I don’t often get into anything too serious when I blog, but I feel compelled to share this news story with you today:  http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20091105a1.html.

As I am sure many of you know, in 2007 a British woman named Lindsay Ann Hawker was murdered in Japan.  Her killer has been at large ever since, and the suspect is Tatsuya Ichihayshi.  According to the Japan Times article above, Ichihashi has undergone appearance altering surgery and has been sighted recently in Nagoya.  They say the police will be releasing postoperative photo images soon.

I find it amazing that the police can have all this ‘information’ about a wanted man, and still not be able to catch him.  He’s been running for so long now.  Now, I can’t judge if he really did commit the crime or not, but if they suspect him, they should have at least caught and questioned him by now.

Lindsay’s parents have been searching for an answer ever since she was taken from them, and I really think they deserve to have a police force who are willing to work a little bit harder on the case.  I know nothing can bring her back now, but they need some kind of resolution.

I don’t know if there’s anything that we can do to help in this search, but please check the Lindsay Ann Hawker website and Facebook group.  And of course, if you’re in Japan, keep your eyes open, and stay aware of the people around you.  I can’t believe he would strike again, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.

If you have any information please visit the Lindsay Ann Hawker contact page or email: info@lindsayannhawker.com. You can contact the Japanese police on 00 81 47 397 0110.

One thing I promised myself before I came to Japan was that I wouldn’t get hooked on Pocky.  On my first visit to Japan in 2006 I ate a lot of Pocky and brought a lot of it back with me.  It was one thing I was aware of before I came here, and I had to try it.  After that I occasionally bought it from the Asian food stores in London.  But I managed to avoid it pretty well when I moved here last year.  (Instead, I got hooked on Kit Kats, but that’s another story…)

Anyway, today, perhaps for the first time, I found myself on the Pocky website.  It’s an awesome site, and incredibly cute.  Actually, it reminds me a lot of the Kit Kat website, Breaktown.  I wonder which came first?  I noticed on the site that they seem to be having some kind of dance contest.  I can’t read much of the site, but don’t let the Japanese put you off – the videos are great!  Try to find the one of the little kid dancing with two sticks of Pocky in his hands!  Haha!  There’s so much stuff on the site besides actual Pocky, I was quite surprised.  Everything from dancing, to human beatboxing, to this strange sound machine/game thing!  There’s actually a whole page of games on there, including applications for iPhones.  I love this retro “Pocky Balloon” game, which you can play on your PC.

Actually, I have to say, I found it a little difficult to find the actual chocolate on the Pocky website! But I found it in the end: here it is! I wish I could start collecting Pocky like I do Kit Kats, but I know that would be beyond my budget, and it would be very bad for my waistline!!  There are so many amazing flavours out there though…

Oh, and I mustn’t forget to mention, November 11th is, I think, International (?) Pocky Day!  (See, the date is 11.11, which kinda looks like four sticks of Pocky…).  And this year is also Pocky’s 11th anniversary, so that’s even more 1s to add to the equation!

There’s a delicious new “fruits mix” flavour out to celebrate:

As the Pocky catchphrase goes… “Stick to fun!”  Um.. right! 

P.S. For those of you living in the UK, have you seen something called Mikado?  Well I saw this in the summer and thought it was a rubbish Pocky rip off, but actually it’s Pocky’s UK cousin! A distant and less attractive relative!   I think it’s named Mikado after the game, also known as “pick-up sticks”, which I remember loving as a kid.

…I will be taking the JLPT 3 Kyu (Japanese Language Proficiency Test, level 3).

Today happens to be a holiday, Bunka no Hi (or, Culture Day), so I have been spending my day in my PJs, drinking tea, eating satsumas (mikan), and studying, studying, studying!

My Japanese teacher has been great.  She’s been piling me up with reams and reams of homework every week in order to help me prepare for the exam. But I think I might have reached my maximum.  I feel like my brain is exploding with kanji and grammar, and as fast as I shove some new piece of information in something else just leaks out the other side.

What does it matter anyway?

Well, it doesn’t. I mean, I don’t have to pass this exam for any reason other than to please myself.  If I don’t pass it this year I can always try again next year.  But, the thing is, I’ve been studying Japanese since September 2006.  That means that by the time I take the exam I will have been studying Japanese for about three years and two months.  Granted, when I was in England, although I did have a fantastic teacher, I couldn’t take my studies that seriously due to work and other commitments.  But now I’ve been living in Japan for over a year and seven months, I think I really should have something to show for my efforts.

I know, in the end, all I can do is keep studying for another month and try my best.  But I also know that come February/March next year when the results are in, if I don’t pass, I’m not going to be a happy bunny.

So how can I maximise my time?

Well, I think I already have way too many textbooks, website links, handouts etc. (I’m drowning in resources!) – I just need to work out how to use what I have to the best effect.  Before dinner tonight I’m going to try a practice listening paper (I already took practice writing/vocabulary and reading/grammar tests today), and then for the rest of the night I’m going to study kanji.  I get the feeling that kanji might be the key for me.  In everything I’ve done so far my two main stumbling blocks have been not being able to read the kanji, and not knowing the vocab.  With grammar, you can often guess at what sounds right, but if you don’t know the meaning of a word, or you can’t read the kanji, you’re screwed.

So, who else out there is trying the exam this year (any level)?  Why not say ‘hi’ below and let’s support each other in this! がんばろうね！

Today, a friend of mine used the phrase “grass-eaters” in an email, and I really couldn’t fathom what she was talking about!  I queried the phrase, and she sent me a link to a very interesting article.  According to Slate, Japan is currently panicking about “the rise of ‘grass-eating men’, who shun sex, don’t spend money, and like taking walks“. These so called “grass-eating men”, in complete contrast to the “metrosexual” Japanese man (who likes to straighten his hair and wear expensive pink shirts) get pleasure from living a more natural life, and probably even use an eco-bag (pronounced in Japan as “echo-bag”) when he buys his organic vegetables.

So where does the phrase “grass-eating men” come from?  Well, apparently it comes from the Japanese “soushoku danshi”.  See here for another interesting article on this subject, which explains the Japanese term.  “Soushoku” means “herbivorous” or “grass-eating” and “danshi” means “young man”. The term was coined by Maki Fukasawa, a Japanese editor and columnist for NB Online, in 2006.

So, why is this such a bad thing?  A guy who likes to cook, take long walks, stay home and relax, be kind, sweet and sensitive… sounds good, right?  However, the other side of these so called “grass-eaters” is that apparently they have no interest in finding a girlfriend, although they could if they wanted to.  They’re quite happy to stay home alone and persue their hobbies, and have no interest in relationships or sex.  According to some surveys quoted in the Slate article, in one survey 61% of unmarried Japanese men in their 30s identified themselves as “grass-eaters”, and in another 75% of single Japanese men in their 20s-30s thought they were herbivores, too.  Hmm.  I guess this doesn’t bode well for the future of the Japanese race!

What do you think? Do you know guys like this? Does it matter?  Are single girls in Japan going to have to do all the work now if they want to get a date?

Share your thoughts below, please!

Are you a foreign woman living in Japan?  If so, you might be interested in this.

Have you ever heard of Being A Broad?  When I was first planning to come to Japan, a friend recommended a book to me:

http://www.being-a-broad.com/index.php/bab/the_book

I bought the book, but when it came to moving to Japan I just couldn’t fit it in my suitcase and I had to leave it at home.  I knew it contained a wealth of information about how to survive as a foreign woman in Japan, but I hadn’t even had time to read it properly before I left England.

Luckily for me, Being A Broad has a website.  And not only does it have a website, it has a forum full of living, breathing women just waiting to share their ideas and tips, and help you to survive in Japan.  There are some fantastic women on the forum, and I’m always surprised by how much everyone is willing to share and help one another.  Even if no one can offer an answer to your problem or query, the women there always seem willing to offer some words of encouragement.  It really does have a community spirit.

And life doesn’t stop on the web.  Many of these women enjoy regular meet-ups in their towns, or attend social/cultural events together.  A lot of the activity happens in Tokyo, but there are also reps organising events officially in Okinawa, Shonan, Tsukuba and Shizuoka and many women organising local meet-ups in other areas too.  In fact, I met up with a couple of ladies in Nagoya just a few weeks ago, and we had a lovely lunch and a beer under the TV Tower in Nagoya, while watching some entertainment.

Also, this week, Caroline Pover, Being A Broad’s founder, visited Nagoya to meet its ‘warm people’ (her words ) and give a publishing seminar.  The seminar attracted a number of local ‘broads’ (and one bloke), and we all had a lovely time, enjoying dinner, drinks and chats after the seminar, too.

As well as the book and the forum, there’s also a magazine.  The magazine is one of the most intelligent (and yet readable!) English publications I have read since I came to Japan, and every month I find I just can’t put it down.

So, if you’re a foreign woman reading this and hearing about Being A Broad for the first time, get yourself over to the forum pronto and join us!  And don’t forget to say ‘hello’ in the intros section!

In the spirit of undeniable self promotion, I would like you to all turn your attention towards my new blog, Only me….  It has nothing in particular to do with Japan, it’s  just a place for me to scribble and try to turn my dreams of being a writer into some kind of reality.

I will, of course, continue to write this blog about Japan.  And keep you updated on the latest Kit Kats over at Kit Kats!

よろしくおねがいします！

Today I had the pleasure of visiting one of Japan’s old ‘post towns’ – Magome-juku (馬籠宿),.  For those of you who don’t know (and I didn’t until recently!) a ‘post town’ (or, ‘shukuba‘, 宿場) is a kind of resting place – a town where people stay the night on the way to somewhere, in ancient times.  Literally, I think it is called an ‘inn town’.  Magome-juku was “the forty-third of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendo, an ancient road that connected Kyoto and Edo (now Tokyo) during the Edo period” (according to Wikipedia).  Seeing the sign which pointed towards Edo, and following the path just a little, I felt an overwhelming urge to set out on some kind of insane mission to walk from Kyoto to Tokyo.  I wonder how long it would take and how possible it would be these days without using public transport?  I’d love to try something like that!

“To Edo” / 江戸へ

I stopped here, but apparently if I had kept going I could walk to Tokyo…

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As some of you might know, I have a keen interest in haiku, and I found myself wondering if Basho walked these paths on one of his famous journeys.  I feel sure he would have passed by this way, but when I’ve searched to find out more about his trail I haven’t found any evidence of this.  I did, however, find this interesting site.  I wish I could be commissioned to follow his trail like this!

Anyway, back to Magome…

We ate a delicious lunch at this traditional-style restaurant:

…and as we were walking back down the hill (Magome is a very hilly place!  It’s surrounded by mountains.) we had a chestnut ice cream to help us on our journey!

Chestnut is a really good flavour for ice cream, and this was delicious!  We had hoped to go chestnut picking today, but unfortunately it was all booked up wherever we went, and it wasn’t possible.  This is the season for chestnuts in Japan (栗）, and many of the shops in Magome were selling chestnut flavoured goods, like ‘kuri-kinton’ (a sweetened mixture of boiled and mashed chestnuts).

As I said, Magome was surrounded by mountains, and some of the views from the car were quite breath-taking (I wish we could have stopped to take more pictures, especially of the mountains in the beautiful sunset on the way home…). The best picture I got of the mountains was actually one with me posing, so I’ll post that!

I’d love to have gone hiking around this area – it felt like you could walk for miles and just be surrounded by mountains and rivers and bridges and trees.  I hope I can go back sometime and explore a bit more. Perhaps I can even walk up that tempting path and make my way to Tokyo…

Last weekend, Nagoya held its annual festival.  The Nagoya Festival is Nagoya’s largest autumn festival.  The main attraction is its parade, but there are also other events all over town, and on the Sunday, many local tourist attractions (such as Nagoya Castle) had free entry.

It was a beautiful day on Sunday, so I decided to walk from my apartment to City Hall (Shiyakusho) where the Dashi (float) parade was beginning.  On the way I passed by a shrine I had never visited before, The Tanabata Shrine:

…and also passed through Meijo Park, which was starting to feel autumnal, and by Nagoya Castle.

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It was nice to see so many families out and about, and I wasn’t surprised to see streams of people going into Nagoya Castle, making the most of the free entry.

When I reached City Hall I was a little surprised to see quite so many people waiting for the parade to begin.  It was really crowded, but I made my way into the throng of people.  I soon realised why there was such a big crowd – the parade was being opened and led by the Mayor of Nagoya, Mr. Takashi Kawamura.  From what I can gather, he’s quite a popular figure, and everyone seemed to be clamouring to take his picture or shake his hand!  Naturally, I joined in, and took a couple of photos…

One thing that really impressed me about the start of the parade, was that some announcements and explanations of events were given in English!  I’ve never heard that at a festival before, and I was quite surprised.  I felt happy to be welcomed to Nagoya in such a way, and felt that the city was really making its best efforts to be international.

The Dashi Parade consisted of traditional dashi (floats) which have puppets on top of them, which keep the crowd entertained.  I’ve seen these kind of floats before, but I’m always quite entertained by the puppets and amazed at how heavy they look when they are being moved.

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I followed the parade along for a while and then when I reached Hisaya-odori Park I turned off and started exploring some of the other festival attractions.  In Sakae I caught a bit of the Kagura Float Parade:

…and the Children’s Mikoshi Parade:

Hisaya-odori Park runs right through the centre of Nagoya’s downtown area.  The whole park seemed to be taken over with various festival activities.  I walked the length of the park, collecting fliers and some free samples of things, and stopped a few times to take in the entertainment.  At one point I stopped near the stand advertising the Nagoya Aquarium. Here, after a little hesitation, I held a little turtle!!

It was very solid and wet, kind of scary, but kind of cute!

One of my main reasons for going to the festival was to catch some live music.  In particular, I wanted to catch a band called Semi On, who I sort of know through my Japanese school.

After getting some lunch from one of the festival food stalls (jagga butter, of course!), I grabbed a kakigori to cool me down and went to find a sport near the stage where Semi On would be appearing later.  Here, I watched a bizarre array of entertainment!

First, I saw Latin Dance Carnival which was, I think, a local dance school specialising in Latin dance.  They performed various dances, including tango, flamenco, belly dance, samba, salsa (I think – it was all in Japanese!), but the most ‘interesting’ of all was some kind of Spanish dancing (I think) led by what I assume was a native Spanish guy…

I don’t want to be too mean, but some of his moves were very… curious!

After the dancing, there was a great Japanese local band called theSing2YOU (I copied their spelling from the flier – I hope it’s correct!).

Sorry the video quality isn’t that great – they were much better than this!  I’d like to find out more about them but can’t seem to find them online…

The lead singer had a really great voice – very powerful for someone who seemed so cute and tiny!

And I have to say, the drummer guy had a great smile he kept beaming out into the audience!

Next came cheerleading! They were young, but pretty good, and they coped well when they made mistakes a couple of times they missed a jump or dropped someone!).

After the cheerleading, we were treated to a trip to Hawaii, sort of!  It seems the Marriott Hotel is having some sort of massive Hawaii promotion, the Spirit of Aloha Tour, and they came to Nagoya to promote Hawaiian tourism.  This section of the entertainment was so popular I was quite surprised!  Suddenly there were so many people watching the show and, when it was over, most of them left! What was most amazing was that when the people on stage asked who had been to Hawaii a LOT of people raised their hands!  It was good listening practice for me, as all of the speaking was done in Japanese, and I could follow a lot of it. One of the reasons this segment was so popular, I think, was that it had a special celebrity guest star  I didn’t realise who he was until after the event though – oops!  The event seems to be being presented by Konishiki Yasokichi, former sumo wrestler and Hawaiian-born-Japanese, AKA “The Dump Truck”.

You can see a short video clip of the event on the Marriott site, and if you look really carefully I think you can see me at the end!  Haha!  Here’s a video clip from the Saturday performance, including the very catchy song they sang:

I learnt from this that in Hawaii we say ‘aloha’, ‘mahalo’, ‘a hui hou’ (‘hello’, ‘thank you’, ‘goodbye’)… and that there are many Hawaii-otaku here in Nagoya by the looks of things!!

See all those old ladies’ hands?  They’re not making the ‘rock’ sign – it’s some kind of ‘a hui hou’ sign!  Haha!

Actually, I have to confess, after this show I really wanted to go to Hawaii and couldn’t stop imagining myself lying on the beach under a palm tree, drinking a Blue Hawaiian and eating macadamia nut chocolates!

Finally, after all of the excitement of Hawaii had passed, Semi On were on…

I really love this song and only wish I’d had a better video camera (this was taken on my cell phone!).  After this they sung “What shall we do with a drunken sailor?”, which was just awesome!

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And then I went home!

It was a great day, and just what I needed!  I’m aware that I missed a lot of the parade stuff, feudal lord stuff, samurai stuff, but I wanted live music and sunshine, and I got just that, so I was happy!

Amazing to think I got sunburnt on Sunday and then there was a typhoon on Thursday, huh?

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calm after the storm
when everything has passed by
the sun can shine again

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A huge typhoon, typhoon “Melor”, hit Japan in the early hours of this morning.  I went to bed last night listening to strong winds and rain, feeling very cold, but was happy to snuggle up and ignore it.  However, I woke up around 5am to a strong wind like nothing I’ve ever heard before.  It sounded like the end of the world!

Actually, although I was only little at the time, it reminded me of the 1987 hurricane in England. I found myself emailing a couple of friends (and my mum!) just to be in touch with someone, even though I knew I was perfectly safe if I stayed in my apartment.

Yesterday there were many warnings and we had to tell our students that if there was still an extreme weather warning issued by the government, lessons would be cancelled.  However, I’m assuming everything is ok now, as it’s very calm out there and I don’t think it’s even raining.  So, I think it’s business as usual!

Last Saturday night I went bowling with my co-workers and students.  It was a fab night out and I really enjoyed doing something so familiar (although it’s been years since I bowled!).

I was pleased to find that bowling in Japan was pretty much the same as bowling back home…

…with just a couple of interesting differences… Like a kind of vending machine for your shoes…

…totally kawaii scoreboards…

…and… Hello Kitty bowling balls!!

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I’d love to post some action shots from the bowling, but unfortunately I’m not allowed to post pictures of students.  Anyway, we had an awesome time, and I think it was made even better by using the Hello Kitty bowling balls and shouting “Kitty Power” as we bowled them!  Hehe!