During the summer holiday in 2017, we visited our good friends, Lauren and Brittany, on their beautiful Island home, Suo-Oshima. We last visited the island in autumn, and it was a nice enough place. However, summer is the season for Suo-Oshima! The sea was glittering and the mountains were lush. It looked like the most…
Category: Yamaguchi
Shimonoseki 花火 Hanabi (Flower Fire = Fireworks!)
A year ago Dan enjoyed his second day in Japan at Shimonoseki fireworks. Fireworks are a big summer festival favourite in Japan, known as flower fire. A year on, now we were part of the group blocking off space with our massive tarpaulin, and we got to witness the beautiful show once again! An hour…
Still Mad, One Year on…
A year ago I wrote a post about why I am mad in Japan. A year later, the madness is less and life is a little more normalised! The hair. Yep, it is still insane. Although longer now with some blonde tips, it is still hard to control and has a constant fluffy halo. Looking…
The First Term
April marks the start of a new school year in Japan. The teachers have been shuffled around, the desks moved, and new books purchased. I have never been through an experience like the start of the new academic year in Japan. Teachers in Japan at the end of May learn of the fate: have they…
Sunday Strawberries
As spring broke, the cherry blossoms departed, and the temperatures rose, we had a gentle afternoon of all-you-can eat strawberry picking. The all-you-can eat fruit picking is an unusual concept for us, but strawberries….wow, are they delicious. I am pretty sure they have always been tasty, but in Japan they seem to be more juicy…
Hanami!
Spring in Japan is a time to celebrate the change of seasons as the weather gets warmer, the bugs are born again, and the flowers bloom. Most people connect Japan with the Cherry Blossom flower, or Sakura. It features in pretty much all of Japan’s advertising and is a of national importance! Sakura trees can…
A Guide to a Date Weekend in Shimonoseki
This weekend was date weekend. We decided to spend some quality time together in our local area. It was time to get some of those `local, I’ll do it at some stage I promise’ things ticked off that list. The opener was a trip to the top of Hinomiyama, the local viewing mountain. We walked…
Ikebana
Ikebana is the traditional act of flower arranging in Japan. It is an art form conducted with discipline. Each design is about bringing nature, humanity, and blank space together as a collective piece. A teacher at one of my schools recently gave Dan and I tickets to visit an Ikebana display and experience it for…
Hinamatsuri
Hinamatsuri, or Girl’s Day, is celebrated in Japan on March 3rd each year. The day has origins in the activity of doll floating, where straw made dolls were floated out to sea taking bad spirits and bad luck with them. Doll floating had to be stopped as it ruined fishing for a good few days, and…
Our Neighbourhood
A little peak into the beauty we are surrounded by on a daily basis. This is a short bike ride we took to our nearest gym, back past our apartment (you see a flash of me pointing at a Soviet style look alike block) and to the beach, about 100m away from our door. Pretty…