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By Joe, August 28, 2010 1:08 am

I’m back! In Japan, that is. Enjoy this compilation of video from my first few weeks. :D More coming soon!

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By Joe, September 15, 2008 6:57 pm

I just got a call from my parents who are now in Narita, after a nice long 14 hour flight. Sometime tomorrow they’ll be up here in Hirosaki and I’ll be able to start showing them around to all the cool spots in this little town of mine. After that, it’s off to Kyoto and Tokyo. So this blog will probably be on hiatus for a couple weeks until after I get back, but expect a big update then! I’ll definitely keep on tweeting and I might be able to put up some new photos, though. It’s been a while since I’ve had new photos, eh? See you on the other side, then!

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By Joe, June 14, 2008 3:44 pm

It’s been a while since I posted in this space, huh? Well, I just took my first trip during my time here: a couple days down in Tokyo with some of my Korean friends. I’ll get to that in a bit, but first I thought that I’d try to play catch-up and go over what I’ve been up to the last couple of weeks since I posted last.

Continue reading 'The Trip to Tokyo'»

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By Joe, June 5, 2008 9:45 pm

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but I hope to remedy that after this weekend. I’ll be spending Saturday and Sunday down in Tokyo with some of my Korean friends, who will be there to attend a job fair. I’ll be sure to have a big write up about that trip plus what else I’ve been up to sometime next week. Stay tuned!

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By Joe, December 30, 2007 3:26 am

After my last post, I figured I’d lighten the mood a bit with an article I found over at Gadling via digg entitled, “Big in Japan: How to rent an apartment in Tokyo.” Author Matthew Firestone decided to move into his own place with a roommate and discovered firsthand the craziness that is renting an apartment in Japan. The place cost $1500 a month, not bad for two people in downtown Toyko. But, not only do you have to pay a down payment and security deposit, you must also pay something called “reikin,” which is two months worth of rent as a gift to the landlord, non-refundable. It doesn’t stop there. You must then pay a “finder’s fee,” costing another month’s rent, non-refundable. Why do these practices exist? According to the article, it is because of feudal laws still on the books mandating that things like apartments be suitably expensive such as to maintain the gap between rich and poor.

I must say, I was shocked to read this article. The cost of living in Japan must be insane, but somehow people manage, otherwise Japan wouldn’t be one of the leaders in the global economy. Go give the article a read, and discover what it means to be “hikoshi-bimbo,” also known as “moving poor.”

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