Blogs on Japan

Blogs on Japan has started a new feature where we interview different bloggers who blog about Japan. If you would like to be interviewed, please contact me! Also if you are looking for some interesting blogs on Japan, take a look at the previous interviews. Today we have to do a little running and try Keeping Pace in Japan.

When did you start blogging about Japan and why did you start?

My first entries, like so many other blogs, were about my initial primitive impressions of Japan and my take on working in the Japanese world of the eikaiwa – a lot of my research back home was done by reading personal blogs of teachers and locals in Japan, but I couldn’t find any pages with the information I wanted: running trails, good restaurants (Japanese and foreign alike), etc. I knew nothing could take the place of experience, but I wanted to provide a better perspective and more detailed information to NJ (non-Japanese) residents and people considering moving to Japan.

Since those first few months, when a lot of my observations were still in a tourist mindset (i.e. the Japanese are practically a different species, far from the truth), I think I’ve come a long way, in both my writing and my perception. More often that not, I’m writing about essentials and comforts of living and working in Japan, but I don’t shy away from controversial news stories, only in Japan tales, or reporting on my most recent travels.

Describe your blog in one word.

Strategery

If you could introduce one of your posts to new readers which one would it be?

A lot of readers have been scanning my detailed account of working at AEON for a year, but I think some of my best entries, at least, from personal experience are Talking with a Naked Yakuza and I Gotta Be Me.

What blogs do you read?

Quite a few, I’m always scanning the blogosphere looking for newbies who I might meet while traveling or people in my area. But regularly: Trans-Pacific Radio, Debito, and Japan Probe.

What is your favorite place you have been to in Japan and why?

I am always traveling, but my favorite place for visiting would have to be Sapporo in the winter – skiing, chocolate, snow, crab meat, sulfurous onsen, and the snow festival.

Favorite place for living would be Fukuoka – transportation hub, ramen, shopping, nightlife, foreigner-friendly, ferry access, and grassy areas (as opposed to Osaka).

How long have/did you live in Japan?

15 months and counting

The best things about Japan are

The food, being extra unique just for being a foreigner, late night karaoke with friends, 3 AM ramen in Fukuoka, soaking away all your troubles in an onsen, seeing the shidarezakura in Kyoto during cherry blossom season, waking up to pray with the monks on Koyasan, taking the shinkansen across the country, drinking hot chocolate and eating Shiroi Koibito on an ice bench in Sapporo, saying I don’t speak English in Japanese to all the schoolchildren who shout “HELLO!”, receiving the nod from a fellow gaikokujin, waking up and seeing mountains, and knowing in your heart you can use chopsticks, despite others disbelief.

The worst things about Japan are:

The humidity and the weather - rainy season, typhoons, earthquakes. I even live under an active volcano.

One thing about Japanese culture that I will never understand is:

Keeping up appearances, even in the face of reason or convenience.

What is the most delicious food you have had in Japan?

Hokkaido kegani (boiled crab), with Shiroi Koibito chocolate for dessert

What is the most disgusting food you have had in Japan?

Raw taco (octopus), fish eggs, seaweed, and squid ink on cold pasta. But hey, I tried it.

What is your favorite onsen?

Tanayu Onsen of the Suginoi Palace Hotel in Beppu.

What’s the most difficult part of living in Japan?

Speaking and acting Japanese, only to be treated like a foreign visitor at times.

What are some things you’d like to do in Japan but haven’t (due to time or money)?

Finish the 88 temple pilgrimage in Shikoku on foot, watch the horseback archery at the Tono Matsuri, go skiing in Hokkaido, run the Tokyo Marathon, stay at Shimeikan in the Kurokawa Onsen village, go skydiving in Northern Honshu, visit Okinawa, learn Japanese to level 1 proficiency.

Whew, I’m exhausted but I think I was able almost able to keep pace. Thanks for the interview!