tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22078696507257951212024-03-06T02:48:36.393-05:00TadaimatteLife after Japan.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger160125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-66991779989773746372021-05-28T14:21:00.008-04:002021-05-28T14:21:00.194-04:00The Japan Foundation Toronto Library is Digital<p>Huge news for Torontonians looking to stay connected to Japan!</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg-zog3RyHRMvaQJBK36bE3yf6Vk8PifoZmCwe1t1phwVpGYlIb78HxL13Dv2efaLW8dj94F2mPIjJW9SlPjbJLlX4PutC9jWKYkJCtwqn4XF4oOg6GZ0NXw8W0D6Ax-sIlrnY493HW7Ws/s640/med_res.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg-zog3RyHRMvaQJBK36bE3yf6Vk8PifoZmCwe1t1phwVpGYlIb78HxL13Dv2efaLW8dj94F2mPIjJW9SlPjbJLlX4PutC9jWKYkJCtwqn4XF4oOg6GZ0NXw8W0D6Ax-sIlrnY493HW7Ws/s320/med_res.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Kobo and Libby<br />working in harmony to help me devour books</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><a href="https://jftor.org/library/" target="_blank">The Japan Foundation, Toronto</a> launched a brand-new digital library last month via Overdrive, the popular library-lending app.</p><p>Since the pandemic has closed their physical JFT location, this is huge news for library lovers. It goes without saying that without regular borrowers, the library could find itself in a serious dilemma, and pivoting to a digital platform in the meantime is a great move. (Unfortunately for me as an author, <i><a href="http://edokko.lorengreene.com" target="_blank">Edokko</a></i> is a Kindle exclusive, so you won't find it in the JFT catalogue - but maybe they'll pick up <i><a href="http://hachiko.lorengreene.com" target="_blank">Meet You By Hachiko</a></i> at some point, who knows!?)</p><p>Considering that they started from zero, I'm impressed at the collection that's been put together so far - as of this writing, just shy of 500 books, with a good mix of fiction and non-fiction, manga, and Japanese-language materials. Kudos to the library staff for their hard work, here!</p><p>JFT library card holders can borrow instantly by visiting <a href="http://jftor.overdrive.com/">JFT OverDrive</a> and logging in with their library card number and PIN (last four-digits of phone number). If you're new to the Japan Foundation Toronto or haven't been in in a while, the staff will need to help you renew your card first, but it's easy and quick, and so worth it.</p><p>For me, the timing of the Overdrive launch couldn't be better, as we've almost fully packed up for a move, and all my books are currently in boxes. My Kobo Libre has been saving me with access to tons of ebooks via the Toronto Public Library, and the minute I saw the JFT had gone live with theirs, I immediately headed over on the Android app Libby to get hooked up and browse the selection. My only regret is that I can only borrow five books at a time, and I'm continually running up against that 5-book limit and having to return things I didn't actually get to read yet in favour of the holds I wanted more. 😂 What to read next!?</p><p>I still prefer the real-paper feel, but pandemic + moving has finally gotten me aboard the ebook train. How many of you read ebooks as well as physical...?</p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com02 Bloor St E #300, Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada43.6709416 -79.386421515.360707763821154 -114.5426715 71.981175436178845 -44.2301715tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-29613569257424706102021-05-25T14:16:00.006-04:002021-05-25T14:16:46.151-04:00Edokko<p> Yikes, it's been a while! I'm so sorry not to have much to share these last few months - or rather, I have tons, but have been so caught up I haven't written any of it!</p><p>Last Monday, my second novel launched in paperback and as a Kindle Unlimited exclusive.</p><p>I began working on <i>Edokko </i>when I was newly back in Canada and truly felt the sting of leaving Japan behind. It's a joy to see it finally in print, and the publishing process brought me back to those early days (don't miss the cameo of the Japan Foundation's Japanese-Language Institute Kansai, where incoming Osaka JETs gathered for language lessons when we first arrived!) and the ups and downs of expat life. I still miss it very much.</p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Edokko-Loren-Greene/dp/1777435234/" target="_blank"><img alt="Edokko YA contemporary novel by Loren Greene" border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1333" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3nFU01IgQ-cjg8bLU71UE12fGlv3uFO-Lw7kjeFj1k-vLCr41R47AdlO5q3ah-6tJ48zV_n6OX3YGozhI9hyb5W3VqCpgA_b80AZFjiNNsB8Mbls1oo0s3SGGomQLQGP4m-bi4jMX_MWP/w426-h640/edokkofront1-5medsize.png" width="426" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Edokko-Loren-Greene/dp/1777435234/" target="_blank">Available now in paperback and ebook format</a></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> </p><p><b>Lily Jennings is Going. To. Japan.</b></p><p>Sixteen and on top of the world, she's beyond excited to be setting off for an entire year as an exchange student in Tokyo. Fashion and fun are foremost on her mind as she arrives ready to meet her new host family and embark on a grand adventure, livestreaming all the way.</p><p>What Lily isn't expecting, however, is for her urban host family to cancel at the last moment and leave her hanging with nowhere to live. She's shipped off to the small town of Ajimu (sorry, where!?), a billion miles from anywhere cool and exciting, with a neurotic host sister, no chances for romance, straight-up-vile classmates and a microscopic community watching over her every move.</p><p>Too bad for the people of this small town—nothing's going to hold Lily back when she wants something!</p><p><i>Find it <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Edokko-Loren-Greene/dp/1777435234/" target="_blank">on Amazon</a> or your favourite retailer via <a href="http://edokko.lorengreene.com">http://edokko.lorengreene.com</a>!</i></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Ajimumachi Shimoge, Usa, Oita 872-0521, Japan33.4382363 131.3565093-11.27581304497086 61.0440093 78.15228564497086 -158.33099070000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-74230235928489805572021-01-27T19:29:00.003-05:002021-01-27T19:29:26.008-05:00Pandemic Melon Pan<p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL58-SHSbSK8k8onJkyfyYZdNR4wrZXI5I1DeV4zgDZcyL3GfFOgTKt8ictiyco7JvpjooVknBbnueMgJaTWOie7phr7jaAskx9MhWGkjY-cxsaPq3C9uM4x5qHGqAJVVEfWumq_vYatiC/s2048/melon2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL58-SHSbSK8k8onJkyfyYZdNR4wrZXI5I1DeV4zgDZcyL3GfFOgTKt8ictiyco7JvpjooVknBbnueMgJaTWOie7phr7jaAskx9MhWGkjY-cxsaPq3C9uM4x5qHGqAJVVEfWumq_vYatiC/w320-h181/melon2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An acceptable substitute, given the situation</td></tr></tbody></table></p><div style="text-align: justify;">Hello blog, it’s been awhile!</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Like most of you, I’ve had little chance to be out and about in town recently, even though I’ve heard about new Japanese restaurants opening up, places closing down, changing hours, etc. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">One thing I have noticed, in my neighbourhood at least, is the plethora of options for Japanese food available via delivery services that I had <i>absolutely no idea existed</i>. Normally I’m a bit meh on these apps, because I know a lot of them don’t give a fair cut to the restaurants, and when possible I want to support the restaurant directly. However, in the time of COVID, that’s harder than it used to be. Especially here in Toronto, where we’re under a state of emergency and all dine in options are completely closed. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I want to hope that the restaurants getting on board with DD or UE is helping spread the word that those restaurants exist and therefore are doing them at least a bit of service. I know I’ve found a couple new options in the neighbourhood and beyond that I never knew were even here. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Which brings me to the focus of today’s post! </p><p style="text-align: justify;">A couple of weeks ago I started having intense cravings for <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/06/melon-pan.html" target="_blank">melon pan</a>. It’s been quite a while since I could get back to my regular source (....Japan), but my baking attempts in the past have also failed. I really just wanted to buy some and be done with it. I used up all my creative cooking/baking karma with the Dalgona phase (and subsequently a lot of Vietnamese egg coffees, steam milks and Thai iced tea batches) back at the beginning of the pandemic.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSrsP3yuX4ColORzNgjdrawStBT6k0vRdeNf2LlqRGGHkukNQd6mzUNjTTxGYCEFUkoTZB24aPyglOVwrfr4tqLTsyYl4tjSkp0iFjxvZwVIQf2w_Sc15Y-PQxcOVqMijkBejzgIXosUby/s2048/melon3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1274" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSrsP3yuX4ColORzNgjdrawStBT6k0vRdeNf2LlqRGGHkukNQd6mzUNjTTxGYCEFUkoTZB24aPyglOVwrfr4tqLTsyYl4tjSkp0iFjxvZwVIQf2w_Sc15Y-PQxcOVqMijkBejzgIXosUby/s320/melon3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Muahaha, bring those tasty baked goods right to my door</td></tr></tbody></table>In Toronto, traditional melon pan is harder to come by, and the only place I could think of that had it was <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/06/japanese-supermarkets-in-toronto.html" target="_blank">Nakamura Bakery at J-Town in Markham</a>. I thought to myself, well, I’m not willing to drive an hour for melon pan; not today, anyway. But surely something else more local must have popped up in the last 5 years!? Surely someone is making melon pan closer to downtown by this point!?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So I turned to the food delivery apps. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I did a couple of searches for Japanese food, and a couple of searches for melon pan, and I didn’t really find the traditional type that I was looking for, but I found something else of interest. Not too long ago in Baldwin Village (and two other locations), a new shop called Hattendo appeared selling cream pan, originally from Hiroshima. I’d seen their shop in Japan a couple of times; I used to walk by one when I was passing through Yokohama station. But I’d never actually tried their bread. I thought, well, they have cream pan with a melon pan top on it, and black sesame lattes, and they deliver to my house, so let’s give it a go. Ooh! Seasonal flavours!!</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilSvTu2Zi85BHVj8jlVz1K5hm-DAZ1GjJchxdffzrhfOtG8vnsewx7EyLxxDb7uIdV_KdnMunOMtWZR4lvvuY8vBFO6Dak3pddf5fOYbnGvMIV3-Cy-wRSlmfv25_gvAni7XBrDcC3Mq2_/s2048/melin6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1591" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilSvTu2Zi85BHVj8jlVz1K5hm-DAZ1GjJchxdffzrhfOtG8vnsewx7EyLxxDb7uIdV_KdnMunOMtWZR4lvvuY8vBFO6Dak3pddf5fOYbnGvMIV3-Cy-wRSlmfv25_gvAni7XBrDcC3Mq2_/s320/melin6.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Turns out they don't really photograph too well, though</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Hattendo’s “melon pan” is a pretty distant cousin of traditional melon pan - what I was really getting was cream pan with a melon pan top, so the interior was unlike melon pan at all. However, it did scratch that itch a little for me. And it definitely opened my eyes to the fact that there are a lot of good Japanese options that have surfaced in Toronto over the past few years. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Since melon pan day, we’ve also ordered in from Little Pebbles, a Japanese bakery in Kensington market, and I have several tasty looking izakaya dinner options marked for the next time we order in. There’s also a new ramen shop in the west end (an area that is sorely lacking in ramen at this point) called Musoshin, and they make shokupan! haven’t tried it yet, but looking forward to getting out there sometime and checking them out. Must be tough to open during this pandemic, so they probably need all the props they can get. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">So the next time you’re craving Japanese food in Toronto, even if you want to go pick it up yourself to support the businesses, the delivery apps are actually excellent resources to find out what’s new around town. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">In fact, I just discovered that I can get mochi donuts delivered to my house. Be right back...</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com013 Baldwin St, Toronto, ON M5T 1L1, Canada43.6559842 -79.392697815.345750363821153 -114.5489478 71.966218036178844 -44.236447799999993tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-49966332819131466162020-12-31T00:58:00.000-05:002020-12-31T00:58:09.882-05:00Meet You By Hachiko<p><b></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7d_F8f0umLNrKlBzZo_kQQ5ydr_EEATkY9_X0Xv8mXrigCJa01ZRsuiAdrQqP2ZqUfYnbOWTDN8j68T72482qKY3GO3ky4lGE2BrIseZHWqpcI2GTtW_tkQE98fq5hJVeOmiHbEwdZLF9/s2048/kofiphoto.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Meet Yo By Hachiko paperback with sticker" border="0" data-original-height="1259" data-original-width="2048" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7d_F8f0umLNrKlBzZo_kQQ5ydr_EEATkY9_X0Xv8mXrigCJa01ZRsuiAdrQqP2ZqUfYnbOWTDN8j68T72482qKY3GO3ky4lGE2BrIseZHWqpcI2GTtW_tkQE98fq5hJVeOmiHbEwdZLF9/w640-h394/kofiphoto.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now available in stores<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p></p><p><b>What would you do if your best friend lived half a world away—and suddenly vanished?</b></p><div dir="auto" id="iframeContent"><p>Loner
Grace Ryan feels completely invisible. Awkward and shy, she can't seem
to get ahead in her studies, social circle, or new relationship with her
childhood best friend. But discovering Tokyo street fashion ignites her
creativity and leads her into an unlikely online friendship with a
Japanese high schooler.</p><p>Beautiful and fashionable Kana eats,
sleeps and breathes English in order to pass her university entrance
exam, but she's tired of sacrificing her own happiness for everyone
else's high expectations. Kana finds a friend and conversation partner
in Grace, relieved to distract herself with someone else's problems for a
change.</p><p>Just when things are finally going right, Grace's best
friend abandons her, her relationship falls apart, and Kana disappears
without saying goodbye. Fearing for her friend's safety, Grace boards a
flight to Japan... only to realize that she is completely unprepared for
the bright lights and confusing streets of the real Tokyo.</p><p>Finding one lost girl among twelve million is much more than she bargained for.</p><p><i>Meet You By Hachiko</i> is now available to <a href="https://booklaunch.io/shibuyaloren/hachiko" target="_blank">purchase online in </a><a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Meet-You-Hachiko-Loren-Greene/dp/177743520X/" target="_blank">paperback</a> and <a href="https://books2read.com/shibuyaloren" target="_blank">ebook</a> formats, or contact <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781777435202" target="_blank">your favourite independent bookstore</a> to support local! </p><p> </p><p style="text-align: center;">
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<div id="gr_header"><h1><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56404868-meet-you-by-hachiko" rel="nofollow">Goodreads reviews for Meet You By Hachiko</a></h1></div>
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<br /><p></p><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-60452185185778059582020-11-05T13:32:00.019-05:002020-11-05T13:41:17.725-05:00Can I Learn Japanese As An ALT?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHjI141gt32feK38zyAtmF1ReD1os7WKasbTqGKW_SD2ehT0iCoc3lkPZ8-pCNckw0VKt9U0KyfarDjphNtR2zBDm6Sxa7d_Kctx6N5D-lPARdhsQw-KppZM_9riGHAdk-RaG9MMeR3Zt-/s1600/lady_liberty.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Tokyo is a foreigner-friendly city - but that doesn't mean that everything is in English" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHjI141gt32feK38zyAtmF1ReD1os7WKasbTqGKW_SD2ehT0iCoc3lkPZ8-pCNckw0VKt9U0KyfarDjphNtR2zBDm6Sxa7d_Kctx6N5D-lPARdhsQw-KppZM_9riGHAdk-RaG9MMeR3Zt-/w320-h240/lady_liberty.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tokyo is a foreigner-friendly city -<br />
but that doesn't mean <i>everything</i> is in English</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">You might already know that the December iteration of this year's Japanese Language Proficiency Test (aka the JLPT) was cancelled. It would have been an ideal year for me to test, to be honest, since until a short while ago when <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2020/10/hachiko-paperback-is-coming.html" target="_blank">I started working on my writing full-time</a>, I had <i>a lot</i> of time on my hands. I did a couple of months of Japanese lessons over Zoom, went full-tilt into watching Kansai-based J-dramas to help get my dialect back after 4 years of speaking 東京方言 at work, broke out all my materials last seen at the time of passing N3 in 2015. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There was a time when I really thought I would come back from Japan completely fluent in Japanese. That would have been nice!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It does actually work for some people, especially those out in the sticks. Or if you're naturally gifted with languages! At one point I thought I was, because I'm very good at imitating correct pronunciation, and I even started my BA with a linguistics minor. Big surprise when I discovered my language talent was <i>only</i> for pronunciation and I am more than useless when it comes to grammar.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">
There's an inaccurate belief that if you move to another country to live, you will magically pick up the language via exposure, and it's a great way to become fluent. Well, unfortunately for me, there is no magic osmosis method of learning Japanese. That isn't to say that I don't think immersion is the best way - it absolutely is. I very frequently tell potential exchange students how useful a method immersion is to learn. However, the city JET experience (and, as you well know, ESID!) frequently does not lend itself well to this. There's too much opportunity to just stay in your native language, especially now when we have Google Translate at our fingertips. Every day, I went to work; in my classroom, we used English 98% of the time. Spoke English in the English Department, spoke English after school at English Club, went home to read books in English to combat homesickness, and either hung out with my English-speaking JET neighbour or chatted in English online with my friends back home. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It was not quite <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/Culture%20Shock" target="_blank">what I envisioned</a> when I moved to Japan.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">It goes without saying that I did try. I socialized with my Japanese friends, took <i>aikido</i> classes in Japanese, went out with my co-workers, sang <i>karaoke</i>, attended conversation classes or struggled through translations in my spare time. I <i>like</i> Japanese. I <i>wanted</i> to learn it - I wouldn't have even been there if not for starting my linguistics minor with that first Japanese class. What I <i>actually</i> needed was study, and lots of dedication, and that was tough. I did all my own lesson plans and we did not use Japanese in the classroom</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidi7jJOBG-Xf1bsJhHZB56rmtCc1blOPOj0WSSZWvEzY2-EN_HHnO3MhaiR7-sLrQhb0J3d1Sh3a4sY9wwQfs_kipwGNquag14BP23pBbZljjfo4Ar38iZwrE9gHHA-4ekTRu2EVs-X9ei/s1600/IMG_20141022_165336.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidi7jJOBG-Xf1bsJhHZB56rmtCc1blOPOj0WSSZWvEzY2-EN_HHnO3MhaiR7-sLrQhb0J3d1Sh3a4sY9wwQfs_kipwGNquag14BP23pBbZljjfo4Ar38iZwrE9gHHA-4ekTRu2EVs-X9ei/w320-h240/IMG_20141022_165336.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hit those books!</td></tr></tbody></table>
<br />It shouldn't have been such a big a shock to me, but I was incredibly disappointed when I got home from Japan and immediately failed N3 of the <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/JLPT" target="_blank">Japanese Language Proficiency Test</a>. I knew I hadn't worked hard enough. Not enough study, not enough reading, not enough repetition, and most importantly, I had assumed that I would just pick things up. I certainly did - but I didn't have enough grammatical foundation and reading skills to build on. </div>
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I had the interest and drive, and I had 2.5 years of university classes under my belt before I arrived. If I'd received a placement in, say, Shikoku rather than Osaka (not that I would ever have given up my precious placement!), I would probably have achieved my goals with fewer distractions. Most JETs request urban placements, and Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto are right at the top. If you receive such an assignment, however, and you do want to become fluent, you need to have an incredible drive to learn in a limited amount of time. The former ALTs I know who are N1 or N2 fluent started out as country JETs, went to Japan on a student exchange program, or stayed on in Japan after finishing their placement - or all three!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So can you learn Japanese while teaching English in Japan as an ALT? The short answer is yes; you're in a prime position to pick up at least N5 level just by existing there for a year. If you want to become <i>fluent</i>, however, you need to work for it, as with anything - remember that it won't just come to you!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Osaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan34.6937378 135.5021650999999634.4848083 135.17944159999996 34.902667300000005 135.82488859999995tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-806602542372018202020-10-13T18:27:00.006-04:002021-01-28T18:15:23.500-05:00Hachiko Paperback Is Coming<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0855K1SCC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0855K1SCC&linkCode=as2&tag=tadaimatte0a-20&linkId=20f32ce85ad9158a57824018282afc84" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6L6EtRveCyAehYcHT_wYM3ShUhU6bJCZv9R8g16tPBTZzRS853XvZq1WpZBejdsbvOqeqvPOv0btNeX6mewc6JwQJMdDIkTp-_crGL-NWVhRV-MV3K29M9il8ycp-ugs8f2K4tYDd3RDd/s320/ebook+cover.jpeg" /></a></div><br />Well, it's been a tumultuous 8 months, and with the absolute tanking of my industry, yours truly is back at her computer full-time. <div><br /></div><div>Doing what? Well...I've decided to turn all my attention to my writing, going forward. </div><div><br /></div><div>I never expected this, after more than a decade away from my freelancing career, but in that decade I happen to have completed or partially-written 4 novels (two of them Japan-centric), so it felt like the universe was giving me a boost. A boost in which I am stuck in my apartment with 800+ COVID cases popping up in Ontario daily, no job, and the very helpful support of my partner telling me he'd rather I not be working in any job where I have to leave the house. So here's a trial period; for the next eight months, working on these novels <i>is</i> my job. Taking them from unfinished to finished, and doing all the necessary polishing and marketing, is my main focus right now, starting with <i>Meet You By Hachiko</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>So what's new? Well, after 8 months on the Kindle Store, <i>Hachiko</i> is finally getting a paperback copy!</div><div><br /></div><div>There were definitely points in time when I honestly didn't think this book would ever be on anyone's bookshelf. It was originally a project in my free time leading up to Christmas 2009. I thought that a story about two teen girls, Canadian and Japanese, bonding over their interest in early-2000s Harajuku street style was a touch too niche for most mainstream North American publishers, and teen fiction is well out of the usual scope for the Japan-centric publishers. </div><div><br /></div><div>Thanks to progress, though, of the kind I never could have imagined in 2009, here we finally are! Within the next six weeks, the paperback will be on Amazon. After that, who knows what's next!? You can find it on <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Meet-You-Hachiko-Loren-Greene/dp/177743520X/" target="_blank">Amazon Canada</a>, or <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Meet-You-Hachiko-Loren-Greene/dp/177743520X/">Amazon.com</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div> Expect this blog to be coming back in some capacity as well, when I need a break from the editing drudgery. </div><div><br /></div><div> It's a tough time to be missing Japan (when I was last there, in no way did I ever think I would be away from it this long!) and blogging about that <i>probably</i> isn't going to help much, but maybe I can make it a little easier on those of you who are missing it, too. </div><div><br /></div><div> Thanks for sticking with me! </div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Shibuya City, Tokyo, Japan35.6619707 139.7037957.3517368638211522 104.54754500000001 63.972204536178843 174.860045tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-65579021047553458892020-03-04T17:45:00.008-05:002021-02-01T19:49:32.333-05:00It Finally Happened<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="550" src="https://read.amazon.ca/kp/card?asin=B0855K1SCC&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_1G55EVEP3287MNYM697K" style="max-width: 100%;" type="text/html" width="350"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Something was holding me back for a long time, but you know what? I decided, a ridiculous <i>ten years</i> later, that I was going to put this out there.<div>
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Thanks all, for your support!<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-72716266136519294032016-06-01T16:01:00.006-04:002016-06-01T16:10:29.917-04:00TOKYO CITY 憶えているかい ホームの片隅で<div style="text-align: justify;">
So I've been fairly busy with a lot of things lately, and while I tried (and will continue) to keep work-related things off the blog, I thought I'd check in and note that I recently finished my job in one local Japan-related field and moved to another. I'm sad to have left my office and the great people there, but my contract was ending, and an opportunity came up that I couldn't refuse. So what this does mean for me...?</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Well...!</td></tr>
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As it turns out, it means a lot of travel to Japan. </div>
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I'm so excited to have already been back to Tokyo (and eventually I want to take a vacation to my true second home <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/Osaka" target="_blank">Osaka</a>, of course) and the first visit was really and truly surreal. Maybe it sounds really silly, but I think anyone who has had their heart in two countries at once can relate. It's not about Japan itself but the feeling of being immersed again in a place that was once "home" that I missed very much. </div>
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I took the train from Narita out to Azabu-Juuban, and on the long ride, it was hard to do anything but wax nostalgic! It was early, but even on a Saturday at 8 AM, students in uniforms were taking up most of the train car. On their way to their club practices, I'd imagine. One high school-aged boy sat beside me and I immediately recognized his cologne or body spray as a familiar scent from my own classroom at <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/%E3%80%87%E3%80%87%20High%20School" target="_blank">〇〇 High School</a>. I'd never been on that train line before or seen that scenery, but just being there on that train, sitting with the Saturday shoppers and the schoolkids and breathing the air and seeing the signs fly past the window, I was feeling so <i>natsukashii</i>. </div>
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I wasn't meeting my friend until 9:30, so I strolled through Azabu-Juuban for a time, a little wowed from how it had changed since I last visited, <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/08/tatami-timeshare.html" target="_blank">with Ami-chan</a> years before. Ichinohashi Park was completely gone, and a construction site was in its place. Azabu-Juuban's main station entrace, outside the Shotengai, had also been spruced up a bit. Funny, but I never visited Azabu again after taking Ami-chan there, even when I had lots of time to kill in Tokyo in the past. I guess I felt that <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2014/01/writing-about-tokyo.html" target="_blank">as a pop-culture location</a>, most of the places I would have liked to see had already been gone for years by the time I moved to Japan. </div>
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It was really nice walking through there though, and after a stunning only-in-Japan Cantaloupe Melon and Cream Frappuccino at Starbucks and a melon pan run, I eventually ended up in Roppongi Hills to meet my friend. We saw the Sailor Moon exhibition and had lunch at <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/07/coco-ichiban-curry.html" target="_blank">CoCo Ichiban</a>, which I really still don't have the recipe nailed down for yet. Then we were out of time, and I had to head to work.</div>
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I was trying to pretend that this was a normal Tokyo trip like the many ones I'd taken before, but as on the visit to Japan a year ago, I couldn't shake the sense of "limited-time" urgency. I probably never will be able to manage that totally, given that when you're on a company trip, the clock is ticking. On the bright side, the next trip is already in the calendar.</div>
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See you soon.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Narita, Chiba Prefecture, Japan35.7766076 140.3187805999999735.5705836 139.99605709999997 35.9826316 140.64150409999996tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-6940207154404666722015-11-20T12:32:00.005-05:002021-01-28T18:17:27.596-05:00If You're Happy And You Know ItRide a bike!<br />
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(But not in Toronto, in winter.) <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMZqtc2xNFgQi5ichMxiIkbP3cP_DKUN7oWHPZbTjL2a57KNbpFqCxkarVw_Rn04hCGqY3V280FgHi7cRw0FPiBpGzgvTB-UUeiOXMHtzr7BAe_6nykgfKYMXBbTzKzBmN4JpgqaAJ0Zu5/s1600/IMG_20151111_155231.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMZqtc2xNFgQi5ichMxiIkbP3cP_DKUN7oWHPZbTjL2a57KNbpFqCxkarVw_Rn04hCGqY3V280FgHi7cRw0FPiBpGzgvTB-UUeiOXMHtzr7BAe_6nykgfKYMXBbTzKzBmN4JpgqaAJ0Zu5/s640/IMG_20151111_155231.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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It really is unapologetically pink...I guess I see why M was so dismayed when they opened this sucker up at Calgary Airport!<div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Toronto, ON, Canada43.653226 -79.38318429999998243.653226 -79.383184299999982 43.653226 -79.383184299999982tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-28431658672338787232015-10-29T17:03:00.001-04:002021-01-28T18:32:14.855-05:00The Young and the Chariotless<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjMwm7DDOjP95i48cUzAwTZcfXAGSaiOHAVpUqDqrkbZF2I1Wb17MVF3LoOTLdsEd7Hu-eSHe7uVSFkNs3rxnpo-lDK20YWTkwCuaIGIaJsfVT7zF1q0dozDfHW0AUu5_nH9tk0gBGA00w/s1600/mama_chari.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjMwm7DDOjP95i48cUzAwTZcfXAGSaiOHAVpUqDqrkbZF2I1Wb17MVF3LoOTLdsEd7Hu-eSHe7uVSFkNs3rxnpo-lDK20YWTkwCuaIGIaJsfVT7zF1q0dozDfHW0AUu5_nH9tk0gBGA00w/s320/mama_chari.jpg" width="320" /></a>When I landed back on Canadian soil in August of 2010, the first thing I did was purchase a bicycle. Having a new bike right away, I hoped, would take away the sting of leaving behind my <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/06/mama-chari.html" target="_blank"><i>mama-chari</i></a> in Osaka, at the very last minute, as I hastily dropped the keys with a Post-It note on my co-worker's desk on the final day. I needed the bike right up until <i>that day</i>, and I didn't have time to deal with boxing it up for transport across the Pacific. I thought that at least if I left it at school, it would be used by someone, and perhaps someday I would see it again. I took the second key home with me, just in case. </div>
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The first week home, I bought a cheap Wal-Mart bicycle. I needed to get to work, and I'd become accustomed to the independence of travelling by bike. I also bought a helmet, because unlike in Japan, I was significantly more concerned about being hit by a car. It was a Raleigh five-speed cruiser, and not an expensive one; it did have a partial chain guard, which was the main thing I was missing about my <i>mama-chari</i> at the time, as I remembered ripping up a few pairs of jeans on my mountain bike as a youth. It also had the curved handlebars I liked on cruisers. </div>
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I have to assume the Japanese adapted their bicycles from European ones, as they were trading with the Netherlands as early as the 1600s; Japanese bikes bear strong similarities to Dutch ones. The covered chain guard and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skirt_guard" target="_blank">skirt guard</a> are very uncommon in North America. Fender mudflaps and rear racks occasionally show up on American-made bikes, but are considered standard in Japan, along with the rear wheel lock and ubiquitous front basket. I would have liked to go for a bike with all the trimmings, but I had to settle for what Wal-Mart had in their inventory at the time. In retrospect, I was actually lucky to get a bike that had two out of the six features I wanted. I installed a rear rack and basket myself.</div>
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Eventually, as all Wal-Mart bikes are wont to do, my bike began losing steam in its 4th year, and during a particularly rough trip down into the <a href="https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Castle+Frank+Brook,+Toronto,+ON/@43.6887528,-79.4166178,3a,75y,44.26h,84.83t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-5OrVzQM9VPE%2FUnFzknY9x3I%2FAAAAAAAAfxU%2Fl2VZvjWXuPY!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh6.googleusercontent.com%2F-5OrVzQM9VPE%2FUnFzknY9x3I%2FAAAAAAAAfxU%2Fl2VZvjWXuPY%2Fw205-h100-n-k-no%2F!7i4022!8i1959!4m2!3m1!1s0x89d4cb5dedea7997:0xa2bf875d045050c2" target="_blank">Nordheimer Ravine</a> one autumn, my jacket bounced out of my rear basket and twirled itself around the derailleur, which fortunately did not end in my dying in the ravine. The bike was never particularly good at switching gears again.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZotJ3hmrhJNv1Id1IZLck2gCqIGemY07GQkQlu1udwvfJylazAe5mcYWdYEFO97hQ_bmMaRpFKhJ4ME4DdVHtWxPiZ19ViKR81sSe-L5KcKqsGtVDb26e_nvwiFm4IVfDjnFvD3ujbWNI/s1600/IMG_20150605_091014.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZotJ3hmrhJNv1Id1IZLck2gCqIGemY07GQkQlu1udwvfJylazAe5mcYWdYEFO97hQ_bmMaRpFKhJ4ME4DdVHtWxPiZ19ViKR81sSe-L5KcKqsGtVDb26e_nvwiFm4IVfDjnFvD3ujbWNI/s320/IMG_20150605_091014.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dutch in action at Casa Loma</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But we're going off on a tangent now. As I searched for a replacement to my bike (I had taken that cheap Wal-Mart bike with me on the plane to Toronto, wrapped in a tarp - can you believe it?) I decided that it had to be Dutch or nothing. I wanted a skirt guard; I wanted a proper rear rack. I wanted a <i>mama-chari</i>. I walked down Bloor Street taking photos of bikes I liked and jotting down their make and model to Google later. I never walked by a bike without giving it a once-over. To my surprise, the premium to get such luxuries as full chain guards required paying CAD $600+ for the bike. As I looked at bike shop after bike shop, almost buying a Giant-brand Liv Simple, I realized that I would never be able to tick all the boxes affordably. I finally settled for a step-through <a href="http://beaterbikes.net/2011/09/11/2012-step-through-frame/" target="_blank">Beater Bike</a>, with a partial chain, and a rear rack. What I hadn't bargained on was how much less hill-friendly the Beater was going to be compared to my Raleigh, with its fat tires and five speeds. The Beater, gorgeous though it was, was useless on hills, and the tires were the <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2012/10/19/streetcar_tracks_blamed_for_a_third_of_bicycling_injuries.html" target="_blank">perfect size for getting caught in streetcar tracks</a>. Riding it was exhausting. So I went back to the drawing board, formulating a plan for my trip to Japan in February to just buy a cheap <i>mama-chari</i>, have them box it up right in the shop, walk it to the post office and pay to have it sent home. I figured I'd be out $150 for the bike, $50 for domestic, $100 for the international shipping. Maybe a bit from customs on the other side. That sounded a lot better than the $600-ish I was pricing for Dutch-style bikes with gears in Toronto. <br />
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I think you guys already know this is going to go downhill.<br />
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I left the job of actually buying one until the last moments of our trip. I looked at bikes at Asahi Cycle in Rinku Town and Tokyo, but I never spotted one close to a post office (an essential for this plan to work). Eventually, when I was on my own in Tokyo with just one day left in the trip, I realized this wasn't going to work. I went on Rakuten and found a seller that did international shipping for Daiwa bikes, and I bought a cute <a href="http://item.rakuten.co.jp/jitensya-ousama/c-daiwa-fmly035/" target="_blank">pink Nana+ bike</a>. No need to drag anything to the post office myself! They shipped to Canada!<br />
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...except that they only shipped to Canada <i>through their proxy service.</i> I had used Tenso before, but not in a few years, and the hoops they had me jump through just to get the bike shipped <i>anywhere</i> were out of this world. I waited two weeks without seeing my item appear on the "my page" section, even though the domestic shipping said it'd been delivered. I emailed them, and had no response for days. I started to worry that maybe this company was less reputable than I originally thought. I sent a third help request, which got a response at last, and was informed since it was oversized, they hadn't yet connected the purchase to my account, oh, and also it was too oversized to be shipped abroad. It had arrived <i>fully assembled.</i> I learned later that this is the standard for bike shops in Japan. Tenso said they were unable to downsize it for me by removing the pedals/turning the handlebars, as they weren't trained to do so.<br />
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From there we began the lengthy process of finding a solution, <i>any solution</i>. Tenso offered to ship it elsewhere in Japan for me, but in order to do that, I had to verify my address in Canada. Mind you, I'd already done that when I bought things through Tenso in the past, but it had to be done again, including scans of my driver's license and the receipt of a postcard at my mailing address in Canada. That's right, I had to wait for a physical postcard to arrive by postal mail at my apartment. Only when they were satisfied that I really did live at my address in Toronto would they allow me to redirect the bike somewhere else, but obviously, not to Toronto! They urged me to let them courier it to a friend.<br />
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I don't have tons of friends in Japan whom I'd be comfortable asking for a favour so large as "can you receive this bike in the mail, bring it to a bike shop to take it apart, and put it back in the mail?" and even fewer that I wouldn't mind being laughed at by. (As genuinely fond as I am of my co-workers at <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/%E3%80%87%E3%80%87%20High%20School" target="_blank">〇〇 High School</a>, and as much as they already knew I was quirky, I prefer not to be remembered as "that one that asked me to ship a bike to her".) In the end, I asked my friend Nicole, of <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/07/irish-chocolate.html#.VjEuBNKrSUk" target="_blank">Irish Chocolate</a> fame. She returned to Japan after leaving 〇〇 University and is now an English teacher in Chiba. She saved me from a separate mishap involving buying <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/10/mister-donut.html" target="_blank">Mister Donut cups</a> on Yahoo! Auctions, and so I thought she might be able to intervene again. Luckily for me, Nicole agreed, and some time later my bike appeared, fully formed, at her apartment.<br />
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Nicole, bless her, bought a bike-sized cardboard box online and wheeled it all down to her local shop, where they took it apart and packed it up. Then she brought it back to her place (how!?!?) and called Japan Post for an at-home pickup. Except...now it didn't fall within Japan Post's size guidelines. The JP Post guys returned to Nicole's apartment <i>two hours later</i> with the box in tow. It was too big! She told me it would have to be done via a commercial shipping company like FedEx. Now we were getting way, way too expensive, and I wasn't sure what to do next. I'd already sunk more money into the box and the domestic shipping to Nicole, and the losses were too big for me to cut now. We decided to Frankenstein the box to make it smaller, since that approach worked for Emily when she sent her<i> <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/10/kotatsu.html" target="_blank">kotatsu</a></i> home, but after some measuring, it literally needed to be half the size. Nicole promised to look up some options when she got home from her vacation in Europe.<br />
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I decided to take a different tactic. My roommate, M, made plans to go to Japan for a concert in October. I decided to ask her if she'd check the bike as her second piece of luggage (oversized). She agreed without too much protest, to my relief, and so I asked Nicole to have the bike couriered to Narita Airport instead. Surprise - the luggage shipping company that we usually use for the airport, doesn't accept bikes. Nothing about the size, never mind that it was in a cardboard box and disassembled, they just <i>don't do bicycles</i>. Nicole had to call JAL ABC, because apparently Sagawa thought we were asking them to ship some expensive French racing bike worth $8,000 and not the little steel <i>mama-chari</i> I bought at Daiwa Cycle for under two hundred bucks. Luckily JAL ABC agreed to take it (after warning me about a COD fee) and it was delivered to Narita on the day M was scheduled to return to Canada.<br />
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Ah, but it's not over yet! As I gallivanted through Montreal on a rainy Saturday night, just before midnight, my cell phone alarm went off, reminding me that "M Is At The Airport Right Now." And then there's an email in my inbox dated 30 minutes prior, saying "Does your bike have suspension? Because if it does, I can't take it with me." Followed by, "If you don't answer soon, I have to leave." Oh noooooooo--<br />
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I emailed back as quickly as my thumbs would function, NO, NO SUSPENSION<br />
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ALSO PLEASE DON'T LEAVE<br />
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After all, what was the next step if the bike got stranded at the airport? Call ABC and try to convince them to ship it back to Nicole (I really wanted to stop bugging her) or to another friend? Jes kindly agreed to receive it when I sent a desperate-sounding email asking for her address, but I didn't want to face the phone call where I explained that I, an uninvolved third party, wanted to use a foreign credit card to have this package sent not back to the sender or recipient but to someone else altogether. Also, what was Jes going to do when she got it? It was just too big!<br />
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Luckily, M hadn't checked in for her flight just yet, and decided to forge ahead. Air Canada, bless them, accepted the box without complaint, and it was successfully on its way to Canada at last. I waited until 2:30 AM for the inevitable email about something going wrong, before finally dropping off to sleep. In the morning I called for an airport van cab, and then I called The Bike Joint down on Harbord Street to arrange assembly, and then I recruited a friend with a car to drive it down there with me. BIKE BIKE BIKE BIKE BIKE.<br />
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It wasn't until she arrived in Calgary and they opened the box for inspection that M realized the extent to which I had thrown her under the bus.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I found this note written on the whiteboard when I got home, after M was safely sleeping off the jet lag:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEGPQvF0co_kpxYVy26fd7kk5Gk0VvQWGoyTRthkTKyWAeOyCkHP_8l9GH272n6eF110MxhZjd0z3S-RXi0qkOwhbLFaNFpo-ObPZZuQnIyLkJjhHFgwZ9766bfkolifyi2V91HTjaOUVh/s1600/hero.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEGPQvF0co_kpxYVy26fd7kk5Gk0VvQWGoyTRthkTKyWAeOyCkHP_8l9GH272n6eF110MxhZjd0z3S-RXi0qkOwhbLFaNFpo-ObPZZuQnIyLkJjhHFgwZ9766bfkolifyi2V91HTjaOUVh/s400/hero.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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...but at least I have <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2015/11/if-youre-happy-and-you-know-it.html" target="_blank">my bike</a>.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Toronto, ON, Canada43.653226 -79.38318429999998243.285985499999995 -80.028631299999986 44.0204665 -78.737737299999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-64716556852537957832015-08-13T13:33:00.003-04:002021-01-28T18:34:01.296-05:00VHS Tape Bonanza<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0XX2k-2B7ZBh6fipN_rXgnoIC-vECCD8qcW532OuLO8N_s9IYCjNGa04tq9R3kKPrtv2XczweRjBP9LJKzwYfkXf6KAbGYA0j0o0vD6kPOZWvSZPNxVGeeVEYKdcYzLr3ALUVoMkpuU8p/s1600/IMG_20150813_132935.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0XX2k-2B7ZBh6fipN_rXgnoIC-vECCD8qcW532OuLO8N_s9IYCjNGa04tq9R3kKPrtv2XczweRjBP9LJKzwYfkXf6KAbGYA0j0o0vD6kPOZWvSZPNxVGeeVEYKdcYzLr3ALUVoMkpuU8p/s320/IMG_20150813_132935.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A box of tapes on their way out of the library</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="http://jftor.org/about-us/moving/" target="_blank">The Japan Foundation Toronto is moving</a>, and though that means a lot of changes and adjustments for those of us who found Bloor and Avenue pretty convenient, the upside is that the library is overhauling, which means clearing out old items, which means VHS TAPE GIVEAWAYS.<br />
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You might have guessed from my persistent interest in <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/07/jet-in-1990s.html" target="_blank">all</a> <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/07/japanese-high-schools-in-modern-age.html" target="_blank">things</a> <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/08/shinagawa-in-1967.html" target="_blank">retro</a>, that I have just a teensy bit of nostalgia for decades past, with the 80s/90s (my formative years) entrenched firmly at the top. That means I don't just treasure the memories of taping my favourite shows on the family VCR - <i>I still own the family VCR.</i> I actually received a VCR-DVD combo unit for Christmas of 2013! However, 99% of my tape collection is at my parents' house, so I left it there to begin the long project of dubbing dozens of old favourites onto DVD whenever I visit them for the holidays.</div>
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So, when the Japan Foundation Toronto decided to get rid of most of its videotape collection to save space...well, needless to say, the airport x-ray techs probably got a kick out of my suitcase as it went through the scanner on my most recent trip back home. It was so hard to resist! I found some fabulous Tokyo-in-the-late-80s-early-90s snapshots with videos like <i>Neighborhood Tokyo, Tokyo Date, NHK The News 1985 </i>and <i>Norimono</i><i> Ippai. </i>Lots of glamour shots of the Yurikamome Line, pre-extension, in that last one. I also scored the Ichikawa classic <i>Tokyo Olympiad,</i> and four out of a set of Japanese recent-history programs covering events like the <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2013/01/photo-of-day-marina.html" target="_blank">Hanshin earthquake</a>, the marriage of the crown Prince (now Emperor), and the crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123, which was actually just in the newspaper here, as the 30th anniversary was yesterday.</div>
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All in all, a pretty impressive bounty of pre-millennial pop culture. I'm sad that these tapes can't be borrowed from the JFT library anymore, but on the other hand, it was good timing for me, because I was able to take the time to watch and enjoy them all, and they won't end up in a landfill, either. I was happy to see how quickly the rest of the tapes (there were at least 500 given away over two days) were picked up by other patrons to take home.<br />
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Looks like at least a few others out there still have VCRs!<br />
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</div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0131 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON M5S 3L7, Canada43.6687131 -79.39225859999999118.146678599999998 -120.70085259999999 69.1907476 -38.083664599999992tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-51416808399996407602015-04-12T10:00:00.015-04:002021-05-28T20:51:40.306-04:00Small-Town Adventure<div style="text-align: justify;">
For my 2011 National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) project, I decided to write a story about small-town Japan. I had written a story set in Tokyo for a previous year, and I wanted to go in a different direction, even though I had very little experience with small-town life. (<a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/%E3%80%87%E3%80%87%20City" target="_blank">〇〇 City</a> is not exactly the size of Osaka, but it's very, very far from being <i>inaka.</i>)</div>
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I enjoy research - I'm the sort of person who will get caught up for hours on a winding path of Wikipedia articles. I particularly like learning about urban development, and <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/05/seishun-18.html" target="_blank">trains</a>. (I probably have a massive article due in the near future about our train journey from Hokkaido to Kyushu taken in February.) So for me, not knowing much beyond the <i>JET Journal</i> perspective on <i>inaka</i> life was not a deterrent, but a challenge! </div>
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While preparing for NaNo this time, I decided to choose a place I was interested in, and then do the research to make the setting plausible. I had of course lived in Osaka and I had written extensively about Tokyo the previous year, so it was time to go further afield, and there was an obvious first choice. I'd recently re-read <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/06/japan-fiction-round-up.html" target="_blank"><i>Ash</i> by Holly Thompson</a> (set partially in Kumamoto), and also discovered the blog <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/07/jet-in-1990s.html" target="_blank">nipponDAZE</a>, which chronicles JET life in Oita-ken in the 90s. Kyushu was right up my alley, and I was sure there had to be a town somewhere near Beppu - where Emily and I spent New Year's in 2010 - that a disillusioned exchange student might find her calling in. A few Google searches of JET blogs in Oita turned up a match with a population short of 8,000 people and no train station of its own. At the time, it was not available on Google Street View. (<a href="https://goo.gl/maps/mYt4c" target="_blank">It is now, if you want to have a look.</a>) I made email contact with a JET alumni who had a fabulous website - I'm sure <a href="http://joelswagman.blogspot.ca/2007/11/ajimu.html" target="_blank">Joel</a> never expected anyone would try to write a novel based only on his blog's descriptions of his town- and started from there.</div>
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As with any NaNo project, of course, November ended and then I was slammed with the <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/JLPT" target="_blank">JLPT</a>, prepping for Christmas, <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/12/nengajou.html" target="_blank">nengajo</a>, and the usual writer's burnout that comes when you devote 30,000 words to a topic and then realize you don't know where the story is going. So I never quite finished the tale, though I intend to go back and revisit it for NaNo 2015. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLIvRSVFuk0s2x28zjzgh9DZ1lM_4diFsXMzy4NA65eXXmZzD21JCj5uZh7v5qzi1GnLU0oGv5Dc6LQFXber3iTKzmQg2h6tvWpWGtwC9DqyldA0jEuynAMIw0FIf06zbuat9ib099Zt3A/s1600/location3.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLIvRSVFuk0s2x28zjzgh9DZ1lM_4diFsXMzy4NA65eXXmZzD21JCj5uZh7v5qzi1GnLU0oGv5Dc6LQFXber3iTKzmQg2h6tvWpWGtwC9DqyldA0jEuynAMIw0FIf06zbuat9ib099Zt3A/s1600/location3.png" width="317" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brother Google watches over our travels.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
With that said, my small-town novel was at the forefront of my mind when I planned my two weeks in Japan this past February. In 2011, I often daydreamed about quitting my telephone job and moving to Kyushu to write <i>the</i> great Japan-set YA novel, living at Khaosan Beppu and trading cleaning services for room and board. Or, if I had some savings, in a little one-room apartment with a <i>tatami</i> floor, because <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/05/my-apartment.html" target="_blank">I'm still not over that</a>. By 2015, though, I was at a different point in my life, and there wasn't much chance of getting a lot of time for creativity while travelling. I decided to somehow fit Kyushu - even though I had never driven a car in Japan, and our primary destination was Hokkaido - into the trip. My travelling companion had little interest in hot springs, but Kyushu was close to my heart now, and she obliged me, for whatever reason. I applied for an international drivers' license and booked us two nights in a <i>ryokan</i>, following our day in Kyoto. We worked an almost-nonstop pace from Sapporo to Beppu, via blue train and <i>shinkansen,</i> in three days. </div>
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Alighting in Beppu, Cassie and I spent the night, then rented a car the following morning for my "research trip." (She manned the camera and is responsible for most of the photos below.) We spent four hours wandering and driving in the area without any direction at all, just exploring. At first, I really thought I was imposing, because we could have been at the Hells in Beppu by that point, or - so I imagined Cass would prefer - way back in Nakano Broadway, working the <i>gatchapon</i> machines. Somehow, though, it became a grand adventure. The tiny, run-down shrine on the cliffs, the bronze turtle statues, the quest to find some restaurant - <i>any restaurant</i> - to eat at - we were soon laughing and snapping photos of everything, getting lost, running away from adults who we thought might be suspicious of <i>gaijin </i>taking pictures of the school, and slowly navigating hairpin curves in the road while the super-confident local drivers leaned on their horns behind us. Oh yeah, and going through the ETC toll lane by accident and bringing all toll operations to a halt while we tried to sort out what was going on. (The rental car had an ETC broadcaster, but no card in it.) We were actually very sad to leave the town without seeing it all, but had another appointment to keep in Beppu that afternoon. </div>
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It was a gorgeous, sunny day and the highlight of the trip, particularly for Kyushu - the rain would start pouring that evening and chase us all the way back to Kansai. And a good memory. I hope if you've been to this town, you'll enjoy our photo memories of the day.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSiUoZxFdHoXU9SIJx_GSHE7srEA9mwe0CewflRLgGV7j63b5QOviisHY3Nb24kZafcMXKGZTgBztu7rFLYnzzWYm7KZW74gmFSdy73jBM4G3pbK84H5nx5GgV58W2Xs6hAE0ANzrC0Xl3/s1600/IMG_3038.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSiUoZxFdHoXU9SIJx_GSHE7srEA9mwe0CewflRLgGV7j63b5QOviisHY3Nb24kZafcMXKGZTgBztu7rFLYnzzWYm7KZW74gmFSdy73jBM4G3pbK84H5nx5GgV58W2Xs6hAE0ANzrC0Xl3/s1600/IMG_3038.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arriving from the highway</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4JCbKcrlAljblqHybseX4szIkjs8qaesathiNQdYZKz1W2BdST7MR6j_3qc0FPNz4UG3pJPgqBP42oUy-Ua66QVLsX4w9cgcn1v_eX39kUDTo1FM6Nz9zqmmDbbokvlJiTwHG1tnFOCMG/s1600/IMG_3049.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="473" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4JCbKcrlAljblqHybseX4szIkjs8qaesathiNQdYZKz1W2BdST7MR6j_3qc0FPNz4UG3pJPgqBP42oUy-Ua66QVLsX4w9cgcn1v_eX39kUDTo1FM6Nz9zqmmDbbokvlJiTwHG1tnFOCMG/s1600/IMG_3049.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cassie mans the camera while I drive down what we think is the main road</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6a3VaULg7DWXjYqiYiP8pfmRyoO6xf1bmvtlVtkHOCFtYgMEGLYBCKTZEWXVeV18u2xPn8mS4YBfVuDhQjDeRB1WqsBcrOFe1wzaufnUGkJ4Lmq1NEEND8go95o710SvRXYvLke7ig8w2/s1600/IMG_3052.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6a3VaULg7DWXjYqiYiP8pfmRyoO6xf1bmvtlVtkHOCFtYgMEGLYBCKTZEWXVeV18u2xPn8mS4YBfVuDhQjDeRB1WqsBcrOFe1wzaufnUGkJ4Lmq1NEEND8go95o710SvRXYvLke7ig8w2/s1600/IMG_3052.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Small-town feel</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNnrfu3k0sos-JNgijuVDWt03MxgGsurjPrGLV0TS46kHgV3uryseitQE-aBVY1A1Yp-pLWWk8gb3XqdQt8u9-c1QcQWFf8f8t34Ko7mILlJZzlIGf0dbUnnvt63nUoIz5_6Yx_ezI-CRb/s1600/IMG_3055.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNnrfu3k0sos-JNgijuVDWt03MxgGsurjPrGLV0TS46kHgV3uryseitQE-aBVY1A1Yp-pLWWk8gb3XqdQt8u9-c1QcQWFf8f8t34Ko7mILlJZzlIGf0dbUnnvt63nUoIz5_6Yx_ezI-CRb/s1600/IMG_3055.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We're keeping an eye out for places characters might visit</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLDk9z7OS1vlv1FUJibBYtQub_AUEtCeAE9dhk73sXHWVD_plKzcYL7S1-ZhTrJRTrdRtR5IxVo9285VJn_HW5QTRbXCrpx8sRSMZEdrv1ClFYWgyPWO7O5_REm31aEGe7Scbp6Nhi5dtR/s1600/IMG_3058.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="401" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLDk9z7OS1vlv1FUJibBYtQub_AUEtCeAE9dhk73sXHWVD_plKzcYL7S1-ZhTrJRTrdRtR5IxVo9285VJn_HW5QTRbXCrpx8sRSMZEdrv1ClFYWgyPWO7O5_REm31aEGe7Scbp6Nhi5dtR/s1600/IMG_3058.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These apartment buildings look like someplace an ALT might live!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw64dN1MCjq4VKrwHkBZxQaTGgH0jJTAohsqLZDOfL1r-AVhcmiWfmWfp-0WnLIQYh-11Icodpyof2G-ObGKu5B2SJKPvAd1eh6Iev3-LCdosJQosmC_CzZd9CENGEKvMUvk1L4UjToMHk/s1600/IMG_3063.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw64dN1MCjq4VKrwHkBZxQaTGgH0jJTAohsqLZDOfL1r-AVhcmiWfmWfp-0WnLIQYh-11Icodpyof2G-ObGKu5B2SJKPvAd1eh6Iev3-LCdosJQosmC_CzZd9CENGEKvMUvk1L4UjToMHk/s1600/IMG_3063.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We asked the GPS to take us to the post office, and so we pulled in here to decide where next</td></tr>
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<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOwzM1VBZXZdWo9AINvUTDFJtX4xTwzaL35Hfe2Sefo2Jp1BBa1nub3Jp6KWG0G0mnATIeD8MECEIptTwj779ojBuW7hZnkouc1DWli3QojDSASE-XfpWeXQQEqAZK-hoBQmi622pRe12B/s1600/IMG_3064.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOwzM1VBZXZdWo9AINvUTDFJtX4xTwzaL35Hfe2Sefo2Jp1BBa1nub3Jp6KWG0G0mnATIeD8MECEIptTwj779ojBuW7hZnkouc1DWli3QojDSASE-XfpWeXQQEqAZK-hoBQmi622pRe12B/s1600/IMG_3064.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...as it turned out, we were RIGHT beside the school!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9n1IVTF1lB3vsco7TfQjmK9efJmaB5Pe9Bnm2n8r2yZNNAqZ6QkKWb4pYTUwYtyQBFp6v4X7wqd3_HeQkJedzwiTXFqML-UzUWJ-zIPHvcMr28gJGBB_413CCluSmo-HQRrhoymtTLJxE/s1600/IMG_3065.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9n1IVTF1lB3vsco7TfQjmK9efJmaB5Pe9Bnm2n8r2yZNNAqZ6QkKWb4pYTUwYtyQBFp6v4X7wqd3_HeQkJedzwiTXFqML-UzUWJ-zIPHvcMr28gJGBB_413CCluSmo-HQRrhoymtTLJxE/s1600/IMG_3065.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A peek inside the baseball clubhouse (?)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrwjemyFQdcQqF7UJIrzSMI-wzBlMrjfqeuGule_YZ45L80e6YCCBgkcFQtrEWrBJmOO25X8itWpy8gjP6BeGsgeVaub1f9AOaxZQZkYegkcIkMhhNemHBf6m4d-A5GdgbCWaITQY61nio/s1600/IMG_3068.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrwjemyFQdcQqF7UJIrzSMI-wzBlMrjfqeuGule_YZ45L80e6YCCBgkcFQtrEWrBJmOO25X8itWpy8gjP6BeGsgeVaub1f9AOaxZQZkYegkcIkMhhNemHBf6m4d-A5GdgbCWaITQY61nio/s1600/IMG_3068.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">School view</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAWo5-2j9UgbixOU2E-FYuGyV8fe3lzwlc-aHnmF04VN5SOAEU_oAaZfM8b-iTHr9QMce9DD_rbhzBH9Bd3k1RDEJk8dwGRvVzDaBWSTKE-KdJ3DiPTnRUANwBs_Zi-wT_GqOscWRCo1n-/s1600/IMG_3060.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAWo5-2j9UgbixOU2E-FYuGyV8fe3lzwlc-aHnmF04VN5SOAEU_oAaZfM8b-iTHr9QMce9DD_rbhzBH9Bd3k1RDEJk8dwGRvVzDaBWSTKE-KdJ3DiPTnRUANwBs_Zi-wT_GqOscWRCo1n-/s1600/IMG_3060.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">School from the opposite side</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb1BIrf4KFVgu8NTCQDHmDirKzTF-wAvBpaMaoOYfhlI9Ak6YTtmz4jQErHoDMtKW8MwZ0iv91Hcx07Jpyre31x0xH4IyxbgBEoKaPjLJLmqWCLK_PIY8UoPuh6b23oIL3q-2VeAljk8bH/s1600/IMG_3073.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb1BIrf4KFVgu8NTCQDHmDirKzTF-wAvBpaMaoOYfhlI9Ak6YTtmz4jQErHoDMtKW8MwZ0iv91Hcx07Jpyre31x0xH4IyxbgBEoKaPjLJLmqWCLK_PIY8UoPuh6b23oIL3q-2VeAljk8bH/s1600/IMG_3073.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Famous for its wine, and turtle soup. Grapes are everywhere!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc7RlG6PV6sJU9ZLrY2A1__nwNAbHR4ZdWVqZ42TbbJ38KN1fvxKW3Pnw6aautKLoVx21myilixjFRmJx47sTGAN4Hcc-0ShTNW0qTRdlUD4jNhoJsB0u2DavybvPVZs28CYhvWRKKe7Qi/s1600/IMG_3078.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc7RlG6PV6sJU9ZLrY2A1__nwNAbHR4ZdWVqZ42TbbJ38KN1fvxKW3Pnw6aautKLoVx21myilixjFRmJx47sTGAN4Hcc-0ShTNW0qTRdlUD4jNhoJsB0u2DavybvPVZs28CYhvWRKKe7Qi/s1600/IMG_3078.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Street shots</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguM0LOcrMEVjs2cpycYFD9EXTDXVa2xd8pqqxkEWqkjZ_DfDZrLTdDnnJYlnhaZDcOWXvHNDibd8lDUI2Qxd9czydpdyO4PFUbGQe2UovLpcmudEHiVCroJgbVFHrfp3M38Cf9-s8dwX9v/s1600/IMG_3081.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="419" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguM0LOcrMEVjs2cpycYFD9EXTDXVa2xd8pqqxkEWqkjZ_DfDZrLTdDnnJYlnhaZDcOWXvHNDibd8lDUI2Qxd9czydpdyO4PFUbGQe2UovLpcmudEHiVCroJgbVFHrfp3M38Cf9-s8dwX9v/s1600/IMG_3081.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I thought this was very striking</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgofxTv6wqIhq2UHSQwr3S81y1BRfNiFcMN_9z3VwyhWeWKR0INxmZ93jGIxGm34kzenTUI_PnohLUNQezsAkEC8rOAarAveoGaFBkwHbcxmGHrCrCPXV6qAfM8wgsZcT5ua-qtl85jLVJf/s1600/IMG_3082.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="401" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgofxTv6wqIhq2UHSQwr3S81y1BRfNiFcMN_9z3VwyhWeWKR0INxmZ93jGIxGm34kzenTUI_PnohLUNQezsAkEC8rOAarAveoGaFBkwHbcxmGHrCrCPXV6qAfM8wgsZcT5ua-qtl85jLVJf/s1600/IMG_3082.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Great <i>mansion</i> name!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxbASsfNss96r6XTKmWcE9I0ahtR-lttW1c-jjjdrDuItWuMXxdZ6SM_MCMzZrv0fgqltD-eWOF-CI8sKRDSwNwqYmr27higR-BR6yiQMDHDKpiMlr_BoJ17UBRrrywG_vHLm24nxUrtcV/s1600/IMG_3088.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxbASsfNss96r6XTKmWcE9I0ahtR-lttW1c-jjjdrDuItWuMXxdZ6SM_MCMzZrv0fgqltD-eWOF-CI8sKRDSwNwqYmr27higR-BR6yiQMDHDKpiMlr_BoJ17UBRrrywG_vHLm24nxUrtcV/s1600/IMG_3088.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Decided to drive over this bridge and see what was on the other side</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4agVlPxF9DQftqYCK0W81_GbeoGyX3d-22y4tOV5WOmarJPpLcR5LJPlf7MrpAM5uwJpscK-_KKT2eiiXmWXdlM9In7EoLc6wa_FRIFTCJMPx_E58HANDVtc4rw4Q-c9ar7nDvFEtHjLR/s1600/IMG_3091.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4agVlPxF9DQftqYCK0W81_GbeoGyX3d-22y4tOV5WOmarJPpLcR5LJPlf7MrpAM5uwJpscK-_KKT2eiiXmWXdlM9In7EoLc6wa_FRIFTCJMPx_E58HANDVtc4rw4Q-c9ar7nDvFEtHjLR/s1600/IMG_3091.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Turtles on the bridge</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq6eFDWqcKpJjIxUJfyspzKcyjXLlkueUEZQwJOjbHOEreFzTvFnYwYQfsoO__S1ugGkiy4-cHIt1tDdz55QVJvSyLs6IDxamP4jNlI8aDOUvcmxhzXVsLdYBC9L6Eg1y33viSEd4FAXha/s1600/IMG_3095.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq6eFDWqcKpJjIxUJfyspzKcyjXLlkueUEZQwJOjbHOEreFzTvFnYwYQfsoO__S1ugGkiy4-cHIt1tDdz55QVJvSyLs6IDxamP4jNlI8aDOUvcmxhzXVsLdYBC9L6Eg1y33viSEd4FAXha/s1600/IMG_3095.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Neither of us can resist <i>torii</i> gates</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgempp7zWX0SFwHL_9eIRiQAgaQ2efgK9WHw9Mxqv0WxumcD2JSDicF4b2-LxTbj65-8ecr2LdYCECGnYOIHQFxRE0scKXzkNV4xeNjG-XV9pYxXDIo-EMCNm_RAkeERryhknxN39CleJgi/s1600/IMG_3100.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="419" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgempp7zWX0SFwHL_9eIRiQAgaQ2efgK9WHw9Mxqv0WxumcD2JSDicF4b2-LxTbj65-8ecr2LdYCECGnYOIHQFxRE0scKXzkNV4xeNjG-XV9pYxXDIo-EMCNm_RAkeERryhknxN39CleJgi/s1600/IMG_3100.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not the same gate. This one appeared on the other side of the tunnel you see above, and leads up the mountain. We decided to climb the stairs; see what we could find</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGuTQWwCTzfluGw-dVoowc3H_1LEQpup-NXZd8TNhcaYnjCKfBIIPHCFk-dXRm4K8uyyK1ikhdas62TqFrxgG6W2OEe1eCOXXOsWzvlGbKtsMtpDIm0dNXeeDHXvzIZvj1lKmBqQ4QlqRe/s1600/IMG_3111.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGuTQWwCTzfluGw-dVoowc3H_1LEQpup-NXZd8TNhcaYnjCKfBIIPHCFk-dXRm4K8uyyK1ikhdas62TqFrxgG6W2OEe1eCOXXOsWzvlGbKtsMtpDIm0dNXeeDHXvzIZvj1lKmBqQ4QlqRe/s1600/IMG_3111.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I was not expecting to find a Peace Pole here</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLVZvKrZ1i4VfjPla_WP_N6EoXNb0uQKyzscy7K42ABl98HYJJkPICLyui6cF-uejMCWmyaSSkwUDAndwq8JgpgCc8gYvSEEJ-h00oLyJwxvhd9picYrSTevJmsZJD1fzbFdVKDb8tIxVL/s1600/IMG_3115.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLVZvKrZ1i4VfjPla_WP_N6EoXNb0uQKyzscy7K42ABl98HYJJkPICLyui6cF-uejMCWmyaSSkwUDAndwq8JgpgCc8gYvSEEJ-h00oLyJwxvhd9picYrSTevJmsZJD1fzbFdVKDb8tIxVL/s1600/IMG_3115.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Had we come six weeks later, this place would undoubtedly be flush with <i>sakura</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVVH6jE3Pdm34cGYyXSnFrk-N9hZQZMrW-oetPNoCo4CUUG5cZxFx371vn7SuVcA16tEypmdTxVC5Ha8SkrMBgxwrAaz35evYQv7BoVfGoqxaQWNyypCIT75vxEOeCXjTTWlcaes_Sygb9/s1600/IMG_3117.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVVH6jE3Pdm34cGYyXSnFrk-N9hZQZMrW-oetPNoCo4CUUG5cZxFx371vn7SuVcA16tEypmdTxVC5Ha8SkrMBgxwrAaz35evYQv7BoVfGoqxaQWNyypCIT75vxEOeCXjTTWlcaes_Sygb9/s1600/IMG_3117.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stone tablets at Sanjo shrine</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfkKewGmCrSy4KYkZbvKXwDySEjnLyFDfev4KYDdRwWCX26X1NzjgH-HXNEBDUb0vCQrRblBU7RMfSb5hzE36HXRyA7Cg3wC30gKPP8F9Klc186i5xGZ0SnjfMABABbdqXCDZdkaiUkZTy/s1600/IMG_3120.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfkKewGmCrSy4KYkZbvKXwDySEjnLyFDfev4KYDdRwWCX26X1NzjgH-HXNEBDUb0vCQrRblBU7RMfSb5hzE36HXRyA7Cg3wC30gKPP8F9Klc186i5xGZ0SnjfMABABbdqXCDZdkaiUkZTy/s1600/IMG_3120.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seems to be falling into disrepair. We didn't see anyone else at all, either</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtGFZrk8FjJifaJTcXP9_WAEsSeoVNkynWAlQl40iSj_LEaQoHtpC6rczSFA3p_fUIckyqck4lfxbeclylGhfAHVidNoSH7DAZ6Yhg8JCzSNhag_7IqB-18MZdbyQbeyQgNl5HzID61Qys/s1600/IMG_3125.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtGFZrk8FjJifaJTcXP9_WAEsSeoVNkynWAlQl40iSj_LEaQoHtpC6rczSFA3p_fUIckyqck4lfxbeclylGhfAHVidNoSH7DAZ6Yhg8JCzSNhag_7IqB-18MZdbyQbeyQgNl5HzID61Qys/s1600/IMG_3125.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Strolling on the shrine grounds</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKAJ7aedydxgImt3kxdOgOycpsx0MX83-6T9Ad5PqMturlML7k1PtQBQOI01dCndsoxTZ4vdV1vkMOxdgRnJ-1jD8ZR7xRPf-wQueLjPyxL_94Sr95w28-RS1vezl-DJFr5yTt35uu_G8B/s1600/IMG_3127.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKAJ7aedydxgImt3kxdOgOycpsx0MX83-6T9Ad5PqMturlML7k1PtQBQOI01dCndsoxTZ4vdV1vkMOxdgRnJ-1jD8ZR7xRPf-wQueLjPyxL_94Sr95w28-RS1vezl-DJFr5yTt35uu_G8B/s1600/IMG_3127.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sanjo shrine grounds</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEDjByIO_1gbJC1QourLkSR3pXOHuQWviZSmIY6epc4tr9Nc_T0bXMu7pnNKvoYeclmNRN1fBrWdeVutOcmIbchIxaL0Wg2IKjXMv8CYbXib8NX0dc6_Ty_ChVm_ZL_banV61XAs-2Rez5/s1600/IMG_3132.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEDjByIO_1gbJC1QourLkSR3pXOHuQWviZSmIY6epc4tr9Nc_T0bXMu7pnNKvoYeclmNRN1fBrWdeVutOcmIbchIxaL0Wg2IKjXMv8CYbXib8NX0dc6_Ty_ChVm_ZL_banV61XAs-2Rez5/s1600/IMG_3132.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A weathered path</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh82hh_a7y2cTiFzgGoo3METzgbm0GE7al0Brta_AT2lSGb799nCmXdBehaldJlk-vSH92ZIWDyvpp5sndMnBFPQl6WgEX-QV3DTdjahrtXt0_qnlbPQFrZf7mnrTHBFUMUpMCu0Xsv7XZu/s1600/IMG_3134.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh82hh_a7y2cTiFzgGoo3METzgbm0GE7al0Brta_AT2lSGb799nCmXdBehaldJlk-vSH92ZIWDyvpp5sndMnBFPQl6WgEX-QV3DTdjahrtXt0_qnlbPQFrZf7mnrTHBFUMUpMCu0Xsv7XZu/s1600/IMG_3134.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This river borders the town in the northwest</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2OUJzvJA5jF7mbd8bedO-U6dK9mFIlNAcmGyiVK4nDjPfi-EsJtq3Ow83vD1M6x7iLbFPr12ntHcz0Tdk6p9NZLzJtiKRVtG2bHhNV3AhdOgHdRvEFSGmNZORUO8VqfELii82GxRqq2Us/s1600/IMG_3151.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2OUJzvJA5jF7mbd8bedO-U6dK9mFIlNAcmGyiVK4nDjPfi-EsJtq3Ow83vD1M6x7iLbFPr12ntHcz0Tdk6p9NZLzJtiKRVtG2bHhNV3AhdOgHdRvEFSGmNZORUO8VqfELii82GxRqq2Us/s1600/IMG_3151.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Back in the car to continue adventuring</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigXXMxjP2ujuENlrKK224SkClIC4TfLzjc-qOusRs4lYvPQu4Jt6Vil7sys2k8RmHZaPrbK7ByX6lCl0J8K_jYHhQWjvmn2yoPVkz_J0FVvxj5aJql0HLyVO6O40EyIOhHlqsevO4I4EIB/s1600/IMG_3141.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigXXMxjP2ujuENlrKK224SkClIC4TfLzjc-qOusRs4lYvPQu4Jt6Vil7sys2k8RmHZaPrbK7ByX6lCl0J8K_jYHhQWjvmn2yoPVkz_J0FVvxj5aJql0HLyVO6O40EyIOhHlqsevO4I4EIB/s1600/IMG_3141.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A winery? Or could it be something like the Town Hall?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIbH_XaviRcvUbmnScjrQeDmd-kCeChKAoAsQJCHRH6s_VXukGSe_R4tHz6aMfOrdzIHk1XT_nwZMI0scSrrGmOfiNAGLvtQVS-YbwdQ0oxqw0bSjML__s6tHm8T4jp4FbXVi3jirZFPaG/s1600/IMG_3145.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIbH_XaviRcvUbmnScjrQeDmd-kCeChKAoAsQJCHRH6s_VXukGSe_R4tHz6aMfOrdzIHk1XT_nwZMI0scSrrGmOfiNAGLvtQVS-YbwdQ0oxqw0bSjML__s6tHm8T4jp4FbXVi3jirZFPaG/s1600/IMG_3145.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We drove to the next town by accident</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGjtHmjnIqHKMcKLQSuqJ1BTxLpTLrMbAWKvergsCPSwyH4QLj3Ja6ZhcFikh19tjnxQDkhJ46FRrAdvC6Y769DfMEe_7nJiD5BdSNqTPyziWG6XOD_8PIEfudhvx7JVG_L0feEEj-OOXh/s1600/IMG_3150.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGjtHmjnIqHKMcKLQSuqJ1BTxLpTLrMbAWKvergsCPSwyH4QLj3Ja6ZhcFikh19tjnxQDkhJ46FRrAdvC6Y769DfMEe_7nJiD5BdSNqTPyziWG6XOD_8PIEfudhvx7JVG_L0feEEj-OOXh/s1600/IMG_3150.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This was a fun-looking spot!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAZZHPjRHhnACkc23czAEvN8lkIoxTVfvgNo9Dm5AZtTWnNpE2bofJuGLvNfYfmzRksq836Ge7EuBnjGBqvGDj60n_TcmnkCgHHRHxSNiy1nKUixKm7xtIIftVGtJk2ISBV7gJ8C26_v9q/s1600/IMG_3152.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAZZHPjRHhnACkc23czAEvN8lkIoxTVfvgNo9Dm5AZtTWnNpE2bofJuGLvNfYfmzRksq836Ge7EuBnjGBqvGDj60n_TcmnkCgHHRHxSNiy1nKUixKm7xtIIftVGtJk2ISBV7gJ8C26_v9q/s1600/IMG_3152.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walking courses</td></tr></tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlfeNAHslMkwywSF8cMODSyLDOik0BqtTxYv4BKVh3UKIq1jPMaQDOjh0noRakGPG6gDoF5pLRVm8qdL-AnCnQo1FDw2VvJOAEaGHisYp-qfKG43_5WNRBX-721Y-ulD4hD-nRrFhFo4So/s1600/IMG_3168.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlfeNAHslMkwywSF8cMODSyLDOik0BqtTxYv4BKVh3UKIq1jPMaQDOjh0noRakGPG6gDoF5pLRVm8qdL-AnCnQo1FDw2VvJOAEaGHisYp-qfKG43_5WNRBX-721Y-ulD4hD-nRrFhFo4So/s1600/IMG_3168.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the outskirts of town, now; ready to return to Beppu</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEN5bE16NY-3VF84oYdc4bhuIj9ebzzqJWCMB3UQ7rLevgebuLEoIzGBUM8dPtnaHFA9K-Z25fqjur-C3OMMgSrVrniXMbwsHd04x70pQJPFBcL0UZyO2Izy9jKtCYrVVN2p7r0N8oahx-/s1600/IMG_3181.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEN5bE16NY-3VF84oYdc4bhuIj9ebzzqJWCMB3UQ7rLevgebuLEoIzGBUM8dPtnaHFA9K-Z25fqjur-C3OMMgSrVrniXMbwsHd04x70pQJPFBcL0UZyO2Izy9jKtCYrVVN2p7r0N8oahx-/s1600/IMG_3181.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">But first, lunch at the Konoiwanoshō</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-H5FO6MNwR77fvu2yknWGKD635CSTo2AOhVPIjVscpFDfY8ebEpZeuKTJnaaKXYkRveIVX2szrve_GKrjKmSusPsFO9-qBXHogUg0R8CXC0wNex3aI-PF0uHCzIIBjwW2am9O-0aqIusZ/s1600/IMG_3183.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-H5FO6MNwR77fvu2yknWGKD635CSTo2AOhVPIjVscpFDfY8ebEpZeuKTJnaaKXYkRveIVX2szrve_GKrjKmSusPsFO9-qBXHogUg0R8CXC0wNex3aI-PF0uHCzIIBjwW2am9O-0aqIusZ/s1600/IMG_3183.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I really wanted ice cream...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgumZIkCToYkgt8u1CfThXYCAd_WawEKB3WMyaTaanNYuto7F5cilbhtIYfeWeVttIoa1lbJ1loKDz3cBrwyghUnOwNi-a47BJAonXqI51JWuj9pMeK7U_A_JHjzgm8nZ9J9iUyqBeDXdh6/s1600/IMG_3173.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgumZIkCToYkgt8u1CfThXYCAd_WawEKB3WMyaTaanNYuto7F5cilbhtIYfeWeVttIoa1lbJ1loKDz3cBrwyghUnOwNi-a47BJAonXqI51JWuj9pMeK7U_A_JHjzgm8nZ9J9iUyqBeDXdh6/s1600/IMG_3173.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Plenty of the special; turtle soup (I just had the <i>dangojiru</i>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEbae2-2tWWWrsKW6uudJfXVkhcEeiiPYO-nWbsSi5CokXQnGYZQTexnosZQMDcbOwtAEZ_p7qAB7S3eBg1SnUKWe9ZioHHmmQ5bJ964iMBBgZ32xB7bvCniNMi686LAaa-P9M9YEfZHPx/s1600/IMG_3178.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="417" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEbae2-2tWWWrsKW6uudJfXVkhcEeiiPYO-nWbsSi5CokXQnGYZQTexnosZQMDcbOwtAEZ_p7qAB7S3eBg1SnUKWe9ZioHHmmQ5bJ964iMBBgZ32xB7bvCniNMi686LAaa-P9M9YEfZHPx/s1600/IMG_3178.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thanks! See you again!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Japan, 〒872-0521 Ōita-ken, Usa-shi, Ajimumachi Shimoge, 2162−16 安心院郵便局33.4367926 131.3541806000000633.410291099999995 131.31384010000005 33.4632941 131.39452110000008tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-12864958579538104812015-02-04T09:00:00.001-05:002021-01-28T18:35:23.680-05:00So the JLPT<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXhOU7YdHSBmP_bmvrGpb1t-cuSfvvtxl1C_E-sm68H-ZelyIMqsMf_tMHA7TiDYPOv_N4DZ5PdjwWjqA4iy5dCE0J0z_hfJ6u5Pjk02Lb8wOPctp3WkXoLRuQ_vJ-ZCXUcRDlGVTfjTgm/s1600/IMG_20150203_123603.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXhOU7YdHSBmP_bmvrGpb1t-cuSfvvtxl1C_E-sm68H-ZelyIMqsMf_tMHA7TiDYPOv_N4DZ5PdjwWjqA4iy5dCE0J0z_hfJ6u5Pjk02Lb8wOPctp3WkXoLRuQ_vJ-ZCXUcRDlGVTfjTgm/s1600/IMG_20150203_123603.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Someday I will know my results.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Another JLPT come and gone, and results came out this week. I always resolve to talk a little bit more about it <i>after</i> I take the test, because honestly, something seems to get lost in the shuffle every time...with National Novel Writing Month happening in November, I often end up not thinking about the JLPT at all between October 31 and December 1. Not a great habit, I know, but one of these years...<br />
<br />
The JLPT in Toronto administered by York University is one of two locations where the test is given in Canada. (The other is in Edmonton, AB.) Now, as a person who lives in <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/Finding%20Japan%20in%20Toronto" target="_blank">The Big Smoke</a>, I have no right to complain about how "far away" York is. (I may have done a little bit of complaining prior to my move here from the Atlantic provinces, though.) I can't even complain about the distance from my house, seeing how I chose to move away from Downsview the year before last. That doesn't mean that on test day, getting to the JLPT is a picnic!<br />
<br />
So here is my advice for next year's JLPT applicants; common sense, to be sure, but maybe they're more of a reminder to myself for next year...?<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Aim to arrive midway through the registration period.</b> The lineups taper off a bit towards the middle and end of the registration period. Of course, you don't want to cut it too close, and have the TTC or something else make you too late to write the test, but too early isn't great either, and you'll be lined up awhile before sitting around for an hour just waiting. And getting nervous. Not to mention that aiming to arrive for 8 AM on a day when the subways are not running (meaning leaving my house at 6:30, meaning rising at 6) is asking for you to open up that test book and be so glassy-eyed that you don't know where to start. Don't panic if something goes wrong and you're going to get there right at the end of registration time. You have a few minutes' leeway while the orientation is taking place!</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Expect to hear from York not too long after you sign up for the test. I say "not too long" because I'm not positive when it is actually supposed to come; for the last two years, I didn't receive my email with my voucher at all, and I waited far too long expecting it to come before I reached out to them. <i>You need the voucher to write the test. </i>Perhaps even more importantly,<i> if you don't receive the voucher, you should still show up. </i>Last year (2013, that is) I thought about the fact that I didn't have a voucher yet about 2 weeks before, and I contacted JLPT support. I was able to get it. This year (2014) I remembered the night before the test, as I ran through the checklist of things I needed to bring the following morning. That's why I was awake at 2 AM Googling phrases like "forgot JLPT voucher" and "JLPT York reprint voucher" and the like. I weighed whether or not it was going to be necessary to rise at 6 and go to York only to be turned away at the door. Luckily, buried somewhere on the site, I read that vouchers could be reprinted at registration. And I wasn't the only one not to receive their email - the line to reprint vouchers was much longer than any other line that morning. In short:<b> You should receive a voucher with your test number. If you don't receive it within a few weeks of registering, </b><i><b>ask. </b></i></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Bring something to eat. </b>This test is long and the breaks just barely give you enough time to inhale a small snack. Our group had technical difficulties and started late, which meant that our breaks were cut down. (For the final one, the time of the break's end even was shortened and changed <i>after many of us had left the room.</i>) It took much longer to finish the test than expected, by something like 45 minutes, and I was ravenous enough that after every section I was wolfing down Polish chocolates that I had won the night before as a prize at a Polish wedding reception. Not sure what I would have done without that Jezyki Kokos, Delicje cookies and especially Katarzynki, chocolate-covered soft gingerbreads. I might not be alive right now, without Katarzynki.</li>
</ul>
<div>
As for the test itself, I don't actually know how I did on it. That's because you need the voucher to log in online to see your results, and of course, there's no voucher in my email for me to refer back to. I emailed York to get my voucher number, but the password I was provided (generated by them, not by myself) doesn't work in the login page. So did I pass? Hard to say. I guess I'll find out when the paper results are dispatched the month after next...?</div>
<div>
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<div>
Maybe next year I will be able to choose <i>between</i> the JLPT and NaNoWriMo as a focus. Fingers crossed for the July version making its way east someday!<br />
</div><div><br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada43.7734535 -79.50186839999997843.7505225 -79.542208899999977 43.7963845 -79.461527899999979tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-44163759210135333962014-10-22T17:01:00.002-04:002021-01-28T18:36:13.657-05:00That Old JLPT Feeling<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidi7jJOBG-Xf1bsJhHZB56rmtCc1blOPOj0WSSZWvEzY2-EN_HHnO3MhaiR7-sLrQhb0J3d1Sh3a4sY9wwQfs_kipwGNquag14BP23pBbZljjfo4Ar38iZwrE9gHHA-4ekTRu2EVs-X9ei/s1600/IMG_20141022_165336.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidi7jJOBG-Xf1bsJhHZB56rmtCc1blOPOj0WSSZWvEzY2-EN_HHnO3MhaiR7-sLrQhb0J3d1Sh3a4sY9wwQfs_kipwGNquag14BP23pBbZljjfo4Ar38iZwrE9gHHA-4ekTRu2EVs-X9ei/s1600/IMG_20141022_165336.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I will never be an N1 Master</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I have quite a few unfinished drafts hanging around in my posting queue...whoops! Things have been very very busy for me lately. I've been working a lot of overtime, ended a relationship, taken up long-distance running, gotten a cat, bought <i>Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright</i>. I'm pretty tired most days, so when I come home, I just want to sit at my <i>kotatsu</i> and space out while reading blogs. Except that a lot of the blogs I used to read daily have tapered off in post frequency or, like one of my favourites has, <a href="http://1000thingsaboutjapan.blogspot.ca/2014/09/finishing-here.html" target="_blank">stopped posting entirely</a>. While being frustrated that my daily reading content seems to be vanishing, I failed to consider that perhaps somebody out there actually likes reading <i>my</i> blog and was disappointed to see my posts dwindling. Well!</div>
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With that in mind, I decided today was the day for a quick post, though I suppose the topic is rather <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/JLPT" target="_blank">same old, same old</a>. Last year I took a beating when I walked into the room, sat down, wrote the first section of the test, and then turned around to say to an acquaintance behind me, "Did we come to the N2 room by mistake??" It was a disaster.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-SOXcZixZ0nhl10uQ-WmCiTEu3qZi2vvzV4oyR9rsw5oVz7xyhNYF-uohW6fuBbsc0sRQ-S6MpQJowHmPbYw9ZZFsC_CS7NbJ2y0ay_JAS2i0OzlgInE7_zTTiVRuGUjMnAtlmrN6RdzF/s1600/Screenshot_2014-10-22-16-25-46.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-SOXcZixZ0nhl10uQ-WmCiTEu3qZi2vvzV4oyR9rsw5oVz7xyhNYF-uohW6fuBbsc0sRQ-S6MpQJowHmPbYw9ZZFsC_CS7NbJ2y0ay_JAS2i0OzlgInE7_zTTiVRuGUjMnAtlmrN6RdzF/s1600/Screenshot_2014-10-22-16-25-46.png" width="180" /></a></div>
This year, I tried to crack the books way back in July, with the intent to study relentlessly until October 31, and then leisurely review during November on days when I didn't have the energy for <a href="http://nanowrimo.org/" target="_blank">novel writing</a>. (I don't think it's a coincidence that I have passed the JLPT and won the National Novel Writing Month challenge, but never in the <i>same year.</i>) Suffice to say that it's October 22 now and I'm still on Week 4 of the So-matome grammar book, with two weeks of grammar and six weeks of reading comprehension to go. I did read <i>Chi's Sweet Home, </i>volume 11, on the subway yesterday. That counts as study, right?</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGYjn3AWIXaTlLOOicCSVCpnpn1RKSdJq7S41-A2VK5NwTQwZwQO2EKq5PMjOPoy6wLVDWY1iY2MCPVq_H25-UuXiptUz8yk2FB5aq7Hs33uBT6OT0oTlQR-ou81JMVq3Btz7lJWzCKwjh/s1600/Screenshot_2014-10-22-16-19-58.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGYjn3AWIXaTlLOOicCSVCpnpn1RKSdJq7S41-A2VK5NwTQwZwQO2EKq5PMjOPoy6wLVDWY1iY2MCPVq_H25-UuXiptUz8yk2FB5aq7Hs33uBT6OT0oTlQR-ou81JMVq3Btz7lJWzCKwjh/s1600/Screenshot_2014-10-22-16-19-58.png" width="112" /></a>What I <i>have</i> been doing is kanji study, thanks to being frequently trapped on buses and trains with nothing to read and no cellphone games installed on my phone. (I was able to safely end <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/07/hot-springs-story.html" target="_blank">my addiction to Hot Springs Story</a> after beating the game for the third time.) Though there are a few apps that I've tried out before to help get daily study in, I think I've finally found "the" app for Android, and it's called <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.rodriguez.kanjisenpai.android&hl=en" target="_blank">KanjiSenpai</a>. I had to turn off the drawing component pretty quickly, but otherwise I'm finding it to be really good. It uses the usual spaced repetition system (SRS) but it seems to be much better at coming back later and making sure I <i>really know</i> the answers to ones I guessed. Plus, it rotates between offering the meanings and the readings of compounds, as well as making you choose between several cards that are very similar, which is great for me. You can also remove cards that you're 100% certain you know - I took out number kanji, for example, and the cardinal directions, days of the week, and other kanji I use in everyday life - but the app is still going to check in with you 500 cards later and <i>make sure</i> you know them. If you've been looking for a good study app that will teach you the kanji rather just quizzing you on what you already learned from a textbook, this is it.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAkxmFgzzRU-UOn3_PqM9HonnyzhfJa-LF0mevn95SQAB2l-jJFnwH6zN3A2L_p0UJykMwqw6fyV8jWlGRJ84XMAlBXcEwFDtLpqp_MNjlwXOO4TcWjsUjYIpU13b2U0iOy4xJWsKZk22W/s1600/Screenshot_2014-10-22-16-27-32.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAkxmFgzzRU-UOn3_PqM9HonnyzhfJa-LF0mevn95SQAB2l-jJFnwH6zN3A2L_p0UJykMwqw6fyV8jWlGRJ84XMAlBXcEwFDtLpqp_MNjlwXOO4TcWjsUjYIpU13b2U0iOy4xJWsKZk22W/s1600/Screenshot_2014-10-22-16-27-32.png" width="112" /></a>Another good one I had been using before finding KanjiSenpai was <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tengulogi.tengugo.jp_kanji&hl=en" target="_blank">TenguGo</a>, which cost me a dollar-something and had an interface I liked well enough. The quizzes came in small, easily-devourable packets (harder to put off studying when you can say "Meh, I'll just do one quiz,") and the tengu threw me a little on-screen party when I finished a certain number. However, it assumed you already knew all the kanji in the quiz. You can opt to "review" items (see the screenshot) but it packs just a bit too much info into its screen, and by the time I got to item #10 I had already forgotten #1. The SRS method is much better for me. <br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">One other app I had been using before I switched to studying grammar via textbook is one called "<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vnext.jlptn3&hl=en" target="_blank">N3 JLPT PREPARE</a>" (yes, very descriptive) by V-Next software that does kanji, vocab and grammar quizzes. You can choose a quiz with 30 words, 50 words, 70 words, 90 words, 100 words or - not for the faint of heart - 200 words. The search function also seems good at a glance, though I never actually remember to use it. (Google Translate is always too close at hand.) My intent was to come back and use this app to quiz myself once I'd learned enough items to actually pass a quiz. Maybe it's time for a quiz right now!? I'm not getting any younger - and December 7 just gets closer and closer!</div>
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Anyone want to share their own recommendations for JLPT study apps?</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Toronto, ON, Canada43.653226 -79.38318429999998243.285985999999994 -80.028631299999986 44.020466 -78.737737299999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-15536105926352803352014-06-01T20:47:00.000-04:002014-06-01T21:04:58.920-04:00Photo of the Day - Shinjuku, 1992<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a class="vt-p" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG_xpivodmxU6lf8ODc8HAB6DtfGYg0RO4akobJV5uNxC7OCSy_jQeQhalowWqg038RdOhL1DfUitHAYbhwoYeR-_J4s12KhOeh5na2ku0k4K0t_61gZjrCt6yTAOb0bbe6ZGCTotEX5nf/s1600/Studio+Alta+1992.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG_xpivodmxU6lf8ODc8HAB6DtfGYg0RO4akobJV5uNxC7OCSy_jQeQhalowWqg038RdOhL1DfUitHAYbhwoYeR-_J4s12KhOeh5na2ku0k4K0t_61gZjrCt6yTAOb0bbe6ZGCTotEX5nf/s1600/Studio+Alta+1992.png" height="352" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Today I was linked to <a class="vt-p" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gugzhkp_UUQ" target="_blank">this fantastic HD video</a> on YouTube of Tokyo in 1992. It's so clear! I really dig urban history, so I snapped a few screenshots of my favourite moments. The video includes this nice shot of Shinjuku's Studio ALTA, a look at the Rainbow Bridge during construction (!), and a Shibuya scramble crossing that's so unrecognizable that I didn't even realize right away that I was looking at the entrance to Center Gai. Wow. Check out the video, and for extra credit, have a look at <a class="vt-p" href="http://1000thingsaboutjapan.blogspot.ca/2013/04/random-memories-29.html" target="_blank">this blog post about Studio ALTA, featuring a photo of the lower half of the building, in 1989!</a></td></tr>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com03 Chome-24-3 Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan35.6926208 139.7012912999999810.1705863 98.39269729999998 61.214655300000004 -178.99011470000005tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-4033099260789027162014-03-21T12:36:00.001-04:002021-01-28T18:39:42.924-05:00Japanese Music in Concert<div style="text-align: justify;">For a music fan, I'm not willing to expend a lot of energy or cash to go and see a band - in fact, I'm lucky to go to a concert every 3 years at the most, and usually only shell out for nosebleed seats. However, I've actually seen a few really good Japanese bands while living here in North America. I've seen bands that would be playing sold-out shows in Tokyo, and paid next to nothing for them.<br />
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The secret is...anime conventions.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuWD5vmonSjuXIGREAqQzROcVhCufn6bR46Ci-_GSpKTGaQGjWED4_JiHoaOS3eAA_EuRDU46Iu0d-4-3t-64m2LWLVF4M3WU9oVSkDf5eLPd2kayxECj4YQpAWno3pn6_IkuV1FOsjO9L/s511/Bobby-Caldwell-Stuck-On-You-448898.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuWD5vmonSjuXIGREAqQzROcVhCufn6bR46Ci-_GSpKTGaQGjWED4_JiHoaOS3eAA_EuRDU46Iu0d-4-3t-64m2LWLVF4M3WU9oVSkDf5eLPd2kayxECj4YQpAWno3pn6_IkuV1FOsjO9L/s320/Bobby-Caldwell-Stuck-On-You-448898.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Almost all of the big conventions feature a musical act. Here in Toronto, I hit up Anime North every couple of years when they have a particularly interesting guest. I'm also in Baltimore almost every summer, and been able to see some fantastic acts at Otakon. T.M. Revolution, L'Arc~en~Ciel, JAM Project (including Okui Masami and Kageyama Hironobu, for you <i>anisong</i> fans out there!), Home Made Kazoku...all free with the price of admission to the convention. How good is that? When friends in Japan heard that I'd seen L'Arc, live, they were completely bowled over. </div>
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In Osaka and Tokyo, I saw <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/03/photo-of-day-zard.html" target="_blank">ZARD</a> and AiM and Wada Kouji - now, those last two are definitely a story for another day - but going to a see a big-name show was pretty unlikely. I just don't have that kind of interest in any one band - plus I've been lucky enough to see T.M.R. in the U.S. not once but twice, and (long after this post was originally written) even ran into him on a flight between Japan and Canada!<br />
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Quite a lot of Japanese artists have come to Toronto to perform as well - Kyary Pamyu Pamyu was here a couple of weeks ago, and though someone offered to sell me their tickets at the last minute for cheap, it wasn't enough notice to actually go. Too bad! I also missed out on B'z the year before last, which was really unfortunate. These are fairly big-name artists, though, that it'd be tough to get good tickets for in Tokyo, and here they are performing at the Sound Academy in T.O.!<br />
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New York, L.A. and other bigger North American cities also have plenty of Japanese performers who slip under the radar, both at local venues and at cons. The next time you're looking to find some new J-artists, why not check out a convention? You might be surprised at who you can get to see, practically for free!<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Toronto, ON, Canada43.653226 -79.38318429999998243.285985999999994 -80.028631299999986 44.020466 -78.737737299999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-55305214767815080922014-02-13T17:10:00.000-05:002014-02-13T17:10:54.943-05:00Late<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_agZ-4rX0EDsRZ3Wd6LuoOEXqLd-C1kHcDjeXtncZSy4bZYGMkX1DVnXBpePryT0c-x5aztGhE8gnU5FLfNIQdwt1zljeOhqPOpgBHumczvQ2JSuTK3S521iIlx1fqevV8OOIkpvgkKqa/s1600/PSX_20140213_170239.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_agZ-4rX0EDsRZ3Wd6LuoOEXqLd-C1kHcDjeXtncZSy4bZYGMkX1DVnXBpePryT0c-x5aztGhE8gnU5FLfNIQdwt1zljeOhqPOpgBHumczvQ2JSuTK3S521iIlx1fqevV8OOIkpvgkKqa/s1600/PSX_20140213_170239.jpg" height="520" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">But better late than never.</td></tr>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Toronto, ON, Canada43.653226 -79.38318429999998243.285985999999994 -80.028631299999986 44.020466 -78.737737299999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-70946454183432047822014-02-13T08:30:00.002-05:002021-01-28T18:41:21.994-05:00Hobonichi Techo Life<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;">
In 2008 while living in Japan, I was finally able to play MOTHER 3, a recent (at the time) sequel to a cult hit video game that I loved as a teenager. My brothers and I owned a Super Nintendo and a copy of EarthBound, by far the house's "preferred game." Released in 1994, it was a role-playing game set in rural America, starring four "normal" kids (or as normal as spunky psychics, princes and genius teenagers can get, anyway). Years later, the sequel MOTHER 3 got a Japan-only release.</div>
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For me, it was perfect timing. Uncertain how to make Japanese-speaking friends, I had been hanging out mostly with fellow <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/JET" target="_blank">JETs</a> and <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/07/irish-chocolate.html" target="_blank">exchange students from the nearby university</a>. I spent a lot of time in my apartment chatting online with people back home and listening to Internet radio. And as it happened, that was where I had the good fortune to meet my first real Japanese friends - not in Japan, but on the Internet.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;">This could turn into a much longer story (and my social life isn't actually what the post is about!) so to keep it short, I'll just say that I got involved with a certain well-known EarthBound community and encountered a Japanese fan of the game within it, Mana. She was about my age and lived in Gunma-ken, a prefecture north of Tokyo. The two of us arranged a meeting during one of my visits to Tokyo and hit it off, and from then on, whenever I was in the area, I made an effort to see her and her friends that I had gotten to know. All were fans of the MOTHER series, so I went from <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/06/anime-and-manga.html" target="_blank">a fairly small amount of fandom involvement</a> to <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/10/photo-of-day-dosei-san.html" target="_blank">quite a lot</a>, very quickly. </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
Japan was a good place to be at the time for fans of this 20-year-old series - aside from MOTHER 3's relatively recent release, there had actually been brand-new merchandise released in arcades (<a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/10/game-center-cx.html" target="_blank">Game Centers</a>), The King of Games was selling official t-shirts out of a shop in Kyoto's Teramachi, thirty minutes from my apartment, and you could still buy the special MOTHER 3 Game Boy Micro in stores - I still regret not owning one of these! I struggled through reading the blog of MOTHER creator and copywriter <a href="http://www.1101.com/" target="_blank">Itoi Shigesato</a>, and I went to LOFT on not one but two separate Januarys to buy his well-known <i>Hobonichi Techo,</i> a day planner with customizable covers and thoughtful quotes. I did not make the purchase on either occasion - after all, every year CLAIR sent us a compact, designed-for-JETs planner in the mail that I was quite fond of, and I also received a small calendar book from <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/%E3%80%87%E3%80%87%20High%20School" target="_blank">my school</a>. While I wanted a <i>techo </i>because of the Itoi connection<i>,</i> I couldn't validate the expense when CLAIR's version was smaller, printed in English, and had subway maps and unit conversions on the back pages. None of the covers interested me enough to drop ¥3,500 on one, so I settled for simply looking them over whenever I visited Kyoto. There were other ways to show my MOTHER love, like <a href="http://starmen.net/merchandise/apparel/ultimatechimera.php" target="_blank">this fancy colour-changing Ultimate Chimera shirt</a> that cost an absolutely astronomical amount of money at the time.</div>
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At one point Mana-chan and friends, myself included, attended a MOTHER event in Tokyo where I even ran into into two other English-speaking members of that community, <a href="http://yomuka.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">one of whom</a> was an expat JET like me - though a CIR, not an <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/05/jet_08.html" target="_blank">ALT</a> - from a few prefectures away. We hadn't really known each other at the time, certainly not enough for me to recognize them offhand, but I was completely gobsmacked to spot someone in the subway station wearing a Ness t-shirt, and rushed up to them immediately to say hello. </div>
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It's been some years since that event, and though MOTHER influences my life to this day, my active involvement has waned pretty considerably since leaving Japan. Not so of the JET I met at the event in Tokyo, Lindsay - she now translates and localizes for the company belonging to the creator of the MOTHER series, Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun!</div>
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I can't tell you how awesome it is to see a fan succeed not only at entering the industry professionally, but to have the incredible good fortune (not to mention the moxie to go after it in the first place!) to work with Itoi himself. So when word got out that Hobonichi was releasing an English version of the <i>techo,</i> translated and localized by Lindsay, I decided it was finally my year, despite having converted over pretty thoroughly to <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/05/smartphones.html" target="_blank">Android's convenient Google Calendar</a> access. </div>
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Typically, I have never been great with keeping up planners. Not since high school have I used an agenda on a regular basis. But my <i>techo</i>'s design and ease of use (can't bring my phone into company meetings!) and stylishness and POCKETS has driven it home.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLnVqFKZHDjArKtZ69SmHS0WJmFrYXeGpnl3LboiJqQmhfpjW4-UA6qQQd8rZ2LS1pSiZmFL38Y1eiqDKzJP-s_APVJ4DgAMlUiroTsiDospMMl0RdliD5gQisg815y-QlxDsSWdUXzO15/s1600/PSX_20140212_160248.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLnVqFKZHDjArKtZ69SmHS0WJmFrYXeGpnl3LboiJqQmhfpjW4-UA6qQQd8rZ2LS1pSiZmFL38Y1eiqDKzJP-s_APVJ4DgAMlUiroTsiDospMMl0RdliD5gQisg815y-QlxDsSWdUXzO15/s1600/PSX_20140212_160248.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(No, I don't always save my TTC transfers!)</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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I use it for writing fiction ideas, dates and times and details for stories, copying the office calendar down so I can see it at home, collecting movie and concert ticket stubs, noting what foods I liked at restaurants and how much I spent, and more recently tracking Bitcoin gains and losses. I also get to use stickers I brought home from Japan and my immense Muji pen collection, and imagine my surprise when I discovered that two of the other staff in my office also have Hobonichi <i>techos</i>!<br />
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It's been a bit tough carrying around a book all the time when I cart around plenty of heavy things in my purse, not to mention switching from digital back to analogue again, but I'm already dreaming about putting my <i>techo</i> on the shelf at the end of the year and having this record of 2014 to flip through again someday...it's much more personal than reading back through Twitter logs!<br />
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I guess I can't possibly be shocked that MOTHER continues to exert that subtle influence over my days. I might even have to pull out the big guns and use some of <a href="http://starmen.net/merchandise/misc/m2msstickers.php" target="_blank">my carefully hoarded Mr. Saturn stickers</a>.<br />
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What are you waiting for!? <a href="http://lindsaynelson.com/techo/" target="_blank">Start your <i>techo </i>life!</a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Tokyo, Japan35.6894875 139.6917063999999321.7112815 119.03740939999993 49.6676935 160.34600339999992tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-84284580446988845832014-01-30T09:00:00.002-05:002021-01-28T18:43:07.912-05:00Writing About Tokyo<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgKbEjjb0-CGMKQjf8jaB8EGl2R9tm0rzk0aJYW0PW6LR3ph3zIkRVNw7yDfvpbjIb0HhfvjxoCIkjpQLe85Z2jl12GeOIZOqMJAp-Azmj65e7GIeh8KzRCknGzGxPuU1RNOfsuqM8aLze/s1600/1930_53878982149_9810_n.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgKbEjjb0-CGMKQjf8jaB8EGl2R9tm0rzk0aJYW0PW6LR3ph3zIkRVNw7yDfvpbjIb0HhfvjxoCIkjpQLe85Z2jl12GeOIZOqMJAp-Azmj65e7GIeh8KzRCknGzGxPuU1RNOfsuqM8aLze/s1600/1930_53878982149_9810_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Commemorating the 1964 Olympics at Jingu Bashi</td></tr>
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I don't think I've ever mentioned on Tadaimatte before that I had written a novel - it's true! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/Prose" target="_blank">As you might have guessed, story writing is an outlet for me</a>,
and in 2008 while living in Osaka, I devoted quite a lot of effort to
penning my first book. At the time, I was enamoured with <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/Tokyo" target="_blank">Tokyo</a>,
and deeply interested in studying the evolution of popular culture in
The Big Mikan. I went to the library in <a href="http://japantourist.jp/view/hikarigaoka-park" target="_blank">Hikarigaoka</a> and thumbed through
photos of the area from the 60s, I penned thoughtful poems about
umbrellas and imagined the lives of the people bobbing through Hachiko
Square, watched Rockabilly dancers in Yoyogi Park, <a href="http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130920211806/twewy/images/7/71/Shibuya_Map.jpg" target="_blank">traced the steps of Shiki and Beat and Neku from </a><i><a href="http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130920211806/twewy/images/7/71/Shibuya_Map.jpg" target="_blank">The World Ends With You</a>,</i> read vintage Tezuka manga, attended Comiket, visited all the shops Shigesato Itoi recommended in interviews about <i>MOTHER</i>,
sat on the bridge at Harajuku, visited Tokyo 1964 Olympic sites, trolled
Jimbocho bookstores in hopes of finding the original 1983 English
translation of <i>The Rose of Versailles</i>, and generally fell in love with the way the city had been depicted in works of fiction. I used words like <a href="http://en.japantravel.com/view/jingu-bashi" target="_blank"><i>hokoten</i></a> (short for <i>hokousha tengoku</i>) and expected people around me to actually know what they meant. </div>
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In
reality, Tokyo - particularly the long trip I took alone in 2008 - was a
fairly private experience, simply because I didn't know anyone else who
got excited over things like Olympic plaques, croquette rolls and <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/07/jet-in-1990s.html" target="_blank">showa retro</a>.
I spent something like twelve days wandering the city mostly alone,
with no plan, eating curry and rice balls and occasionally having only
the vaguest idea of where I was going to spend the night (!). I visited
Yokohama and Hakone during this memorable vacation, but spent most of it
in Shibuya and <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/Odaiba" target="_blank">Odaiba</a>, having real "down time" in Tokyo for the first time.</div>
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One post couldn't possibly sum up how I feel about the capital...but I suppose that's why I wrote a book. I sent it around to just a couple of publishers, as it was such a specialized topic that I couldn't imagine a big company picking it up. I've sat on it long enough now, though, that I've begun to think that self-publishing is the way to go - as intimidating as that is!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>
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So, over the next weeks and months, I'll be continuing to work on this project with the help of my good friend Zippo, and maybe soon you'll be able to download the book right here!<br />
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*edit*<br />
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And now, you can! Whoa! Check out Meet You By Hachiko on Amazon!<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//rcm-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?ref=tf_til&t=tadaimatte00-20&m=amazon&o=15&p=8&l=as1&IS1=1&asins=B0855K1SCC&linkId=059276a19f488ff946045901df2fe443&bc1=ffffff&lt1=_top&fc1=333333&lc1=d12771&bg1=ffffff&f=ifr" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;">
</iframe>
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=tadaimatte0a-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B0855K1SCC&asins=B0855K1SCC&linkId=c20d07e4bd68379bdc24cc0b65f1970a&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=db257a&bg_color=ffffff" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Hikarigaoka, Nerima, Tokyo, Japan35.7590839 139.6305250000000335.7333144 139.59018450000002 35.7848534 139.67086550000005tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-36880378537233387002014-01-27T11:20:00.002-05:002021-01-27T20:49:34.815-05:00Tadaima!<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Hello, <i>tadaima</i> - it's been a while!</div>
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So last year I quit my telephone-jockeying work and moved on to something a little closer to my heart - being involved with the Japanese-Canadian community. While my work days are significantly more fulfilling...they are also far more full. It's hard to catch a breathing break and I certainly can't blog on the job (though I can certainly time-delay my post queues to come out in the mornings, for those of you who do have that luxury!), and the nights are filled up with cooking, commuting and my many hobbies. Plenty of Canadian hobbies (does watching British television count as a Canadian hobby?) but also getting more into the swing of things with my Japanese as well, after a long draught.</div>
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I took the JLPT last month - now that was a disaster!</div>
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I attended a tea bowl making ceremony. It's actually been almost a year since I did tea properly. Oops!</div>
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Yesterday, I carried the <i>mikoshi</i> (shrine) at the JCCC's New Year's Festival! </div>
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I made <i>toshikoshi soba</i> on New Year's with my friends.</div>
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I suppose I'd been experiencing a bit of cultural burnout, not unlike the sort of thing many JETs go through at the end of their first year in Japan. Luckily, it's been abating, and more recently I've found myself being drawn inexplicably back to <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/Prose" target="_blank">writing and researching</a> about Japan - mostly because I have a book idea swimming around my head and, of course, it's best to strike while the iron is hot! So I've been poring over books about the Japanese royal family, Tokyo in the 1970s, womens' studies in Japan and cultural revolution. Reading research material on the subway gives me a much more fulfilling feeling than playing Candy Crush Saga.</div>
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Hopefully, as a result, you guys will see more blog posts from me in future. Fingers crossed!</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Toronto, ON, Canada43.653226 -79.38318429999998243.285985999999994 -80.028631299999986 44.020466 -78.737737299999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-82679706627489931562013-09-18T10:21:00.002-04:002021-01-28T18:43:49.797-05:00YesIt's almost <i><a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/10/kotatsu.html">kotatsu</a> </i>time--!<div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-78007056039298032652013-02-28T14:32:00.002-05:002021-01-28T18:51:36.755-05:00Teaching in Japan<div style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrljMNG6WFAXW2SeeXg01jktZkWUsbb1yXnH_ze5v7J_BiDaDbi1n7v9M6XV8mcqPcs5jAT5oEeNODLkcLUhx8uMdwCthK2eCAOlvo6cB9NChLlvtWoodK7zQ6Buwsa6aYWVg0jxXzjUxp/s1024/bunkasai22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrljMNG6WFAXW2SeeXg01jktZkWUsbb1yXnH_ze5v7J_BiDaDbi1n7v9M6XV8mcqPcs5jAT5oEeNODLkcLUhx8uMdwCthK2eCAOlvo6cB9NChLlvtWoodK7zQ6Buwsa6aYWVg0jxXzjUxp/w320-h240/bunkasai22.jpg" title="Banners hung by the exit on Cultural Festival Day at school" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Banners hanging at the school gates for <i>bunkasai</i></td></tr></tbody></table>I talk about a lot of cultural things on this blog, but many of my posts are not so much connected to my career in Japan as they are my after-school life. However, teaching seems to still be the #1 method people use to get started in Japan, as there are lots of companies and exchange programmes to get you there, take away some of the headaches of getting established in the Land of the Rising Sun.</div>
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I taught English in Japan as part of <a class="vt-p" href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/JET" target="_blank">Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) programme</a>. JET is a fantastic programme sponsored by three Japanese Ministries and serves not only as a way to educate schoolchildren in English, but also as a grassroots cultural exchange effort. ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) are recruited from all over the world via a lengthy application process, followed by an intense <a class="vt-p" href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/Orientation" target="_blank">orientation session</a> in Tokyo, and are then dispersed all over Japan to their new schools. Junior high and high school are the most common placements, though elementary schools are slowly taking on more JETs.</div>
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When I was accepted, I received one of the most coveted placements - <a class="vt-p" href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/Osaka" target="_blank">Osaka</a>. Osaka no longer hires prefectural ALTs via the programme (only municipal ALTs, now), so I was very fortunate to have gone when I did, as Osaka was my first choice and has since become my second home. My three years living there were some of the best years of my life.</div>
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The <a class="vt-p" href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/09/so-you-want-to-teach-in-japan.html" target="_blank">JET application process</a> is very extensive. The paper application was enormous, and required a number of documents that took time to put together. A medical self-assessment, proof of Canadian citizenship, university transcripts, a copy of my degree and letters of reference (one of which had to be from a teacher or professor) are just some of the items that had to be included for the application, due in November - to go to Japan the following August!</div>
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I had a lot of tutoring experience, which I'm sure is what pushed me to the next stage - I'd spent the summer in my third year of university doing a work experience program very similar to an ALT's job at a local school. However, I was certain I'd blown the interview when they asked questions I hadn't ever considered a possibility, like Canadian census information. Luckily, my personality seemed to make some impact, and I even managed to answer the question about location so well that I received my first choice of destination. I gave the interviewers an explanation of how my hometown dialect was so different from most Canadians' that I knew I'd feel right at home in Osaka, where the people speak in a relaxed and easy way. </div>
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I was determined to broaden my cultural awareness - I initially hoped to join a few clubs at my school, but I felt like I would make them uncomfortable by being there, or be unable to commit the kind of time needed. My students were often at their club practices until evening - every evening! As an ALT, though, I was a de facto supervisor with the <a class="vt-p" href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/ESS" target="_blank">ESS</a> (English Speaking Society), and made that my only school-related extracurricular.</div>
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In my spare time, I tried out <a class="vt-p" href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/Hobbies" target="_blank">aikido, ikebana, and yosakoi dancing</a> for a time, and stuck with aikido for about a year, as I'd always been interested in martial arts. I returned to yosakoi after returning to Canada, as well. Through school and JET seminars I had opportunities to try out glass bead making, Noh theatre, and tea ceremony. I saw many <a class="vt-p" href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/07/takarazuka-revue-womans-world.html" target="_blank">Takarazuka</a> theatre shows in nearby Hyogo Prefecture. I participated in holiday rituals, including <i>setsubun, <a class="vt-p" href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/07/tanabata.html" target="_blank">tanabata</a>,</i> and New Year's<i> hatsumoude </i>every year.</div>
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The cultural divide was very tough at points. I struggled a lot with the Japanese work ethic - work long hours, socialize with your co-workers, and keep busy even when there isn't anything to do. I was free to go at 4:30 as per my contract, but I was always the first person out the door when I did so - it was tough to stay in the office and look occupied when I was itching to go, but I felt bad saying "see you" and strolling out two hours before my co-workers. Besides the work ethic, I was the youngest person by far in the office for most of my time there. I got along well with the students because I was young and approachable and quite media-savvy - but it did set me apart from many of my co-workers.</div>
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Aside from that, I really disliked being such an <a class="vt-p" href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/Culture%20Shock" target="_blank">obvious cultural outsider</a> - one of the things that really did bother me about Japan was that no matter how hard I tried to understand, the sense of being "other" was always there. Fortunately, it got better with time!</div>
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The most important thing I learned about communication was that insecurity wasn't going to get me anywhere. For a long time, I didn't have the courage to try starting conversations or even going someplace where I'd encounter words that I didn't know - even the grocery store was frustrating at times.</div>
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It wasn't long before I realized my Japanese wasn't going to improve unless I used it, though, and that I didn't need to be afraid of talking to strangers - all of my best encounters came as a result of taking a chance with people. City-dwellers often keep to themselves, so many seemed unapproachable at first, but Osakans are some of the friendliest people in Japan!</div>
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By far, the thing I missed most about home was familiar foods. Even though I love <a class="vt-p" href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/Food" target="_blank">Japanese food</a>, I found myself craving "comfort food" when I was feeling down - not just my mother's home cooking, but even food from restaurants I almost never visited back in Canada! <a class="vt-p" href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/07/things-i-miss-most.html" target="_blank">At one point, I was bringing home McDonalds 2 or 3 times a week</a> - even though I had probably only eaten it a couple of times in the past decade. I craved the familiar, and took what I could get when it came to the selection. </div>
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I also missed the friendliness of Canadian people, and the tendency toward helping strangers - the Japanese showed their friendliness in somewhat of a different way that I found, at times, to be quite a lot more detached. The people of Kansai (including Osaka, and Mie, where I had a wonderful local experience) are somewhat more open, but not in quite the same way as the town I'd been raised in.</div>
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Toward the end of my exchange, I visited nearby Mie Prefecture, an area I had been to just once before, despite it being so close to Osaka. It was the first time I truly felt the "small-town values" so many rural JETs speak of. While my visit to Mie was supposed to have been a day trip, a local festival prompted me to make very last-minute plans to stay the night, even though I had only the contents of my purse (a book, a pen, a Netbook and less than 6,000 yen in cash) to work with. Thanks to the attention and generosity of a local hostel owner, I had a place to rest my head and a way back to the train station at 5 o'clock the following morning in order to make it to work on time. Even though she had other guests to attend to, the hostel owner graciously made up a bed for me, a surprise guest, and offered to take me to the station by car, so that I wouldn't have to call a taxi so early in the morning. I will never forget that hospitality.</div>
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Teaching in Japan made an immeasurable impact on my life. When I returned to Canada, I knew I had to stay connected to this experience in some way - it really shaped my career aspirations, which until then had been very vague. <a class="vt-p" href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/Finding%20Japan%20in%20Toronto" target="_blank">I moved to Toronto</a> and began working with a youth exchange program, at first as a volunteer and later as a part-time coordinator, helping high school students considering spending a year abroad. Japan is one of the most popular programs we offer, so I feel extra-confident sharing my advice with these students, since I've seen "life in a Japanese high school" first-hand!</div>
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As for my travel plans, <a class="vt-p" href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/search/label/Tokyo%20Via%20Toronto" target="_blank">going back to Japan to visit</a> is in the cards for me in the next two years, I hope. I'd also like to visit Scandinavia, Europe and other parts of Asia - being abroad really opened my eyes to how many different people and cultures were out there. I want to see them all!<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Toronto, ON, Canada43.653226 -79.38318429999998243.285996499999996 -80.025884299999987 44.0204555 -78.740484299999977tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-89886539794429606862013-01-17T05:46:00.000-05:002014-06-01T20:47:58.687-04:00Photo of the Day - Marina<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a class="vt-p" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPPDMwGUhomNxLGQa0bYSoq4RTkEReTS1m5LX3a9ENlTn8i2fMCRIImP4aYADAiyHITF3tINqQdFqT6vuDAV8512pVdbegaPSwLkVHabTrvcQx43OoH64MKXWKuxrMJSf8L8RMJGzwG4Em/s1600/kobe_earthquake_marina.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPPDMwGUhomNxLGQa0bYSoq4RTkEReTS1m5LX3a9ENlTn8i2fMCRIImP4aYADAiyHITF3tINqQdFqT6vuDAV8512pVdbegaPSwLkVHabTrvcQx43OoH64MKXWKuxrMJSf8L8RMJGzwG4Em/s640/kobe_earthquake_marina.jpg" height="640" width="474" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"At 5:46, on the morning of January 17th 1995, the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake caused <br />
this marina to collapse, and at that point, the clock was damaged. This clock now <br />
indicates that time as an eternal reminder of the earthquake."</td></tr>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan34.690083 135.195511234.637859 135.11654719999999 34.742307000000004 135.2744752tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-3890964168644478972013-01-01T08:10:00.000-05:002013-01-02T10:54:26.951-05:00Nengajou 2013あけましておめでとうございます! Here are the designs I used for my <i>nengajou</i> this year:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWMVAMiIGNUpambDHTPh7s_SkIsnOtfoiuvalshXSJ7nmHvBzNUcDsPABNG-B5TjsaGgRVMBHC0381Km9fq6y_F5cDFqLigazATFb0_lST042bUmxlGzt455YRxP1Yrv-sx-Ugtl0HbEBS/s1600/jp13t_et_0009.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWMVAMiIGNUpambDHTPh7s_SkIsnOtfoiuvalshXSJ7nmHvBzNUcDsPABNG-B5TjsaGgRVMBHC0381Km9fq6y_F5cDFqLigazATFb0_lST042bUmxlGzt455YRxP1Yrv-sx-Ugtl0HbEBS/s400/jp13t_et_0009.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL6UD7Y8mY47vyJRoLRslV6P0G1ZXC-bg-8wRR1pSpkmwzIi-0BZVn_5q_hJbxGbKpdZyNX4myZ0cGsvMzb4mDAxiAzLNHkEDRSeOi3_Iu9nMNbWS9JERZhyTOTSFHfOnFFJYrRGEirQcS/s1600/jp13t_et_0096.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL6UD7Y8mY47vyJRoLRslV6P0G1ZXC-bg-8wRR1pSpkmwzIi-0BZVn_5q_hJbxGbKpdZyNX4myZ0cGsvMzb4mDAxiAzLNHkEDRSeOi3_Iu9nMNbWS9JERZhyTOTSFHfOnFFJYrRGEirQcS/s400/jp13t_et_0096.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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It`s the Year of the Snake, of course! Have a great 2013!<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2207869650725795121.post-51088852966622192832012-12-10T10:50:00.000-05:002012-12-10T10:50:25.371-05:00Japanese Bathrooms<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiLiqtGFn_fZnnrGoFZRqNe0KA26lKPn_KnstUwH_UB9935P8FrRNyVoZ5Wgxe2Y1Q25UFlherZtqyqvdM58m2qv4sOQtfmY6QMhBCV6Y0TB23Jmaiz7L3pfzuyb8JclSwFxxVwpWE4b8A/s320/hotel_bathroom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiLiqtGFn_fZnnrGoFZRqNe0KA26lKPn_KnstUwH_UB9935P8FrRNyVoZ5Wgxe2Y1Q25UFlherZtqyqvdM58m2qv4sOQtfmY6QMhBCV6Y0TB23Jmaiz7L3pfzuyb8JclSwFxxVwpWE4b8A/s400/hotel_bathroom.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cramped business hotel bathroom is still pretty neat.<br />
This is called a "system bath" or a "unit bath" style -<br />
it was introduced during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.</td></tr>
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I love Japanese bathrooms.</div>
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Yes, I said it! Though I'm referring primarily to the room that contains the <i>bathing</i> facilities, not the toilet room/W.C. I thought the bathing rooms in Japanese houses and apartments were very neat. Three primary reasons for this:</div>
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1) <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/06/photo-of-day-separate-toilets.html" target="_blank">Shower and toilet are usually separated</a> (unless you're in a cheap hotel bathroom, see above)</div>
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2) Completely waterproof (so easy to clean!)</div>
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3) Super-deep tubs and separate shower area</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhQVPJfJ7UwGpQOsV3Xy3sV5tIl8bU_w27A-KGMQLMVy9ZLTzuAItqsn81099AZ1inpUMZbjhRqMwcwuQiQ4BVXPDuOTbuoKyBdnCNELXWAPVVPRIVZHtCM1brqKi5WOdPiVySLOG9Bsl9/s320/japanese_bathroom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Japanese bathroom" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhQVPJfJ7UwGpQOsV3Xy3sV5tIl8bU_w27A-KGMQLMVy9ZLTzuAItqsn81099AZ1inpUMZbjhRqMwcwuQiQ4BVXPDuOTbuoKyBdnCNELXWAPVVPRIVZHtCM1brqKi5WOdPiVySLOG9Bsl9/s400/japanese_bathroom.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beautiful.</td></tr>
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I suppose I was raised to appreciate bathroom decor to<i> some</i> degree, but there was something gleefully satisfying about just being able to hose down all the walls and see it all go into a big drain in the floor. This is a common feature of prefabricated unit baths, which are typical in small apartments, though some unit baths are so small that the washing area is eliminated in favour of a toilet. There are usually no windows in unit baths, either, so the small space makes it wonderfully comfortable for a winter shower or bath. None of the steamy air had anywhere to escape to! I steamed my clothes on a rack above the bath by just turning on the hot water for ten minutes. The idea behind it is to keep the room watertight and thus reduce damaged caused by wet rot, which can be particularly weak in earthquakes.</div>
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Many Japanese baths are also set up on a heating system called <i>oidaki</i>. In <i>oidaki</i>, one pipe sends water from the tub to the heater and the other sends the heated water back into the tub. It conserves energy and allows the bath to be used by the entire family or even re-heated the following day. This is popular in larger apartments and homes, though less common in the smallest unit baths.</div>
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If prefab plastic isn't your thing, well, there's always the more traditional type of deep bath found in Japanese houses, usually metal or ceramic, but sometimes made of wood in the style of <i>onsen </i>tubs. And who can turn down <a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2012/06/hinoki-bathtubs.html" target="_blank">cypress</a> (<i>hinoki</i>)? The scent of cypress is so relaxing and nostalgic! I wanted to bring home a cypress bath set (stool, basin, water pail) but they run a little expensive. When I have my own place with a sizable bathroom, I'll kit it all out in cypress.</div>
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I dearly miss my little bathroom in Japan, and look forward to having a huge deep bathtub again someday.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Dotonbori, Chuo Ward, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan34.6685488 135.502715834.6554933 135.4829748 34.681604300000004 135.52245680000001