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I love watching Japanese evening news. Depending on what the topic is, I can understand at least 50% of what they are talking about most of the time. This summer, we got the usual government and political related news like who our new prime minister is this time (since they haven’t been able to keep one for more than a year apparently). Then, we had our usual weather news…well, mostly about the crazy rain and floods we had at the beginning of the summer to the incredible heat that we’re all suffering in right now.  It’s officially the hottest summer we’re experiencing in Tokyo ever. Read More →

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In: Japan

Follow the Yellow Brick Road. Follow the Yellow Brick Road. Follow, follow, follow, follow, Follow the Yellow Brick Road. – Wizard of Oz (by the way, today’s the 71st anniversary of the film…at least according to Google) You can find these yellow, bumpy strips on almost all the streets here in Japan.  These are here to help the blind navigate around the city and to prevent them from walking into traffic, off train platforms or into any dangerous situations. Bumps right before the edge of the train platform. Bumps before the stairs. Bumps to tell you where you can safely cross the street and whereRead More →

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In: Japan

I love public transportation in Tokyo. There’s plenty of them and you have so many different options to choose from. I just love public transportation! Of course, one downside to all this public transportation is that everyone else uses it too. When that happens, the trains get incredibly crowded and quite uncomfortable especially if it’s a highly used line during rush hour. In fact, some of you might know or have seen this image that someone took to describe how crowded trains can get. Crazy, right? To be honest, I’ve only encountered really crowded trains a handful of times in the four years we’ve livedRead More →

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In: Japan

Today is tanabata in Japan. I posted about it last year when E and I ventured out to celebrate it at the local temple.  You can read about that adventure here. This year, because of the heat, humidity and the strange weather pattern (ok, mostly because of the heat and humidity), we didn’t go out for tanabata. However, the nursery that E attends did celebrate it and they even made something with the kids to bring home 🙂 So behold, E’s first art project from “school”… Ok, technically the green tree branch is a fake plastic one that’s most likely store bought…  There’s 4 paperRead More →

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In: Food, Japan

…and you get….the Chicken Rice Place! Ok, the real name of this place isn’t really called the Chicken Rice Place.  Jason and his coworkers call it that and that’s what he and I call it now too.  I think the real name of the place is “Hawker-style Asian Canteen.” I like calling it the Chicken Rice Place more.  It just sounds better than Hawker-style. Anyway, I thought I’d share with you one of the places that we love to go eat at for lunch…well, at least whenever I go have lunch with Jason in his work area. This place, as you can probably guess byRead More →

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In: Japan, Life, Random, Updates

Ah, it’s only Monday and my brain is already going barabara. What’s barabara (pronounced bah-ra-bah-ra)?  It’s a Japanese onomatopoeia that means scattered; disperse; loose; disconnected; in pieces; in drops; rustling. So, yes, my brain is currently barabara…. Let’s talk about Jason for a little bit…as an update to how he’s doing and all…. Jason’s actually doing really great. Well, not great in the way that his illness has gone away and he is back to his old self again.  No, it’s great in the way that his inflammation levels have gone up slower than before, which in Jason terms means that it’s a good signRead More →

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In: Japan, Random

Ok, I admit, I’m copping out on this post. I didn’t really want to resort to this tactic since I have so many things I wanted to write about this weekend….but then I got tonsillitis last Thursday and then I lost my resolve…. It’s really hard to have a strong resolve to blog or do anything when you’re sick and all you want to do is stay in bed and sleep the sickness away. So just to tie you over and not look like I missed more than 3 days of blogging in a row, here’s something interesting that I saw on my mandatory fieldRead More →

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In: Japan, Random

I’m going to talk sports today. Yes, sports….sort of…  And no, I haven’t gone off the deep end….yet. To be specific, I’m going to talk about Japan and the World Cup because that’s pretty much the talk of the town right now….especially since we beat Denmark and made it into the next round. To be utterly honest, I am so not a sports person.  I don’t have a single clue about soccer (or football to the rest of the world) other than the fact that the ball needs to get into the net in order to score.  In fact, I don’t really care much forRead More →