People who are interested in dolls

There's a huge subculture in Japan of people who are really interested in dolls. Here's a cute video.

Exploring Kansai with my father... I LOVE my father!!

My father came to Japan! We went everywhere in Kansai together. We went to tourist spots like (清水寺 Kiyomizudera) Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto and (大坂城 Osaka jo Koen) Osaka Castle Park in Osaka. We also went to local areas around Kobe and Osaka. Here's my dad in front of the castle below and me walking through the park above.My father was on his way to a conference in Australia and he took a stopover in Japan for three days. We went everywhere in Osaka and got so many chances to talk. I really missed him and it was great to be able to spend so much time together.

The weekend was the most beautiful time for him to have come. It has recently become Wintery but this weekend was still really sunny. We walked around the boardwalk in Kobe and saw the ferris wheel. We went to the Oriental Hotel to take a look. We saw some kids fishing on the boardwalk and they let me touch a baby blowfish. Monday was a national holiday.
May father marveled at the insane amounts of people taking pictures of the Christmas trees with their cell phones. So I made him pose in front of one, too. Street illuminations are really popular. We saw the ones in Umeda, Kobe and Kyoto station. I LOVE MY FATHER SO MUCH!!
Nancy recently developed an interest in beading and she made me a beautiful necklace. My father spent a long time looking for beautiful Japanese handmade beads to bring back to Nancy. If you guys are interested in beading, there are some nice shops in Kyoto.
We went to non-touristy spots, too. We ate Okonomiyaki in Tsuruhashi and I accidentally ordered what I though were chicken livers for my dad but were actually chicken gizzards. I don't know anything about meat, but when my dad bit into the gizzard, he got the most hilarious look on his face and said, "This is not a chicken liver!!" He also wasn't a fan of Takoyaki, though he loved Japan's corn soup and natto.

I have the best mother and father. I am so lucky and happy that they have both had a chance to visit me in Japan. Here is the post from when my mother came to Japan. Now I am waiting for my brother, sister, Asli and Ryan. Anyone is welcome to visit me!

Surprising things in Japan

My father came to Japan to visit me and took these pictures. It was so wonderful to have him here in Japan with me, and I'm making a different post about our adventures together. But the other neat thing about having visitors in Japan is that they notice all the things that are different. I forgot how strange and different some things are, so it was neat to see Japan through my dad's eyes a little.
The first picture is something I have always wanted to photograph but since I'm far too shy to take photographs of people, I never have. It's a huge crowd of boys standing at 7-11 reading comic books. Actually, they're not boys. They're men. And they stand there for hours. The second picture is of the crowds in Kyoto. It's autumn now and Kiyomizudera is beautiful, so people just flock there.
This picture is of girls wearing Kimono. There are still a surprising lot of girls who wear them, especially on Saturdays and Sundays. Especially when they're taking a day trip, like to Kyoto. You can thank my dad for these photos I have always been too shy to take!

What were/are the things that surprise you the most? My dad was really taken with the hot/cold vending machines and canned coffee, the crowds, the white doctor masks, the really young-looking people and the comic books everywhere.

Look how Adorable.

Japanese girls like taking pictures of cats, feet and food, especially cakes and sweets. I used to make fun of that but look that this cat.

Naomi Watanabe Love! 渡辺 なおみ

I think Naomi Watanabe 渡辺 なおみ is the funniest, cutest girl on TV in Japan. I like watching her show with my roommates sometimes. I don't know if it would be that funny if you don't know about Japanese TV, because Naomi Watanabe is a comedian and her show is a satire on the amount of food shows there are on Japanese TV. It seems like every other TV show is about food. The most popular reality TV shows are diet shows about girls trying to lose weight.

Naomi Watanabe's show is about how she's trying her best to gain as much weight as possible. She's at 80.5 KG and recently (today's episode) found that she can't get past that weight no matter how much she eats. It shows her eating plates and plates of food with a really determined expression on her face and really inspirational music playing in the background. She's trying not to walk so much. There are a bunch of close-ups of Naomi Watanabe crying and sighing, "I just can't gain the weight I want so badly!" just like in the shows about dieting. (They're full of average-sized Japanese girl crying at the gym, just so you know. Believe me, if you didn't know that, you're not missing a thing.) Naomi Watanabe's show is funny! They feed her too much and she gets so full and starts crying. The people who feed her keep telling her, "It's not always easy to reach your goals, but sometimes you have to strive and work hard." Whenever she finally does gain any weight (to drumrolls and tense facial expressions all around as she steps on the scale) her face looks so adorably proud and happy that it's hilarious. I love her.

I'm going to Okinawa 沖縄

I planned to go to Thailand but my friends didn't have a long vacation time and I think it would be a waste to go all the way to Thailand for only a week. Okinawa isn't far away and it's not expensive to get there. I have always wanted to go, so on my next vacation I am going to Okinawa. We just booked the ticket yesterday and I am looking forward to it very much!
Please tell me about Okinawa if you've ever been there. I plan to go the aquarium (one of the largest aquariums in the whole world) and I plan to walk around near the beaches and eat lots and lots of tofuyou (fermented tofu... all my favorite foods have strong tastes... I love tofuyou, natto, Roquefort cheese, durian, kimchi the the best)
Please let me know what to do / see / eat and if you have any stories or historical information about Okinawa, please share them/it. Also any suggestions for friendly, fun places to meet other travelers.

If you're studying for the JPLT, here's a present.

This the the best invention ever. I have been playing with it all day long.
www.readthekanji.com

ウール 100% Wool 100% ウール 100%

I watched a movie called Wool 100% which I held to high expectations because it's the best movie title ever. Wool 100% did not disappoint me in the slightest. It's about two aging sisters who are obsessed with collecting things that other people have thrown away. They collect so much junk in their house and clean it all day. One day, they find a long bunch of red wool that someone threw away. They bring it home and find out that there's a person attached to it.
I think that if you're interested in this movie by now, you're likely to love it because of the gorgeous colors and strange, repetitive music and odd storyline. And all the thrown-out cuckoo clocks strewn around the house. If this movie sounds weird to you, you're probably going to hate it because it moves really slowly and it's a strange story. (one review called it, "A Japanese fantasy about garbage and knitting" which, while being a totally accurate description of the movie, doesn't make it sound too appealing! Ha.) I liked Wool 100% a lot.
Probably if you like Jan Svankmajer, you'll like Wool 100%. There's an obvious Svankmajer influence. It's directed by Mai Tominaga, who isn't very famous. Since I'm not the best reviewing things, here is a truly detailed and complete Wool 100% review with some plot analysis and great screen captures. Also, here is a Wool 100% trailer.
I especially recommend this movie to Saelan's Eden. If you're reading this, please tell her about it. It goes with what I think her aesthetic is very much.

What's the dumbest mistake you've ever made in Japan?

My most embarrassing moment in Japan was when I first came here on a two week vacation. My friends were trying to teach me some useful Japanese phrases and probably the most useful expression you can learn is that "adjective + so" means "_____ seems / looks like adjective."

For example:
Taka so = That looks expensive
Oishi so = That looks delicious
Omoshiroi so = That looks funny / interesting
Tanoshi so = That looks really fun

Useful and simple, don't you think? You just put "so" on the end of the adjective and it's a Japanese phrase. So of course I wanted to practice these kinds of phrases everywhere. Those of you who are familiar with this kind of Japanese expression will know where I'm going with this story when I tell you that I was sitting with my friends on the bus and saw a lady holding an absolutely adorable child on her lap.

...

Let this be a lesson to you if you plan on coming to Japan.
Kawaii means cute.
The logic should be that kawaii (adjective) plus "so" will mean, "________ looks cute"
Unfortunately for me, "kawaii so" means "I feel so sorry for you" or "You poor thing."

Why?
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Taka so = That looks expensive
Oishi so = That looks delicious
Omoshiroi so = That looks funny / interesting
Tanoshi so = That looks really fun
Kawaii so = I feel really sorry for you, poor thing
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????

So of course, I offended the lady on the bus and mortified my friends.
That's my most embarrassing moment in Japan, probably.

What's your most embarrassing Japan story?

Children in Japan

One of the first things you will notice when you first come to Japan is that most children are totally different than any children in your home country. You will notice this first on the train. When I see a child staring at me, I usually make a little face at them and they laugh or make a face back and play with me. But Japanese children don't do that. They usually give me a scathing look like I just did something really stupid and then they look away, disinterested. It's so funny! How do Japanese parents get their kids to have so much self-control at such a young age?

This is really important to remember if you come here to teach children. Western people usually have a totally different style of teaching children and they tend to try to get the kids all riled up and stoked by acting extra excited and animated. But this usually just makes the teacher tired and confuses the kids, who don't know what to make of the crazy person jumping around and speaking a foreign language. I just discovered a great blog by a girl called Reannon who gives the best advice for people teaching children in Japan. She calls it "A Lazy Teacher's Guide to teaching English" but it's not lazy at all. It's a really accurate post and it's something most teachers take far too long to learn when they first arrive here. I wish I had read something like this when I first came here a year ago.

I also wish I had read THIS one because it would have helped me understand that you have to approach teaching Japanese kids with authority from the very start. If you don't do that, they won't respect you and you can't get that respect after you've started with a first impression that's silly. I used to teach kids in Tokyo and Reannon is dead on spot. Teaching children in Japan can also be very, very depressing so you should be aware of that before you start. If you teach English to children in Japan, you can also be aware that kids here absolutely love playing rock, paper, scissors more than anything else. In Japan, it's called "Janken" and Japanese kids have complicated, fast games that we never had when I was a kid. Some games involve jumping up and down stairs depending on who wins and loses. They also play this ultracompetitive rock, paper, scissors game in Hong Kong.

So this post sort of changed into being about Reannon's website. Reannon's blog is really good. She's very different from me in a good way, so if you want to get an opinion from a girl who is in the same situation as me but has very different interests and ideas about life and about Japan, please check out Reannon's site. She writes in a more "culture shock" style than I do, but I agree with and can relate to so much of what she writes. I have been reading through her blog and keep laughing and having these moments of, "ohhh! I know what she means! I never thought of it like that, but it has happened to me, too." She's really funny and smart, a great writer and a cute girl who posts tons of photos of Japan.

These posts were especially good;
-Where she talks about how she has a Japanese roommate she can't speak to at all but really finds fascinating is HERE.
-Where she talks about how difficult it is for people who travel a lot to fit in again when they go back home is HERE.
-Where she talks about the differences between Japanese blogs and Western blogs is HERE.
-Where she talks about why she thinks that Japan is youth-obsessed is HERE. And it is. I have regularly been asked with a straight face what my favorite Disney character is by Japanese adults. I usually just say, "The Little Mermaid" now because if I say that I have no interest at all in anything related to Disney, the conversation gets awkward. THIS is another really thoughtful post about Japan's obsession with cute things. (For the record, most of my Japanese friends here are not the kinds of people who care about manga or cartoon characters or toys marketed towards adults. It is a stereotype, though an especially accurate one.)

In other news, like clockwork the moron did it again. In the first sentence of her food-review article. Why does this lady bother me so much? She needs to just name her column, "My husband is Japanese and I don't speak Japanese" so that she can just get those two facts out of the way early and do her job, which is to write about restaurants. Her articles are so bad that I feel like I'm reading The Onion. It's a special level of horrible.

AND!
The misunderstanding between my friend and I got sorted out. Thanks for all your advice and kind words, especially Naben's email.

Canadians travelers are so sensitive.

Today I was was waiting for a train and I saw a Caucasian guy on the platform near me wearing a tacky t-shirt that said, "I am not American". The first thing I thought when I saw him is, "That guy is probably Canadian. How embarrassing." Sure enough, when I heard him talk to the girl he was with, I realized that he was indeed Canadian. I love my country, but that has to be the single most irritating thing about Canadians. Canadians tend to think of the Canadian identity as not American and in doing that, they lose sight of what the Canadian identity actually is, if they ever knew in the first place.

These days, America is not a popular country. I'm not telling you any new information there, though. You know the stereotypes. Nobody wants to be asked if they are American. The stereotype is of a fat, unfashionable, religious, war-mongering type with a low level of education about the rest of the world. This is just a stereotype, of course. America is a big country and there are thousands of people who are nothing like this. But still, most people who aren't American get a bit insulted when you ask if they're American. The most indignant about it, though, always seem to be Canadians. Our country is close and people in foreign countries can't tell the difference between our English accents. (Fact: usually only Canadians can tell the difference between Canadian and American accents.) Here is something you can learn, though: you don't need a t-shirt. If you don't want to always be taken as an American, stop acting like an American stereotype.

This message is to all the Canadians in Japan with flag patches on your backpacks. I am Canadian and I rarely get asked if I am American (except by elderly Japanese people who think that every white person is American just like elderly people in Western countries assume that every Asian person is Chinese) because I am not an American and I don't act like one. If you don't want to be taken as an American, don't act like the stereotype. Don't eat American fast food; speak a language that isn't English; don't speak in a loud voice; don't hang out in Irish pubs; don't bring up religion with strangers; don't talk on a cell phone in public; don't wear juicy couture tracksuits or sweatpants; don't dress exclusively for comfort; quit talking about the election to anyone who will listen; don't wear ugg boots and crocs sandals; don't let yourself get fat; don't smile at strangers all the time.

If you do these things, people will think you are American because that's what the American stereotype is. If this sounds like you then you'd just better get used to being asked if you're American because culturally, you are acting like one.

For those of you living here, do people from your country ever do anything that embarrasses you? Tell me a funny story.