpt of translation by Morgan G. A few weeks ago, I finished reading Wataya Risa’s second novel, 『蹴りたい背中』 (“The back I wanna kick”). For me, it was a minor milestone: it was the first Japanese novel that I have read in Japanese. I’ve studied the […]
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Maid Cafés in Japan
Pinafore Maid Cafe The witch bar unattico-sttrega January 15th 社会研究調査 As part of a societal cultural research learning field trip, Benkei and I went with a friend of his to the Pinafore Maid Cafe. We went on a Wednesday evening, in the rain. This actually turned out to be pretty important, but more on that […]
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Nationalism / Isolationalism in Japan and perception of foreign crime
I read a few blogs, and an interesting post over on What Japan Thinks about a survey on crime in Japan (and how foreigners are a large contributing factor) pointed me to another very interesting post over on Debito.org on a Japanese magazine about foreigner crime. It is definitely worth taking a look at both […]
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Happy Cheap Chocolate Day!!
Today is one of my favorite days of the year. The day after Valentine’s Day. Cheap Chocolate Day. When I stopped into 7-eleven this morning for my morning yogurt and bottle of lemon water, they were running 50% off of their Valentine’s Day Chocolate. Valentine’s Day is pretty big here in Japan, even more so […]
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Best little bar in Jiyugaoka
I just wanted to drop a link to my friend Ahmadu’s (spelling is almost positively incorrect) bar, Saraba. It is a bar and art gallery in between Jiyugaoka and Kuhombutsu, so it is right on the way home for me. I’ve been stopping in there lately for a nightly glass of wine. The bar is […]
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Interesting post on Japanese marriage statistics
I read a few Japan-oriented blogs every once a while, things like what japan thinks, and they came across an interesting post over on mutant frog about Japanese marriage statistics. I’m surprised that more Japanese men marry foreigners than Japanese women, that was exactly the opposite of what I had always assumed to be the […]
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Let’s pound rice together (not a euphemism)
Rice pounding set. Rice Pounding Festival Free Sake! Kids enjoy pounding rice! Last weekend, on Sunday I left my apartment to get something for lunch and ran into the local rice pounding festival. I guess these festivals are common during the New Year, since they are basically about making that delicious Japanese pounded rice treat […]
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First drive in Japan
(日本語版はこちら) Yesterday I went on my first drive in Japan with a friend. We weren’t too sure where to go at first, but in the end decided on Chiba. One of the really cool things about cars here in Japan is that many of them have these in-car navigation systems that can plot out a […]