Top Stories - Living in Japan

Graduation Day. Time to say sayonara, ki wo tsukete, ganbatte (so long, take care, and do your best) again. Sending my kids out into the world to meet their destinies. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Oh how I miss the lights in Tokyo, neon lights are pretty much nonexistent here in Sweden.

The other DT, the unpleasant one said, “Where’s your gaijin card?”
"I’m sorry…what do you mean?”
"Stop acting like you don’t know how to speak Japanese…I’ve dealt with enough of your kind to know the difference…Your ass understands Japanese just fine!”

Seeing Matsui and Satou with their faces all chalked up brought it all back for a hot second: that dark theatre, that chalky blue-white skin, that screeching sound he made before the kill, the powerlessness of his victims. Even Matsui’s screech was similar to the juon’s. I went into the bathroom and tried to regroup. A moment later they came into the bathroom after me

Said goodbye to the 6 year olds and finally learned how to REALLY use xbmc :)

The man suddenly turned and with a huff pushed through the crowd…actually the crowd opened instinctively, like an anticipating vagina, welcoming the man into the warm safe folds of familiar sights, sounds and smells, then snapped shut behind him like a mobile phone.

“Chuudokusha da ne” (You’re a junkie) Mori sensei said.
“Sou da ne,” (Aint that the ugly truth) I replied.

30 minutes ago I returned to the teacher’s office from teaching a class to find a golden watch on my desk. Someone must have been doing something at my desk and accidentally left it there I assumed. I figured they’d return for it sooner or later so I didn’t touch it. Then, 10 minutes ago, the following occurred:

Spaworld in Ōsaka regularly discounts its admission fee from ¥2,700 to ¥1,000 for full day admission. Find out more about the current campaign.

Just what Japanese eople do if they has anything that is be togerthe

"Do you smoke in the school?”
All of the teachers who smoke, we all smoke inside the school. There’s a tiny little maintenance room wayyyyy off in the back where we huddle around a coffee can filled with water and enough ash and butts to make me consider quitting every time I see it. But, was this common knowledge to the non-smoking teachers? I wasn’t sure…

Many of my feelings I just can’t express well in Nihongo. For example, all the feelings I would use “F%&k” to express in English, I simply couldn’t feel with its Japanese counterpart. So I was forced to create my own means of expressing the profanity in me that needs an outlet.

Me: Ok stop crying! I spoke with Kawaguchi sensei about what…
Takahashi: You spoke with who?
Me: Kawaguchi sensei…She….
Takahashi-sensei: Who is Kawaguchi sensei? At this school?
Me: Oh F%&k...

Sometimes Kawaguchi would take me into the recording room where we’d have virtually sound proof privacy, yet she’d still speak in hush tones, heavy with breath. All the security precautions used to make me paranoid, like she knew something I didn’t know about the walls in this place; that they have eyes, or ears, or both. Now, I know it’s just her style. She’s sneaky.

So I was enjoying a very pleasant birthday dinner with a real-life Coco-hime, when through the window I became acutely aware of a huddle of touts scowling and pointing… at me!? At ME!!! WTF!!! Years of experience have taught me that this is the time when one should raise his personal threat to orange-red!