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A sign of spring
When I wake up to the sound of silence, I know it has snowed. The white shines through and around my curtains, until I throw them upon and see the landscape changed into a snowy paradise. Over a...
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Teaching pronunciation from behind a mask
It was a usual Friday afternoon in January when I walked into my favourite ichinen sei class, expecting to see their smiling faces. Instead I was met with thirty white-masked faces looking back at me....
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Japanese Fashion: the view from a cafe window
It was in a café above Sannomiya station in Kobe that I really noticed how fashionable people are in Japan, fashionable and downright beautiful. In comparison to a high street in England where hoodies...
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Windy Vistas
Seagulls soaring, Waves deafening, Hawks watching, Fishermen waiting. Boys playing, Women chatting, Cyclists fighting, Kites a-flying. Road curving, Window down, Music blaring, Hair blowing. Route...
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Enkai etiquette: what NOT to do at a Japanese work party
Never wear jeans to an enkai, nor turn up late, nor cross your legs (if you’re a girl). I did all of these things with typical gaijin etiquette and spent the first thirty minutes with red cheeks from...
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Embracing winter on the slopes
Just as spring is awakening and the snowline is receding I’ve found a way to enjoy winter, by hitting the ski slopes. In early-February, when I was craving sunshine and dreaming of a beach holiday, my...
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Speech contest: In the teacher’s chair
Today I listened to 120 students recite a speech they each had written. It’s part of an English speech contest for all first and second year students, something which James, my predecessor started at...
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Caucasian hair meets Asian hairdressers
Warning: this is a post about hair, but boys don’t stop reading just yet! My absolute pet-hate is having dry and split ends (boys who are lost already: imagine that Pantene advert with the conditioner...
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Spring’s prelude with strong overtones of pollen and PM2.5
Last weekend Spring made a fleeting visit. It was 20′C, blue skies and a warm wind blowing from the south; perfect for bike rides, BBQs and playing sport. Except there was something else in the air…...
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Sumo Spectacle
Seeming as most people in Japan are of small stature, you can’t miss a two metre tall man, weighing about 200kg walking pass you on a pavement. So after passing a few of these giants, my friend and I...
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Time-lapse and new priorities
Dear Readers (if you’re still following!), I apologise for a month of not writing! I have no one to blame but myself, and maybe the makers of an epic TV series called Breaking Bad. Yes that’s right, I...
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Five films you’ll want to watch twice
When I don’t have the motivation for writing, studying Japanese or doing anything really, I love to watch films. Great films capture a story in a couple of hours; enough time to be taken into another...
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Spring Evening
The sun is setting; golden rays spray out from behind a mountain. It’s been a hot sunny day, a precursor to summer. My friend and I set off towards the sunset. My mamachari bike creaks as I set off and...
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Dressing up Heian style
When my friends and I were asked if we wanted to dress up in a kimono and take part in a local festival, we enthusiastically agreed. What we didn’t know, was that we would be part of an re-enactment...
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Into the mud: planting rice with students
“Squelch, sludge, squish” were the sounds of my feet being sucked into the muddy rice field. The grey-brown mud squeezed between my toes and held my foot under, before I could prized it away to take...
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Eihei-ji Temple – a place of wonder
When I first watched the Zen Buddhist monks living a life of silence and solitude at Eihei-ji Temple, I thought they must be super-willed special people, different from the rest of us. But at a hostel...
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Exploring Secret Noto
Noto Hanto is one of those places you hear about by word-of-mouth. A friend of mine tipped me off about this beautiful peninsular that guts out into the Sea of Japan, just three hours north of Fukui...
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Playing the politeness game
Something funny happened at football practice the other week. It was a usual training practice for the Fukui Fist FC, in a local athletic ground that many people use for all sorts of sports. There are...
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For the love of cherry blossom
It has been said that Japan has six seasons; spring, summer, autumn, winter, as well as the rainy season tsuyu (from June to July) and the typhoon season (from September to October). Yet I would say...
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“If you act, you change”– Women of Fukushima
Sometimes life as a JET is too easy. It is easy to become absorbed in your own world, unconnected to current affairs, neither grounded in the community outside your door, or the one you’ve left at...
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