A lucky business trip to Sapporo last Monday gave us an opportunity to travel to the prefecture that I most wanted to visit in Japan, the northern island in Japan, Hokkaido. After landing in Chitose Airport at 8:30am on Saturday, we caught the train for 50 minutes into the city center, Sapporo. It was quite … Continue reading Summer weekend in Sapporo
Since moving to Japan at the start of the year from Australia, this has been one of the longest time that I haven’t seen or swum in an ocean - until the last weekend. We visited the closest beach resort area from Tokyo called 熱海 (Atami) 🏖 which took around 2 1/2 hours on a … Continue reading The Japanese way of swimming at the beach
This weekend is another long weekend in Japan and this time, we get a day off to appreciate mountains and its blessing where the public holiday is quite simply called, 山の日(Mountain Day) 🗻. What is Mountain Day? There isn’t too much history with this public holiday as it is the newest public holiday in Japan. … Continue reading August Japanese public holiday: Mountain Day and Obon
The delayed rainy season kept the start of summer unusually cool, the term known as 梅雨寒(tsuzamu - rainy season coldness) ☔.However, Japanese summer doesn't let us off the hook that easily! Suddenly, after 20 days straight of daylight hours under 3 hours per day, on July 17th the sun broke through, heated up the concrete … Continue reading Boom! Sumida River Fireworks Festival in Tokyo
It feels long and it feels short to have lived in Tokyo for five months now. Reflecting on my last 2-5 months of my time in Japan so far after living in Australia for 19 years (more on that in About Me section) by revisiting my 2 months, 1 month and 1-week posts, here are … Continue reading Discoveries made by living in Tokyo for 5 months
In July along Azabujuban shopping street, bamboo sticks decorated with colourful paper with wishes written on them pop up🎋. It slightly reminds me of "Christmas in July" in Australia where Christmas trees pop up again in July simply because it's winter in Australia and Australians can celebrate Christmas like the Northern Hemisphere folks. Someone wants … Continue reading What is Tanabata?
Native Expat 