So the end of the semester means that we are now working on our speech project, which will come on the Saturday before we ‘graduate’ from the fall semester at JCMU. The topic of my speech is “The Impact of the Heian Period on Modern Japan”, which sounds like a great title, and indeed [...]

On Saturday, Cassidy and I had stayed at JCMU to recuperate from our 3-day trip during the previous weekend, and we decided to make tenpura together. We had gone to the store on Thursday to buy shrimp and Japanese pumpkin, and on Monday my conversation partner brought me an entire bag filled with brand-new, [...]

So obviously Thanksgiving is a strictly American holiday. Add that to the fact that the week of Thanksgiving, our weekly test was moved from Friday to Thursday, and Thanksgiving pretty much passed me by without me even realizing it. This Wednesday was a holiday in Japan, (Labor Day), so we didn’t have any [...]

Its now been 4 days since I have returned from my trip to Hiroshima and Fukuoka, and I’ve finally gotten enough sleep to make up for the exhaustion that was brought on by all the walking, traveling, sightseeing, and cool stuff that Cassidy and I did in Hiroshima and Fukuoka. Beware, this post is [...]

In about 9 hours, I’ll be on my way to Hiroshima and Fukuoka for the weekend. Cassidy and I will be there until Sunday night, so you won’t see me online for a few days. We’re going to go and see Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, as well as Miyajima, and for Fukuoka [...]

So I just wanted to write a quick note about the fact that I am going to be spending a week in December in Tokyo during winter vacation. And….I won’t be there by myself. Yes, I was able to convince my friend Nick to come over to Japan and visit for about [...]

I have had the Region 2 Japanese DVD of the Miyazaki film Howl’s Moving Castle on preorder from Amazon Japan almost since I’ve been in Japan, and have been looking forward to the day that it would come in the mail to me (it doesn’t help that EVERY store in Japan has a huge display [...]

This past weekend I got to experience a number of different cultural events in Shiga, got to use my Japanese a lot, and had a lot of fun. Heres a rundown.
Friday:
Friday started out like any other Friday here, with the weekly test. After the test, we had about 10 minutes to slack off [...]

So, this Saturday, thanks to beautiful weather (no rain again on a Saturday?? is it the end of the world??!?) Cassidy and I headed off for Nagoya, where we planned to go the Nagoya castle, a huge Totoro/Ghibli store, and just generally wander around for the day. Starting out for Hikone station at 8am, [...]

So after the test on Friday, Sean Siberio, someone in first year who I’ve been chatting with a lot lately (who will for the rest of the post be referred to as Mr. Negative) invited me to head down this private rail line that you can take from Hikone Station (Omi Railways) to a town [...]