Background music in Japanese restaurants come in one of two flavors: modern or American. Never both. I’ve frankly not known what “the kids” have been listening to since my iPod liberated me from the radio in high school, so I’m fine with the musical selection lagging behind a few years. In fact, I can think [...]

To the crowd of Japanese youth making their way through the busiest train station in the world, the foreigner wearing two backpacks and peering over the top of a large cardboard box in his arms was just another obstacle. After steering clear of him and being herded past signs and advertisements and gates, the train [...]

I managed to put a lot of pressure on myself by weighing the value of my entire six months in Japan on the results of my JLPT results. Even though I learned a ton and had a great experience regardless of what I scored, I figured that passing the JLPT would mean that I surpassed [...]

I’m only a few days away from going home. Most of my family has been reading my blog (they likely made up about 4,000 of my 6,300 total views), but once school starts back up in January, I’m likely to be bombarded with that wonderful question that well-intentioned acquaintances who only realized you were gone [...]