In addition to practicing pick-up lines for potential nameless encounters during my next visit to Japan, I have begun a walking regimen. I won’t be able to hop in the car to get where I’m going during my three-month stay. Instead, there will be many treks to and from railway stations and subway lines all of which have numerous stairs to navigate. Continue reading
For decades I faithfully created a special and memorable celebration for Father’s Day. Now six years after his death, it’s an empty spot on the calendar—like a tooth you’ve lost. It doesn’t ache as it did in the beginning; still, you keep running your tongue over it. Continue reading
Image source: http://www.levanatech.com/learn_japanese_language
One of the things we know is that a positive attitude toward a subject we wish to learn contributes greatly to our success in that endeavor. Successful language acquisition depends on two main factors: the motivation of the student and the opportunity to use the language in in a real situation. Continue reading
From mid-April last year much of my life revolved around my mother’s hospitalization, death, memorial, selling her condo, settling her estate, selling my home and moving from Abbotsford to Victoria within a period of five months. After that I focused on physical, mental and emotional recovery, adjusted to my new home and began to build a new life. What a whirl. Continue reading
I manage to catch the last day that photographer Kishin Shinoyama’s photographic exhibition The People is showing at Kanazawa’s stunning 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art. (Do take a peek at the building here as it is beyond words.) Continue reading
I agree with Matt Zoller Seitz the editor in chief at RogerEbert.com who states that Martin Scorsese’s Silence is a film you experience and then live with. That’s true in spite of its flaws. Continue reading
Image credit to Sogetsu Ikebana website http://www.sogetsu.or.jp/e/
Last week I downloaded Microsoft’s Translator to my phone. Now I can photograph, keyboard or speak into the phone and get an instant English to Japanese or Japanese to English translation. Someone with whom I wish to communicate can hear as well as read the result. Continue reading
Satori: Image Credit to Erin Silversmith – Own work, Public Domain
As part of the ongoing celebration of five years of blogging at The Way of Words, today I reprise a single story in 5 posts. These describe an intense experience in a remote Japanese temple during a single afternoon which unexpectedly and forever altered my perception of everything. Continue reading
The last time I was part of a group where everyone minded each others business was before adulthood. During that time I belonged to a church; a small, conservative, community of Mennonites who despite their unique culture, good works and upstanding qualities felt compelled as a group to regulate the behavior of others. Sometimes that meant great pressure on members to conform and often to make public apologies for transgressions.
In that respect, even though it’s set in present day Japan, I found the world of Terrace House: Boys & Girls in the City oddly familiar. Continue reading
Photo Credit: Copyright © Coto Language Academy. All Rights Reserved
So sorry. I’m overdue. I ought to have posted some time ago. Though you wouldn’t know it to look at me, I’ve been busy.
What have I been up to, you ask. Answer: Binge-watching Netflix. Continue reading