I was introduced to the abacus as a child. My grandfather was fascinated by the abacus and tried to teach me, giving me a little abacus to play with. Unfortunately, living far away from him, I never got past the basics. My wife was doing soroban, Japanese abacus, in school as a child. She remembers […]
One evening when we were playing Monopoly for kids on the floor, there was a ping-pong on our intercom. Normally no one except delivery drivers ring on our intercom so we were wondering who might be calling late at night. On the screen we saw an elderly woman and through the speaker I heard her
Our weeks are busy, especially so for my wife whose work sometimes takes most of her waking hours and then some. Our son has his kindergarten and while he is away I, in theory, should have time to not be too busy but it turns out to be the opposite. I find myself trying to
Not that it is often, but every time I fly to or from Tokyo, I try to book seats on the side of the plane that offer views of Mount Fuji. Seeing this mountain is always something special, and even more so seeing it from up high. Returning from Sweden both last year and this,
I have become quite fascinated by Japanese surnames, and it is a pleasure to just walk around and looking at the nameplates outside houses, trying to read the kanji and get their meaning. Seeing a Japanese name often brings out a very vivid picture in me as there is a lot of nature and culture
I had decided I would wait with a Christmassy post at least until middle of December, but finding myself unexpectedly in Tenjin, the center of Fukuoka, one day last week – well what can I say, there were simply too many Santas to avoid showing a photo of them. Next to Naka river, in front
Halloween was not over until the Christmas decorations started to pop up in stores and windows. My son was very happy when he saw the first Christmas tree of the season on the counter of a cake shop in the local shopping mall and started to talk about putting up decorations at home as well.
An integral part life in Japan is obento, Japanese lunch boxes (or just bento with the o being there only for politeness). Bento is simply put a proper meal with rice or noodles and fish or meat and vegetables and other Japanese foody necessities, all packaged in a box. Bento lunch boxes are for many
A short little post to celebrate a short little line of poetry found everywhere in Japan. 写真はイメージです。You can find “写真はイメージです。” written on a package of yoghurt, on menus at restaurants, in magazines and on advertisement boards just to name a small selection of places where you can enjoy the simple but beautiful sentence stating something
Japan during summer is hot and humid and sweaty. To say the least. Cool drinks and air conditioning feel essential for being comfortable. It would have been nice with a cool shower every now and then as well, but that is a little more tricky – during summer in Japan the hot water use is close
Nature around here is amazing – even though we live right on the edge between the big city and the wilderness, during summer it feels more like our house is in the middle of nature. When we some time ago, after days spent inside recovering from a summer cold, finally went outside again, my son
Summer in Japan is quite different from summer in Sweden, but there are a few weeks in May June before the humidity arrives that have the emotional quality of Swedish summer when it is the most beautiful. Lately we have enjoyed warm days, a hint of dryness in the air, the evenings and mornings still