(日本人の方もようこそ！コンテンツはほとんど英語ですが、日本語のサイトへのリンクも時々あります。)
Hi folks. I’m from the UK, been living in Japan (Nagoya) a while and will be writing about things that interest me from time to time. (food, beer, music, gardening, politics, computers, languages…) Somewhere between the world of geishas, samurai and ninjas, and the manga-tech bubble of Akihabara and Harajuku there’s the Japan where most of us live, Japanese and Gaijin too, and that’s the zone where this stuff comes from. I hope you might find some of it vaguely interesting.
Don’t expect too much incisive analysis or up-to-the-minute breaking news.
Don’t expect too much…
Country Place
Raffles’ Restaurant
Daihachi Ryodan
Linux
To check out older posts try the “categories” section on the right, or the search box just below it to search for some keyword.
(Names of private individuals have been changed, except when they can be considered to be in the “public domain”: politicians, business owners etc.)
asazuke 
Comments are welcome, even… especially… if you don’t agree with what I’ve said!
Asazuke means “lightly pickled”.
John,
Keep it up, very nicely written – particularly liked the one about the Tanuki. That’s a big rock!
Never underestimate anything…
Thanks Iain! Life with the Animals has been an ongoing saga, and there’ll probably be more before long.
I think you looked more handsome when you had long hair.
Ah… everyone’s entitled to their opinions, Charles. Could it be we’ve met before in some previous existence?
Yes, this is Mark F. I came across your blog, and would like to catch up on old times. Could you e-mail me on the supplied e-mail address?
Hi Mark, great to hear from you! Email coming up.
Hey. Hi.
You know me from the #!Crunchbang Forums.
I am from Valencia, Spain originally.
But, I travel a lot and have lived in many places. And, I’m kinda old now.
Currently, I live and work in Santa Fe, NM, US (an Art Mecca)
I have lived in London, Kings Cross Area.
And in Osaka, Japan.
I feel so connected to Japan, it’s people and it’s culture.
I wouldn’t mind going back and retiring there, someday.
I love the chosen layout for your WordPress blog layout … I want to build one just like it. Is it easy to customize? I already have a ‘blog’ page on WordPress, just haven’t done anything with it.
Hi vrkalak,
yes I’ve run across many of your posts on Crunchbang! (btw that’s a very nice Linux distribution, for anyone else who’s interested.)
This WordPress theme is called “Rounded”. I haven’t modified it much – just added my choice of widgets. If you know some html you can tweak things a bit here and there; to do any serious customization I guess you’d have to pay for the ability to use your own css.
I envy you. It has been a life long dream to visit Japan let alone live there. And at this stage the sun is setting on that dream. I shouldn’t complain though as I have travelled more then most, less than some.
You can bet I will be reading everything here.
S11
Well, I like living here, but like anywhere Japan has its pluses and minuses, and we’re living pretty simply these days – no foreign travel on the immediate agenda. There’s plenty here for the visitor to enjoy though – most people who come here seem to like it. After more than ten years of deflation prices have come down, but the current exchange rate puts them back up again if you’re buying yen with dollars I suppose. The main cost for the visitor is transport – a cheap business hotel in a city might be ¥3,500 or so, and a cheap meal can be got for ~¥500, say, but the “Bullet Train” from Tokyo to Nagoya is about ¥10,000.
Every place has it’s pluses and minuses, having lived in a “few” myself I understand that. But it’s still been a dream. 😀
Whoa, didn’t expect to see you with a might fine blog! Also, hello from Sunfizz