I Went Back to Japan!

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Well, after 14 months, I returned to Japan! But I only stayed for 11 days. You may wonder why I was in Japan. It was for family reasons. My wife’s grandfather passed away, so we attended a ceremony for him. More on that later.

I decided to do a vlog series on our visit to Japan. I’ve already done the first three videos, which you can see below.

First up is before our flight. Check it out!

Next, we’re flying to Japan. I do a lot of talking about our flight and what it’s like to return to Japan after more than a year. As a bonus, my daughter is featured a lot. She’s 5 years old now.

And finally, getting reacquainted with everyday Japanese things. We go shopping, we eat out, we take a train. Oh yeah, sushi!

More will be coming soon. If you want to keep up with my adventures in Japan, then please subscribe to my channel. I also do book, movie, and TV videos there.

If you have anything you’d like to say, let me know in the comments section!

Enoshima Island Tour

Hi everyone! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Well, I haven’t abandoned this blog. Just been focused so much on my other blog. Plus the fact that I no longer live in Japan has made it more difficult for me to regularly post about Japan. However, I intend on posting here once a week again.

To begin, let me reintroduce you to a video series I’m doing called A Taste of Japan. I’ve done several videos in this series already. Here is the most recently published video, all about Enoshima. There will be more than thirty more videos in this series. Please enjoy!

As you may have seen, it’s a fairly long video, and may be one of the longest in this series. But I hope you found it informative and interesting. If you have any comments, please leave them in the comments section below!

A Local Japanese Festival

I’ve begun a new series on my YouTube channel called A Taste of Japan. I’ll be making videos of different events, places, and culture in Japan. This is episode 1 of A Taste of Japan.

I Read Encyclopedias for Fun

At the shrine near my home, there’s an annual festival in September that features local dance clubs, cheerleading clubs, a taiko drum club, and singers. In the past, there’ve been professional enka singers, but not this year. I took a few videos, and now, my new series on YouTube has begun.

Here is episode 1 of A Taste of Japan.

I used Windows Movie Maker, as it appeared the other video editor I was using has informed me I must now buy it. I get roughly the same result with WMM, though.

If you have any comments or questions, you know what to do. Oh, and subscribe to my YouTube channel already!

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2014 General Election in Japan

It’s now just after midnight, which means it’s December 14th.  And that means it’s time for the Japanese General Election!  I made a quick video about the election.  Check it out.

Moving Out? Demolish that House

Anyone who lives in Japan will notice a lot of old houses get demolished.  You never see a for sale sign in front of a house.  Why is that?  Well, the real estate industry is much different in Japan than it is in North America.

In North America, when someone moves out of a house, they sell it.  It’s usually appreciated in value, especially if work has been done on the house to improve it.  Houses are also built to last for decades.  They’re solidly built.  That’s not the case in Japan.  Houses are not built to last.  They’re rather thin-walled, poorly insulated, and many of them these days are prefabricated.  Old houses are usually torn down and replaced with two or three new houses on the same property.  Near my home, there was one property that was divided into seven.  The value of a house is not so much in Japan.  It’s the property that’s valuable.  Moving out? Tear down that house and let the new property owners build their own.  Or are you tired of living in an old house? Tear it down and rebuild in the same location.

I made a video about this as I saw a house in my neighbourhood being torn down.

Whenever I see something like this, I wonder what’s going to be built in its place.

Driving in Japan

Have you driven in Japan?  I’ve had a Japanese license since I switched my Canadian license for it a few years ago, and when I drive, I rent a car.  Usually, we rent a car to go to Costco.  I made this video and discuss what it’s like to drive in Japan.

So, have you driven in Japan?