I walked half a kilometer underground from Nagoya Station to an office building the other day. It was nice because I didn’t have to go outside in the hot weather. Large cities like Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya all have large underground areas with shopping streets and passages to buildings. Even on extremely hot days, you can keep cool moving around underground. Although these underground areas are big, the biggest underground street networks in the world are in Canada. Montreal and Toronto each have more than 30 kilometers of underground streets. Why? Not because of the heat. Both cities have extreme weather in winter. In January, the average low temperature is -13 degrees Centigrade, and in some years, it can go down below -30 degrees! Without underground streets, these cities would probably shut down in winter.    (135 words) Jaremaga now comes out online on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. To become a paid subscriber and

When I want to relax and read something in Japanese, I choose a mystery. Most mysteries are not that difficult, and the stories are so exciting that I can’t put the books down. The last mystery I read was by Higashino Keigo. That’s why I was sad to hear the news of his death two weeks ago at the age of 68. Higashino was one of the most famous mystery writers in Japan. He wrote a lot! I think he averaged about two novels per year. Altogether he published 78 novels, and more than 20 of them were turned into movies in Japan. He is very popular throughout Asia as well, and three of his novels were made into movies in Korea.     (122 words) Jaremaga now comes out online on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. To become a paid subscriber and read it 5 days a week, go to “Support Jaremaga” below for more

The Osu Shopping Arcade is a popular place for young people in Nagoya. Some people compare it to Akihabara in Tokyo. There are over 1,000 shops in the area, and they have many events during the year. On Saturday, there was a parade for the World Cosplay Summit in Nagoya. I missed the parade, but when I got there, one street was closed off to cars. There were trucks with DJs on top playing music, and everyone was dancing. I didn’t recognize all the anime characters, but I knew some from Ghibli and Marvel movies. One of the first cosplayers I saw wasn’t even a person. It was a meerkat, a small animal from southern Africa! It was on a leash, and it was dressed up in a happi coat.  (130 words) Jaremaga now comes out online on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. To become a paid subscriber and read it 5 days a

Yesterday, I went to a planetarium for the first time in many years. My wife and I were planning to go to the Nagoya City Planetarium, but I picked the first planetarium that I found on Google. After I bought the tickets, I discovered that it was a different planetarium. Luckily, everything turned out OK. The planetarium had great photographs and showed the stars from different parts of the world. It was easy to understand why you can’t see the same stars from the northern and the southern hemisphere. However, I have learned my lesson. Don’t pick the first thing that comes up on Google. Check to make sure that it is really what you are looking for.　　(118 words) Jaremaga now comes out online on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. To become a paid subscriber and read it 5 days a week, go to “Support Jaremaga” below for more information. You can send me