Nihongo Notes

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!

Continue reading...

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 [...]

Continue reading...

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.

Continue reading...

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.

Continue reading...

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.

Continue reading...

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.

Continue reading...

Plurk your Japanese

I have a confession. I've been slacking. I memorised the Kana at the end of last week and since then I've only done about 2 hours of reviewing Kana. I should be moving on to the Kanji. I'm still immersing myself in Japanese but not as much as I could. Don't even get me started on my writing practice... In an effort to keep myself on track I'm giving Plurk.com a try!

Continue reading...

Packing for Japan

This was my first time abroad on my own and with nobody around to ask for advice I had a lot of unanswered questions about packing. Thankfully we have the Internet! Here’s some of the packing advice I found online and things I found out during my 2 weeks in Japan. Rucksack, Holdall or Suitcase? I guess [...]

Continue reading...

Kanji Poster arrives!

As I previously mentioned I ordered a poster from KanjiPoster.com and it has arrived! It took 2 weeks and came in a sturdy box. It’s in perfect condition and I’m very pleased with it. It was expensive since I was in the UK, turning out to be £20 once shipping costs were added. However it is [...]

Continue reading...

Udon Noodle Soup

Unfortunately the ingredients for my super sushi feast didn’t arrive this weekend. However I found a small store in town that sold a lot of Japanese ingredients so I bought some noodles and a packet of spicy crispy seaweed. The seaweed is in sheets about the length of your index finger and makes for a [...]

Continue reading...