zoomingjapan comments

I saw the illumination there in spring. It was really beautiful. Last week I wanted to see the night illumination at Eikando (also in Kyoto), but about 600 people were lining up, waiting time estimated to be more than 1h, so I gave up in the end. Kyoto during a long weekend in autumn is truly scary!

A lot of contracts, especially those of eikaiwa jobs seem to have stated the required time for the notice nowadays, probably because there have been problems in the past. Unfortunately a lot of those have 3 or even 4 months as a requirement which - especially for foreigners - can be difficult sometimes. I think 2 months sounds realisitc.

I'm not too surprised by that, either. sigh I read somewhere that Japan is the kid-friendliest country in the world. Yeah, sure ....

I always find it interesting to see how some of those "mes" want to break out of the group ... just a little. Because they want to be able to stay part of the group, but yet they want to get some attention. But how to do it if everybody is the same and everybody looks (almost ) the same? You can see that during Japanese summer festivals. Everybody wears a yukata, but in order to stand out just a little you buy that more expensive hairpin and that super expensive and cute bag. But the others did the same and so you don't stand out yet again. That's why some people draw something in their face, wear a mask ... if they're really "brave" and dare to stick out that much.

Remember, Japan has a saying: The nail that sticks out gets hammered.

Personally I'm not a big fan of that "we culture" and the "uchi" - "soto" way of thinking, but as a foreigner you're always a single "me" not really belonging to any "we"-group anyways ....

It's such a nice shrine, but also very crowded most of the time.

I went to Aomori during Golden Week and saw the Nebuta as well as the Neputa museum with all the great kites and lanterns. I'm sure the festivals there are great!

Finally good news!

I live in Japan and I've been travelling to almost everywhere in Japan. Every single time I go traveling I buy a few souvenirs! The "standard" souvenirs that are mentioned here are nice, but I prefer the special souvenirs that are unique to a region. That can be the fans of Marugame, the lanterns of Aomori, the wooden cedar products of Yakushima etc. I try to introduce all sorts of souvenirs in my blog from time to time. Some of them can be found here. http://zoomingjapan.com/tag/souvenirs/