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Shinkansen Commercial Wins Awards at Cannes
Japan's newest shinkansen (bullet train) had the unfortunate timing of opening on March 12, 2011, the day after the worst natural disaster in 140 years engulfed the northeastern region of the country....
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We Should All Interview Our Mothers
What do (or did) you talk about when you talk to your mother? Are your conversations filled with mundane things such as what time you're going to the grocery store or the price of gas? Or do you talk...
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Why I Want Japan to Win the Women's World Cup
At the risk of sounding unpatriotic: Go Japan! There. I said it.Japan meets the USA in the Women's World Cup final on Sunday in Germany, and I'm rooting for the team from the Far East. I'm not even a...
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I Stalked a Japanese Celebrity
Okay, I didn’t actually stalk her, but . . . Well, let me start from the beginning.The Stella Adler Studio for Acting has been a New York City institution since 1949 and boasts such Hollywood icons as...
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Countdown to the Worldwide Uchinanchu Festival
The Okinawa Times is running a countdown to the prefecture's 5th Worldwide Uchinanchu Festival, taking place October 12-16. The front page of each day features a picture of someone of Okinawan descent...
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From LLWS to NPB
I just arrived in Tokyo to spend the next two weeks sightseeing and taking part in the JapanBall tour. This is my fourth year with JapanBall, a group that takes people on a tour of Japan through five...
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Why Don't We Have Chickens in Our Newscasts?
I first saw him last September while watching the evening news in our Tokyo hotel. I was stunned into silence. My husband was the first to speak. "That was a chicken on the set," he said.I saw him...
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I Love a Parade!
The 5th Worldwide Uchinanchu Festival is underway in Okinawa! The quinquennial celebrates Okinawans and people of Okinawan descent who live in other countries, and there are a lot. The Okinawa Times...
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The Worldwide Uchinanchu Festival Parade in Pictures
More pictures from the Festival Eve Parade of the 5th Worldwide Uchinanchu Festival in Naha, Okinawa, on October 12. For more about the parade, check out this link.
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Family Time on Okinawa
The best thing about visiting Okinawa is spending time with my family. My husband and I enjoyed having dinner with my aunt and my cousins at a restaurant in Naha. It was amazing to see how my cousins'...
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A Morning at Naha Nishi High School
During our stay in Okinawa, my husband and I had the special opportunity to visit a high school in Naha. The program, "Learning about Uchinanchu Around the World," was part of the 5th Worldwide...
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Everything You Wanted to Know about JapanBall 2011
An edited version of this post appeared in Baseball Reflections.Last month, as they have done for the past twenty years, Bob Bavasi and Mayumi Smith guided a group of tourists across Japan to discover...
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Ten Hours in Fukushima
A journalist advised me not to go. Two peace activists told me I would be fine, although one of them didn’t want me to eat the local foods. An author suggested a simple lunch probably wouldn’t do much...
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Christmas Tree!
Yes, most people put up their Christmas trees right after Thanksgiving, so I suppose we're a little late in that respect. But our Christmas tree is up and decorated, and I couldn't be happier!Christmas...
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Seeing Shrinecastle around NYC
Imagine my surprise when I walked into the Japanese Culinary Center for a Motsu Nabe event and saw this:Shrinecastle at Japanese Culinary CenterIt's a print-out of "Japanese Culinary Center Puts the...
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Ready for Some Baseball
Maps, tissues, and luggage tagsMLB's season opens in Tokyo with the Mariners taking on the Athletics, and I'll be there with a JapanBall tour group. With the exception of an exhibition game between the...
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MLB and NPB Meet in Tokyo - and JapanBall is There (or Here)
JapanBall organized a special spring tour as fourteen Americans converged on Tokyo for MLB's season opener in Japan. The official Opening Day for the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics begins...
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My Favorite Japanese Dog Has a Fancy New Store
Otosan, the ornery Akita Inu and patriarch of the White family, has taken over Ginza! The face of SoftBank's brilliant ad campaign, Otosan is featured prominently in one of Tokyo's glitziest shopping...
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Tar Heels Play the Tokyo Dome
I'm a huge fan of Japan, baseball, and the North Carolina Tar Heels. It's a rarity when I can combine all three, but that happened last week, when MLB officially kicked off the 2012 season in Tokyo....
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It's been quite a while since I've posted on shrinecastle! In May of 2011 I launched JapanCulture•NYC, an English-language resource for all things Japanese in New York City. I've devoted all of my free...
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