Thing #9: One of the things I miss about Japan

It's been two years since my husband and I returned from living in Kashihara City in Nara prefecture in Japan. It's hard to believe that we've been back as long as we lived there. We did so much, met so many wonderful people, and traveled to beautiful and interesting places.

Of course I miss the cherry blossoms and the beautiful hikes to mountain-top temples. The bike-ride to work through rice fields and small neighborhoods. Our friends and the festivals they took us to....

But another thing I miss about living in Japan is the television. I was happy to see the recent reality tv show on American television, "I Survived a Japanese Gameshow," highlight some of the best aspects of the goofy, bizarre gameshows we used to watch. One of my favorite genres of shows to watch were talkshows. They seemed to always include a panel of celebrity guests "oooh-ing" and "aahh-ing" as they watched video clips of each other eating or visiting the sets of movies.

But perhaps the best television in all of Japan are the English-language training shows. Here's a classic from the early 1980s which uses muscle-memory and real-life situations (because, as you know, all tourists in America need to watch out for muggers wearing handkerchiefs around their noses!). Brilliant!