I started writing this blog on September 23rd, 2006, with a post describing my arrival in Japan. Now, one hundred posts later, I thought I’d take a look back through the archives and point out some of my favorite articles which you may have missed.
September 2006:
- What is Yakudoshi? I wrote this when we were looking for a house to buy. There were all kinds of problems at first, not least that Mami was in her yakudoshi, or bad luck, years. Three months after that post, we did eventually buy a house.
- Ballroom dancing in Japan told the story of how we got into ballroom dancing. It’s one hobby that we both share and love… even though we’re not very good at it!
October 2006:
- Oh my Gomi! This was the first of a two-part tale about my experience with taking out the trash and recycling in Japan. Read about how I took my rubbish with me as I moved from city to city. At the time, it was just much easier to keep it than chuck it!
- Tetsu and Tomo mime Shouten theme! This was the first video I posted, and still my favorite. Just watch it and you’ll realize why.
November 2006:
- I’m gonna be a daddy! This was the day Mami found out she was pregnant. One of the happiest moments of my life! It also marked the start of my Baby in Progress updates.
- It’s a KFC Christmas was the first post I made that was linked to by other websites, bringing a lot of new readers to LongCountdown.com. Read how the Japanese go clucky for chicken at Christmas.
December 2006:
- Japanese pizza and recipe navigator was a fun look at some of the bizarre toppings found on Japanese pizzas, and I also talked about the Nintendo DS game(?), Recipe Navigator.
- Mortgage refused at the last minute was my finest rant. The shock of being denied a mortgage on the day we were moving into our new house!
January 2007:
- Kazuko Hosoki predicts a great year! Japan’s infamous fortune-teller announced that people with my sun sign would be having the best year in over a decade. Well, it’s late March now, and it’s been great so far!
- Think you can teach Japanese kindy? Another video, and a great insight into what is expected of an ESL teacher in Japan.
February 2007:
- Racist Japanese magazine. This was the month that an anti-foreigner magazine caused a stir among the foreign blogging community.
- Me British, Baby Japanese? generated more comments than any of my other posts. The discussion was over the nationality of our baby.
- ESL Writing Wizard – 5000 worksheets! This was a proud moment for me as my most popular website hit a landmark figure.
March 2007:
- The Japanese might live forever! This rather bizarre post talked about drawing your own blood in a restaurant, dinner-cooking machines, and cloning.
- Baby in Progress – Rikuto. In this post I talked about why we chose the name “Rikuto” for our son. Interestingly, this article was picked up by Emma in the Netherlands who writes a blog about first names (Dutch only).
It was lovely to hear from Emma, she ended her email with…
I wish you and your family a very happy time together when your little boy is born: you’re in my RSS reader!
My motivation for writing LongCountdown comes from people reading, leaving comments and linking here like Emma did. So let me end with a big thank you to all my readers. I hope you’ve enjoyed what I’ve written so far and that you’ll stay with me for the next hundred posts!
Congratulations Nick!