すし勢 Gourmet Sushi Hazumi

Last night, we rented bikes from Kashiwa’s east exit bike depot, whooped all the way out to the Teganuma Ohashi Bridge to the east, over the bridge, through Teganuma Park on the Abiko side, and stopped for dinner at グルメ回転すし勢 Gourmet Kaiten Sushi Hazumi right across the road from Teganuma.
The wait was about 15 minutes to [...]

Northern Chiba Natural Beauty

There are so many beautiful secrets in northern Chiba Prefecture.  Go see!
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Bike Rental in Kashiwa

I’ve seen these bikes around town, the ones emblazoned with the Kashiwa Reysol mascot.
So, where do you get one? Kashiwa Station east exit, behind the Sogo Department store, there is a little cycle rental depot. The bike man told me that if you show some ID – passport, gaijin card – and fork over 200 [...]

本土時の秋 Autumn at Hondoji

It’s really tough to get photos of higanbana, the red spider lillies that bloom on the autumn equinox. Either they look really disorganized, or the light they choose to live in makes the photos look too bright or the shadows obscure them. Weird other worldly things, they are.
They are blooming at Hondoji, the Nichiren temple [...]

This Heart’s Rendition in Ryogoku

Alternative-hard rock group This Heart’s Rendition, some guys who live in the Kashiwa-Matsudo area, will play Four Valley at Ryogoku next week.

The show is on September 20th, starting at 6pm. It’s ￥2000 at the door.
To get to Four Valley, take the train to Ryogoku Station. You can see the local map here. You can [...]

違法 Illegal working conditions of ALTs

The last six months, I’ve been a shoulder to cry on and source of information for some young foreign teachers who have been hired by dispatch companies to work in public elementary and junior high schools in the Chibaraki area.
The conditions that they live and work under are shocking. The dispatch company helped the teachers find [...]

Jazz at Nardis

Paul, TC, Larry and I crashed Nardis jazz bar near Kashiwa Station one night a few weeks ago and the guys had an impromtu jam session. Komine-san the proprietor, a talented musician himself, has been producing jazz festivals in Matsudo and Kashiwa cities for some time. That’s Komine-san at the piano. The guys noodled with [...]

End of the LDP era

Revolutionary? Bold? Courageous? These are not adjectives Japan watchers would use to describe beaurocracy politics here in Japan.
But this week, there is a whole new regime after a landslide victory in this week’s national election. The Democratic Party of Japan beat the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party, putting party leader Hatoyama in the PM’s office. The DPJ campaigned on a [...]