Lately I have been able to take quite a few new pictures of Japanglish (broken English usually seen in Japan). The Japanglish example on the first photo is a classic; in a lot of restaurants they misspell hamburger, most of the time as “hamburg” (probably because they confuse it with the German city), another way is “humburg” (in the picture) and then there are other misspelling like “humburger”, “hanberg”, “hanbur”, etc.

Other Japanglish posts:

• There is a staff who can speak English
• This vehicle is done to weaken an air conditioner
• Fuculty

There are already several books about Twitter available in Japanese bookstores. When something is a novelty in Japan a lot of books and magazines are published about the topic; same thing happened with the iPhone, and at that time there were books on sale even before the device was released to the market. Published books about a service or product are usually a sign that things are going well.

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Quentin Tarantino loves Japanese culture; he’s been multiple times in Japan and he has confessed to being a fan of Japanese cinema. Tarantino’s vision of Japan can be appreciated in Kill Bill: lots of blood but shown stylishly, with a certain iki feeling. In his last visit to Tokyo he was eating with Brad Pitt in front of TV cameras and also took the opportunity to appear as an actor in the latest Softbank Mobile commercial featuring Otosan, the most famous dog in Japan.

Basic Kanji Book Vol.1 and Vol.2 are the books that got me started in learning Kanji and that I always recommend to people that is starting to learn Japanese. During my first year in Japan I used these two books intensely and was very happy with the results. The two volumes teach 500 basic kanjis in a very pedagogic way; they include boxes where you can improve your handwriting skills, and also include exercises to practice with the kanji you’ve just learnt.

There is also a continuation of the books called Intermediate Kanji Book; however I feel that once you have learnt the 500 kanjis and are reaching a good level with kanji what you need to do is to focus on learning more vocabulary and read A LOT.

Maybe the books are a little bit expensive but totally worth it if you are serious about learning this beautiful language. You can buy them at Amazon here and here.

I usually receive lots of emails from people who is going to travel to Japan asking me tons of different stuff, so here you have a few basic tips:

• 1.-Do not worry
  Yes, Japan is very weird, very different, but the Japanese aren’t going to eat you raw as if you were sushi! Japan is one of the safest countries in the world, it has an impressive transport network that makes tourism easy, the whole country is full of signs (sometimes only in Japanese) and there is 127 million Japanese willing to help you in case you have any problem. With this, I mean you won’t get lost and you won’t miss anything in Japan. Above all, Japan is a “useful” country (Are you climbing up Mount Fuji and you feel like having a coffee? There you have a vending machine!). Summing up this first tip, even if it sounds a little bit silly: the only thing you should worry about when you come to Japan is the Japanese language.
• 2.-Buy a Japan Rail Pass
  The best thing to do when travelling is using the trains from the JR network (Japan Railways). The cheapest option is to buy a Japan Rail Pass that will allow you to travel on a “flat rate” basis using any train from JR all around the country. You can ONLY buy this pass outside Japan, so ask your travel agent of choice for information. You can find infomation in this website. The typical question is whether it’s worth the price to buy the JR Pass. The answer is YES. It is really worth it, so do not hesitate to buy it. It’d be a huge mistake to come to Japan as a tourist without a JR Pass.
• 3.-Plugs
  Electricity in Japan runs at 110V and 50Hz, and plugs have a different shape. I recommend you read the small print on the transformer of the device you want to bring. If it says, for example, INPUT: 100V-240V (from 100V to 240V), there’s a good chance you won’t have problems when using it in Japan. If it only says INPUT: 2**V, you may only use that device in other countries. In that case, you’d have to buy a transformer that’d probable cost you between 20 and 50 Euro depending on amperage, blah, blah, blah… I recommend you only bring devices with the INPUT: 100V-2**V thing. Nowadays, most laptops have those universal transformers, but mobile phones, for example, don’t. As far as the plug is concerned, I recommend you to go to the first electronics shop you find when you arrive here and buy an adapter, which will cost somewhere between 200 and 500 yen depending on the place.
• 4.-Mobile phone and Internet
  Most European/American phone companies offer roaming with Japanese companies. Before coming to Japan check if your company offers it! You may also rent a mobile phone at Narita Airport when you arrive. Ask at the information desk and they’ll nicely help you find the renting place, etc. You may also rent PHS cards for your laptop which will allow you to surf the Internet anywhere in the country. They say you can even get a connection with a PHS card on top of Mount Fuji.
• 5.-Japanese language and manners
  Learn how to say a few things in Japanese, like ARIGATOU (Thank you), SUMIMASEN (Excuse me), etc., and the Japanese people will surely appreciate it. Also try to bow as a sign of gratitude when someone helps you during your trip.
• 6.-Electronic devices shopping in Japan
  There is this myth that says that all electronic devices in Japan are supercheap, the cheapest… and maybe that was true in the 90’s when we still were “globalizing”. Nowadays prices are very similar to any place in Europe/North America, and even some things are more expensive here. For example, laptops are usually cheaper in Spain than in Japan. The only thing I recommend to buy in Japan is digital cameras because, due to the huge competition among Japanese companies in the local market, sometimes they can be between 50 and 100 Euro (depending on the model) cheaper than in Europe/North America.
• 7.-Accommodation
  You may stay at a traditional Japanese hotel or Ryokan for a few days, or at a regular hotel, or at a youth hostel, etc. Choose where you want to stay and send an email in very simple English to make your reservation. As for the prices, finding a place to stay for less than 10,000 yen in Tokyo is cheap, and outside Tokyo, less than 7,000 yen a night is cheap.
• 8.-Route
  The basic route would be: Tokyo, Nikko, Kamakura, Yokohama, Kyoto and Nara. You could extend that to Okinawa, Hiroshima, Hokkaido, Osaka, Izu, Nagano, and any other place far from the big cities that you can think of.
• 9.-DVDs
  If you com from Europe, there is no problem, Japan uses the same zone as Europe. If you don’t know Japanese, make sure it has subtitles in English before buying it.
• 10.-Misc.
  The weather in Japan changes very quickly. You wear a t-shirt one day and you may need a jacket the next. In summer, the heat is very humid, but they set the AC system to freeze indoors. It normally rains a lot, but don’t worry because this is the country with more umbrellas per square inch in the world. It is easy to find one laying around on the street, so don’t bother wasting space in you bag.

If you are travelling to Japan soon you can find more detailed information in this other post:

• Prepare a trip to Japan in 10 steps

Yesterday, February 3rd, was the setsubun day here in Japan; which supposedly marks the end of the winter season (a little bit early) and the beginning of spring. According to tradition, in setsubun day you have to scare demons away and eliminate everything bad that happened the previous year; to achieve this you have to perform a series of rituals using beans.

One of the most usual ritual is the mamemaki, which consists in throwing beans around to purify the house or the company (it is usually done in the balcony or in the entrance hall). The beans frighten evil spirits away and bring good luck. While you throw around the beans you have to say loudly “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!”（鬼は外福は内), which translates to something similar to “Go away demons! Good luck come!

Another tradition is to eat as many beans as years you have lived plus one extra bean which will bring good luck for the incoming year.

This video in Spanish and Japanese of Ai and Ale/Pepino shows the setsubun rituals.

Some time ago we came across this on the supermarket:

I had no idea what it was, but it turns out that it is a quite common marine animal. In fact, some weeks after seeing it at the supermarket, I was snorkeling in Thailand and saw many of them in their natural habitat. In Japanese language it is known as namako (海鼠, 海: sea, 鼠: rat. Sea rat!) and it is usually eaten raw as sashimi or sushi. In English it is known as sea cucumber, because of its shape; which translates into Spanish as pepino de mar.

“They are marine animals with a leathery skin and an elongated body containing a single, branched gonad. Sea cucumbers are found on the sea floor worldwide.”
“Sea cucumbers communicate with each other through sending hormone signals through the water which others pick up.”
“They can be found in great numbers on the deep sea floor, where they often make up the majority of the animal biomass. At depths deeper than 5.5 mi (8.8 km), sea cucumbers comprise 90% of the total mass of the macrofauna.” More in wikipedia

Would you eat a raw namako?

Origami in Japanese literally means “to fold paper”, and it is a true art in Japan. There are many techniques and even some branches of mathematics which study ways of making shapes using paper.

Through Emasoft I found instructions on how to make an origami Yoda.

In YouTube there’s a series of videos that show how to build it step by step, here is the first video:

And here are the rest of the videos: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Tokyo woke up today to snow on the ground and I went for a while to take some photos to the Meiji Jingu temple. It’s a pity that when I arrived the snow at the inner part of the temple had been almost completely cleared out. However I have been able to take some nice pictures and a couple of videos of the monks and temple workers removing the snow using shovels and hoses.

I think I changed something unknowingly on the camera and that is why the colors on the videos are a little bit weird.

Legend has it that in Tokyo always snows at least once every year, and since weather data began being collected in 1876 this has been confirmed true. Three years ago it almost didn’t snow but eventually it snowed during 20 minutes at the end of March. Today, starting at 9:00 pm, snow has started to fall quite heavily, since 2004 it hasn’t snowed so heavily (I am starting to feel like a Tokyo old man). I am wishing that the snow settles tonight so I can go out tomorrow morning and take photos! Temples are specially photogenic when it snows, if you are now in Tokyo enjoy the moment!

Yes, he is playing with his PSP!

I took this video when I was coming back from work. Riding a bicycle and taking a video while it snows… is not easy