About » Zooming Japan

Name: Jasmine T.
Nationality: German
Location: Japan – Chugoku (2008-2011); Kansai (2012-2015)
Languages spoken: German, English, Japanese
Profession: Teacher, Blogger, Translator, Photographer
Likes: Japanese castles, cats, taiko, (Japanese) food

Dislikes: insects, bad weather and spicy food
What else?: I visited all 47 Japanese prefectures and over 100 Japanese castles and want to share my travel experience with you.

Why Japan?

That’s a longer story. The first time I got in touch with Japan was in the mid-80s when I did Karate. I learned my first few Japanese words as well as Japanese discipline – and I really liked it.
In my teenager years I rediscovered Japan. My interests in Japan have totally changed since I moved to Japan, though.

How did you make it to Japan?

A lot of people seem to be interested in how I made it to Japan and how I found a job. At first I planned to only stay a year. I came to Japan using the “Working Holiday Visa“.

You can read about the whole story in the blog post “How I made it to Japan“.
If you are interested in moving to Japan, but aren’t sure what to expect or where to start, then I highly recommend reading “Dreaming of a Life in Japan: The reality“.

What is this blog all about?

Publications:

Himono Onna – The Dried Fish Woman – on GaijinPot (July 27th 2012)

Himono Onna – The Dried Fish Woman – on Japan Today (July 29th 2012)

“Katzenkult in Japan” (Cat Cult in Japan published in Cats Today (Winter 2014 issue):

Press Mentions:

GPod 6: Favorite Apps For Living In Japan on GaijinPot (December 15th 2013) – (talking about my blog as it was chosen as the website of the week)

Interviews:

“Teaching and English education in Japan“ (in German) – by Lehrzeit (November 29th 2012)
“From Germany to Japan” – by BlogExpat.com (December 3rd 2012)
“Blogging in the land of the rising sun” (in German) – by BlogProjekt.de (May 7th 2013)
“Gaijin – A Word and its Connotations” – by Tofugu (May 29th 2013)
“Interview with Jasmine from Zooming Japan” – by Japanese LinguaLift (November 2013)
“InterNations Featured Blog: Zooming Japan” – by InterNations.Org (January 2014)
“Japanese Castles Passion” – by Chateaux du Japon (March 2014)
“Mein Japan: 7 Reiseblogger verraten ihre Highlights” (in German) – by Weltreiseforum (July 2014)

Reviews:

“Zooming Japan is a great source of information for travelers and those interested in Japanese culture. The person owning the site has the most experience among the people I know of in Japan, many of them I know personally and who have lived there only half the time she has. I’ve been planning to travel to Japan for sometime now and I use a lot of scenes and experiences from her blogging as reference.”

“Zooming Japan has informative posts on travelling in Japan and helps with planning trips. I wished I could travel as much as the author, but this way I can at least read about destinations. Not only are there lots of pictures for every location, but often there is detailed information on admittance fees or transport so you really don’t have to do much additional research.”

“I enjoy the way information is provided in form of travel entries, making it easy to decide if something is worth visiting and for what.”

More reviews can be found here:
Feel free to leave a review as well!

“THE JAPAN BLOG DIRECTORY” Reviews

Shoutout Video by Japanese Castle Explorer