Ken Tanaka song – Sleepwalking

I really enjoyed this improv song by Ken Tanaka and Polo. Hope you enjoy it too!...

I’ve been busy…

Will be back… ...

Plum Blossoms Springing

These photos are a couple of weeks old but I’ve been busy. Now it’s Sakura season – cherry blossoms. But plum blossoms – ume – at least here, come a couple of weeks earlier, and so off I went to check them out! Man this winter has been so long. Remember me being so excited about March? Yeah, well, the temperature raised a little bit, but not much. It’s...

Above and Beyond the Call of Duty

So the grade 6ers just graduated from Primary School on Friday (the 19th of March). Awww. As far as I know though, they are all minus one ( ) going to my middle school so I’ll soon see them looking all cute in the middle school uniform. Before they graduated, I had a chance to give my seven kids from my Mountain School a special gift. One thing I am sort of frustrated about my job is...

Classic Engrish at Chinese Restaurant

Is it just me or does a good Engrish menu improve the quality of the food some what? Well, perhaps not, but it makes the dinning experience more entertaining. The restaurant Soushuen was nothing to write home about, just your average Chinese restaurant with overly oily food, and I don’t think I’ll be going back, but the menu was a good source of entertainment. MERT To be fair, I...

Breathing Again

There is a common saying out there for writers that writing is like breathing. It’s just apart of who you are, it’s something that you have to do… There are many people out there who are like, “oh yeah, I want to write a book.” I don’t get those people. I don’t understand how you can be nonchalant about it. For me, writing is something I HAVE TO DO. I...

Japanese Commercials

I’m in love with a new blog. It’s CMstyle.tv. What a fantastic blog! Basically it shows you all the different advertisements that are currently going on in Japan right now. As I said before, Japan uses famous peoples to advertise their goodies. So check out CMstyle.tv to see what the wacky famous peoples are advertising now. Is it ache cream? No, it’s probably insurance....

Tales from Middle School in Japan

In all my schools there are probably only two kids that I would consider problem children. Which means I’m pretty lucky. And the two of them aren’t really problems at all. They are both in the same class, a grade 7 class. One just sits there and does nothing. At first I thought he would be a real class disrupter, but really all he does is sit there – he doesn’t stand up,...

I Miss My Grade 3ers!!

Yesterday was the graduation of the grade three students at middle school (9th year of schooling). And I didn’t get to be there Yes, I’m sad about that because I got to know my grade 3 students the best out of all of them – especially the girls who were a lot of fun. Last week they had a fun goodbye party where the whole school played games. One of the competitions was for...

Why books for 10 year olds are easier than books for 5 year olds

Previously I’ve posted about Japanese children’s stories and also websites intended for Japanese children. At the time I was experimenting with children’s books but the experience ultimately left me a bit frustrated. The vocabulary (both content and the fact it was mostly hiragana) was difficult and the content was a bit juvenile (while stories about shrinking and flying on the...