Owning a Car in Japan

Although I haven’t had any problems yet with a car. I owned an old Light bodied “kei” car before, and currently earn a big hybrid car that gets about the same kilometers per gallon as the kei car did but seats eight. A very long time ago I wrote about getting a license and some…

National Geographic Story – Japanese Toilets and Robo-toilet Nonsense

If you watch the video, you’ll here some wacky stuff. Now maybe I don’t go to enough “hi tech” buildings to have used the “smart toilet” but this is the kind of over-generalized news about Japan that drives me crazy. Here’s the video about the crazy robo-toilets that are “commonplace” in Japan these days. If…

Gokusen This Season’s Most Popular Japanese Drama Criticized for Glorifying Bad Kids

Here’s the scoop on the drama, just in case you don’t actually have a tv under the rock in Japan where you live… but maybe that’s too extreme. I’m sure there are plenty of people in Japan who don’t know about Gokusen. So here’s the ad for the show… if you’re even slightly interested, I…

Things to Watch Out For When Getting a Driver’s License in Japan or Taking the Driving Test in Japan

First of all, full disclosure.I did my driver’s license in Hyogo Prefecture… I got it on the third try. First I’ll start off by telling you exactly how I failed the first two times. Very simple actually… Failure One: I ran a stop sign… Sounds kind of stupid, but it took me this experience to…