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A trip to Osaka and an homage to octopus balls
This past weekend was a three-day holiday in Japan. I am not quite certain what the holiday was celebrating. The Japanese government enacts approximately one three-day weekend every month. Not because they are particularly generous, but the holidays are to counteract the Japanese companies’ tendency to work their employees’ fingers to the bone. Japanese salarymen…
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Blizzard! Run!
Where I come from, snowmen aren’t made with two balls. In America, we build them with three. Frosty the Snowman, Sam the Snowman from Rudolph and his doppelganger Leon the Snowman from Elf all were made with three globes of snow. But here in Japan, they make them with two. When I asked where the…
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Tokyo New Year 2012
For a country with such a long history, Japan has very little traditions of its own. Even though the Japanese emperor’s lineage dates back to 660 B.C., the country’s main religion (Buddhism) and crop (rice) are imports from China. It is the same with Japan’s most celebrated holiday, New Year’s. The New Year’s celebration in…
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Christmas in Japan 2012
I opened my Christmas presents two days early this year. As an adult, I can make those kinds of decisions. As a child growing up in Iowa, we opened up presents on Christmas morning. That was the rule. We had several other traditions. On Christmas Eve Mom made chili and Dad cooked his homemade oyster…
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Japan’s elections don’t make sense
Fortunately I missed all of the hullabaloo surrounding the U.S. presidential election – the ads, the mass mailings and the frequent phone calls from “unknown” callers. My wife and I moved to Tokyo last May, before the campaigns really started heating up. However, last week I did experience my first election in Japan. All I…
a Nick in Time 