It's Thanksgiving today in the United States. And Labour Thanksgiving Day in Japan. Which marks a not so common occasion where the two countries share a national holiday on the same day - at least this year. Because while the American Thanksgiving is always celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November, in Japan the holiday is tagged to a certain date (23 November) instead. This year the two coincide, hence the joint holiday. In essence, although they may not always be celebr

When you spend your childhood in any given country, you inevitably grow up with what I would call the 'taste of your childhood': Certain foods that are typical for that particular place, which will always remind you of the time when you were growing up, and which are not quite the same anywhere else, or may not be available at all. So if you choose to make another country your permanent home, almost inevitably you will, at one point or another, crave that 'taste of your child

With Halloween firmly over and Christmas season officially upon us, my wife and I thought it would be a good idea to search for some concerts for December. Halloween decorations have given way to a grand Christmas tree at the Futako-Tamagawa Rise Shopping Mall. And with the pandemic (more or less) confined to the history books, foreign artists - who, along with pretty much everyone else, were banned from entering the country for the best part of two years - have started to co

Japan can be an absolute minefield when it comes navigating social code, and that is most evident when it comes to formal occasions such as weddings and funerals. Take weddings, for example. In Japan, it is customary for wedding attendees to give congratulatory money to the bride and groom. This money is called ' goshugi' . Now, that sounds simple enough, right? You decide on an appropriate amount, pop it in a nice-looking envelope, and voilà! But not so fast! There are numer

It's the Halloween season, and the ghouls, ghosts and zombies are out in force, also in Japan. Japan, though, has a rather interesting (one could even say 'spooky') relationship with festivals or traditions originating in the West. Take Christmas, for instance: Japan being a Buddhist country, it cannot really relate to the birth of Christ, which, of course, is the original reason we celebrate Christmas - although that may often go forgotten amidst all the commercialism surrou

When you live on the other side of the world and far away from your nearest and dearest (and by 'near' I don't mean in the geographical sense, obviously), you want to make your trips back to your home country count and therefore plan them meticulously, in order to make sure they go smoothly and you can enjoy them as fully as possible. So when a few months back my other half hinted that she hadn't been abroad in almost five years (whilst I had been able to sneak in a couple of

One week from today, the clocks in Europe will be set back by one hour, marking the end of summertime (or daylight saving time, as it is known in some parts of the world). Meanwhile clocks in Japan will not change, and most Japanese will probably not even notice that the time difference to Western Europe is reverting back to 8 hours, from the 7 hours during summer. Except for the UK, where it's 9 hours instead of 8. For those doing business with Europe, it does have an impact

In a previous post, I established how mountains feature heavily in the landscape of both countries, with the tiny difference that the Swiss tend to put up a flag at the top of their peaks, while the Japanese don't. That brings me to the next topic: What shows the identity of a nation more than anything else? Its national flag, of course. Another common theme between Switzerland and Japan. Their shapes may be different, but the colour scheme is obviously very similar: Switzerl

Today marks 27 years to the day since I boarded a plane in Europe on my way to start a new life in Japan. There used to be a time when air travel could be described with one word: Excitement. Especially when it involved a 12-hour flight to a far-flung destination on the other side of the planet. But in the last two decades, air travel has become much more complicated, and the words that are more likely associated with it these days are stress, anxiety and exhaustion... I gues

Well, two countries in completely different parts of the world, one an island nation sitting between the Japan Sea and the Pacific Ocean, while the other is a landlocked country neatly tucked away in the middle of Europe, with its southern-most point 160 km from the nearest coast. One with a population of 8.7 million, growing by 0.7% each year, while the other boasts 15 times as many inhabitants, but is shrinking by half a percent per annum. One can do the math to try and fi

This month marks 27 years since I set foot in Japan, together with my Japanese wife, to make a fresh start in a country that I knew little about, and where I had merely spent a few weeks previously while on holiday. I thought that I would use this occasion to start a blog to share my experiences of living in this fascinating - and sometimes confusing - country. It might seem an odd decision to pick the 27-year anniversary, but in a sense, it's kind of a logical choice. Becaus