big shoes
Posted by: Kelley on: 27 Jul 2010
I saw a huge black man on the train today.
And it wasn’t like he was huge in the wide way, but he was big, even for western standards. Or maybe I’ve been away too long.
The first thing I noticed were the incredibly large shoes he was wearing. I had never seen shoes so long in my life. Compared with the other salary men. I also took up about two persons’ worth of seat. His legs were spilling over the edge of the seat and his knees were like mountains. He took up a lot of room. Between his legs he clutched a bag of Starbucks.
I wondered if he was a basketball player.
konbini is my favorite friend
Posted by: Kelley on: 23 Mar 2010
- In: travel
- 2 Comments
I write this sitting in my hotel room on the first night of my stay in Japan. Woo! My giddiness has worn off a little, but maybe that’s because I’m tired. Well, I have been up for over 24 hours so that is legitimized. Airplane napping is SO not considered to be actual sleep, seeing as I only drifted off for ten minutes and wake up suddenly because the airplane starts shaking or maybe that’s just your seat shaking as someone climbs out of the row behind you to head for the toilet.
ANYWAYS I’ve discovered Japan is so much nicer than America. SO much nicer. In fact, nearly everything is better here than in the states. Like, the first thing I noticed getting off the plane were the uniforms. The cute, cute uniforms. Especially the ground crew uniforms are SO adorable. Maybe that’s because I watched the drama “Attention Please!” which takes place at – what do you know, Narita. But then the window washer uniforms were uber cute as well. And the courtesy! As soon as I opened my insolent gaijin mouth to speak my first sentences of Japanese in an actual Japanese situation, I came out a bit rough. Yeah. My first insolent moment was at the konbini, or convenience store.
But what a convenience store! We orientationers ate dinner from the food we bought at the konbini, but man was it worthwhile! I haven’t yet tried my onigiri, or rice ball, but it’s bound to be as delicious as my omuraisu – omelet rice. It’s actually a plain omelet with some fake cheese draped over a ball of rice. But then drizzled over that is some warm, ketchup sauce. The first bite tasted like puke. But the second bite was better, and so on, until I nearly wanted to explode and there was only a few bites left. My first encounter with Japanese food in Japan is success!
I also used my first Japanese toilet today. Not the squatting kind, but I intend to dare myself to use one when I get the chance. This toilet was the kind that sprayed you after you were finished. I pressed the button…and was given the most horrifying yet strangely pleasant experience of my life. Interesting.
I’ll upload the pictures tomorrow. Yeah.
aw eff
Posted by: Kelley on: 26 Feb 2010
Why does my iPod Touch, which I bought exclusively (not really) for Japan, have to flip out and frak me less than a month away? Come on! I’m counting on you for my alarm clock/packing list/Japanese lessons/music/J-E dictionary/Koi Pond™!!
And I have to freaking restore you?? Are you kidding? After months of sitting at my desk and playing with you when I should have been doing homework, everything is gone and wasted!
EFF!
A brief list of dramatic-inspired manga
Posted by: Kelley on: 22 Feb 2010
Ashita no Ousama
Today I just discovered a cute gem of a manga that is 明日の王様. It’s about a very plain girl making her way through the world of drama and stage plays. For anyone who is interested in theatre or acting or writing or directing THIS IS FOR YOU. It also helps if you’re a girl, since this manga is classified as 女性 or josei, which means the target audience is for women who generally have completed high school…not like this is a dirty manga or anything, but the mindset is more tempered and mature than your average 少女 (shoujo), the young girls’ hormone-saturated harem-fest mangas. Anyway, for those of you who like a good, quiet story about one girl’s go-get-em attitude as she takes on an industry, this manga will be an excellent discovery.
Glass Mask
Of course no theatre manga list is complete without reference to the great グラスの仮面. This is perhaps the most famous shoujo manga ever–at least in Japan. It’s been running for upwards of thirty years now, though the 漫画家 (mangaka), or artist, took a long hiatus after not being pleased with the direction of the story. Now, slowly but surely, we are getting the end of the story, though when it will END end I am not entirely sure. All I know is that this is one of the best manga out there and everyone should read it. It is also about a poor, clueless girl who happens to be an acting prodigy who is so good it’s scary. READ IT. It’s full of drama, romance, and lots and lots of acting! If you are an actor this could really motivate and inspire you to take a bit of technique from Kitajima Maya.
Yeah, there's an anime too, you slackers.
Skip Beat!
スキップ・ビート！ is a totally hip take on the talent agencies in Japan. If you really want to find out what it takes to make it big in Japan (although it is a bit of a stretch) read this ongoing series about another girl (again…what is it with these girls?) on a quest to become the biggest idol ever! …Just so she can get revenge on her ex. It’s quirky, she’s quirky, the characters and situations are quirky, and this manga is just so happy and rollicking that YOU will have a rollicking time with it. Check it out, yo.
This list is not comprehensive, so sue me.
がんばって part 2
Posted by: Kelley on: 17 Feb 2010
This is a little addendum to the previous post (ganbatte means “good luck”). But yesterday I just re-discovered a most useful site to work on your Japanese vocabulary. It’s got some useful shiny flash applications that are designed for retention so you won’t have to sweat about the old, boring way of memorization. It’s my latest obsession: Smart.fm. It doesn’t matter if you already know a bit of Japanese or are a total noob. BEST EVER possibly better than Rosetta Stone even though I have never tried it, I have seen demos of it and this website looks like it’s a fair substitute…plus it’s FREE. Seriously, I’m telling you, you don’t need to shell out $1000 for some learning software or even a language class. You can do well on your own with some free web resources and maybe about $100 for some starter books (especially including Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji).
Smart.fm reminds me of another language learning website that’s basically a cross between Smart.fm and Facebook called Livemocha. Basically the idea is to connect with others who are fluent in your target language as well as helping others learn languages you know, such as proofreading English and such. It’s much more community-oriented. The problem is, I’m not very social and very awkward online, so I prefer low-profile sites like Smart.fm.
がんばってね！
Posted by: Kelley on: 15 Feb 2010
a.k.a. My Quest to Become Competent in Japanese in One Month
Okay. It’s not funny anymore. I really have to get on my game about this whole “study” word in the “study abroad” concept.
Most of my days lately have been spent living as a hermit in the basement of my parents’ house. I’ve essentially become a ひきこもり… an extreme case of isolation usually a Japan-exclusive phenomenon. I don’t doubt that it doesn’t happen elsewhere but it’s so frequent in Japan that it warrants special attention. For a humorous and VERY extreme take on this social bizarreness, check out my new favorite J-drama: ヤマトナデシコ七変化.
Me, if I was male and Japanese.
Now I reaffirm my vow to be productive. I really, really mean business. I sucked at Japanese last semester, so I really need to kick-start my engine. I am going to try to finish reading James W. Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji 1 and I’m going to review the kanji every day. For those of you not in the know, Heisig is considered to be THE BIBLE of kanji memorization. People studying Chinese should also consider Remembering the Simplified Hanzi, though I’ve never used it.
BTWs, I’m going for a modified approach to learning Japanese using this method: All Japanese All the Time. Anybody interested in learning a language should really check out Khatzumoto’s blog, even if you’re not learning Japanese. It’s funny, motivational, and supposedly really works according to multiple testimonies. The method is designed for independent study and, if done correctly, could help you achieve fluency in under two years (!!).
By “modified” I mean I can’t surround myself with just Japanese music and tv shows just yet — I’ll wait until I’m in Japan. I tried removing all of my Western songs from iTunes last summer, but in the end I acquired new Western songs so now I’m stuck at 50/50 again. So, I gave up on that. BUT I really like the daily “spaced repetition system.” It’s basically advanced flashcards. By the way, anybody who is a fan of flashcards can use an online (or offline) software called Anki that will eliminate the need for paper flashcards ever again! By the way, it’s the best.
Aside from Heisig, I’m also reading (slowly) a manga in Japanese. It’s called 学園アリス (Gakuen Alice) and is ideal because it’s written for a younger audience, meaning ふりがな (furigana), or kanji aids!
CAN’T forget JapanesePod101.com. I have it downloaded on my poor macbook and it’s swallowed upwards of 14GB. It might not be the best audio language learning product, but man is it MASSIVE. And what little money you pay for a subscription makes it a really good deal. Check it out.
Here is a picture of Tokyo
Posted by: Kelley on: 31 Jan 2010
- In: japan
- Leave a Comment
To Do: Insert Own Photo Here
How to keep up with Japan (and the rest of Asia)
Posted by: Kelley on: 2 Dec 2009
- In: pop culture
- 1 Comment
So what do you do if you live on the other side of the ocean and it isn’t feasible to make a hundred dollar subscription to a Japanese fashion magazine, or to order DVDs/CDs from Amazon.co.jp? What do you do if flippin iTunes won’t let you join international stores to buy the latest YUI?
You use the internet.
I know, what a bad solution. Morally speaking. But the absence of viable alternatives leaves us Westerners with no choice.
So where, Kelley, do you get your Asian fix? How do you use the internet to find what you need? And how do you not break a million laws?
Now, I’m not an expert in laws, but the way the fan community has been justifying this moral complication has been to underscore the unavailability of Asian goods in their area. Other than the internet, there is simply no other source where they can get their music or anime. Importing is so expensive that many people cannot afford to buy all of their music. Licensing, however, is another matter that mostly affects anime and manga. We will get into that soon.
Music:
There are three different ways to get your music, and this mostly applies to all other forms of media we will cover. Direct download, torrents, and IRC. Direct download is generally easier for me, since I’m lazier and would rather click on a link than boot up my IRC client or hunt down a good torrent tracker. There’s also less bullshit.
The first thing I do is to catch up on the charts and find music that I like. JPop Asia has a really good selection of PVs from thousands of artists from Japan and Korea. They have an Oricon chart as well so you can browse current music. Once you’ve got some songs or artists you like, it’s time to download.
Here are some nice direct download sites:
bww2.com
a-nation.org
Japanese Music DreamIf you can’t find the exact song/album you’re looking for, remember: Google is your friend. A quick search for “i’m here yuna ito .rar” should do the trick. The search results should bring you right up to the file hosting site, which saves some time. A note on file names: If you are on a monitored connection (like at school, etc) then you should stick with archive file extensions, like .rar or .zip. If you’re at home, it probably wouldn’t hurt to use .mp3 in your search, but archive extensions usually net you a whole single collection or album.
That’s usually the easiest option. I’m not so much of an expert on torrents. I probably know just as much as the next guy. 1) You need a torrent client. 2) You need a torrent tracker. Usually a torrent search engine or even google will bring you straight to the torrent file. One thing about torrents is you never know how many people will be seeding and as a result, the speed is sometimes much slower than direct download. I’ve never had a torrent download faster than a direct download. It could just be that I wasn’t doing something right, like a slow connection or upload speed ratio or what the heck, but I’m not a big fan of torrents unless you want large files, which will be looked at later. I’d say for small things like music, you’re much better off with stick to direct or IRC.
I also don’t count myself an expert with IRC. I’m hell not an expert at searching for files *within* IRC, but I know about bots! I only know of one good music channel, and they only have anime OST/OP/EDs. Nipponsei has a list of all the files they have on their bot on their website. They even have a tracker for those who insist on torrents. I’m not going to do a tutorial on how to use IRC. Maybe I’ll do it later. But there are plenty other tutorials elsewhere. For those who know, the channel is #nipponsei@irc.rizon.net
Drama:
Here’s where it gets more discriminatory. You can either choose to download all the episodes you want to watch (you crazy) or you can watch them online. It depends on what you want. If you want a secure, crisp copy, you should invest in a large hard drive and download the entire series via torrents. It’s pretty much the only way to download them. Here’s a place with a good drama community and a bunch of torrents:
d-addicts.com
I don’t personally use this site a lot though.Or, you could forgo the IMAX experience and watch online. Here are some nice websites:
mysoju.com
asianrice.tv
aznv.tv
Anime:
Same story here. I’ll basically tell you where to download and where to watch online.
Fansub.tv actually has direct downloads, but only series currently in the process of being subbed. After that, it’s a ticking time bomb until it gets licensed, and you can’t download anymore.
BakaBT.com used to be called “BoxTorrents”. They have lots and lots of complete series to torrent, plus they have OSTs and manga. I mainly use them for anime, since that is what they’re best at.
AnimeSeason.com is where I go to watch my anime online. No nonsense about downloading a series you haven’t even seen yet. Try before you buy! Or…download or something. What’s nice is they have the anime currently airing on the front page and then all of the older anime on some back page. I like!
Manga:
Do you know what the easiest thing is? Read online.
mangafox.comOr, if you really want to download, IRC is the best option because gotlurk.net has about every manga series known to man. At least, translated ones.
If you really want to learn Japanese and want to read raw comics, go to michex forums to download, or mangahelpers.com to download/read raw comics.
Fashion:
When I want to look at Japanese fashion I look at the fashion mags, which are really expensive in the states (but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy them – sometimes you get really nice freebies). Don’t want to break your budget to look absolutely glamorous? Then go no further. This livejournal community has nearly everything you need to download an issue of some of the most popular Japanese fashion magazines.
