February, 2010
Gunkanjima is an island in Nagasaki prefecture. The whole island was purchased by Mitsubishi in 1890 because coal was found under the sea in that area. Gunkanjima (軍艦島) could be translated as “battleship island”; that is because the island shape reminds you of a battleship. At the beginning the island was inhabited by a few [...]
Last week scientists of the University of Tokyo announced that they had created a new material composed of 95% water but it’s not liquid, it’s gelatinous. The material is composed of 95% water, 2% clay and the rest organic materials. They say that it could have many applications in medicine and is totally ecological. Cool! [...]
If you go to Ogori coffee shop in Tokyo when you pay you don’t receive what you have ordered, you receive what the client before you ordered and paid! Would you go to a coffee shop where you can’t have what you want but what other client that you don’t know at all ordered? What [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
