Things I still haven’t done in Japan

Posted by in About, Travel on 16. Dec, 2007 | 13 Comments

Every time friends come to visit it makes me realize how many interesting places there are to visit and things to experience in Japan that I have started to take for granted. I mean, Kyoto is like a 45 minute train ride from my place, I can go any day right? For example, I went [...]

Getting your feet wet with Japanese

Posted by in Books, Gadgets, Language, Media on 13. Dec, 2007 | 7 Comments

I got a question from a reader the other day asking for suggestions on how to learn Japanese slowly and casually. The reader was straight-forward and said that he didn’t have enough time to spend hours everyday learning Kanji, and isn’t looking to become fluent anytime soon either. The goal is just to make Japanese [...]

Talk2Me form problems

Posted by in About on 12. Dec, 2007 | Comments Off

Annoucement! That Talk2Me Form has been giving me some problems. It seems to have been randomly dropping email addresses. This is a problem, because without your email address I can’t reply you! So if anyone has tried to contact me via the form in the past oh… 2 months or so… Please try again and [...]

The Osaka Tour Guide is I

Posted by in Food, Osaka on 11. Dec, 2007 | 10 Comments

A friend from the states came to visit, so I had played the role of Osaka tour guide for half a day. We didn’t have lots of time, but got a lot in and had a lot of fun! We did Osaka Castle in the early afternoon. The weather has been strangely warm lately, so [...]

Takoyaki Maker available again

Posted by in Crazy Consumers, Osaka on 10. Dec, 2007 | 3 Comments

Quickie for ya. I learned that JList has a Takoyaki Maker Set in stock again, so if you’re looking to make red and green takoyaki balls for CChristmas you know where to shop. They only have 2 in stock and they’re less than 20 bucks so I don’t know how long this link is going [...]

TheJapanShop.com Sale

Posted by in Books, Crazy Consumers, Gadgets, Media on 08. Dec, 2007 | 3 Comments

TheJapanShop.com is having a 10% sale on all of their items until December 31! If you’re looking for a Christmas present to buy that Japanese studying someone, this is a good place to do it. Especially if you don’t live in Japan. Some interesting items they offer include… The Genki textbook series (recommended by yours [...]

Using Google as a Japanese English Translation Tool Tips

Posted by in Language on 07. Dec, 2007 | 1 Comment

Keeping with the theme of Google tricks to help with language learning, here’s another one. This trick works especially well when trying to figure out the proper English or Japanese word for a scientific term. For example, say I want to know what 再帰性反射型液晶 is in English… Definitely not on JLPT 1. Enter the term [...]

Non-smoking restaurants in Japan

Posted by in Society on 04. Dec, 2007 | 6 Comments

Kinen-Style will be useful for anyone looking to escape all of the second-hand smoke in Japan. You must be able to read Japanese to use Kinen-Style, but it lists non-smoking restaurants and what not around the country. Looks pretty useful! On a related note… [image from JapanNewbie 2005] – Harvey

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