How do you say ‘thank you’ in Japanese?
Look in any dictionary and you’ll find the phrase ‘arigatō’ （ありがとう), or ‘arigatō gozaimasu’ （ありがとうございます）. So, simple. Problem solved. It’s like saying ‘cat’ is ‘neko’ (猫), or ‘book’ is ‘hon’ （本）: there is a clear and well-defined correspondence. Isn’t there?
(more…)I was on a train on the San’in Line the other day, and the train was quite full. Surprisingly full, in fact, for the San’in Line.
Anyway, a group of five people- parents and three children, two boys and one girl— came past looking for seats. One of the boys nudged the other, pointed at me, and said, ‘Hey, look.’ Of course, I could hear and I could understand. So I said to the boy, ‘Is there some problem?’ He said, ‘No, no problem.’ I told him it was rude to point, and that was it.
(more…)
I went for okonomiyaki for lunch today, for the first time in several months. Now, of course, this being Hiroshima, okonomiyaki means Hiroshima okonomiyaki. (Hiroshima people can get quite irate if you say ‘Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki’, so I won’t, but that’s what it was.) It’s very different to Kansai okonomiyaki. This being Hiroshima, I wouldn’t dare say anything other than that I prefer the Hiroshima version to the Kansai version, but actually, that happens to be the truth.
(more…)If you take the Nankai Koya Line, on the long climb from Hashimoto toward Mount Koya, most passengers are focused on the destination, or on the wonderful views from the train windows.
Few people notice the small stations that slip quietly past the window. One of these stations is Kii-Kamiya Station, just one stop from the end of the line at Gokurakubashi. To be honest, if you blinked, you’d miss it.
(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…)
Koborebanashi 