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Hiring paperwork highlights in Japan
Recently, I had to be re-hired from a Japanese company i have been working with as a part-timer for three years. All this time, my employment was handled stress-free through a dispatch company – for a hefty amount from the employer’s side. Apparently, in Japan there is regulation mandating that one is not allowed to…
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Day Hike from Tokyo: The Tanzawa Mountains, Tonodake and Tanzawa
[Visited on October 4th, 2020] We already know that people are mesmerized by Mt. Fuji. But as I have already described before, Mt. Fuji up-close doesn’t have the best view – or best scent for what is worth. In order to get the most out of it, a lot of people opt to climb the…
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Day Hike from Tokyo: Exploring Myojingatake and the Outer Caldera of Hakone
[Visited on September 26th, 2020] Since I recently moved to Kanagawa (again), it makes sense to focus more on visiting mountains inside the prefecture. It is not easy to wake up and head all the way to Saitama after all. Well, considering that I had already been to Mt. Oyama, Mt. Jimba and Mt. Byobo,…
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Your imperial supermarket: Nissin World Delicatessen
For expats living in Tokyo, a lot of times finding simple ingredients to cook seems more like a treasure hunt. With Kaldi being a staple and other high-end supermarkets starting to shift their interest towards imported goods, the original trendsetter in Japan was none other than Nissin World Delicatessen. The single store shop in Azabu…
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Tsukimi: The mid-autumn celebration of the moon
The most important celebration of early autumn in Japan is Tsukimi (月見). Although in the modern era it has been reduced to special tsukimi-burgers in MacDonalds, it is originally a harvesting festival with roots from China. The name of the festival is a portmanteau of tsuki = moon and mi = observe and basically refers…
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Hiking in the dawn at Bali: Mt. Batur
[Visited on August 2019, Greek version follows] The island of Bali, Indonesia is home to a couple of very active volcanoes, among which Mt. Batur (Gunung Batur) stands as the second tallest. At the foot of the mountain lies a wide lake, a byproduct of a past violent explosion together with a caldera. The path…
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