Mike's Japan Diary

Japanese Rock 3 - Yuzu

2011-07-06T01:24:00.000-07:00

Time for another entry in the "Japanese Rock" series, although today's band are more Simon & Garfunkel than Maiden or AC/DC.

Today I want to recommend Yuzu (ゆず) a Japanese folk/pop duo. Their catchy songs are great to listen to (and great to sing to when practicing your Japanese... ).

My favourite album is Yuzuen (ゆずえん) and my favourite song is Sayonara Bus （さよならバス) .

Yuzu, by the way, is a small sour citrus fruit, and was chosen by the band because when they were deciding on a name one of the members was eating a yuzu flavored ice-cream.

Anyway, while you give them a listen, I'm off to band practice with my band Häagen-Dazs - Cookies and Cream.

Photo Blog - Hanami 2011 (二千十一年の花見)

2011-04-12T22:39:00.000-07:00

It is Hanami time in Japan again with beautiful cherry blossom trees blooming everywhere.

Due to the devastation caused by the tsunami last month, there has been a much more subdued atmosphere at many of the parks that people visit to see cherry blossoms. But people were still out in there thousands picnicking and giving live street performances. After the stresses of the last month I think it has done and will do a lot of good for people to de-stress. Also people are donating and doing charity work for the people effected by the tsunami so it has probably raised a good amount of money.

This year I went to Ueno park in Tokyo. Please check the photos out!

Photo Blog - Osaka!

2011-04-07T00:26:00.000-07:00

I recently went to Osaka. Osaka is an exciting lively city in the west of Japan. The city is famous for it's food. It rightly deserves its reputation.

The saying....

京の着倒れ、大阪の食い倒れ! (Shop till you drop in Kyoto, eat till you drop in Osaka)

....is 100% true! , well the eating part. I'll try shopping in Kyoto next time. Anyway, please check out the photos.

Osaka night view

Angry man wants you to eat here. Don't say no to angry man.

Seriously delicious. I could swim in that sauce.

Osaka has a problem with giant crabs.

Too many delicious places to eat. Too small stomach.

Not sure what they sell here. Any ideas?

Funky

are?

Kanji Magic!

2011-03-25T21:59:00.000-07:00

Kanji Magic!

I recently bought a new smartphone. This time an Android one. Being a geek, of course I looked at making apps for it. I started playing round with various tutorials but I have decided to make an app that I think might actually be useful - an application to test your Kanji reading ability.

The app's name is Kanji Magic and it allows you to test yourself on a various groups of Kanji. You can choose the groups (for example Names/Cities or Names/People or Animals/Fish).

Hopefully by the time I'm ready to release this application I will have created a huge amount of data for it.

Anyways, for the moment this app is closed sourced. Mainly because it's my first attempt at using Java for ages so I want to get up to speed with it again before showing my Java code.

When the app is finished, it will be free to download from the Android Market.

I'm still thinking about other features to add (possibly a learning algorithim?)

Anyway Android is a great system to program for and Java has really come a long way since I last looked at it. Although interfaces are annoying to design in Android!

Keep an eye on this blog to see various updates about its progress.

Japanese earthquake - The day the Earth moved

2011-03-18T02:35:00.000-07:00

The resource room after the quake

I have been living in Japan for three years and I have felt many earthquakes. Some I have barely noticed, others have made me panic before abruptly ending. I have always been impressed how Japanese people take earthquakes in their stride. Continuing conversations, work, and journeys just seconds after the earthquakes have finished interrupting them.

But last Friday the biggest earthquake ever recorded in Japan struck just off the north east coast of Honshu (the main island of Japan). I work and live just south east of Tokyo so I was spared the full fury of nature and the resulting tsunami. Even so, the force I experienced had myself and the people who were with me at the time fearing for our lives.

The earthquake started during the second lesson of the day at my school, which is located on the fifth floor of a modern office building. At first it seemed like a very small earthquake and for the first thirty seconds or so we continued the lesson. But it quickly became stronger and stronger so I stopped the lesson and the students, three ladies and one man in their fifties, and I worriedly exchanged words and glances. I can't remember who, but one of us decided to go under the table and the rest of us quickly followed. The school's receptionist bravely made sure that the door and window were open (if doors are closed during an earthquake and the door frame deforms even a small amount, the door can become jammed) and then joined us.

Things become a bit blurry from this point, but I think we were under the table for about four minutes and during that time the earthquake was at it's worst. There were loud bangs coming from the school's resource room, where the school's books, Cd's, and other resources are stored. And crashing sounds coming from the reception area and other classroom.

Luckily, the classroom we were in did not have anything that posed any kind of danger. The only thing was the whiteboard which was swinging on it's hinges. The tables we were sheltering under tried to wander a few times but we held them tight. To calm ourselves we played a mini English came under the table.

After the quake had stopped we ventured out from the classroom, and found the school in a wreck but the actual building was fine.

It was good luck that nobody was in here

The picture to the right shows the damage caused to the resource room. It was lucky that nobody was in this room at the time.

Apart from that, the photocopier, which is very heavy, managed to move across the room it was in, moving at least a metre.

When we finished surveying the damage to the school we decided being outside was a better option. There were many people outside, talking or trying desperately to contact relatives and friends. It was during this time that I learned about the tsunami via the Internet on my mobile phone.

We were outside for only about thirty minutes when the first aftershock came. It was much weaker than the main earthquake but, for me at least, just as scary.

About three hours after the earthquake the word came from my bosses that school would close. So another teacher and I tried to make our way home. This proved impossible as the trains had all stopped services for the day so they could check for damage to the train tracks, signals and stations. There were also no buses going in the direction we wanted to go. However there was a taxi rank but, after asking people waiting for the taxi how long they had been waiting and being told three hours or more, we gave up on that idea. Eventually we headed to the nearest big town by bus and went to an emergency shelter for the night. The Japanese emergency staff were amazingly helpful. They gave us water, blankets and organised shelter. People in this shelter were trying to contact friends and relatives too. Again luckily for us during the night limited train services resumed so we were able to get home.

It was only when I arrived home exhausted and started to watch T.V that I realised the full horor of what was unfolding further north and counted myself extremely lucky.

Japanese Rock - Part 1

2011-01-18T20:24:00.001-08:00

Welcome to the first part in a collection of posts about my Japanese rock recommendations. I’m not sure how many of these posts there’ll be, but hey - Lets Rock!

The Blue Hearts

Where to start.... this band, which was around from the 80s until 90s, is my favourite Japanese punk band and probably one of my favourite bands in general. They wrote catchy punk songs and were known for their, at the time, controversial antics.

Their most famous song has to be Linda Linda. This song is so famous in Japan there’s even a movie which uses it as the basis of a plot, Linda Linda Linda, documenting a high school band’s highs and lows as they try to practice the said song for a school festival. It’s a good movie so if you have a chance, I recommend watching it. There is another, more personal, reason I love this song - it’s the first Japanese song that I could sing in Karaoke without my Japanese friends saying “That’s not Japanese!”

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p$1&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

That said, the Blue Hearts were not a “one hit wonder” they have a lot of great songs and I’ve yet to find a Blue Hearts song that I didn’t like.