Tokyo 4th in Quality of Life Survey

A monthly magazine from Europe called Monocle ranked the cities around the world that offer the best quality of life for it's residents. The usual criteria like crime rate, housing, transportation, education, economy was used to rank the cities, but other things like Wi-Fi accessibility and how late bars and restaurants were open was also used. Munich ranked first and Tokyo ranked fourth.

I first read the story on Japan Today. This morning when I looked at the front page of the site under the Japan News Discussions section, I thought that the stories around "Tokyo Ranked 4th in Quality of Life" just didn't fit.

Guzen Media Japan-Royal Cabaret Music Video "World End"

Royal Cabaret is a really cool band that I met by guzen last month at the Design Festa in Tokyo. The band really meshes well. Miyu, the leader singer, has a great sound and a very strong stage presents.

If you get a chance you should check them out at one of their live shows. Their next show will be on July 4th in Shibuya at La mama.

The song in the video is my favorite called World End. It's off their demo album Seven Deadly Sins that you can purchase at their website.

See more of Royal Cabaret and other great photos at Kogen Photography.

Enjoy!


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Japanese Scientific Research

This made me laugh.

More About Japanese Weddings

This was written by John as a follow up to Episode 53

School's back and wedding bells

I've been back at school for a couple of weeks now and all's going well so far. My new timetable has been very kind. All of my lessons are crammed together between Monday and Thursday - so I currently get Fridays off. Also – 7 out of 8 classes, I teach with the same teacher - Dejima Sensei(出島先生) So that makes planning pretty easy too. It could have been a disaster if we didn't get on - but luckily we do.

When I joined the school - It was already halfway through the school year - this means that the precedent is already set for the how the lessons work and I have to pick up on that and adjust. But now, I'm here from the start, so get things a bit more my own way.
A lot of my old students have been saying hello to me when they see me around - one lad even mimed fake tears to show me how sad he is that he doesn't have oral communication classes anymore. I'm not sure what to make of it all - The kind and friendly things they say are all very good, but if they enjoyed the lessons so much - why did they rarely do any work in class?

I went to my 1st Japanese wedding yesterday. Two of Kayo's friends from Elementary, Junior High and High School got married - Kanta and Mariko - Big Congratulations to them - or おめでとうございます as they say round these parts. It was quite interesting to compare and contrast the wedding style I'm used to in England with what I saw yesterday. So here are my top 5 similarities:


read the rest of the story and see pictures on John's Blog

Guzen Media Japan-Street Performance

Every weekend there is some kind of street performance taking place around town.



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