This past year was a very eventful one for Jamaipanese.com and for me personally, definitely the most eventful year for a while if not the most eventful (and fulfilling) year in my life so far. At the begining of the year I started out wide-eyed and ready to make things happen and for the most part...

The photographer in me goes crazy whenever I see awesome photos by talented photographers. Flickr is a fertile “looking ground” packed with millions of awesome photos that I sometimes find myself lost in for hours on end. Combine the photographer in me with the Japan lover in me and you have...

Yakitori is one of those “regular” types of foods the (formerly) picky eater in me wanted to try when I arrived in Japan. After grabbing 3 different flights and making it halfway around the world from Kingston to Tokyo I met up with a Jamaican friend Dave and his Japanese friend in Yokohama super...

Every major tourist area has its main stop, that must see attraction all visitors must go to or their time in that particular area, town, city or country would be incomplete. Good examples are the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Statue of Liberty in New York. For Kyoto that place is Kinkaku-ji or the “Temple...

Nijo Castle is a massive complex in Kyoto Japan built in the early 1600′s as the home of the first Shogun of the Edo Period Tokugawa Ieyasu. The entire Nijo Castle grounds include various buildings, temples, gardens, moats, walls, ponds and watchtowers and unsurprisingly it is one of Kyoto’s...

Starting next month East Japan Railway Company (JR East) will be selling a new JR Kanto Area Pass available to holders of a non-Japanese passport arriving at Haneda or Narita Airport. The discounted pass is valid for 3 consecutive days and allows unlimited rides in Tokyo and the surrounding Kanto area...

Welcome to the second ediition in a series I am calling “practical Japanese” where I share a photo or video showing hiragana, katakana or kanji being used in a practical everyday sense. The aim is to expand the vocabulary of fellow Japanese learners so they may get familiar with seeing and...

Being a fan of anime, manga, gadgets and tech, one of the places I spent the most time at and enjoyed the most while visiting Japan was Akihabara or “Akiba” as it is known by the locals. I learned a lot about Japan’s “geek” culture from my visit to Japan and conversations...

Next in line in the long list of things I did for the first time while in Japan is eating that delicious Japanese noodle dish called Ramen. Ramen for me is one of those iconic Japanese dishes I see so much in movies, anime etc that it was a no-brainer when on my second trip to Akihabara I decided to...

One of the three main stops during my 1 day exploration of Kyoto while in Japan was Ginkakuji a Zen temple which was originally constructed in the late 1400′s. It was originally intended to be the retirement villa of Ashikaga Yoshimasa, the 8th shogun of the Ashikaga shogunate who reigned in Japan...