Homeward bound. I’m on my way from Japan to visit my family in Oklahoma for the holidays. Even though I usually avoid traveling on major holidays like the plague, this year I decided to forgo my usual concerns and make a surprise trip. I was able to travel in real lux this time around, as [...]
Just after Christmas, my elder brother in America plans to visit me here in Osaka, marking his first-ever trip to Japan. Of course, it being a cold winter holiday, the first place I’m going to take him is to a nice warm onsen (温泉, hot spring). I truly enjoy onsen, and this time will be [...]
“Progress is unstoppable”, so they say. This week, the nice people who run the Kintetsu train line in Osaka unveiled new digital display boards at the Tsuruhashi train station. Personally, I really like the old ones, which are the kind of “flip sign” destination boards that were all the rage at the most modern international [...]
I’ve talked with a lot of Japanese friends about how many bicycles there are in Japan. Osaka is littered with bicycles parked (illegally) here and there. Considering that bicycles are used by the vast majority of Japanese residents, it is not surprising to find that Japan is #3 in the number of bicycles in the [...]
Having a bicycle in Japan is an absolute necessity. It’s the only way to travel, unless the distance is so great that you need to take the train. Since my arrival in Japan in April 2008, I’d been using a borrowed mountain bike owned by a friend. But that couldn’t go on forever, so when [...]
Yesterday, I stopped at the McDonald’s restaurant in front of the Momodani train station for breakfast and to do a little bit of homework before heading to my Japanese class. What I’d failed to heed was the no parking sign for bicycles. It’s easy to overlook, as such restrictions are universally ignored. But it turns out that this area was to be “swept” of all unattended bicycles … this morning.
