Blogs from Yamanashi, Japan, Asia - page 5

The Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone, but the memories of this year’s events will definitely live on. As with most of the “American things” we do here in Japan, celebrating Thanksgiving was not easy. Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Japan, of course, and not many people know when or what it is. November 23 is a Japanese National holiday, translated as Thanksgiving Labor Day. They added the Thanksgiving in there, but it really has nothing to do with Thanksgiving. It is more like our American Labor Day. Greg absolutely loves Thanksgiving - it is his favorite holiday. Because if this I thought is was important to share the holiday with my students. However, choosing what to teach about Thanksgiving can get kind of sticky. There are several variations on what the real story of the ... read more

So life has been pretty good in the land of the rising sun. I haven't had much chance to explore as I had to work an extra day last week and I've been trying to set myself into some regular routines. For instance, I run every Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. I have my Japanese Classes every Monday, Thursday and Friday and most importantly I go out for drinks every Friday night. The last one wasn't really a plan so much as it just happened. But its fun and I get to meet a lot of interesting people and learn new things about the Japanese culture. They have a drinking game based on rock paper scissors which is amazing. I also learned that they have this type of party called a Gokun. The idea is that a ... read more

I would like to start off this entry by letting you know that in no way was it my intention to mislead you, the reader, in any way. What I have written in the past is what I truly believed to be the truth and I, in no way, meant any disrespect to anyone or any culture by the things that I can only say that I misinterpreted or was misinformed. That being said, it has come to my attention that most Japanese people do NOT brush their teeth while they are showering. I apologize if this misconception that I instigated in your life. Upon receiving this information I was stuck in an awkward situation, do I shake off the bad news and pretend that I was never interested in the idea in the first place ... read more

I would like to start off by saying thank you to everyone that reads my blog, the comments you guys make are great and always bring a smile to my face. They are what motivate me to keep writing these blogs. So I haven't written anything for awhile and lost of stuff as happened. The first thing that has happened is that I went to a Japanese Onsen (Bathing house). My friend from my Japanese lessons invited. I wanted to go and she'd been before so I figured she could show me around so I didn't do anything stupid. Anyways we went on a Monday night. Her sister/family came to the train station to pick me up and drop us off at the Onsen, which was about 10 mins away from train station. We got there ... read more

We are a novelty here. For that reason, people stop by our house, bring us places and are generally interested in us simply because we're Americans. Never before have we made so many friends and acquaintences in one place. Some of them want to practice their English with us, some want to practice their pick-up lines on Jessie, but others have given us hope that after a year in another country, we will return to the States having made real friends, who genuinely cared about getting to know us and who took the effort to bring us inside the otherwise inpenetrably private lives most Japanese lead. One of those people is Yoko. Yoko loves the Harry Potter novels and Pirates of the Caribbean, in particular, Johnny Depp. She works, has a couple kids and a husband ... read more