Hospital Festival in Front of Our House

Right across the street from our house is a mental hospital, and since we are its closest neighbors, we decided to pop across the street to their summer festival. There were more people than we expected. Half the neighborhood came along to join the families of the patients. I had to switch into genki teacher-mode when a bunch of my kindergarten children spotted me. Fortunately, with Rikuto squirming in my […]

Daily J Solutions for Lazy J-Bloggers

When I saw Tori’s blog post “A lazy J-blogger’s hack“, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. If an audience of “Japan bloggers” wasn’t unique enough, Tori has aimed his latest article directly at lazy Japan bloggers. Both my wife and my mother would say I’m the perfect example of a lazy Japan blogger, but I would have to argue that I’m not this lazy… Soon we will be looking […]

A Mosquito Bit My Lip!

I don’t know if it’s quite right to say it bit my lip, because it actually stabbed me with its long pointy nose, but either way, this mosquito got me good… I did eventually track it down and it paid dearly for giving me a frenchie in my sleep. If you like, you can find me on Twitter at @nick_ramsay. I’d love to hear from you!

The Giant Ice Cream That Really Wasn’t

My wife gave me a choice of ice cream recently. I can’t remember the name of the other one, but as soon as I heard “giant cone”, I knew that’s what I wanted… Unfortunately, like all the other small things in Japan, this was no exception… Bear in mind that bottle of coke is just 350ml! If you like, you can find me on Twitter at @nick_ramsay. I’d love to […]

New Narita Express Coming 2009

I came to Japan in July 1997, arriving at Narita airport late in the afternoon, with the intention of getting to Nagoya by nightfall. The first challenge was to get to Tokyo so I could somehow board a Shinkansen bullet train and head west. The NEX welcomes you to Tokyo With signs in English, it wasn’t too hard getting a ticket and boarding the Tokyo-bound Narita Express. Although I was […]

Taking a Stool Sample in Japan

Please excuse the crassness of this post, but I feel it is my duty to pass on my experience of taking a stool sample to other unfortunate foreigners in Japan who find themselves in the same position. “Behind” the scenes The other day I went for a health check. This was something I wanted to do since I hadn’t had a medical for such a long time, and I’m getting […]

Japan’s Top 20 “Reform” Wishlist

When a typical Japanese house reaches 30 years of age, it’s considered dangerous and likely to fall down. I think this is more of a myth than reality, but it’s a common belief that has led to a huge industry of “reform”. This holds particular interest for me because I live in one of those houses and there are only 12 years left before it supposedly implodes! Here, I count […]

New Earthquake Emergency Shelters

Earlier this year, Mike McKinlay and I went to to the Gifu Prefecture Regional Disaster Management Center to try out the earthquake simulator. Being the only visitors all day (and introducing ourselves as big-time Canadian bloggers), the staff treated us like royalty! We were given a personal tour of the facility and they even filmed us trembling like little girls on the simulator. A ground-shaking experience The earthquake simulator, which […]