Today’s watercolor: a School Life Self-Portrait

As you may know, my school is not just a normal high school. In addition to the usual stuff like Math and History, there are also subjects like Accounting and Marketing. The Word Processing Club is popular, and the Abacus team sometimes competes at the National competition.

Recently a few of my graduating boys were working on their final product development project. Every few weeks they would poll various teachers about their proposed item and ask for insight. I love being involved in this kind of thing, and was proud of them for doing their best to speak English even though the vocabulary was a bit new.

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Shortly before graduation I walked into school one morning to find the final prototype on my desk as a present. How cool is that? I was so happy I painted a little self portrait with it 🙂

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For more stories of students being lovely, check out The Sweetest Thing, a Very Merry Unbirthday and Here you are, here you are. 😀

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Starbucks Vanilla Lemony Swirl Latte & Frappuccino

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Well, the cherry blossoms aren’t in full bloom yet, but the Sakura Frappuccino is already out of Starbucks stores. In fact it was out so fast that I missed the in between “Coffee and Cream” frappuccinos that were here for only a week. My theory is that Sakura sold out in most locations, so the coffee flavored whipped cream was brought in (with minimal promotion) to be a stopgap before March’s new offering, the Vanilla Lemony Swirl.

The Vanilla Lemony Swirl comes in Continue reading

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Gunma-chan’s Day Out!

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A little while back the International Volunteer Committee I’m a member of, Jomo Jet, started a huge project. Normally we do community events like orphanage visits and craft events, but during the summer holidays we decided to take a little bit more time and make a promotional video for Gunma.

Loosely inspired by the Saitama Anime Tourism Campaign as well as Where The Hell Is Matt, we spent a few hot sweaty days trucking around the prefecture filming as many locations as we possibly could. One of our super talented local friends (Manny Marx from The Uchujins) made a track to go along with it, and our fabulous member Lindsay just finished editing it all together.

I’m so excited to see the finished product up and on YouTube! And with almost 500 views! (That may not seem like a lot to the YouTube savvy, but it’s not bad for our first time out of the gate!)

Hopefully we’ll get a chance to do more videos, now that we’ve got this one under our belt! What do you think of this one? And what we should film next?

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Cheer up, Buttercup!

After watching a recent Art Assignment video on creating GIFs I decided to do something in the style of a couple of my favorite artists, Chibird and Clare Belton. I wanted to do something cute and cheerful and uplifting. It’s not as serious as some of the other entries, but I like how it turned out! It’s a little weirdly compressed here, but if you click on the image you’ll see how it’s supposed to look 🙂 Anyway, what do you think?

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Genki Sudo’s World Order: Have a Nice Day!

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UPDATE: I translated the lyrics for World Order’s Have a Nice Day, so if you’re looking for them, check the link!

Recently a friend of mine stumbled upon a video shoot for one of my absolute favorite Japanese modern dance groups World Order. Headed by retired MMA fighter Genki Sudo, the group presents a brilliant blend of Continue reading

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Today’s watercolor: Charizard meets Godzilla!

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For the latest installment in my Pokémon mashup series, it’s Charizard meets Godzilla! Charzilla? Something about this combo just seemed right, especially with the new Godzilla movie trailer being Continue reading

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White Day in Japan!

Friday was White Dayhere in Japan. On Valentine’s Day I went all out, staying up until 1 am to bake a hundred little cat-shaped madeleines and putting together bags and with name tags. The morning of the Continue reading

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Häagen-Dazs Sakura & Rose Ice Cream

A recent bump in views on my Häagen-Dazs in Japan post reminded me that I still haven’t posted about the Sakura and Rose flavors! I love how endlessly Continue reading

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Live-action Kiki’s Delivery Service Review!

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Last summer one of my most popular posts on the Japan Expo USA Facebook and tumblr pages was the announcement that a live-action Kiki’s Delivery Service film was in the works. The day has finally come and the movie is in theaters across the country. I’m excited to say I’ve seen it!

Most people outside of Japan don’t know that Continue reading

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Sakura mochi!

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The morning of graduation I opened the teachers’ room door to be greeted by the almost overwhelming scent of Sakura. One of the teachers has a Continue reading

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