Minimalism - Online Income - ESL - Japan
With the all the negative publicity sumo is getting, and the lack of native Japanese newcomers to the sport, Mami and I felt this would be a great opportunity to let Rikuto keep this great Japanese tradition alive. Sure, he may not be “100% pure“, but none of the top sumo wrestlers are. Apparently, at the time of writing, the top two wrestlers are Mongolian. Arudou Debito has some interesting […]
Our son, Rikuto, spends most of his time flat on his back. At less than three months old, he can’t yet roll onto his sides, let alone crawl along the floor. However, by the time he’s 10 months old he might be competing in the Baby Derby, a crawling race with other Japanese babies, all gunning for the highly acclaimed Swarovski dumbells! Thanks to Japan Visitor for the video. Can’t […]
I’ve always found Japan to be far noisier than the U.K, and this is something that prompted me to write Noisy Japanese Apartments, in which I listed seven causes of neighborhood noise. So while I knew Japan suffered terrible noise pollution, I never realized there were laws against it. In fact, with politicians, food trucks and biker gangs running rampant, I assumed there weren’t. That’s why it came as a […]
It’s nearly two and a half months since Rikuto was born and both Mami and I are relieved to see his neck is getting stronger – strong enough to support his head… for a moment or two. Until now, we’ve had to hold Riku in the cradle position because babies tend to have whopping big heads which their bodies can’t support. Riku is no different, although I think his sumo-sized […]
I’m very much hooked on Second Life at the moment. That means I’ve subscribed to a number of Second Life and virtual reality related blogs, and have been watching some videos on YouTube to find some places I haven’t visited yet. One such place was Princeton University, which has been recreated in Second Life. Princeton has created one of the biggest areas in the virtual world, spanning seven “islands” and […]
Japan is prone to earthquakes and although most of them are small, they are quite common with announcements popping up on the TV screen alerting us to the most recent quakes. From time to time, a big one will come such as the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995 or this year’s Noto earthquake. As frightening as these earthquakes were, neither compared to the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923 which killed […]
I promise one of these days I’ll post a video of me dancing the Rumba or the Waltz. Yes, if you haven’t read about my ballroom dancing antics before on this blog, let me tell you that every Friday night I take dancing lessons. I started learning with Mami, but since she became pregnant, I’ve been taking private lessons with my teacher, Mr. M. That’s right, two guys arm in […]
Just as I was getting ready for work on Monday afternoon (as is the schedule of an English teacher in Japan), a friend called me to say my blog had been hacked. Sure enough, this blog and all of my websites were displaying this rather unfriendly welcome page: Fortunately, the nature of the attack wasn’t particularly malicious, and I was able to restore things within an hour. I’ve since changed […]