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Archive for April, 2008

Golden Week

Posted in Events, Travel, tagged , , on April 29, 2008 | 6 Comments »

The next week is going to be quite busy (as the past two have been…), so I’m afraid my non-writing streak will continue for a while longer. I apologize, but it is the Golden Week and I hope at the end of it I will be equipped with stories to share and pictures to show.
While [...]

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I’m Turning Japanese

Posted in Daily Life, People, Trivia, tagged , , on April 23, 2008 | 17 Comments »

A few months ago, I blogged about still being a Gaijin in Japan, in this post: Take the Gaijin Test. Recently, I have come to realize I’ve been doing a lot of things I swore I’d never do, and which I poked fun at in the first few months/years I’d been in Japan. Embarrassing [...]

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Sakura Shots - Miharu’s Takizakura

Posted in Events, Festivals, Travel, tagged , , , , , on April 18, 2008 | 6 Comments »

I just went to see the grandmommy of shidare-zakuras… it was literally the grandmother of a 150-year-old weeping cherry blossom tree in Fukushima and the parent of another several hundred-year-old cherry tree in the same area. The Takizakura of Miharu is about 1000 years old. According to our tour guide, the hollow trunk of the [...]

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After the Hanami Season…

Posted in Events, Festivals, Travel, tagged , , , on April 11, 2008 | 10 Comments »

The Hanami Season is not over yet! For those die-hard cherry blossom fans like me, Tohoku is the place to visit in the coming weeks. I’ve been longingly looking at a poster on my station’s wall featuring the places in the Tohoku and Yamanashi-Nagano area that will be in bloom from the middle of April [...]

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Yakitori

Posted in Daily Life, Food, Trivia on April 11, 2008 | 2 Comments »

Yakitori(焼き鳥), which is literally grilled bird, is Japanese chicken barbecue on skewers. Over the last few weekends, I’ve been subsisting on a diet of Yakitori and Ramune. Festival stalls often sell Yakitori and other Kushiyaki (串焼き, skewered food). Every time I think of Yakitori, though, I remember this one time when I went to a [...]

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Sakura Shots - Shinjuku Gyoen

Posted in People on April 7, 2008 | 4 Comments »

Shinjuku Gyoen is another popular Tokyo Hanami destination. It is a large park with three garden types: a traditional Japanese garden, an English landscape garden and a symmetrical arranged French garden. It would take an estimated hour and a half to fully cover the gardens.

When I got there, there were already people enjoying the blossoms. [...]

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Sakura Shots - Chidorigafuchi

Posted in Events, Festivals, Travel, tagged , , , , , on April 4, 2008 | 11 Comments »

One of my favorite destinations in Tokyo for the Cherry Blossoms is Chidorigafuchi. I know I have a lot of favorites, but if I had to choose between Ueno Park, Sumida Park, Yoyogi Park, etc. etc. I’d choose to go to Chidorigafuchi and Kitanomaru Park. While most parks allow viewers to bring their mats [...]

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Sakura Shots - Kyoto’s Higashiyama

Posted in Events, Festivals, Travel, tagged , , , , on April 2, 2008 | 8 Comments »

Higashiyama in Kyoto is another favorite destination of mine… The first time I visited it was autumn, and it was beautiful but visiting the next spring was even more memorable. Everything was just so fresh. The doors of the Chion-in were open, and I felt like it was a sign of spring.

Higashiyama is in Eastern [...]

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