Photo by lestaylorphoto.
Just came across this article published by the Yomiuri Shimbun on how Japan wants to put a greater effort into promoting tourism. Of course the devastating tsunami and resulting nuclear scare has certainly effected the tourism numbers, I had no idea how low they actually were.
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Photo by Jokin Sukuntza on Flickr
To be honest I had no idea that Mount Fuji wasn’t listed among the United Nations cultural sites already. But thanks to the BBC article Stacey just sent me, I’ve been set straight.
A formal decision is expected when Unesco’s World Heritage Committee meets in Cambodia in June.
This would make Mount Fuji the seventeenth world heritage site in Japan. So we’ll see what happens in June :)
Photo by e.g.gatsby on Flickr
Granted, there is a debate on what exactly being fluent in Japanese means. Personally my aim is to be conversationally comfortable rather than try and pack in 30,000 words. Truth be told, even if I know 30,000 English words, how many of those will I actually use every day or even in a year? So here’s what I think it means to be fluent in Japanese and how many words that’s going take.
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Photo by Davezilla on Flickr
Finding WiFi spots in any major city can sometimes be a royal pain. I’ve spent much time wandering through Osaka and Tokyo looking for a place to connect. Well the good news is that it has got a little easier to find Internet access in Tokyo, at least in the major tourist areas. I just came across this new initiative by NTTEast for offering some free WiFi hotspots to visitors to Tokyo.
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Photo by Skiwalker on Flickr
This is one of the more unusual idioms that I’ve found and we don’t really have a comparable English one. The idiom is around cracking a star and the meaning is not what you think.
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Photo by EugeniusD80 on Flickr
Himeji Castle has long been my dream location to visit. It has also proved to be on of my most elusive locations. Twice I’ve tried to visit and each time I have been unsuccessful. Once I arrived after the gates had closed and the other time the castle was completely entombed in a massive reconstruction project. It appears that the White Heron Castle has become my White Buffalo.
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I just took a look at our current poll results on “Why do you want to visit Japan?” and I noticed that “anime” is starting to pull away. While Stacey and I don’t watch a ton of anime we find it helpful with our Japanese and some of the shows are pretty fun. Currently in our anime play list is Figure 17. Here’s a quick review.
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It’s been a while since we did a cute food post :) Here’s a video that the fun people over at Kawaii Kakkoii Sugoi (great name!) just sent us. If you’re an onigiri or Totoro fan you’ll be sure to like it.
Photo by Sprengben on Flickr
In honour of the Superbowl (and it’s disappointing showing of funny commercials) I’ve decided to do another round of funny Japanese commercials. I hope you enjoy them :)
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Just saw this story on Japan Pulse. It’s a conceptualized product for Japan that lets you dock your iPhone in your ramen bowl.
The bowl was created after one of its designers, Minnie Jan, witnessed a man eating with one hand while browsing through his phone with the other, she told the New York Daily News. “We did it for fun — it’s kind of sarcastic,” the paper quoted her as saying. But we think there might be a market for it in Japan.
I don’t know about you, but with the way I eat raman, I don’t think anyone wants to see that up close :)
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