Archive For The “Life” Category
This year’s National Sports Day (体育の日) was held on October 10th. It seems that the only time I’m ever going to actually celebrate it will have been my first year here, back in 2007 when I was on the news for unicycling, and this, my final year. Last year some of my students who are [...]
A few weeks ago Beth and I got back from a one-month bicycle trip in Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s four main islands. Overall it was quite an enjoyable trip. While out bike touring people will often stop to have a little chat to figure out where you came from and where you’re going. When [...]
I have a confession to make: since coming to Japan I’ve developed a bit of an interest in trains. I’ve bought a few books about them, ridden quite a lot of them, taken photos of them, and over a two-month period I took video of the entire length of the Fukushima Kōtsū Iizaka Line. The [...]
It’s been so long since I’ve felt like writing something here, but so much has happened recently, I feel like I have to. It’s been 42 days since we had the earthquake, tsunami, and the beginning of the ongoing situation at the nuclear power plant. Fukushima seems to not be such a Lucky Isle anymore. [...]
For a few months now I’ve been taking a pannier with me to the grocery store, as using the store’s disposable plastic bags is extremely wasteful. At the checkout lane there are little cards that you put in your basket that say you’ll be using your own bag so that the checkout lady (yes, always [...]
Here’s some information on the days of the week that those with a cursory knowledge of Japanese may find interesting. Now, these are the days of the week in Japanese (literal translation of kanji in parenthesis): 月曜日 (Day of the Moon) = Monday 火曜日 (Day of Fire) = Tuesday 水曜日 (Day of Water) = Wednesday [...]
For the purposes of modern television sets, TV networks in Japan broadcast via four systems. Two are terrestrial (analog and digital), and two are via satellite (BS and CS, both digital). If you happen to be interested in how Japan’s ISDB standard differs from the North American digital standards of ATSC, there are the Wikipedia [...]
Wow, after all of this writing about touring and stuff I suddenly go off and sell my bike. Actually, I’ve been considering it for some time now, so for a few weeks ago I listed it up for sale on the prefectural JET website. A guy was interested, he stopped by today, gave it a [...]
Update on the T.M. Revolution concert. Quick Summary: I didn’t go Longer Not Summary: After finding out about this, I went down to the conbini at 2:30 in the morning to see if I could buy tickets. It ends up that they don’t sell tickets on the day of the performance (I think they stop [...]
Update is at T.M. Revolution, continued Original post:You have got to be kidding me. I happened to be watching TV when a commerical for TM Revolution came on. He’s playing in Fukushima. Tomorrow afternoon. Quite literally just down the street from my apartment. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s too late to buy advance tickets, so I’m going to [...]