SOFTWARE, JAPAN, SELF-ACTUALIZATION AND

After visiting Narita-san this weekend (なりたさん しんしょうじ) we stopped for tea at a tranquil little tea room in an outdoor setting. While there I drank matcha for the first time! Matcha is the high-grade green tea, and although it can get very expensive depending on the quality, I stuck with the reasonable stuff […]

So in my last post I had a video about Yoshinoya. Even if you cant speak or read Japanese you could probably realize it was Yoshinoya by the name on the glass of water. So the question is, what was it about?
Last week I learned that Yoshinoya is about 110 years old, and […]

This picture post Friday has only one picture. The photo is of tofu dressed up as a pizza. Sure, it doesn’t quite resemble a pizza in shape or color, but it had cheese, onions, sauce, and a slight bar-b-q taste. Perhaps it could masquerade as a bar-b-q pizza

[ahhh! something is […]

So I really like this dictionary of Japanese idioms that I bought this past weekend. Ton of great translations in here. One in particular that struck me as interesting is the translation for “Make up your mind.”
In Japanese you would not ever say “make up your mind” using the word “mind.” Instead, […]

Monday was a national holiday so I took a three day weekend.
Saturday was filled with basketball, Sunday was filled with grocery shopping, and Monday was filled with darts and chit-chat.
The only purchase that I made worth mentioning is of a dictionary of Japanese idioms. It is interesting comparing English idioms with their […]

Picture post friday, and here we have hanpen. Hanpen is surimi - or ground fish that has been worked into a soft almost dough-like substance.

This hanpen had a cheese cream filling - lightly toast it in a pan and eat - yummy!
Today I went to Yoshinoya for a very fast lunch. As is […]

So today I want to highlight 3 staple ingredients to Japanese meals. This is by no means a scientific or exact top 3, however, they are the 3 things I notice most often as components of a meal here in Japan (excluding rice, which is easily the number one component, again - these are […]

She didn’t go to work today. So, after work I came home and cooked supper - how sweet of me, right? Good thing there were leftovers in the refrigerator so I didn’t have to make a mess. Remove, wrap, microwave, done.
Next Monday 3/22 is a holiday in Japan. Spring equinox is observed as […]

Sunday is “White Day” the second Valentines day during which men are expected to buy chocolate for the ladies. Have you planned for White day yet?
Friday flew by, and when night came I went to rent a movie to watch. I had a list of 3 movies that had been suggested to me in the […]

Short list, I’ll add more short lists later. These are the top 4 places that came to my mind when thinking about a trip to Kyoto. Links to pages with more info are provided.
1) a temple over 1000 years old “Kiyomizudera”
2) a famous shrine filmed in Memoirs of a Geisha “Fushimi Inarii”
3) an authentic […]