Ice & Fire
Letter from the Editor
Hello everyone, and Happy (late) Valentine’s day! I hope it was a day filled with love–be it self-love, platonic love, or romantic love. The traditional Japanese practice of buying jibun-choco doesn’t need to be limited to just Valentine’s day. Treat yourself and/or your loved ones!
It feels like winter may never end, but for now at least you can enjoy some fun winter festivals and take plenty of beautiful pictures of the snow. Before you know it, it will be spring and maybe you’ll miss the snow come summer. Maybe not. In any case, as always, you should take advantage of this country’s 4-5 seasons while you’re here. Don’t sleep away the winter. Light a fire under your butt and put a spring back in your step. Whatever it is that you’ve been wanting to do, you can do it! If all else fails, it always brightens my day to plan a future trip, so feel free to start daydreaming about those golden week plans.
This month we’ve got a whole bunch of great articles for you. Check ’em out!
Special Feature: This month we have a special informative article by Samantha Bronster on animal byproducts in Japan to help you stick to a strict vegetarian/vegan diet.
Aomori Spotlight: This month Harrison turns the spotlight on Matt Bola from Hachinohe.
Aomori Snap: Another great batch of tips and tricks for getting the perfect shot, brought to you by Tyler.
Japantics: This month Natalie looks inward and explores the danger of adjusting to life in Japan too much.
English is Weird: Lauren leads us through the beginnings of English in this month’s short history lesson on language.
Extended Play: Nick opens the door to the world of Japanese hip hop through this month’s artist: Shing02.
And that’s all for this month! Thanks again for reading GMA, we hope that you like it! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please reach out to us on Facebook or by email at goodmorningaomori@gmail.com. If you like GMA so much that you want to be a part of it, we’d love to have you join our team! We are always looking for new writers, and this coming spring we will be looking for a new head editor as well. So if you are interested please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Amanda Addey-Jibb
Head Editor
Good Morning Aomori 