It’s my dirty little secret. I enjoy going to Disney Sea and Disneyland. I might even love it. And since living in Japan I’ve been there quite a few times. I blame T. She did it to me.
Even though I grew up in Southern California, I think I’d only been [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘culture’
June 30, 2008
Disney Sea
June 12, 2008
The Stress of Urban Living
A few days ago, a man rented a van and intentionally ran over people in a crowded part of Tokyo. He got out of the vehicle and then proceeded to stab people randomly. Seven people died and another 14 were wounded. He explained that he was “tired of life”. I wonder [...]
April 10, 2008
Sumo
After visiting the Edo-Tokyo Museum (which I wrote about in a previous post) we dropped in at the nearby Sumo Museum. The Sumo Museum is one long room inside the Ryogoku Kokugikan, the main sumo hall for the Grand Sumo Tournaments in Tokyo.
There’s minimal English explanation throughout the exhibit but if you’re familiar with [...]
March 25, 2008
Karaoke!
One of the great cultural contributions from Japan is karaoke. It’s different here than in America and the UK (the two other places I’ve sung karaoke). First of all, instead of one big open room, usually a bar full of strangers, you rent a room by the half hour with just your friends.
Back [...]
February 16, 2008
The Unlocked Bicycle
Japanese postal bike at the Philatelic Museum, Tokyo
If you visit Japan you’ll be surprised to find that people seldom lock their bicycles. And if they do lock it, it usually won’t be locked to anything in particular. The chain might be snaked through the wheel. But that’s it. And that bicycle [...]
January 19, 2008
Angkorian Architectural Elements: Khmer Notes no.5
In this post I’ll describe some Khmer architectural elements with accompanying photos of mostly Angkor Wat. By no means is this an exhaustive list of the complex, religio-structural elements of Angkorian design. These are just some aspects that I found especially compelling.
The Temple Mountain
The most common type of Angkorian temple is the temple [...]
January 15, 2008
An Embarassingly Brief History of Cambodia: Khmer Notes no.3
Whenever I travel to another country, I have some guidelines that I try to follow.
First, I learn some basic expressions of the local language. It’s just arrogance to visit another country and not know how to,
greet people,
excuse oneself,
politely order food and drinks,
ask where the restrooms are,
thank them,
and say goodbye.
This, I believe, is the very [...]
December 13, 2007
The Unobstructed View
For the last three months my apartment building had been encased in an exoskeleton of a gauzy white screen covering scaffolding. Just weeks after we moved in, we were informed that the building would undergo renovations. The building really needed it. There was chipping paint covered in a fine layer of city [...]
November 25, 2007
A Fukushima Funeral
This past Tuesday, T’s grandfather passed away. He was 92 and led a very rich life, which I will write about in part 2 of this story. In this post I want to write about the funeral rites and rituals.
Gathering at the Village
Kunio Kasai lived and died in Fukushima, an agricultural prefecture five [...]
