I've been posting very rarely lately; I apologize for that. Got a dozen half-written posts that I never found the energy to finish. I...

…single best week of our lives, and it's only Tuesday. While we wait for the rest of the week to improve, here's a few recent Osaka ...

Nazar is a good Turkish restaurant in Shinsaibashi, Osaka. We go there now and again, though not very often - we unfortunately don't ha...

Ritsuko woke me up at dawn, telling me it's snowing - not a few pathetic flakes, but a real snowfall that lasted all morning. It was den...

The heatwave is finally breaking. Temperatures have dropped from around 38° down to a breezy 33°. Of course, the reason for the drop is an ...

Everyone loves summer sunsets, with their riots of reds and yellows flowing across the sky. But when the sun has set comes dusk, that dwindl...

Just a short post: Ikoma city (where I work) has issued warnings about " photochemical smog " for the second time in a week. We sh...

Have you heard of "Metal Umlauts" , perhaps? When a heavy-metal band wants a name that sounds exotic, gothic and vaguely menacing ...

I really love Osaka. Sennichimae is a major east-west thoroughfare through south Osaka, and around Namba it crosses Midōsuji street and cuts...

Still fighting the conference paper. We got ourselves a deadline extension . That's another week to make the paper presentable (Yay!) - ...

We're in Hokkaido for Christmas, where we're relaxing far away from the stresses of city life. We had a sleep in, had a long walk in...

The Huge rubber duck that floated by Nakanoshima island in Osaka this summer is back! There's a winter light festival happening along N...

I'm a little preoccupied at the moment; the winds of change are sweeping through the economic and political landscape, and buffeting my...

It's finally autumn here. The leaves are starting to turn and daytime temperatures have dropped to 20° or so. The weather alternates bet...

Osaka has a "water festival" of sorts right about now. It's a series of events and happenings along the canals and rivers in t...