Dear Hysterical Hyogo, If the stacks of letters are anything to go by, many of you are worrying about returning from Japan to your respective home countries. I barely got through the first panicked paragraph before I found my eyes drooping with boredom. However, following incessant nagging from my editor, this month I shall…
Dear Miss A Hart, I think I’ve finally reached my breaking point. I just cannot handle the attention I get anymore. If it’s not my “small†face or nose, it’s my curly hair or white skin. Seriously, I try to tan, I really do! I’m a total addict to self-tanning lotion at home,…
Dear Ms Hart,  The people in the apartment next to me have a television. A loud television. A loud television that they seem to watch only late at night. Unfortunately this television resides in the room that shares a wall with my bedroom. I first noticed it in October when I originally thought my neighbors were…
Dear Ava, Â It is right after lunch, my stomach is full, and as I lean back in my seat to stretch I scan the staff room and notice most of my coworkers seem to be scanning the backs of their eyelids. In that moment I realize my own desire to snooze on the…
Dear Ava Hart, Â Being green is really getting to me. At school I always do double-sided printing, bring my soup in a thermos and never use PET bottles, but at home, despite serious effort, I cannot get the recycling here. My pred left me a massive poster with all the sorting info and…
Dear Ava, Right from the get-go I’ve been wary of “omiyageâ€. I hate shopping for birthday presents, and now I have to buy obligatory gifts for co-workers I barely even speak to? I do enjoy a good Tokyo banana when it’s left for me, but I would opt out in a blink of an eye…
Just Ask Ava Do you have a burning question or cultural conundrum? Well, the Hyogo Times is proud to introduce the scintillating and savvy Ava Hart, here to answer all your concerns in her new column Just Ask Ava.  Dear Ms Hart,  Winter in Japan is a joke. People here don’t know…