golden week 2023

昭和の日 290423

I cleaned and did homework today. I have a Japanese lesson each week where (at the moment) I review N1 vocab and then read a couple of newspaper articles with my teacher. Then for homework, I review and Anki words I don’t know. Last week we read about exchange students and difficulties getting jobs with regards to Japanese language ability and then about ChatGPT and concerns unis have about it.

憲法記念日 030523

A beautiful spring day in Tokyo reaching 22ºC. We stayed local this year and today was really local. We enjoyed the new greenery that’s sprouted up ...

a day in okutama

Happy belated Mountain Day! To celebrate, we went to Okutama・奥多摩 , Tokyo Prefecture. It took a bit over 2 hours to get there from over the other side of Tokyo, so we were up at 5:45 on a Saturday morning. We managed to get seats on the trains, which was my number one concern of the day and the trains are cool, so not a bad place to be in the middle of Japanese summer. When we arrived, they were gearing up for the festival, with stalls lining the streets but they weren’t open whilst we were there.

This month ...

june and july memories and august wish list

june and july memories

The cicadas have finally started making their little chirps (quite noisy little creatures really) and the temperatures are soaring. Europe had a heatwave too and the world just seems to be going crazy! Take care in the heat.

We went on a boat – link here for the one we did which was really good. I emailed Miho and her English was impeccable, so no worries there. When we got to the boat, I was the only, shall we say, non-Japanese looking person in our group of ten. She started speaking in Japanese and it was ...