It’s April and that means the brief, but beautiful cherry blossom season. The sales of blue tarpaulins are set to sky rocket and public intoxication in the middle of the day will reach giddy new heights. Whether it’s your first, final or other, 花見 season in Japan, Hyogo has a positive cornucopia of great spots…
çµç¶æ¹– (ã³ã‚ã“; Lake Biwa) is Japan’s largest freshwater lake and covers a large part of Shiga Prefecture. It’s a haven for birdwatchers, watersports, camping, and generally having a good time outdoors. It’s also a very popular destination for cyclists with a well-kept cycle path pretty much all the way around. At around 220km in circumference,…
葛井寺 Fujii-dera is temple number 5 of 33 on the pilgrim circuit, and as its name “Wisteria Well Temple†would suggest, it is a wonderful place to visit when the fuji are in bloom. These fragrant purple flowers typically bloom in very late April or in early May, around Golden Week. Other than the gorgeous…
出ã—å·»ãåµ This omelet is delicious, easy to make and can be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Serves 4 as a side dish 6 eggs 1 cup dashi (stock made from fish and kelp, you can buy sachets of instant dashi) 2 tablespoons light soy sauce (usukuchi shoyu) 1 tablespoon mirin salad oil…
Paragliding in ‘Sky Sports Town’, Aogaki! Have you ever stared at a bird gliding about in the sky and imagined what that would be like? Have you ever taken it a step further and tried to make it happen? Well, here’s your chance! I work part-time in Aogaki, a town near the middle of Hyogo…
Off to the city Now judge me if you will, but there were always two flights out of KIX (Kansai Airport) that excited me – the 0030 departure to Bangkok (daily), and the 2330 to Singapore (not every day, but it goes on the ever-important Friday night). Flights that I can catch without having to…
関西å°ãŠå¥½ã¿ç„¼ã Delicious, winter comfort food which is so easy to make! Ingredients – 1 small cabbage 200 – 300g thin sliced pork (butabaraniku) and/or seafood 1 cup flour 3/4 cup water 2 eggs 1 teaspoon instant dashi (fish stock) oil okonomiyaki sauce dried bonito (katsuobushi) dried seaweed (aonori) mayonnaise Slice cabbage finely Cut pork into…
Everyone loves a good acronym and in February I coined a new one. Admittedly PDDN is not as catchy as ATM, LBD, LOL or any of the other TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) which have so sneakily invaded our everyday speech; no longer being used ironically but as words in their own right – who’s guilty…
Outside of my apartment building sits our soil factory box. It’s half-filled with incredible planting soil—the result of a year and a half of bokashi composting by the two of us. It’s actually quite astonishing to see over a year’s food scraps broken down to such a minimal volume! But the reason that I know…