If you want to learn Japanese the fastest way possible, read on. Notice I did not say the easiest way possible. If you think learning Japanese is easy, well, you can stop reading now. Presuming you want to learn Japanese, I offer the following ...

After four days of sightseeing on Okinawa Island, we set sail for Miyakojima, the next major island to the south in the Okinawan chain. Having just visited Okinawa’s Churaumi Aquarium, I was more aware of the beautiful sea life underneath our sailboat such as ...

We had already been on Amami Oshima for a week waiting for Typhoon No. 21 to pass. But the typhoon was meandering around the Pacific like a drunken sailor, zigzagging a path north-west, once making a U-turn then righting itself, and another time its ...

I don’t remember whose idea it was to sail from Okayama in the Seto Inland Sea to Okinawa, Japan’s southernmost islands, but here we are — seven friends in a 45 ft (13.7 meter) yacht named Sea Fox, sailing in 20-knot winds down the ...

As the distinguished gaijin on the island (ie: the only foreigner here), the Shiraishi Island Elementary school asked me to come and give a speech to third- and fourth-year students. All four of them. “We want to teach the students compassion for all living ...

Continuing a lifetime study of how the Japanese can be so darn polite, today we look at body language. If you study Japanese as a second language, then I suggest you also study Japanese as a second body language too. Once you have learned ...