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…
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…
So why does anyone come to Japan? To be reborn into the manga world? To experience how high tech it is (then realise they still use fax machines)? To dress up in a kimono and call yourself a geisha? None of the above. They come to meet Hello Kitty of course! OK so I’m now…
ARK stands for Animal Rescue Kansai. It is an NPO based in Osaka, but with a Tokyo branch as well. As an animal lover, I was attracted to their work and wanted to contribute to their efforts. Japan isn’t a place known for being overzealous about animal rights and such, so this is one of…
Japan’s skiing has been kept a secret from the international market for years by the locals and Antipodeans in the know, and for good reason. The powder here is renowned for being particularly light and is eloquently named ‘champagne powder’. As soon as I got back from a week of powder in Hakuba over New…
Three months into my Japanese sojourn, a family connection led to my boarding a bus to Sakaide in Shikoku to stay with a Japanese family I had met just once before. I’ve hosted and been hosted a fair bit, but as with everything, Japan’s a little different.  Right from my arrival when we went straight…
I was going to write a nice entry about the snakes found in and around Japan given we’ve just entered 巳年（ã¿ã©ã—; midoshi）, okay, not if you’re on the Chinese calendar proper, but we’re not in China, so meh. Then I remembered that snakes freak me out a bit. I started looking at pictures and information,…
I was sitting at home in late May, feeling a bit lazy and wanting to do something exciting with my life when my friend called me on the phone and mentioned signing up for the Kobe Marathon. Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was the fact that the marathon was over 6 months…
JETs are a varied and interesting group mostly characterized by their relative intelligence (usually anyway) and their flexibility and willingness to try new things. Hey y’all – I’ve got a hell of a thing for you to try! I first heard about Vipassana from a tour guide in Cambodia, but it seemed like a thing…