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How Do I Get To… – Kakegawa, Japan, Asia
Finding a place with no street signs or addresses, and no knowledge of the language might seem difficult, maybe even impossible. It certainly is daunting. We humans, though, being resilient and creative, devise our own directional system. If it works most of the time, it is a successful syst
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Accurate Blooming Schedule for Ohanami – Japan
Accurate Blooming Schedule for Ohanami
Japan
It’s April in Tokyo and a Domino’s delivery person braves a snowstorm on her bicycle. She expertly weaves in and out of the drunks who crowd the street as they make their way to restrooms or back to their mats in the park. She stops at th
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Killer Flu and Crazy, Dedicated Students – Tokyo, Japan
Killer Flu and Crazy, Dedicated Students
Epitaph of a possibly soon-to-be-deceased English Teacher
This killer pneumonia that’s currently loose in Asia has got me a bit worried being here in Tokyo.
The World Health Organization has recently issued warnings about a new vicious pneumonia
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Hiroshima Odyssey – Hiroshima Peace Park, Japan
Hiroshima Odyssey
Hiroshima Peace Park, Japan
A bomb dome.
Stepping off the bullet train into a cold Hiroshima morning, we could sense the past. Exactly six months earlier, my wife Irene and I became immersed in history quite by chance. A driving trip through New Mexico found us on
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Roppongi Nights – Roppongi Mornings – Japan
Roppongi Nights – Roppongi Mornings
Japan
Love it, hate it, loathe it, leave it. Roppongi is a people magnet. Perhaps it doesn’t attract the most savory of characters, but all walks of life rub elbows and more in Roppongi, unlike anywhere else in Japan.
Roppongi is Tokyo’s l
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Republic of Gaijinistan 401: Living in a Gaijin House – Japan
Republic of Gaijinistan 401: Living in a Gaijin House
Japan
“I could be bound in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space.”
– Hamlet Act II Scene II, William Shakespeare
“Man cannot live on Beer and Doritos alone, but He can try.” Official state motto
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Japan: A Priori – Japan
Japan: A Priori
Japan
My current daily life exists in anticipation of what lies ahead: teaching English in Japan.
Ideas run through my head such as why do they call it a cubicle when it is more of a peninsula, surrounded on three sides by fabric and metal. I see, however, the prison of the met
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Takayama, Japan – Takayama, Japan
Takayama, Japan
With outsider eyes, I overlook a hidden spectacle. Nestled between a hundred vast mountains, natural guardians that never sleep, is the geographical heart of Japan. Gradually, my head moves in a panoramic motion as creatures of the terrain jump into view and scream for attention
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Defining Gaijin – Mt. Fuji, Japan
Defining Gaijin
Mt. Fuji, Japan
Not at an onsen, but in a community shower room.
It took us all day to get there. We were staying at the base of Mt. Fuji, on Lake Saiko, in a bungalow. We arrived sometime in the late afternoon. We quickly checked in, asked where the best views were, and then
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48 Hours in Hiroshima – Hiroshima, Japan
48 Hours in Hiroshima
Hiroshima, Japan
Bleary-eyed and under-slept on a cool Saturday in September, I awoke at the crack of dawn, grabbed my backpack, and cycled furiously down narrow, winding streets to catch an 8AM train bound for Hiroshima, a city full of old memories and modern wonders.
At
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The Home Stretch – Japan
The Home Stretch
Japan
December 10
I arrived on the ferry in Shimonoeski, Japan. Immigration gave me a hard time, they asked for my onward ticket, how much money I had and really went through my belongings. Surprisingly, it was the biggest border hassle I’ve had. Finally, I was let throug
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Home Sweet Home – Japan
Home, Sweet, Home
Japan
December 16
Today was my last day in Kyoto and I mostly walked around and did some souvenir shopping. I’ve seen too many shrines and didn’t want to see more museums. I did pass by one shine that I liked, however. Visitors could discover their future via a pri
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Cycling Japan – Fukuyama, Japan
Cycling Japan
Fukuyama, Japan
I was holed up in a capsule hotel nursing an injury. The pain in my right knee was unbearable. It felt like slivers of glass pricking the meat between the bones. I limped to the communal bath and peeled off the cycling jersey and shorts. Two wrinkled old men soaked
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The Myth of the Green Dress – Nakatsugawa-shi, Japan
The Myth of the Green Dress
Nakatsugawa-shi, Japan
A green shimmer radiated from beneath the clear plastic veneer of the dress bag hanging in the middle of the room. Thousands of emerald-green sequins reflected the dim overhead florescent light in the small seamstress shop. As the kind old seam
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Jumping Japanese Jail – Tokyo Japan
Jumping Japanese Jail
Tokyo, Japan
I started many bad habits while living in Japan, and one of them, though not necessarily the worst, was drinking large botellas of Sake on the commuter trains. I would put my headphones on, cover an enormous half gallon bottle of sake in a paper sack, find a c
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Master of the Bunny Slope – Yuzawa, Japan
Master of the Bunny Slope
Yuzawa, Japan
English teachers learning to snowboard
Spring has come to Japan and winter has been pushed out the seasonal door. I say good riddance because even though I like winter and the snow, I’m afraid I might be tempted to try snowboarding again, if winter
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Samurai Those Hooligans! – Japan
Samurai Those Hooligans!
Japan
With Euro 2004 underway in Portugal, the specter of hooliganism once more rises up. Britain’s unofficial export during football season, the hooligan is spreading waves of fear through populaces waiting fearfully as though Attila and his Huns had returned to
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Shopping for Buddhas – Japan
Shopping for Buddhas
Japan
Absentmindedly I watch Tokyo slide away as the airplane banks and heads out towards the Pacific. I sip my beer and watch as the Land of the Rising Sun disappears beneath the clouds. I sigh and I am not sure if it is from sadness or contentment, for things that have be
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Japan Travel Facts
The Basics
Country: Japan
Where is it?: Japan is in eastern Asia, east of the Korean Peninsula.
Why do people go here?: Japan is an enigma. It is the land of sumo, sushi and kimono, a land where the delicate kimono clad lady fights against drunken salary men for a seat on the subway. A lan
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Tokyo Travel Facts
The Basics
City Name: Tokyo
Where is it located?: Tokyo is eastern Japan close to the north Pacific.
Why do people go there?: Tokyo is the capital of Japan. Perhaps one of the most expensive destinations in Asia, Tokyo is the land of sumo, sushi and kimono, a land where the delicate kim
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