Sakura: Sakura-no-toori nuke Sakura: the Japanese word for cherry blossom. These delicate pink petals featured as supporting characters in my previous blog on Himeji Castle. The thing to do last Friday night in Osaka was to go to the Osaka River walk and view the cherry blossoms. So that’s what we did. Sakura-no-toori nuke is the […]
I arrived in the Osaka area of Japan (specifically: Nishinomiya) late Thursday evening. The first thing we did on Friday was to travel west for an outing at Himeji Castle (hime = ‘princess’ + ji ‘road’). It’s the only original castle – do I have this right? – in Japan that has not been somehow […]
TItle Photo: The Ritz Hotel – Koshien/Nishinomiya. This blog could easily be titled Weird Stuff in Japan. I’ll kick the weird stuff in Japan off with a brief discussion of: Love Hotels The Ritz was the second hotel I stayed in during my two weeks in Japan. My son had the first inkling the Ritz […]
Title picture for sake: My son, Gerard, and his girlfriend, Rimi, opening a bottle of shōchū at Torisan, our favorite izakaya ‘neighborhood restaurant’ in Koshien When in Japan you’ll want to know that: 1. Sake Sake is the generic Japanese word for ‘alcohol.’ Everything alcoholic counts as sake. 2. Sake What you mean by sake […]
Japanese Language: Baby Steps 日 ‘sun’ + 本 ‘origin/tree’ = Japan 日本語= Japanese Language I’m in Japan now. Sure, I can say ohayō gozaimasu ‘good morning’, arigatō gozaimasu ‘thank you very much’ and order basic food items, e.g. I have shōchū rokku ‘(Japanese) vodka on the rocks,’ down. Beyond that, I make […]
Title Image: A tiny house is a structure of either 400 sq. ft. or 600 sq. ft. or less Tiny House: United States This week I stepped into my room at the Yakku Hotel in Koshien, Japan and was immediately put in mind of the tiny house movement in the United States and all the […]
Here is another listicle about Japan. This time the observations are random and in no particular order: 10. T-shirts/sweatshirts. Many people wear T-shirts or sweatshirts with names of U.S. states on them, like South Dakota or Maryland. Every now and then the shirt has the name of a college, often made-up. As for a real […]
Onsen: The Best Thing in Japan Making good on my own rating that the onsen is the height of Japanese culture, Gerard and I went to Kinosaki-onsen, a charming spa town on a northwestern coast of the main island, Honshu. The word onsen is even in the name of the town. We did it up […]
Azumino: The Japanese Alps This past weekend my son, Gerard, and I went to a most beautiful area of Japan, specifically Azumino City in Nagano Prefecture. The XVIII Winter Olympics were held in Nagano in 1998. So this event tells you the area is impressively mountainous. It also explains why the region is called the […]
I’m in Japan for two weeks. It’s my second trip to visit my younger son, Gerard, who has lived in Koshien (outside of Osaka) for three and a half years. Here are the top ten things I love about Japanese culture. Japanese Culture: Three to Start 10. Cool paper products. Not just origami, but complicated cards […]