Category: Japan
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Awa-Odori in Kouenji
Awa-Odori Pictures on Flickr I’m finally getting around to posting about the Awa-Odori festival that I went to a while back. I’ll post-date it so the date is correct though. The Awa-Odori is a kind of dancing festival that is from a part of Japan called Awa. I don’t know where that is. This particular […]
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Mitama Matsuri at Yasukuni Jinjya
On Friday, I with some friends from work to the Mitama Matsuri at Yasukuni Jinjya. This is a very interesting trip all around, because it is a traditional Japanese Matsuri (festival) that takes place in a temple that honors those who have fallen during wartime (Yasukuni Temple.) The temple itself has been the center of, […]
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Go-Con! Japanese Love Culture
This weekend I watched a movie, Go-Con! Japanese Love Culture that I had spotted quite a while ago, and thought might be interesting. A Go-con is certainly a formal institution in Japanese culture, although it isn’t really quite clear to me what role it plays, and how I personally should relate to the phenomena. It […]
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Happy Road Oyamadai
Happy Road Oyamadai. It is a super cute little town. This Baskin Robbins, a mere seconds from my apartment, could spell trouble for me. My living room, sans furniture. The bedroom is off to the left. Click on the picture for more apartment shots. In June 2006, I made the move to an apartment of […]
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Hamarikyuu Park and Monjya-yaki
F. and I went for a walk in Tokyo on Saturday. We first went to Hamarikyuu Park, and looked at some of the cherry blossoms. They are just about in full bloom now. NHK was there filming, which we later saw on TV that night. Hamarikyuu Park has a pine tree that is 300 years […]
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細木和子 (Hosoki Kazuko) Japanese fortune-teller, and Japanese dramas
So I got home at about 8pm today, ate dinner and started flipping through channels on the TV. I came across a special for Hosoki Kazuko’s birthday, who is a well-known fortune teller. She has people on a show and then gives them (typically brutal) advice, from what I could tell. I really couldn’t believe […]
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Birthday Blood Typing
So I turned 31 today, in Japan. This is the second birthday I’ve had in Japan actually. Last time I was here for a conference in 2002 I believe, and it was not memorable. I believe that I bought myself a cup-cake at a convenience store or something. This time, I had a memorable birthday. […]
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Ikebana show
Fumie and I went to a large Ikebana show at the Takashimaya in Nihonbashi on Sunday.
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Visit to Hiroshima City University
On Wednesday morning I went to Hiroshima City University (広島市立大学) and met with Professor Hidetsugu Nanba (難波 英嗣), and was introduced to Dr. Teruaki Aizawa (相沢 輝昭 先生). I gave my multi-lingual multi-document summarization talk, as well as a brief demo of NewsBlaster and a short talk about graduate student life at Columbia University. Professor […]
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Trip to Hiroshima, do I have to change this website to FuguTabeta.com??
On Tuesday evening I took a train from Tsu to Nagoya, and from Nagoya to Hiroshima on a Hikari Shinkansen. The picture is actually of a Kodama Rail Star train from Hiroshima because the shot I got of my Nozomi 700 Series Shinkansen from Hiroshima to Tokyo didn’t turn out well. On arriving at Hiroshima, […]