At the supermarket today, I saw a junior high school boy in school uniform, but wearing an apron. He waved to me, so somewhat puzzled, I went over to see who it was. It turned out to be someone I knew and, somewhat incongruously, he was stacking shelves.
Now, you may well ask why a junior high school boy would be stacking shelves in a supermarket.
Good question.
(more…)The saddest thing about Valentine’s Day having passed for another year isn’t the fact that I no longer have females thrusting chocolate at me.
No, it’s that the big chocolate heart display in the local supermarket has disappeared for another eleven months. Every year it’s a wonder to behold- a huge wall of chocolate, built out of bars of chocolate, with red bars forming a heart. Every day I enjoy seeing it. Or enjoyed seeing it, I should say.
Maybe they could do a blue heart for White Day, and extend my pleasure for a month or so more?
Earlier today on the train, I heard two boys who looked to be of about junior high school age talking about TKG.
So what, you might ask, is TKG?
Well, it’s tamago-kake gohan, the T being tamago, K, kake, and G, gohan, which basically means ‘raw egg on rice’. It’s a Japanese dish eaten primarily for breakfast, and it is literally, as the name suggests, raw egg broken over hot rice, and quite often seasoned with soy sauce. It’s a great breakfast actually, and well worth a try if you ever get the chance. And if you get the chance to slip ‘TKG’ into a conversation while you’re in Japan, well, all the better!
Chappie is the Japanese nickname for the AI conversational service ChatGPT, created by adding the casual, affectionate ‘-pie’ to ‘chat’, effectively anthropomorphising the service. Calling ChatGPT ‘Chappie’ makes it seem cute, less a tool and more something (someone?) to have a conversation with or ask advice from.
The name ‘Chappie’ is also an example of the cultural tendency in Japan to make things ‘cute’. Seen dispassionately, ChatGPT is nothing more than silicon, software, but the name makes it feel almost like a partner or a friend.
In 2025, the nickname was even nominated for the ‘Buzzword of the Year’ award.
Today is National Foundation Day (Kenkoku Kinen no Hi), a national holiday in Japan. It marks the founding of Japan and encourages people to reflect on the nation’s history and identity. The date of February 11 is traditionally linked to the legendary ascension of Emperor Jimmu, which is said to have occurred in 660 BC.
Anyway, for most people in Japan, the day is just a day off. And as such, outside the supermarket today, there was a blood collection drive.
(more…)Trains are a great way to see the scenery of Japan, but they can quite often be busy and crowded, especially in urban areas. Bear in mind these guidelines to make travelling by train as stress-free as possible, both for you and your fellow passengers.
Many of the guidelines for travelling by local train are the same as for travelling by Shinkansen, but there are a few differences. Anyway, here are some rules or guidelines you should be aware of.
(more…)Once or twice a week, I have to walk past quite a large rice field. As the year progresses, it’s always fascinating to see how the seasons change, as reflected in the rice field.
Right now, the field is bare. It’s just brown earth with a few dead stalks, presumably from last year’s rice plants, mixed into the soil. Now we’re in February, though, it won’t be too long before the farmers start to flood their fields and then plant their rice seedlings.
(more…)I used to love Tonomi Station because it was old, a little bit ramshackle, but it was how it had always been, and it was wonderful. But a few years ago, the station building was completely rebuilt. It’s very bright and airy, and really it is a much nicer building, but it’s much simpler and it lacks the rundown, old-fashioned charm of the original station building.
And then on platform three (which is actually the only other platform) there used to be a big wooden shelter, almost as big as a barn in a way, with seats inside it, but now that’s gone completely, and all that’s left is just three rows of seats out in the open on the platform, which is fair enough, but if it’s raining, you can’t use them at all. At least on platform one, there is the station building which provides shelter. It’s progress in one way, I suppose, but, in another way, very much not so. Sometimes with the JR Sanyo Line west of Iwakuni, I get the feeling that for the lesser stations, it really is a case of managed decline. I very much hope that I’m wrong.
I’ve just seen a young man on the tram in Hiroshima, with a huge roll of masking tape on his arm, like an outsized bangle.
I’m sorry, I’m not even going to attempt to ponder why this might be. I just hope he’s heading to do some DIY or something. The alternative… Well, I dread to think!
Oh my goodness. I’m normally listening to music or a podcast, so I’ve never noticed before, but the current chimes before announcements on Hiroshima trams makes it sound like you’ve reached a whole new level on a video game.
So… Is Hiroshima Station the final boss?
Koborebanashi 