Even after over twenty years

I have been living in Japan for most of my life.
I came here when I was twenty years old…and that was over twenty years ago now.

I think Japan is the most beautiful country in the world and Tokyo is the best city.

I wanted to show some scenes that I see regularly in Japan and I may have started taking for granted but they are a part of what makes Japan so special.

Rather than go through the photos in my camera’s memory cards, I decided to be a bit lazy and see what I could find online.
I found a website called Getty Images that has many stock photos…some of them of Japan.
The people who take these photos must have cameras that are much nicer than mine because they took some really nice photos.

I use photos that I took myself in most of my blog posts, but the following photos are from Getty Images.

Every January, when the "Tokyo Stock Exchange" reopens after the New Years holidays, the female staff wear kimono.

A"bird's eye view" of Tokyo

A traditional Japanese breakfast.

A Japanese garden.

The symbol of Japan: 富士山 (Mount Fuji).

Tokyo's "Rainbow Bridge".

Japanese "Green Tea".

The Shibuya area of Tokyo

The Shinjuku area of Tokyo.

新幹線 (Bullet trains)

Tokyo Tower

By the way, today is the seventh day of the New Year.
On this day it is Japanese custom to eat 「七草粥」 (“Seven Herbs Porridge“) for breakfast.
I will have it for breakfast today as I usually do on January 7th.

Click here to see my post that explains this tradition in more detail.

けん玉

My family and I like to play 「けん玉」 (“Kendama“).

Kendama is a traditional Japanese toy.
Much like a yo-yo, with practice you can master the basics of Kendama…and with a lot more practice, you can learn to do the “fancy tricks”.

Basically, Kendama is a wooden hammer-shaped toy with a small, a medium-size, and a larger “dish” and also a “spear”.
It also has a string attached with a wooden ball at the other end of the string. The ball has a hole in it.

To play, you have the ball hanging freely and move the Kendama in a manner that makes the ball swing up and then you catch the ball on either one of the “dishes” or the spear.
And then make the ball move to one of the other “dishes” or “spear”.
You have the ball go from one to the other as many times as you can before the ball misses.

Here’s a video of someone who is excellent with the Kendama.
The video tells the names of a number of Kendama “tricks”, and then the man in the video demonstrates them (and he makes them look easy):

Have you ever tried a Japanese 「けん玉」 (“Kendama“)?
Are you good at it?