November 3 in Japan is a public holiday called 文化の日 (Culture Day) (I've explained what Culture Day is in my previous post if you're interested) and to make the most of the day, we visited Hakone in Kanagawa prefecture for some workation and sightseeing. Monday November 1 - Arriving in Hakone We wrapped up work … Continue reading Midweek getaway to Hakone
Autumn is many things in Japan. We have phrases such as : 「食欲の秋」(appetite in Autumn)「読書の秋」(Reading in Autumn)「芸術の秋」 (Art in Autumn)「スポーツの秋」(Sports in Autumn) Autumn in Japan sounds like it's good for whatever your interest. It's mainly derived from cooling nights what are suitable for reading📚, exercising 🏃🏻 and appreciating art🖼. Many delicious things are harvest throughout … Continue reading Art in autumn, roaming in Roppongi
Tokyo’s covid-19s infection rate continues to go down to a mere double digits in the last 7 days and Tokyoites are slowly heading back to ‘normal life’. For us this week, we went to a cinema. I haven’t been to the cinema in Japan since we moved to Tokyo 2 1/2 years ago and I … Continue reading Japanese cinema discoveries
I remember when I first looked for a job in Japan, I was confused with the acronym "SNS". There are many industry jargons out there so I was scratching my head to figure out what this new marketing jargon could be... it is Social Networking Sites. Social Media, in Australia (or I think the rest … Continue reading How the Japanese are social on social
Last weekend, I visited Yokohama, where we moved as a family to be closer to the international school my sister and I attended for 6 years before moving to Australia. I dreamt of walking down the high school corridors and graduating from my school called St Joseph International School (or SJIS for short) when I … Continue reading Walking down the memory lane
In last week’s post, I shared our silver week’s trip from Ehime to Chugoku region (western part of the main island in Japan) where we hiked up to see Matsuyama castle in Ehime prefecture, cycled the famous Shimanami Kaido, drove on Tsunoshima Ohashi which is a 3km long bridge that connects the main island and … Continue reading Silver Week 2021 Part 3 – Shimane, Tottori, Hyogo
I have arrived in Matsuyama, Ehime prefecture! We caught the bus into Matsuyma city (cash only and suica/ IC cards are not accepted) and we explored the town on foot. Although many key attractions were closed to reduce the spread of covid-19, we managed to explore and get the feel of Matsuyama city. Sunday Sept … Continue reading Silver Week 2021 Part 2 – Ehime, Hiroshima and Yamaguchi
Hooray to Silver Week! I've mentioned previously that in in September there are two public holidays, 敬老の日 (Respect for the aged day) 👵🏻 and 秋分の日 (Autumnal Equinox Day) 🍁 which fall on 20th and 23rd respectively this year. By adding a few annual leaves, I have 9 days off work to explore this beautiful country, Japan. Although many of … Continue reading Silver Week 2021 Part 1 – Ehime
In the last post, I shared that we visited a river in Saitama and previously, I have mentioned about Okutama river in Tokyo. There are many other rivers flowing in Japan which are scenic and especially cooling in summer. However, the urbanisation of areas 20-40km near Tokyo have dramatically increased to over 50% in the last 20 years … Continue reading Why the greater Tokyo area doesn’t get flooded
One of my colleagues recommended me a ‘quiet’ river spot not too far from Tokyo and as the temperature was still high around 35 degrees Celsius last weekend, I decided to take his recommendation during the last summer weekend during 2021. Getting to Iruma river From our station, we caught the train to Nerima station … Continue reading River swimming at Iruma river, Saitama
Native Expat 