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Christmas Lights!
Japan has really caught on to the most sparkly aspects of holidays. Most major areas seem to end up with some sort of light displays, twinkling away in a non-denominational Santa-if-anything-centered way. I have to agree that there’s something very alluring about the cheer and friendliness of Christmas. (Apart from the Black Friday sales, that [...]
Dazaifu fair
On Saturday, I went to Dazaifu for the flea market/antiques fair. I wanted to get some old kimonos to rip up and make into other things, and this is one of the best places I know for doing so. It’s easy to get a silk kimono for under ¥1000, and the way that kimonos are [...]
Obon trip step two!
My goal for this day’s travel was to see Mizu no Kuni, a museum focusing on water in the deepest reaches of Shimane Prefecture. I had originally seen pictures of it on this blog, and have wanted to see it ever since. Its location, however, makes it relatively inaccessible, and even more tricky if you [...]
It’s hot!
August always seems to be the hottest, stickiest month in Japan. Most days it has been getting into the low 90’s, and sun and humidity that just saps all of the energy out of you. Not my absolute favorite weather. And it doesn’t even really cool down at night, so even in the middle of [...]
Tokyo!
I went to Tokyo last weekend, and it was certainly interesting to finally make it there. However, I didn’t do all of the most touristy tourist things (I’m hoping to do them when my parents come to visit in a couple months). I met up with my friend Deanna and we ate tasty food, played [...]
The rain has come!
The rainy season finally seems to have showed up, and we’ve been having rain for the past few days. Today was the worst, apparently, and caused train delays of up to an hour! I guess the trains can’t go as fast when it’s pouring? We were waiting around this morning for a while on the [...]
Bicycle!
Continuing on my trend of updating about things a week after they happen, I finally have myself a bicycle. It’s a folding bike (so it can fit in my tiny genkan), bright red, and pretty light for a bicycle. I had to order it, so it got to the store last Thursday, just in time [...]
Fireflies
Over the weekend, I tried to go see the fireflies. Apparently the end of May/beginning of June is firefly season. I remember seeing them in Pittsburgh sometimes, but I never really associated it with any particular time of year, but who knows, maybe they did only show up at the beginning of June.
The Kitakyushu city [...]
Overtime
Before I got to Japan, I remember reading all manner of horror stories about overtime with Japanese companies. Working from 8 in the morning until 10 at night, people sleeping at the office, that there was a stigma about leaving before your supervisor. During my interview, I asked one of the people how much overtime [...]
Hiroshima and Miyajima
This past weekend Christina and I visited Hiroshima and Miyajima. We caught a Shinkansen train out of Kitakyushu on Saturday morning, and arrived in Hiroshima at around 10am. From the train station we took a street car to the Atomic Bomb Dome, which was the Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall before it was destroyed when [...]