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!

Want to Know About Life in Japan?

It’s time for some more questions. If you have any questions about what it’s like to live in Japan, please go to this post and ask me anything. I had some great questions before. Let’s have even more great questions!

I Read Encyclopedias for Fun

I’ve been running a weekly series about living in Japan since April, and asked you, the reader, to ask me any question about living in Japan. I got some great questions and had nearly three months worth of questions to answer. However, I’ve run out of questions.

Now it’s your turn to give me some more questions. If you have any questions about what it’s like to live in Japan, please ask in the comments below. It can be anything. Maybe even just about living in another country, or dealing with different food, culture, language, and so on. You can ask as many questions as you like. So, what would you like to know?

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Life in Japan: What Japan Needs from Canada

Living in Japan for so long, there are a lot of things I really miss about Canada. This is what I wish Japan had.

I Read Encyclopedias for Fun

Having lived in Japan for ten years, there are quite a few things from Canada I don’t have access to at all.  Occasionally, I’ll be able to eat a real hot dog in Costco, find Marmite in Union, and A&W Root Beer in Carnival, but there are some things that are impossible to find here. This week’s question comes from stomperdad.

Besides family, what do you miss about Canada that you wish Japan had?

Most of things I miss are food.  There are a lot of similar fast food restaurants here, such as McDonald’s, Subway, and Burger King, but what I really want isn’t available here.

Harvey’s burger and fries.

I always loved going to Harvey’s. The ability to customise your burger is missing from fast food places in Japan.  And eating a Harvey’s hamburger was so satisfying.

I’m not a big fan of pizza, since I don’t like pizza…

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Life in Japan: Japan on a Budget

Traveling to Japan? Well, it doesn’t have to be expensive.

I Read Encyclopedias for Fun

Japan has a reputation for being expensive. But in recent years, it’s not really that expensive. It’s about as expensive as Canada, USA, Australia, or any place in Europe.  This week’s question comes from Trisha Ann.

I’m planning to visit Japan in October. My trip takes 6 days and I’m on a tight budget (but I won’t leave Jp without ever going to Harry Potter world and Kyoto!!). Any tips?

I’ve already written about visiting Kyoto, so I’ll talk about visiting Japan on a budget.

It may seem daunting to some people, considering all the touristy areas tend to be expensive.  But there are many ways to save money, especially related to food and transportation.

Going to big restaurants in the busy, tourist areas is not recommended.  Those restaurants tend to be geared toward tourists, anyway, so they raise the prices.  If you want cheap, go on some of the…

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Life in Japan: Surprising First Impressions

Here are a few things that surprised me when I arrived in Japan. It’s been ten years since then, so it’s sometimes hard to remember the feeling. I miss that feeling, though.

I Read Encyclopedias for Fun

When I first came to Japan, I had some expectations. I thought I knew what I was going to see. But I was pretty surprised in many ways. This week’s question comes from moldydaisy.

What were some of the things that really surprised you when you moved there? What things stood out in your mind that you would never have thought of before your arrival?

The very first thing that surprised me was before I even landed. From the airplane, I could see the rice fields near the airport. From the air, they weren’t a uniform shape. No grid, no squares, no rectangles. They were very organic in shape.

After landing, I was on the Narita Express to Yokohama, and I saw so many houses that were different than anything I’d seen in Canada. They were small, built close together, and everything was so dense.  Yet there were pockets of…

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