Best Cherry Blossom Viewing Places in Tokyo

It's Springtime in Japan right now! Here are some beautiful pictures of Sakura, the famous Japanese cherry trees that grow all over the country during this time of year. They are in full bloom in Tokyo right now but just starting to bloom in Kansai, which means I get to see them twice because I finally moved to Kansai and had the first day of my new job today. But these cherry blossom pictures were all taken in Tokyo. Try to guess in which parks they were taken.Before I left Tokyo, my closest friends and I decided to go on a hunt for the best Sakura-watching park in Tokyo. Ueno Koen, Shinjuku Gyoen and Inokashira Koen were wonderful but my favorite place to see Sakura was Iidabashi. In Iidabashi, there is a long river and cherry trees line the river. Right now, they're so full of pink blossoms and the pink gets reflected in the water and it's the most beautiful thing. I went there at midnight and walked down the hill to get closer to the water. If you want your date to fall in love with you, I would suggest bringing them there at night. I'm not even very romantic, but that place was absolutely amazing. The picture doesn't even begin to show what it looks like right now.Yesterday I was invited to a Hanami in Kyoto but it was raining. We walked around Kyoto in the freezing rain instead, which I don't recommend to anyone. But Gion is really pretty, even in the rain. Gion is the place where all the Geisha used to live. It looks so old and austere. At night, we went to an Izakaya in Osaka and got tabehodai (all you can eat/drink and so many delicious vegetarian foods like grilled eggplant and yaki-mochi).It is so different here in Kansai. Here are some differences in my life that I have noticed in the past two days: The rent is a lot cheaper here and my place is a lot nicer. My new job is teaching adults so I feel more like a real teacher and less like a babysitter. There are pigeons living all around my apartment and I hear them starting from 6 AM. It's a smaller city here than Tokyo, which is obvious but it's still surprising. People are less shy here, which means more open stares. Right now, the stares are a bit disconcerting but I think I'll get used to it after a while and soon I won't notice it. (I have gone for so long without being noticed at all in Tokyo.) The "Metropolis Magazine" equivalent in Kansai is called "Kansai Scene" and seems pretty decent. I like Tokyo better so far, but I've only been here for two days. My roommates are great so far; so easygoing and relaxed.Thanks for understanding that I just moved across Japan and have been busy with work and packing and saying goodbye for the past two weeks. I'm sorry especially to Andrew L and Jason B who have written me great letters I haven't replied to yet. I will write soon.

La Foret Harajuku - Tokyo Fashion House

La Foret in Harajuku
If you like clothing, La Foret in Tokyo's Harajuku area is a fun place to spend a few hours . It sounds funny to say it like this, but La Foret is a mall for people who have taste. (I don't mean that in an arrogant way.) It is over seven floors of clothing stores that are genuinely fun to explore because the clothes at La Foret are often more like art pieces. When I first came to Japan, I loved this place and went to La Foret quite a bit. Now, I haven't been in months but generally that is because it's really expensive and I am trying to save money to pay off loans. But especially if you're just visiting Japan and you want to buy clothing as a souvenir (which I really recommend buying over the tacky things they sell at tourist shops) La Foret has really unique and wearable things. Here are some of the stores I like:

La Foret in Harajuku has Topshop (which British girls aren't impressed with but Canadians get excited over) Ray Cassin, Ninita, Lowry's Farm (this place is great because it's also kind of cheap) Pageboy, Par Avion (everything looks handmade, and judging by the price, it should be) and Childwoman.

La Foret also has the cliche "Harajuku Japan" stores that people who read Fruits know about. I am not so much a fan of these stores because I think a lot of things in them are tacky, but if you've ever read Fruits (that Tokyo street fashion magazine that is popular overseas), you will like to at least look at these stores. Emily Temple Cute, Red Rubber Ball, Superlovers, Make Your Art Zoo, World Wide Lovers, etc. La Foret also has Helmut Lang.

If none of this makes you feel like going to La Foret, I should also let you know that there's a huge art museum at the top floor and it's often really good. In September they had an exhibit featuring the Czech artist Jan Svankmajer and his wife/collaborator Eva Svankmajerova. The La Foret Museum presented his drawings, collages, and sculptures mostly based on his films Alice (a great film version he made in 1988 about Alice in Wonderland) and a more recent film, Lunacy. Sometimes they have music, too.

If you don't want to go broke, I also recommend going to MyLord (sometimes pronounced mee-lord and sometimes pronounced like you'd expect it to be pronounced in English) in Shinjuku. This place also has six or seven floors and it's easy to find since it connects to the Shinjuku train station at the South Exit. A lot of the same stores in La Foret are in MyLord but overall, MyLord is far cheaper and more conveniently located.

Sorry this is all in bold. I can't figure out how to undo it.

Seaweed Love: Nori, Wakame, Konbu

Nori is easily the most common kind of seaweed in Japan and outside of Japan. If you've ever eaten sushi, you've tried nori. Nori is the thin, dark, flat seaweed that looks like paper. It's salty and delicious with a crunchy texture. It is very rich in Vitamin A & C, and calcium, zinc, iodine and iron. Try to buy good quality nori made sprinkle it on top of almost any meal.

Another commonly used seaweed is Wakame Wakame is an edible kelp that is found most often in miso soup and salads. Wakame is usually purchased in a dried form and soaked in water before eating. Wakame is only cultivated in the Pacific ocean. It is so good for you! Wakame helps lower blood pressure and reduces cholesterol intake. Wakame also contains alginic acid and fukodein, two things that fight against viruses causing stomach ulcers and cancer. In case you needed more reasons to eat this delicious vegetable, wakame is also rich with quality protein, unsaturated fatty acid and vitamins like Vitamin A.

Konbu is my favorite kind of seaweed. It is a dark kind that is sold in strips. Konbu is so delicious. Vegetarian dashi (soups stock) is made from Konbu and you can use it in almost every Japanese dish as a great veggie base. Konbu is an excellent source of calcium, magnesium, folate, and contains protein and dietary fiber. Unfortunately, it also usually is processed with tons of MSG so check the labels before you buy it. Another interesting konbu statistic is that Okinawa consumes the largest amount of Kombu, per resident, per day, and has the lowest rate of deaths related to Cancer in all of Japan.

I'm sorry, but I hate manga so much.

I can't help it. I really hate manga. I live in Japan and see people every day on the trains reading Japanese comic books (manga) obsessively. They also stand in convenience stores reading the comics that are for sale there for hours.(Here's a long aside about that: for some reason, the store owners in Japan don't kick them out. Huge groups of guys here in Japan stand inside convenience stores in front of the manga and magazine racks just reading entire comic books from cover to cover. Hours. with. no. purchase. If I stood in 7-11 back home reading every magazine on the shelf for over an hour, I would almost definitely be asked to purchase the magazines or leave the store... but I guess it's like how back home, you can stay and read books for hours inside big chain bookstores like Chapters. Anyway, it's a way to kill time for free if you read Japanese.)I feel like if I liked reading manga, I could start with the kind with furigana (hiragana written all tiny above kanji, for people too young to read the kanji) and improve my Japanese vocabulary. Some people I know here used to read comics when they were younger and now they're really good at Japanese because they learned so many expressions from manga. I feel like if I started reading even translated popular manga I might learn something interesting about Japan. But it's so annoying! I don't like the art style of most typical Japanese manga, either. The Sailor Moon style drawings where every character looks exactly the same. I asked my friend to recommend a popular Japanese comic book to me and she gave me this manga called Nana that is extremely popular here. I tried to read it but the plot is like "The Parent Trap" for teenage girls. Two girls both named Nana, one is a quiet, boring girl and the other is this wild Nana in a punk band, they meet....alteregos, etc etc so boring. But it was so popular here that they made it into a movie. The thing that bothers me is that I don't hate comic books. I am not against graphic novels completely, so I could potentially like manga if I ever found a decent series. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is an amazing graphic novel that I have re-read many times in both French and English. It is smart, funny, sad, exciting. I can relate to the main character and it taught me some interesting things about life in Iran after the cultural revolution. That's the kind of comic book I like. Something wonderful that teaches me and entertains me at the same time.I heard that Persepolis was recently made into a film. I haven't seen it, but I'd be interested. Have any of you guys seen it? Anyway, one person who knows my tastes recommended that I read Doraemon comics. He bought me that English/Japanese version of the first Doraemon and even translated all the Kanji into furigana for me, which probably took ages. Anyway, it was adorable. This is a children's comic book but I liked it a lot. It was very charming, imaginative and sweet, about a very average boy who has a giant magical blue cat as his best friend. This children's comic is the only manga I have ever even vaguely enjoyed in Japan. In fact, that goes for movies, too. The only anime I like is made for children. I only like Totoro and Hayao Miyazaki animations.People here must read some kinds of smart, interesting comic books. Decent Japanese manga must exist. Can you recommend anything?

Also, I posted this last year, but now I have more people reading and commenting on this site so I will show it to you guys again. I made an online mix tape of all sorts of Japanese music I like. The theme was Japan, so most of the music is Japanese indie music. But the rules were that every song has to be either be by a completely Japanese band, sung in Japanese, about Japan, or the band must have at least one Japanese person in it. If you're interested in hearing some new / interesting Japanese independent music, here you go.

Also, I am moving to Kansai this month.

Japan is a Haven for Parental Abduction

So one of my nerd hobbies is reading about unsolved mysteries and missing people. I have been interested in that since I was a kid. Anyway, tonight, I was looking at an online database of missing children and noticed something strange related to Japan. In the Parental Abduction section of the database, a surprising amount of cases deal with a Japanese parent (almost always the mother) abducting her biracial children and bringing them to Japan without the consent or knowledge of the non-Japanese parent. So I googled it, and this is actually a phenomenon. There are many heartbreaking websites documenting how easy it is for a non-custodial parent to abduct a child in Japan and get away with it.

The Japanese government is the only G8 country not to have signed the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. In Japan, it seems like possession of the child equals custody of the child. If a parent takes the child and hides with the child for a long enough time, the Japanese legal system and the family courts will soon support this "retention" on the basis that it has become a "stable environment" and is the child's primary home. Family courts in Japan make it even more complicated by not granting visitation rights to the parent while a divorce or custody case is in process, which often takes several years. The CRNjapan website says ,"The court then issues its decision based on this new "stable environment" that excludes one parent, which the court helped to create in the first place. Thus, Japan effectively legalizes parental kidnapping." It's also difficult for the foreign parent because visas are not provided for foreign parents with children in Japan, so the parent isn't able to live in Japan and see his/her child.You can read the testimony of the guy in the picture above, who hasn't seen his daughter Amy in nine years. The cute little girl below is called Tiana Weed (Kiku Oda) and her father wants to see her, too. You can read his story here. Tiana Kiku-Chan and her brother live in Japan with their mother now. I didn't realize that one parent keeping the other parent from seeing the children was such a common situation in Japan. It is even common between Japanese couples. One Japanese girl I know here (my family knows who) only just met her father for the first time when she was in her late 20s and was so excited to see aspects of herself in him. Her father died only a year later and she is grateful that she got to meet him before he passed away. Keeping a parent away from a child isn't good for the children at all, but it happens a lot here in Japan. Even the old prime minister Koizumi has two sons that he wouldn't allow his ex-wife to see for over a decade; she still hasn't seen them now that they are adults. I think a child should get to know both parents and learn about who he came from. I feel so lucky that I was raised by great people who still get along and try to do what's best for their children.

Surprise! I am moving to Kansai...

I got a new and better job (within the same great company I work for) so now I will be teaching adults and moving to the Kansai region of Japan. That's great news for you guys because you will get to see pictures of new places in Japan and because everything will be different, I will probably post more often.Kansai is the western region of the main Japanese island, Honshu. Kansai the area of Japan comprising Kyoto, Kobe, Osaka, Hyogo, Mie, Nara, Shiga and Wakayama prefectures. Kansai is neat because it's friendlier and more relaxed. Whenever I go to Osaka or Kobe I am shocked when people greet me in a personal way in stores, or talk to me at coffee shops. That didn't happen in Kyoto, but Kyoto is famed for beauty and austerity. That kind of sudden friendliness is equally rare in Tokyo. I still think Tokyo is the best city in Japan, but I'm excited for a change: I'm excited to stop teaching children and start teaching more challenging language.Kansai people seem really great, too. Kansai people also have their own super relaxed, slangy dialect of Japanese called Kansai-Ben (Meccha! Nandeanin!) and almost all the famous Japanese comedians come from Osaka. Kansai people also are famous for food. Okonomiyaki and Takoyaki are from this region. Kobe beef (神戸牛) is world renowned, if you eat meat, and Udon is more popular and delicious in Kansai than in Tokyo.I also want to get out of this guesthouse I live in and start living in a clean apartment with Japanese roommates. My Japanese is improving, but I think it will be a lot better if I live with Japanese people in a part of Japan that is friendlier than Tokyo. For now, Kansai seems like a great idea. I will miss my friends in Tokyo like crazy, though. I will also just miss Tokyo. I like everything about this city. I leave on the 29th, so you're welcome to invite me to a Hanami party before I go.

Talking about yourself in Japanese - Personal Pronouns like "You" and "I" are Fun in Japan

When we talk about ourselves in English, we only have one selective personal pronoun to describe ourselves. We use the word "I"and "I" just means me. But in Japanese, there are many words for "I" that a person can use to characterize him or herself. This language is completely fascinating to me. I wish we had these Japanese personal pronouns in English! A choice of selective personal pronouns adds depth to any sentence because we can understand the kind of tone a person wishes to use. In Japanese, you can see how the speaker wants his listeners to view him. It makes the delivery that much richer, especially in writing where all emphasis and body language is lost. My (Japanese) friends helped describe each pronoun to me and now I'm telling you guys. If any of you has anything to add, please let me know.

私
The main word for "I" in Japanese is Watashi (私). Anyone with a basic knowledge of Japanese knows that word and its corresponding Kanji. Guys and girls can both use it, though it's most common context is in polite conversation or conversation with a stranger. Watashi is used more often by females in casual conversation but it is totally alright for a guy to use Watashi, too.

For guys in Japan
ぼく
Boku (boh-koo) If you listen to Japanese music, you will notice that all the love songs are about Boku and Kimi (me and you). Boku (ぼく) is just another way to say "I" in Japanese. Boku is only for guys -- if a girl uses Boku, it sounds really weird and funny! If you hear a person using Boku, they are trying to characterize themselves as an earnest, sincere person. Think of a kindhearted schoolboy-type. It's probably the most common pronoun Japanese guys use to talk about themselves. Boku is the pronoun for someone who wants to be thought of as a decent, humble, earnest person.
おれ
Ore (oh-ray) Ore is the pronoun a guy uses if he wants to be thought of as a man. Ore (おれ) sounds older, stronger and more competent than boku. Apparently, Ore is also more attractive. My friend Haru told me that sometimes, Ore can come across as arrogant-sounding and it depends on the context and who the person is talking to. But my two other closest guy friends here in Japan use it as their main personal pronoun, and they're both great, soft-spoken guys and not arrogant at all. So I think Ore is just a grown-up version of Boku. Maybe.

For girls in Japan
あたし
Atashi is the feminine, breathy version of Watashi and you hear this one all the time. Atashi (あたし) is supposed to sound cuter than Watashi but apparently (according to one of my friends) it sounds slightly Valley-girl, like a teenager back home who speaks too quickly and uses 'like' as a filler. But this one is hard to avoid because it comes really naturally from Watashi. I think a lot of people use it without even meaning to.

The other Watashi forms - These exist but I have never heard anyone use them.
Ora is the pronoun that hicks, rural farmers and redneck types use. (male)
Atai is the pronoun that very rich, arrogant, high-society girls use. (female)

About other people
あなた
Anata is to YOU as watashi is to I. Most common, most polite.
きみ
Kimi is usually used by guys towards girls. Kimi (きみ) is very friendly and very sweet. It implies that you're a bit protective of the person you're talking to. It shows that you care about that person, usually as a friend but sometimes as more. Kimi is the most common personal pronoun for 'you' in love songs. I really like being called Kimi.

Names instead of YOU
Most people, if they want to show respect, use the person's name instead of a pronoun. This is a great idea because it helps you remember people's names. At first, it sounds really weird and awkward because in English it would be totally annoying. For example, a Japanese person could say to me 'Is Julie hungry yet? Where would Julie like to go for lunch?' instead of 'Hey Julie, are you hungry? Do you know where you feel like going for lunch?' At first it sounded weird, but now I love it. I automatically feel more affection towards people who use my name when they speak to me, and everyone likes it when others remember their names.Another interesting thing about Japanese is that in Japanese, selective personal pronouns are often totally omitted. Anyone who studies Japanese knows this (I am such a beginner and I think I learned this in my first week in Japan) and it is often a source of great frustration! If you can understand who the subject is by the context, there is no need to use personal pronouns. You don't need I at all. For example, you can just say 'toire ni itte kuru' (literally: toilet go return) Instead of in English, where you would say 'I'm going to go to the washroom. Be back in a bit'. Neat, isn't it?

If you're wondering where I got these pictures, they are screen stills of the lead singer (小出祐介) from a band called Base Ball Bear in a music video called Dakishimetai. I put them in because this post is all about Japanese grammar so I thought that anyone not interested in Japanese grammar might instead appreciate seeing a very handsome person dating a n attractive mannequin. I have a vague crush on Koide Yusuke (こいでゆうすけ) even though his music isn't my style.