Minimalism - Online Income - ESL - Japan
We hopped in Mami’s little pink car and took a drive out to Gujo city with our friend, Mr. H, for some traditional new year mochi making. Mochi can be described as “steamed rice pounded into a glutinous cake and used as a staple ingredient in a variety of dishes, including desserts”. This seasonal activity is a Japanese custom I hadn’t experienced until today, so I was quick with my camera to […]
England has always seemed to be quite advanced when it comes to supermarket technology. They had long, spacious, barcode-reading checkouts when I was 17 and worked in the frozen section of Waitrose. It wasn’t many years later before they introduced hand-held, customer-carried barcode readers so shoppers could check prices for themselves. People buying less then ten items have been able to go through an “express” checkout for years, and all that time, the checkout girls and boys have been allowed […]
My last Ramsay Ramblings proved to be quite controversial when I touched on the topic of half-Japanese children. Today’s ramblings are far more tame. I am not your maid! This line is my wife’s favorite English expression, which she learned from my mum when we went to the UK on our honeymoon. Mami is very good to me, and even though I’m very lazy when it comes to helping around […]
After reading Thomas’ post about finding Christmas Trees in Japan on NihonHacks.com, I decided to get one for myself. Unlike Thomas, who treated himself to a real “Golden Crest” tree from a home center, I wanted a fake Christmas tree that I could use every year. Get your Christmas tree now for half-price! Christmas in Japan is a funny affair. It usually ends on Christmas Eve to give the shops […]
Japan is facing a crisis. The population is aging and by 2050, one in three people will be past retirement age. Meanwhile, the birth rate is currently at 1.25 babies per woman, much lower than the 2.1 needed to keep the population stable. The result is a workforce too small to support the huge number of retirees. Who will do all the work? Will there be enough tax money to pay […]
I love cheese, so it came as quite a shock to hear that from March next year the price of cheese in Japan will rise by up to 25%. As if cheese here wasn’t expensive enough, it’s likely to become a delicacy afforded only by the wealthy. What happened to the cows? Good question. You might wonder what would cause such a dramatic increase. Are there too many cheese eaters? Will there […]
Here’s part six of my Google Speed-Search series. In this lesson, we’ll use wildcards to speed up our searches. A wildcard in Google is represented by an asterisk (*) and used instead of a single word. Consider this search: “Mount Fuji is * high” This phrase search forces Google to return web pages with the exact phrase above, but replacing the wildcard with any word. Here are some examples of […]
Earlier this year I bought myself a little electronic keyboard so I could make up some children’s songs for my ESL classes. Like most things I spend my money on, it rarely got used… until now. Watch Rikuto play the piano for the first time ever at four and a half months old. I’d say he’s pretty good for his age! If you can’t view the video, watch it here […]