Nihongo Notes

Gaijin House Japan

Jason from JapanLinked.com contacted me recently to let me know about his new site - GaijinHouseJapan.com. Gaijin House Japan is, at its heart, a guide to guest houses - shared houses or apartment buildings where travelers and locals live together, sharing the facilities. Living in a guest house is a great way to start out in [...]

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The floating torii at Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima Island, Hiroshima

During my first trip to Japan I had the pleasure of staying in Hiroshima for a few days. I learnt a lot about its past and had some great nights out. On one of the days I took a trip over to Miyajima Island and visited Itsukushima Shrine with its famous floating torii.

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British Bloke’s Bento

I came back from town this weekend with a not so healthy lunch. As I was about to dig in I had a pang of guilt and thought about the healthy bentos I'd been making over the last few weeks. I ended up picturing my unhealthy lunch as a bento. For a bit of fun I actually put it all in a bento box. I think the plum balances it out nicely.

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YUI

YUI is another of my favourite Japanese musicians. She’s very talented; playing the guitar and piano as well as having a great voice. She’s also cute!

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Japan on the Web - Week #1

General News JapanBlogger.net has launched! billywest has done a great job and is continuing to develop the site and promote japanese blogs. Go give your favourite blogs a vote! The iPhone has landed in Japan. It is all over the blogosphere and you’re probably tired of hearing about it but Neil Duckett has an interesting article on [...]

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Learning Japanese: Kana

I truly believe learning the kana first gives you a solid foundation to work from. This is the first in a series of articles I will be writing about learning Japanese. They will be written alongside my own study and I'll only approach a subject once I feel I have fully understood it myself. I hope these articles make a useful introduction for anyone looking to learn Japanese.

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Asian Kung-Fu Generation

Asian Kung-Fu Generation (アジアン・カンフー・ジェネレーション), or "Ajikan" (アジカン) for short, were the first Japanese rock band I came across in my search for Japanese music. My favourite songs are 君という花 ("Kimi to iu Hana" / "a flower named after you") and アンダースタンド ("Andāsutando" / "Understand"). The title of the latter is amusing because, well, I don't understand any of the lyrics yet! However I can appreciate good rock music and they are one of my top 5 favourite bands.

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Firefox Fancy Numbered Tabs Extension

Just a note to let anyone visiting this site looking for information on my Firefox Fancy Numbered Tabs extension know that I have updated it for Firefox 3 and it’s awaiting moderation by the Mozilla team. Unfortunately they seem to be taking quite a while. In the meantime you can download it here. Firefox will prompt [...]

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Sanja Matsuri (Three Shrine Festival) in Asakusa, Tokyo

I was lucky enough to be in Tokyo during the Sanja Matsuri (三社祭, "Three Shrine Festival") at Asakusa. It was my first full day in Japan and what better way to start the trip than with a festival! I ended up walking down some of the side streets waiting for the parade to start and found some interesting shops and a very peaceful garden. Once I returned to the temple area it was packed with people waiting with cameras in hand.

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Boring lunch beaten by bento

My lunches used to consist of boring sandwiches, but they will be boring no longer! This is about my 4th attempt at bento and I freakin' love it! It's a lot healthier than the chicken mayo sandwiches I used to have! If you want to see a few more bentos that I've made check out my Flickr Food set. I plan to keep it updated with most of the bentos I make.

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