Look what we did today!
And a bit closer…
Big thanks to the kind staff at Kakamigahara Caterpillar for letting two odd looking blokes waltz in off the street and request a demonstration. They even gave us a little digger to attach to my mobile phone. It’s got a movable diggy bit and zooms forward when you [...]
I can’t believe it’s been two months since I last posted on the Long Countdown. I even missed the last Japan Blog Matsuri about Favorite Places in Japan, which was a shame because this place would certainly qualify:
This is one of many beautiful, sandy beaches at the foot of Shizuoka prefecture’s Izu Peninsula. We went [...]
April’s Japan Blog Matsuri, hosted by Ken on What Japan Thinks is all about Slow Times in Japan, the opposite to last month’s blog carnival about Fast Times, for which I wrote about some of my off-beat experiences in Japan.
As a self-employed, work-at-home dad living in the countryside, I have a lot of free time. [...]
This month’s Japan Blog Matsuri, hosted on The Ghost Letters, is all about Fast Times in Japan, so here are some of my wilder experiences, at least the ones I don’t mind my mum reading!
The Surprise Visit
I first came to Japan for a three-month holiday. A Japanese friend had earlier invited me to stay with [...]
Bill Belew from the Rising Sun of Nihon is asking how we resolve to make the most of our stay in Japan this year. For most people, I’d imagine learning Japanese and visiting new places would be high on the list of things to do, but since I’ve been here for over ten years, the [...]
There are 15 families in our neighborhood, and we rotate the twice-weekly task of unlocking the “gomi” station before 6am, then coming back, cleaning it out and locking it after the garbage men come at 8am. The rules couldn’t be simpler – put out your burnable rubbish between those hours in a designated city rubbish [...]
Continue reading about Picking Through Someone Else’s Rubbish
Shane Sakata from Japan’s Online Culture and Travel Magazine, the Nihon Sun, is asking us for photos of the real Japan from the windows of our homes.
The timing is a bit off since we’re having the house painted right now, but that just adds to the realism…
Fortunately, we still have a pleasant view out the [...]
This is my last minute entry into November’s Japan Blog Matsuri. I was going to skip it this month, as the question, “What has Japan taught you about yourself?”, would require me to take a deep look inside and pull out something wise and intelligent. Instead, here are a few things Japan has taught me [...]
Continue reading about What Has Japan Taught Me About England?
I’ve been continuing to develop modules for the Social Web Content Management System, and have listed the ones I’ve made so far on a new page: My SWCMS Modules.
My latest creations are a sin bin for temporarily disabling users, a way to block repeat submissions of deleted stories, a module that builds an RSS [...]
Since I was opposed to both John McCain and Barack Obama, I was always going to be disappointed with the result of the U.S Election. What I wasn’t ready for, however, was the absolutely glee demonstrated by almost everyone I know, from my own family to seemingly everyone in my corner of the internet.
So why [...]
The most successful freelance writer I’ve ever known, Michael Kwan, has asked me to tell the world about myself in the latest self-introduction meme. Let’s get straight into it…
5 Things I Was Doing 10 Years Ago:
Learning Japanese
Living in a one-room apartment in Nagoya, Japan
Eating instant noodles and paying off debts
Teaching English
Hanging out with a guy [...]
When I was at university, I played on the Korfball team. It didn’t quite have the wow factor of football, basketball or rugby, but I was proud to be a starting member for the Essex first team, even though we were awful!
Nick, what in the world is korfball?
Korfball is the world’s only true mixed gender [...]
After a hectic week of changing servers, I deserve a
And that’s what I got when I went into the Family Mart convenience store and saw only the 4th major western chocolate bar I’ve ever seen in Japan. We’ve had Snickers, Kit-Kat, and Aero, and now Time Out! Woot!
Imagine only having a choice of three chocolate [...]
Three times a week, when Mami goes to her part-time job, I watch over Rikuto. Now, I know our 1-year-old son would be quite happy to watch YouTube all day, but that’s not going to happen. Instead, I try to take him to some of the sightseeing places around town. We’ve already done a lot [...]
Rather than sit in front of the TV all day while keeping an eye on Rikuto, I decided to take him to the Kakamigahara Aerospace museum instead.
Kakamigahara is home to the Gifu Self-Defense Force Air Base and the Kawasaki Aerospace Division, so perhaps to make up for the noise of fighter jets flying overhead, the [...]
Life for a Japanese teenager is supposedly harder than for anyone else. The pressure to study hard has driven many people over the edge, as demonstrated a couple of years ago when there were a spate of suicides among junior high school students in Japan.
The Japan broadcasting corporation, NHK, has an educational channel filled with [...]
Continue reading about NHK Reaching Out to Teenagers with Angela Aki’s Tegami
I went to renew my Japanese driving license and was rewarded with a gold license!
What’s a gold license?
A gold license is given out to people who don’t have any points on their current driving license. From what I’ve heard, this is an achievement usually limited to “paper” drivers – those who have a license but [...]
This month’s Japan Blog Matsuri theme is The Language of Japan, and I’ve been scratching my head all month over what to write. I haven’t studied Japanese for years now, and although I have a few amusing stories of miscommunication, nothing worthy of an entire blog post.
So, I delved into the LongCountdown archives and submitted [...]
So I bought myself Rikuto a train set. It’s not a patch on the beautiful Hornby railway set that my dad made me when I was a child, but Tomy’s Plarail is a lot safer, which is important when you buy a one-year-old boy a toy made for 3-year-olds!
Plarail, or “Tomica World” as it’s known [...]
The U.S media is often criticized for ignoring major news stories or covering them with obvious bias, and more people are becoming aware that this is because the media is owned by just five major corporations – General Electric, Time Warner, Viacom, The Walt Disney Co. and News Corporation.
The media is an incredibly powerful tool [...]
