Tokyo Podcast

One of the first major hurdles that many foreigners face when moving to Japan is renting an apartment. Renting an apartment in Japan is a complicated process filled with all sorts of historic regulations and procedures, strange acronyms, and more fees than you can possibly imagine.

The small town of Ishinomaki was one of the hardest hit from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which traveled up to 5 miles inland the tsunami destroyed over 40% of the buildings and left the small town devastated. Eight months after the tsunami, documentary filmmaker Paul Johannessen visited Ishinomaki and interviewed a number of residents to find out about the recovery effort. What he found was a strong community who are working hard to rebuilt their lives and their town.

With it’s busy sidewalks and endless stairs in and out of the train stations, is Japan closed off to someone in a wheelchair or is it surprisingly accessible? On this show I talk to Ashley Olson who runs the website about traveling around the world by wheelchair. She recently completed her first trip to Japan and she joins me to talk about thoughts on how accessible Japan is. 

Anthony is back after a busy couple of weeks at his new job at GajinPot to bring you a new show all about the different social media networks in Japan. With guest Robin Sakai from Social500, we take a look at the origins of social media in Japan and how the old guard is changing to match the consumer needs. Anthony also welcomes back to the show past guest Ashley Thompson from Surviving in Japan who shares with us her latest venture, Go Tabi Japan which aims to make it easier for visitors to Japan.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a documentary film by Mr. David Gelb that follows the daily life of 85 year old Jiro Ono who is widely considered to be the world's greatest sushi chef. 

Tokyo is a dynamic metropolis where you will find some of the worlds most unique and fascinating architecture. Kyoto is a city steeped in tradition with an abundance of ancient temples, shrines and gardens scattered throughout a bustling modern city.

Yoshimi Horiuchi runs a non-profit organization called Always Reading Caravan that provides mobile library services to families in the rural areas of Thailand. The program mainly aims to provide story books to children with disabilities who otherwise would not have access to these type of books.

The history of tattooing in Japan is through to extend as far back as the Jomon period, which is 10,000 bc and even though tattooing has been in Japan for many years and is filled with historic symbolism it still hasn't gained widespread public acceptance that tattooing has in many western countries.

While New York is the place to go for jazz musicians when it comes to jazz fans it doesn't get any better than here in Tokyo. These are the words of James Catchpole, a transplanted Brooklyn native who has lived in Japan for 13 years and documents the many cool jazz joints in Tokyo on his website. 

This week Tokyo Podcast is pleased to welcome up and coming singer songwriter Sayulee, has won numerous awards for her singing and songwriting. Last year she launched an interesting YouTube project where she would sing a new song everyday for 1 year.

On this show I'm pleased to welcome back Sachiko Takao who was a guest on Tokyo Podcast episode #20 where we discussed her epic bicycle journey from Okinawa to Hokkaido. I asked Sachi to join me today to discuss the book 日本人が世界に誇れる３３のこと which was written by Ruth Jarman who was also a past guest on Tokyo Podcast episode #34. Sachi talks about the insights she gained into her own culture from reading Ruth's book and the important message that she feels the book has for the

On this show we take a visit to the Appalachian mountain areas of the United States with fiddler Leona Tokutake. Leona is a classically trained violinist from Tokyo who moved to America to pursue her dream of playing bluegrass music. 

This show is all about sports! We are going to take a look at the traditional Canadian sport of hockey and then the traditional Japanese sport of Kendo. We learn about the origins of hockey and about the subtleness and power of kendo.

One of the most disturbing records that Japan holds is that it boasts one of the highest suicide records in the world. Some estimates place the number of suicides as high as 30,000 per year and to give you an idea of just how high that is consider that that works out to 82 suicides per day.

Many foreigners come to Japan with dreams of becoming a TV or movie celebrity, believing in the outdated myth that being a caucasian foreigner in Japan is the easy ticket to fame and riches. Many of these foreigners are in for a rude awakening when they realize that their English teaching job alone isn't going to get them the spotlight they wanted.