Looking for your next beach vacation? Vietnam consistently ranks as one of the top destinations, offering a cultural smorgasbord, complete with a distinct cuisine sure to please any foodie’s palette. And it’s all possible at a budget backpacker’s rate of less than 2500 yen/ day. I’ll try not to bore you with the typical itinerary…
Our travels are taking us further and further afield, this time down the coast to Wakayama-ken! Kimii-dera is temple number two on our pilgrim quest. The only temple farther south on our list than Kimii-dera is temple number one, Seiganto-ji, deep in Wakayama. Getting to Kimii-dera takes some doing, but in cherry blossom season it’s…
Last month we had our biggest book club yet, over 20 people took over the ever-so welcoming Bo Tambourine Café in Kobe to share their many opinions on Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being. The novel runs two stories side by side, Ruth an author who reads the diary of Nao, a Japanese…
        When my boyfriend, Chris, first arrived in Japan, he didn’t have a job in hand. He found one rather quickly—within about 6 weeks—but there were still a few months between his hiring and start dates, so he decided to sign up for WWOOF Japan and work on…
This article is brought to you through a partnership between the Heart of Japan blog, a project by　the Hyogo International Association, and the Hyogo Times. If you’re looking for a day-trip hike in the Hanshin Area, around the cities of Osaka, Kobe, Nishinomiya, or Amagasaki, I recommend heading out to Mt. Kabuto (possibly named…
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…
Spinach steeped in dashi My friend Sayaka kindly invited me to her home and taught me this quick and easy recipe, perfect for appetizers. Ohitashi means ‘to soak in dashi stock’. Spinach ohitashi is a popular dish but you can make it with onions, asparagus and all sorts of veg. For now, let’s stick…
This month the Hyogo Times spoke to Brandon Kramer, a native of Virginia, US who has remained in Japan after spending 2006 – 2011 in Sasayama on JET. What did you hope to gain doing JET? Did you? I hoped to see things from a different perspective, try something new, learn a language, and…
It was in October of 2010 when I applied to join the JET Programme, full of excitement of the possibilities for the future. After filling in a handy online application form I discovered there were quite a few more hoops to jump through than had been apparent at first glance. Hoops jumped through and application…