1. Mister Donut does free refills. This doughnut chain has branches all over Japan, and they offer unlimited free refills on their hot coffees, and don’t seem to mind people camping out all day. Make sure you pick up their point card and sign up to their email newsletter (mobile phone only) or check their web site for frequent discount coupons. If you get in before 11 am you can get a coffee and doughnut for 300 yen and nurse it all day, and if you’re really lucky you can catch them giving out pass cards for 20% of all doughnuts and 300 yen coffee and doughnuts all day every day for the next six months or so. Pon De Ring Crunch Choco is excellent, but the fancy one in the middle of the photo above was a limited edition Nodame Cantabile Christmas 2009 offering!

2. Starbucks: If you must go there, order the filter coffee and at the bottom of the receipt is a token for a second cup for 100 yen.

3. Many posh hotel lounges will keep refilling your coffee. I’ve never tried this one out myself, but it was on a TV program a couple of weeks back. When they come to tidy up your cup, you can ask for a new one, which is all included in their service charge. In addition, many hotels have wifi in their lobby, and even a power point if you want to be really cheap!

4. If you prefer tea, places with teapot service (or hotel lounges again) will sometimes give you a new pot of hot water if you ask for 差し湯, sashi yu. The one chain I know for sure that does this is Cocorico, but there are quite a few individual places that also do this, such as the rather nice Ai-Ai Park’s Bumble Bee Cafe.

This has been my submission for this month’s Japan Blog Matsuri, organised by Philip Seyfi at NihongoUp, on Japanese how-tos.

Mister Donut photo from telepathicgeorge on flickr.

My favourite place in Japan is the theatre, and you can find me there about once a month, most often at Takarazuka. However, over the Golden Week holidays at the start of May I managed to experience the other side of the footlights. The less than four years old Hyogo Performing Arts Center in Nishinomiya, Hyogo decided to hold their very first public backstage tour for a hundred or so lucky applicants. Lets let the photos do the talking:

Me on stage!

Colourful piping in the basement

A blurry look from the lighting booth

Storage space for seating

Looking down at the stage

Artists sign the walls

The full set may be found here on flickr.

In June or July they’ll be doing tours of the two smaller halls too, so keep watching their web page for your chance to participate!

First out of the trap is a fellow Kansai blogger, sleepytako, a name that already suggests slow times! His relaxation is getting gently boiled in various hot springs around the Kansai area, and the story also serves as a pointer to his rather useful Kansai Onsen Guide.

Next up is another Kansai resident, Harvey, who submitted an older post, but it’s about a walk I’ve always wanted to do myself, as I find disused railway lines fascinating. He walked a portion of the old Takarazuka to Sanda JR line.

Jamie at Frugalista Japan posted on not really a slow time, more a downright boring year in Yokkaichi, which I suspect might be near Tokyo, but it sounds far too dull to even bother looking up!

There three guys above were the quickest to post, so I’ll give them the space above the fold, and I’ll cover the remaining entries a bit more quickly!

Deas of Rocking in Hakata manages to cover both Hello Kitty and shipbuilding talking about his home town of Imabari which seems even slower than Yokkaichi above. Billy from Tune In Tokyo describes a slow time with his wife in Okinawa. Muza-chan at the Gate to Japan has a super set of photos of Sensoji at night, one of which I show below.

Nick at the Long Countdown makes me even more jealous of his lazy internet entrepreneur life, and our man in abiko gets pissed and sleeps. Honor at TokyoTopia gets annoyed by random slowness in the busy metropolis and McAlpine of The Soul of Japan gets annoyed in the hot springs.

Yah! Back to Kansai with Janne In Osaka, who goes down the coast to Suma and Akashi.

Chris of i cjw deserves a whole blog post of his own for a review of his stories of mountain climbing that are both Slow and Fast Times! This time though was a relaxing summer hike with his usual stunning photographs. He should get a coffee table book deal for himself!

Shane at the Nihon Sun discusses slow Tokyo waiting for trains, waiting for wrapping, or just trying to fight through crowds. Hao at Instant Ramen photographs the Kansai Institute and the surrounding area near Kansai Airport. Brian at Gaijin Bash has a nice and simple before and after plum wine, and Blue Moon at Blue Lotus has a Slow Time in a love hotel!

Just three more to go now! Jon Allen, A Seoul Man in Tokyo, is not just slow, but comes to a dead stop in Aoyama cemetery. Harvey at Japan Newbie gets buried in hot sand, and last but not least sophielynette at Four Thousand Miles goes to a cat cafe (real cats, not cos-play!) in Akihabara.

Whew, that was a bit of an epic entry! Thanks to everyone who submitted, and we’ll hopefully see you all next month with Shane at Nihon Sun! Which reminds me, I nearly forgot my own Slow Time with cake!

You now have less than twenty-four hours to get your submissions in for Slow Times in Japan, this month’s Japan Blog Matsuri theme, to be hosted here. I’ve already had lots of great submissions – many photo themed, so don’t forget the JapanSoc group on flickr – so I’m looking forward to a few more last-minute entries. Either email me the link or follow the link in the widget below to submit your slow time in Japan.

Also, just to toot my own horn and to leave a trackback with them, as mentioned last weekend I applied to attend the blogger tasting session for the Kobe Sweets Festa 2009 and fortunately I got selected, or I’ll be writing up about my own Slow Time there on Nihon Sun.

It’s my turn at the controls, and after an entertaining Fast Times in Japan hosted by freedomvw/THEGHOST. As a few people perhaps had trouble thinking about what to write, let’s try the opposite in April:

Slow Times in Japan

How do you kick back and relax? A favourite hiking spot, a quiet bar, bonsai? For those of you not in Japan, choose something Japan-related. Submit stories through the widget below or email me directly.

Just to spread the link love, here’s the entries from March again:

Billy at Tune In Tokyo offers up a interesting tale of being mistaken for trying to smuggle a little pot into the land of the raising sun.

Shane at The Nihon Sun shares a slightly painful experience of trying to talk a Japanese taxi driver into stopping at the right place.

Loco at Loco In Yokohama reveals an experience on the train involving some dirty pervert and a school girl.

McAlpine from the Soul of Japan shares with us all his love of being a bully to just about anyone. Even if they did nothing to him at all.

Nick over at the long countdown offers up a collection of off beat experiences he has had over the years in Japan.

John Turningpin at Mad Tokyo shares the oddity of a night out on the bar scene.

Kanmuri from Turning Iwatean had the pleasure of being asked Does this ramen have human flesh in it?

Second, I’ve signed up for Google Friends Connect for some reason:

Feel free to add yourself to the list and… I’m not really sure what happens after the and, but there must be some good reason why everyone at JapanSoc.org is signing up!

Demographics

Over the first five days of October 2008 14,560 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 17% aged fifty or older.

I don’t have time to watch sport on the television, especially with wall-to-wall baseball, in which I have zero interest, and even if I had the time, the wife owns the remote control…

I used to be a big Formula 1 fan, having attended Suzuka thrice, but even though last month I came across the start of the Japan Grand Prix live on television, both Hamilton and Coulthard piled up on the first lap and the Fuji circuit was totally unfamiliar to me, so I gave up and did the hoovering instead.

Research results

Q1: What sport are you currently most interested in? (Sample size=14,560)

Japanese baseball	19.3%
Figure skating	7.0%
Japanese national football team	4.7%
Formula 1	4.3%
Tennis	4.1%
J League domestic football	3.6%
Golf	3.4%
Martial arts (K-1, pro wrestling, etc)	3.0%
Major League Baseball	2.8%
Volleyball	2.6%
Horse racing	2.5%
Sumo	2.2%
European league football	2.0%
Rugby	0.8%
Table tennis	0.7%
Boxing	0.5%
Other	5.1%
No sport that I’m interested in	31.4%

Q2: Which of the following sports do you watch matches on television, at the ground, etc? (Sample size=14,560, multiple answer)

Japanese baseball	36.4%
Japanese national football team	19.0%
Figure skating	18.8%
Volleyball	14.6%
J League domestic football	14.3%
Martial arts (K-1, pro wrestling, etc)	11.5%
Formula 1	10.9%
Sumo	10.4%
Major League Baseball	10.3%
Golf	10.1%
Tennis	8.9%
Boxing	8.2%
Horse racing	7.7%
European league football	5.4%
Rugby	4.4%
Table tennis	2.9%
Other	6.6%
Don’t watch any sport	35.6%
No answer	0.7%

Q3: Which of the following sports do you want to watch, continue to watch matches on television, at the ground, etc in the future? (Sample size=14,560, multiple answer)

Japanese baseball	32.3%
Figure skating	22.6%
Japanese national football team	18.4%
Major League Baseball	13.8%
J League domestic football	13.6%
Formula 1	13.6%
Volleyball	12.5%
Tennis	11.0%
Martial arts (K-1, pro wrestling, etc)	10.8%
Sumo	10.0%
European league football	8.3%
Horse racing	8.3%
Golf	8.2%
Boxing	6.6%
Rugby	4.9%
Table tennis	2.9%
Other	7.8%
Don’t want to watch any sport in the future	25.2%
No answer	0.5%

Q4: Compared with the 2006 Germany FIFA World Cup, how has your interest in the Japanese national football team changed? (Sample size=14,560)

Got much more interested	1.5%
Got a little more interested	4.6%
Not really changed	58.7%
Got a little less interested (to SQ)	17.0%
Got much less interested (to SQ)	17.2%
No answer	1.0%

Q4SQ: Why has your interest in the Japanese national football team diminished since the Germany World Cup? (Sample size=those less interested in football, multiple answer)

Number of attractive players has decreased	41.0%
Overall team skill level has dropped	37.0%
Know fewer of the players	25.4%
Fewer players have natural talent	21.3%
Just got less interested in football in general	16.2%
Other sports are more interesting	9.3%
Changed their manager	8.4%
No big tournaments at the moment	4.8%
Other	2.3%
Was originally not interested in football	19.4%
No answer	0.2%

Q5: Will Japan qualify for the 2010 South Africa World Cup? (Sample size=14,560)

Yes	47.3%
No	52.7%

Here’s a quick ranking survery from goo Ranking to squeeze in as my entry to the September 2008 Japan Blog Matsuri on poorly-understood job titles in Japan. As the theme of this month’s Matsuri is language, I’ll list the original Japanese too. I’ll bet many of my readers will be stumped by some of the translations too!

Demographics

Between the 25th and 28th of July 2008 1,072 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.3% of the sample were male, 5.7% in their teens, 14.4% in their twenties, 31,0% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 10.5% in their fifties, and 10.4% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.
It’s interesting that most of the confusing job titles are English ones. Number 7, Vice-President, refers not to people like Dick Cheney, but to something I notice in start-ups, where everyone in at the founding and/or with substantial shareholdings gets an honorary vice-presidentship for their troubles. I’m not sure what number 14 is doing on the list – an orchestra conductor is a 指揮者, shikisha – do they mean bus conductor?

I used to have an unofficial job title of Transcontinental Code Monkey (I might even still have the T-shirt somewhere), but that’s another story.

Oh, and for the Blog Matsuri I though this or this would have been much more appropriate, but the translation defeated me!

Ranking result

Q: What job title do you not really know the meaning of? (Sample size=1,072)

Rank	日本語	Reading	English	Score
1	エバンジェリスト	Ebanjerisuto	Evangelist	100
2	董事	Touji	Board Member (Chinese/Taiwanese)	89.5
3	パブリシスト	Paburishisuto	Publisist	85.6
4	インテグレーター	Integure-ta-	Integrator	81.1
5	フェロー	Fero-	Fellow	80.3
6	アーキテクト	A-kitekuto	Architect	76.6
7	バイスプレジデント	Baisupurejidento	Vice-President	73.2
8	マーチャンダイザー	Ma-chandaiza-	Merchandiser	70.2
9	リードトレーナー	Ri-dotore-na-	Lead Trainer	69.9
10	アソシエイト	Asoshieito	Associate	66.9
11	参事	Sanji	Councillor	60.7
12	スーパーバイザー	Su-pa-baiza-	Supervisor	52.2
13	主事	Juji	Manager	50.2
14	コンダクター	Kondakuta-	Conductor	42.9
15	アナリスト	Anarisuto	Analyst	39.5
16	シニアスタッフ	Shiniastaffu	Senior Staff	37.1
17	次長	Jichou	Vice-director	31.3
18	プロフェッショナル	Purofesshonaru	Professional	29.8
19	最高情報責任者(CIO)	Saikou Jouhou Sekininsha	Chief Information Officer	26.0
20	スペシャリスト	Supesharisuto	Specialist	25.4

So, the first host is Shane at The Tokyo Traveler. She’s looking for Impressions of Tokyo, so please feel free to join in. You can submit your story through the widget below. The due date is the 20th of August, so don’t delay!