Put the kettle on & enjoy an enlightening chat with the charming Charlie, a tea shop owner in London with real passion for Japanese culture. I got INSPIRED with so many TEA BREWING TIPS from talking with Charlie, and I think you will too! A milliner by training, Charlie has established the tea shop Tencha with her husband Chris, a jeweller after they fell in love with the taste & aesthetics of all things tea in Japan on their honeymoon. The couple study Urasenke Chado (tea ceremony) here in London and they love the link that tea has with all facets of Japanese culture, including seaso ..read more

My 7-year-old's middle name is Zen. No, really, it is. We gave him the name hoping naively that it might, I don't know... infuse qualities of calm into his nature? He is, ermm, not calm. He is like a tightly coiled spring, ready to bounce off unpredictably in any direction. His spirit animal is, I think, Tigger. 2020’s adventure in ‘home schooling’ rapidly led to clenched fists, hyperventilating, hiding under the desk, shouting ‘NO!’. And that was just me! All the lessons in the meaning of Zen are for mummy. Something I had to quickly understand is to follow the path of least resistance. Make ..read more

Have you ever been to a kaiten-zushi restaurant? I love the weirdly futuristic simplicity of the conveyor belt concept. Tantalising morsels of white, red and orange fish, laid like glistening gems on their thrones of rice glide regally past. We grab what delights us most, and devour it. Actually, the kaiten zushi experience is such an apt metaphor for Japanese study – in fact, for life in general. The choice can seem overwhelming, and we aren’t sure what to pick. Sometimes we get put off by accidentally picking something that’s not to our taste. Raw squid? Salmon Roe? Octopus balls? We get it ..read more

When I lived in Japan, it was before the smart phone-era.  I had a large map of Tochigi city and the whole surrounding area pinned to the wall in my apartment, and I studied the routes to the many elementary and middle schools I needed to visit. Some of them were quite far away by bicycle. I’d be on my way to school in the morning, zig-zagging gingerly along narrow paths between the rice fields, perched on my mama-chari bicycle, and clutching in my fist a small, damp note for security. On the note had been written neatly, in Japanese (not by me!): ‘Excuse me, I’ve lost my way, where is C ..read more

When I was 15 years old, my father went on a business trip to Japan. My father was a Yorkshireman, and not at all given to gushing enthusiasm, except perhaps for a chip butty. Given his usual world-weary demeanour and workaholic tendencies, I was gobsmacked when he came back from his Japan trip all lit up like Akihabara electronic district on a Saturday night. He had cool Japanese souvenirs too: some weird ‘coffee’ gum, a hand-carved wooden Hokkaido bear, and a lovely crane-printed summer yutaka (cotton gown) for me. It was very exciting. He said: “Vanessa, if you ever get the chance to go to ..read more

You might not be offended by the F WORD, but I am. In the last month, I’ve had two consultation calls with Japanese learners where they just kept dropping the F BOMB – without even thinking about it. Fluency. The learners, both complete beginners, wanted to get fluent in Japanese. Quick! Now! Yesterday if possible! One had a time scale of 6 months, and the other a year. Now, I’m not one to rain on anyone’s parade, but I needed to break to the sad news that going from zero to Japanese hero in such a short time would be… well, unlikely. One of them took it well. The other was insulted. But why d ..read more

*What does OMOSHIROI mean? I got some REALLY RUBBISH ADVICE from my mentor – a very experienced teacher – when I first arrived in Japan. Or so I thought… So, it was a sunny September morning and I was in the staff room preparing to teach my first EVER group lesson. Honestly, my mind was as blank as a squeaky clean blackboard.  Feeling steam billowing out of my ears, I begged the teacher to tell me what exactly I should plan to do.  ‘Oh, just make it OMOSHIROI*’ she offered, breezily.  No shit, Sherlock! I thought. But how on earth was I going to make learning a booooring foreign ..read more