Like I needed a big shove from underground to come back from my blogging hiatus, there was an earthquake in Tokyo today, right when Pristine and I were out shopping at 2 pm. The ground shook and I felt it. I looked around, some people felt it too…we all just looked at each other. Underground train? No, [...]

More than 24 hours after we left home, Pristine and I finally arrived in Tokyo. What a long journey we had! It was 9 hours from Dubai to Hong Kong, layover for 2 hours mostly spent on running around Hong Kong International Airport, chasing transfer trains, 4 hours of the Hong Kong to Narita (Tokyo) flight and [...]

Just because I got some fabulous shots of Mt. Fuji in Japan from a friend, I’m posting my favorite here.

I had no time to search my photos for this week’s Photo Hunt. So as a replacement post, check out these photos. I posted one sample at last week’s Photo Hunt with the theme plastic.
I usually ignore forwarded emails, especially those that needs to be scrolled down to the bottom to see the content, which [...]

Yone Minagawa, who became the world’s oldest person earlier this year died in a nursing home in southwestern Japan. She was 114.
It is amazing to note that she outlived all her children except her youngest daughter, who I think will also live longer. Japan has one of the world’s longest average life spans - a [...]

The expat family life: mom is working in a local company and telling dad she misses the old home while looking at familiar characters on her spec sheets; dad putting up a brave front by saying he is not missing his home country; little girl talking in English, the language she beautifully adapted and shouts [...]

Don’t say huh!? You’re still in the right blog.
 
From Friday 10th August until Wednesday is Obon Festival in Japan. Obon Festival is a Japanese Buddhist holiday to honor the departed spirits of one’s ancestors. Most people from the big cities return to their hometown to visit and clean their ancestors graves. Traditionally, lanterns are hung across [...]

On our way to work today, we were talking about which is worse, summer in Dubai or winter in Japan. We visualized the 3-meters of snow in M’s hometown and our dead coldhome in Nagano. Nagano Prefecture wasn’t chosen as the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics for nothing!
Today is hellish 43C in the shade with [...]

Japan sits atop four tectonic plates and is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries.
A few days after I came to Japan more than 10 years ago, earthquake woke me up at 3 in the morning after the dormitory building where I am staying swayed for more than 10 seconds. Cold as it is on [...]

By now you must have heard already.
An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale struck the northwestern province of Niigata, Japan collapsing houses and halting train operations. Casualties are said to increase as people searched through the rubble. A fire broke out in the nuclear reactor site in Kashiwazaki City. A tsunami warning was issued [...]