It’s been 20 years. 20 years since I left the verdant shores of the Japan I had come to love in the 5 years I had lived in Tokyo and traveled the country. 20 years of absence from the country I grew up in, had my first kiss, broke my first law, got my first BB-gun and discovered the wonderful world of electronics and computers.

I was born in The Netherlands and when I was 2 we moved to Germany, where I was introduced to the concept of friends with weird customs and different languages. At the age of 7 I moved to Japan with my mom, dad and sister. My dad worked for Phillips Electronics Co. and was tasked with setting up Signetics, an IC producing company in Tokyo. Needless to say, I was nervous about going. I remember waking up in a sweat when I had had a nightmare about scary ‘yellow people’. [I was 7. Sue me.]

What has changed in Tokyo since 1989? Sn0r will find out!

When we arrived in Japan and after staying in a luxurious hotel for a few weeks we moved into an apartment in Shiroganedai in Tokyo. I was registered at a school and life in the far east had begun for me. I made friends, viewed the sites and grew up amongst the cherry blossoms of the Kanto. 5 years later we left Japan and I never saw my old haunts and friends again.

Then just before Christmas last year my sister called and proposed a trip. Old family friends were living in Tokyo and leaving again in April and she suggested trying to see if we could get to Japan, visit them and use their apartment as a base for traveling around Tokyo to visit those old mates, temples, schools and shops. I jumped at the opportunity and will be blogging from frosty February Tokyo next month!

I’ll be posting a day by day account of my little trip down nostalgia lane from the 28th of January to the 14th of February so stay tuned! I plan to visit some of my old haunts, schools and other places like Meiji shrine and Kamakura as well as engorge myself on sushi, sake and excellent Japanese hospitality. I’ll also be exploring the differences between the Tokyo of 1989 and today, and hope to highlight some of the changes in this account.

By the way: if any of you have a good idea of where to go or what to see in a Tokyo I haven’t seen for two decades, let me know in the comments below!

Our recruiting drive for new bloggers kicks off this year and, unlike your mother when she carried you to term, we do really want you!

We’re looking for anyone who’d be interested in writing regularly or even those that just want to write a single article for 3nglish.co.uk to see if it’s something they’d like to do. 3nglish.co.uk is interested in any cerebral subjects you can think of.. from girlie subjects like shoes to

The deal is: you write for us and if your article draws lots of views we’ll give you a cut of the profits from the advertising revenue. Your first article will be rated by our editors to check for spelling, suitability and such.

If you’re interested in writing for 3nglish.co.uk sign up to 3nglish.co.uk and leave your intentions in the comment field below. Give us an indication of what you want to write about and we’ll get in touch as soon as possible.

Once we decide to include you we’ll explain the rules of the website and even send you a welcome pack via e-mail which will help you get started.

So sign up today and become a blogger with 3nglish.co.uk!

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence has been going on since the middle of last century, having been first postulated as a scientific possibility in 1959, but how far have we come and what new things have we learned?

In this Fora.tv lecture Professor Ian Morison discusses Drake’s Equation, Finding life on other planets, SETI@Home and how far we’ve progressed and what we’ve found.

If you’re interested in helping SETI out you can join the SETI@Home’s BOINC project, which will install a screensaver on your computer which will use CPU power when the PC (or Mac or Linux Machine) is idle to help go through the massive amount of data collected by the radio telescopes mentioned in the lecture. There’s even an 3nglish.co.uk SETI group you can join (search for 3nglish.co.uk when prompted to join a group).

Why Larry? Because this site looks like a redneck on a Sunday morning.

After a great New Year party at home with the wife and a week recovery from the nasty flu that I managed to get it’s back to the old grind for sn0r. I, despite being between jobs, have a lot to do.

For one, I’m flying to Japan on the first of Next month with my sister to go visit old friends and old haunts like my primary schools there and our favourite shrines and shops. We’ll be staying at friends of the family while trekking and I plan to keep a detailed blog for my fans.
By the way… if any of you know of any cool places for me to dine, let me know. It’s been over 20 years since I’ve been to Tokyo so I’m almost 100% sure my old favourite restaurants in Shiroganedai and Shinjuku will have been closed or moved.

Also, I was speaking with my nephew (or is it cousin – i can’t remember: the Dutch language makes no distinction between the two and I’ve got a mind like a sivve) who wasn’t happy with the site layout and we both came to the conclusion the new website update was shit. So back to the drawing board for me. I hope to finish it by the time I leave for Nihon-land. In the meanwhile you’ll have to be patient with my slow updates.

Cheers!

RWJ’s back and at it again. This week features crazy asians, self potatoes and more.