花見... again!

I realize that it's taken me a year to get around to updating, but now that I'm writing again, I hope there's still someone around checking this thing!

To try and lure you back in, I'll tell an anecdote about my day-to-day life in Japan:
While eating dinner, I was watching one of the weekly variety shows on basic cable. In Japan, it's not uncommon for variety shows to feature a little box in the upper left-hand corner streaming the reactions of celebrities who are watching the same variety show -- somehow this is exciting/entertaining. Anyway, this particular show was hosted by two members of a popular boy band and featured about 6 high school guys, dressed in drag, walking around backstage at a famous Tokyo fashion show. These 6 guys were chosen from over 2,000 students who auditioned and were being paraded around the backstage area meeting (and shocking) all of the show's most famous models. At the end of the show, they get to walk the runway at the Tokyo Girls Collection fashion show to shouts of "oh my god, they're SO cute!" from the audience. The end. This was an hour-long show from 8-9pm on a Tuesday night, only in Japan.

I've just seen the end of my third cherry blossom season here in Japan, this time seeing the best sakura in Inokashira Park. The sakura opened 6 days ahead of schedule this year, throwing Tokyo into a panic because many well planned hanami parties would be taking place a week too late. In addition to that, we had a streak of rain that took some of the fun out of trying to enjoy the blossoms, but I still managed to take some good pictures:

Other than that, not too much to report. A quick run through of the past 12 months -- traveled around the Kansai area, finally went to Nikko, matsuri-ed through the summer, finished up my 2 years as an ALT, moved to Tokyo, started a new job, have been to Hong Kong twice -- once for shopping, once through work, made my way through Hakone and Kyoto during a long weekend, stayed in Japan for my first traditional New Years experience, bought a Wii, got over the whole Wii-thing, went home to America for a week or so in March and have been enjoying the last few weeks of spring!






Hong Kong


Aquarium in Hakone





Hong Kong





I'll try and update again sometime soon. In the meantime, please leave a comment and let me know that someone out there is still reading!