Gaijinfails are numerous and often unexpected:

• the most recent would be totally forgetting to remove my house slippers at my friend's house when wandering in the tatami room. 
• eating sashimi incorrectly.  It seems that the numerous times I ate sashimi with with Japanese friends no one ever mentioned that I was doing it wrong, until summer last year ( Read more... )

It's 10.27am.  I'm waiting for my rice to cook so I can have breakfast,  It seems to be taking much longer than normal.

Today is one of those 3-day weekend days, though I did work yesterday, covering an IELTS class at the British Council.  It was a rubbish lesson, but that's the point of being a sub-teacher - go in, do the lesson, but don't be too ( Read more... )

Whatever happened to the days where I used to be able to discuss books all the time?  I need to get a job in a bookshop again, and move to Texas and live with jennarose who was always good for book chat.

The Guardian and I may be on the same page with regards to the good sex/bad sex thing.  Of course, they have a huge readership and don't have to resort to ( Read more... )

Every year the Literary Review runs the "Bad Sex Awards" which decries the worst of sex written in fiction during the year.

http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/badsex.html

Seeing as there may well be the need to add some sex into a story I'm currently cobbling together, this got me thinking about what is good or bad sex in fiction. Can there ever ( Read more... )

Just re-posting the forthcoming list so I don't have to trawl though entries to remind myself what I'm doing ( Read more... )

I was down by the river taking a walk this morning and saw a few things that set Japan aside from others:

• a woman running along the path wearing a t-shirt that read " I am not a virgin"
• a guy sitting on a park bench, headphones on, cigarette in mouth,  doing stretches
• three women hugging a tree
• a guy walking down the street misting his hair with a ( Read more... )

It's cold and raining.  Boo.

I was a little rushed off my feet the last week.  Despite coming up with the grand plan to reduce my working week to Tuesday-Friday, I've ended up working 6 days straight, having taken up a short-term contract teaching at Waseda University.  It's quite fortuitous that I was offered the job as I had just worked out my ( Read more... )

I have no idea.  I mean, I know what we're talking about in terms of the Herbivore/Carnivore thing.  There's this idea in Japan at the moment that you can classify men as herbivore or carnivore based upon their behaviour - herbivores are sensitive, quiet types who are not going to chat you up in a bar for fear of being rebuffed, whilst the ( Read more... )

It appears I still have the miseries.

Anyway, words I use:

genki (energetic/bouncy/all the things I don't feel right now)
hanami (cherry blossom viewing time)
momiji (autumn leaves - esp maple leaves)
sakura (cherry)
shinkansen (bullet train)
onigiri (rice ball)
sugoi (wow!)
yokatta (that's great!)
cha (tea) - as in uron-cha, soba-cha, o-cha, ko-cha etc

There ( Read more... )

Hmm.  I don't think I ever really said there would be nothing I wouldn't try, but keeping in mind my vegetarian proclivities, that cancels out a great deal of food.  That being said, my fish consumption increased when I came to Japan, pretty much because I either gave in to the fish in almost every dish, or I just never went out for dinner.  Lately ( Read more... )