“The more I learn, the more I realise how much I don’t know” Albert Einstein Last week I had coffee with a very lovely friend of mine. We used to work together and share many interests including mushrooms and moss. She is Japanese, and I am always amazed that after every conversation we have, I…
Category: Culture
Osaka Obachan
Every country has its own subcultures and quirks. Some more than others. Japan has many, and I think it is one of the things that make the culture of Japan so very intriguing. One subculture I find particularly interesting is the “Osaka Obachan”. I believe it is rare to find such a trend in older…
Cultural Dysphoria
My very first time in Japan my kids quickly pointed out to me that the reason I liked the country so much and felt at home was because the Japanese people were all like me. Small, polite and very tidy and organised. It has taken me some time to understand that the real reason I…
Zen in Space…
I have not been able to find a lot of information about this in English, and my Japanese is not good enough to decipher technical writing, however I thought this was very interesting, and I have tried to fill in the blanks with some research. Daigo-Ji Temple in Fushimi, in Kyoto, is a very, very…
Americanism- why the Japanese do American better than the Americans??
When travelling in Japan it is hard not to notice the influence of American culture and how the Japanese have embraced the culture to such an extent that it has become very much a part of Japanese culture. The two cultures have become intertwined in such a way as to be inextricable from each other….
Yurei, Bakemono, Yokai and other Japanese Horror Stories
I am not a huge fan of horror movies, although I was an avid reader of horror when I was younger. The last horror story I read was Ring by Koji Suzuki (1998). It was terrifying, in a very subtle, psychological way. I have recently been watching The Terror: Infamy by AMC on Amazon Prime….
Fujioka Shuzo, The Secret is Out
Do you ever have one of those moments when you are travelling, when you stumble upon something truly special. Something that is not in the guide books. A place that captures the town or city that you are exploring. You get almost giddy with excitement. It’s like you’ve captured a Pulitzer Prize winning photo, or…
Heisei to Reiwa: A Golden Week to Remember
On Tuesday the 30th April history was made as the first Japanese Emperor in over 200 years abdicated from the throne. Emperor Akihito, who was enthroned in 1989, chose to step down and pass the responsibility to his son, who on 1st May was enthroned as Emperor Naruhito. The occasion was celebrated around Japan, as…
Marie Kondo and the “Spark Joy” phenomenon
Alternate Name: Uniquely Japanese- Tokimeku Featured image credit New York Times ときめくor tokimeku is the Japanese word that is translated in English to “sparks joy”. If you are not living under a rock you will surely have seen the Netflix show Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, that is if you missed her New York Times…
Japanese Jizo
Jizo are ubiquitous in Japan. They are lovely little statues, usually made of stone, and many have knitted bonnets and shawls of red wool. In Japan it is believed that when a baby is miscarried or dies early it has not had an opportunity to build the good karma required to enter the afterlife. In…
The Only Gaijin in the Village (Or, How the Onsen Changed my Life)
On my recent trip to Japan, my fourth, I finally tried an onsen. We stayed in a traditional, and very beautiful ryokan on Lake Chuzenji, just out of Nikko. We spent three nights eating, sleeping and bathing in the traditional way. All the traditional ways of living in Japan are surrounded with layers of etiquette…
Autumn beauty, Tokugawas, Jizo and The Abyss….. Nikko
Friday morning we woke early, again, and decided to take a walk before breakfast to the local falls. Kegon Falls was literally a 10 minutes walk from the ryokan, which was good. It was pretty chilly in the morning. The falls height is around 97 metres, but the ferocity of the water falling made it…
