J-Word Play: December ’12
食ã¹ã‚‹ã¨å®‰å¿ƒã™ã‚‹ã‚±ãƒ¼ã‚ã£ã¦ãªã‚“ã§ã—ょã†ï¼Ÿ (ãŸã¹ã‚‹ã¨ã‚ã‚“ã—ã‚“ã™ã‚‹ã‚±ãƒ¼ã‚ã£ã¦ãªã‚“ã§ã—ょã†ï¼Ÿ)
Life After JET: Rare Skill
Living in a small, rural Japanese village made me stronger. It’s like this. Now, after Japan, I train American students to prepare for the culture shock they will experience while living abroad. So, in small groups, I have them throw a tennis ball around to each other with one eye closed, using their bad throwing hand. This is awesome at first. Fun. They laugh. Then I…
New Eco-friendly Feature! Miso Green: The Hyogo Sustainability Guide
Around the time that I got wind of my acceptance into the JET program was when I also first stumbled upon a blog called “The Zero Waste Home,†written by a California mother named Bea Johnson, whose family had collectively decided that they had trashed the world enough. Their level of conservativeness is what some…
Culture: The Iga Ninja Museum
So you think the exciting title is going to be ruined by something boring and museumy? Think again! Last weekend three friends and I trekked all the way to Mie to discover the secrets of stealth at the Iga-Ueno Ninja museum. First you have to take the ninja themed two car train from Iga-ueno (a…
Restaurant Review: Gran Micaela y Dago
My constant search for international cuisine has taken me all over Hyogo – well, all over the Sannomiya and Motomomachi areas of Kobe, anyway. There is more than enough to satisfy in this area alone; a seemingly endless list of new holes in the wall to explore. Perhaps one of my most interesting finds was…
December 2012
Season’s Greetings! The Christmas tree is up outside the school office. Seeing it this morning, I am not going to lie, I gasped in delight and was therefore very happy that it was in the middle of first period and no-one else was around. Christmas is upon us! Okay, not for a few more weeks,…
Announcing a New Feature! Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage
西国三å三観音巡礼 When I first moved to Japan, I had to google the difference between “shrines†and “temples.†If anyone had told me I would end up on a pilgrimage dedicated to Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion, I would have said, what[the hell]’s a bodhisattva? Actually, they’re called bosatsu in Japanese, and they are traditionally those…
Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage: Engyo-ji on Mt. Shosha
書写山ã®åœ“教寺 Mt. Shosha, or Shoshazan is home to the temple known as Engyo-ji, recently famous for being the on-location film site of the 2003 film The Last Samurai. It is also number 27 of the Saigoku 33 Kannon Temple Pilgrimage, and is the farthest west of those 33. Established in 966, it is one of…
November 2012
MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR Welcome to November everyone! The days are getting shorter at a stupidly fast rate (sunset at 5 – seriously?!) and nights are starting to be more than a little bit chilly. It’s pretty much the best time of year (apart from the short days, you don’t have the time to appreciate…