On Saturday I met up with my friend Fumie Hiratai and we went gallery hopping with another friend of hers. Fumie is a very good guide to the art scene in Tokyo. We met when she was working at NII, but she is an artist and was able to give up her job at NII […]

Sumo Wrestling Photo Set on Flickr.com On Thursday, Andy and I went to the Sumo Tournament in Tokyo at the Kokugikaikan. We had box seats for two, and got there pretty early. While we watched the early matches of unranked (and lower-level ranked) Sumo wrestlers, there weren’t too many other spectators around. We did get […]

Tokyo Disney Sea Pictures My friend Mayumi invited me to Tokyo Disney Sea a few weeks back. Monday the 18th is a national holiday in Japan (the respect the day of the elders holiday) so for the long weekend she was planning to go with a friend of hers to Disney Sea. I had never […]

Pictures on Flickr.com On Saturday afternoon, I went to my local temple, Kuhonbutsu, and they had an interesting festival going on. They hooked up a large Taiko drum to a huge set of ropes, and pulled it through town. Kids from all over the place helped pull the drum (although it was mostly the large […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]