Awajishima is peaceful

Yuko invited me to Awajishima a few weeks ago and it was really lovely. If you live in Osaka / Kobe / Himeji and you want to go to a nice beach this summer, I recommend Awajishima. It's a nice break from Suma Beach (a meat market full of jellyfish, teenagers and garbage.) It's only about an hour away and it's a really nice drive there by bus or car. You also get to drive over the longest suspension bridge in the world. We had a BBQ! You already know that I love BBQs. My favorite thing to BBQ in Japan is pumpkin. I also like onions and asparagus. If you want a fun beach, don't come to Awajishima. There's nothing here and hardly any people. We brought people though, so it was fun. And Yuko's friend has a jet ski boat, so we did that all day.
It's really rural but when you're in Japan, sometimes that's a good reason to go somewhere.
First photo from www.panoramio.com

Who is this guy?

I saw "sixty-nine" last week (an old movie adaptation of a Ryu Murakami book) and this guy was in it. The movie wasn't good, but this actor was. I have seen him before in a different movie and I don't know his name. If you know it, please tell me.
That's something frustrating about Japan. If you can't read the Kanji, you don't know what people's names are. Even Japanese people find this frustrating, as Kanji characters often have various ways of being pronounced.

My roommate's voice

Imagine what kind of voice Patty's child would have if she married Mickey. PLUS
...Then imagine that voice constantly yelling into the phone and smoking on the balcony right beside your bedroom window while chain-smoking. Imagine that person cooking eel in the microwave so the whole house smells like eels every morning when you wake up.

I miss my old roommates SO MUCH.

Watermelon Season - I love watermelons!!

I got dared to eat an entire watermelon by myself. Do you think I can do it? I'm not sure if I can do it, but I am going to try on Saturday. Eri, Sachiko and I are going to buy three whole watermelons and spend Saturday morning trying to finish them all.

オムライス Omurice Recipe - Japanese comfort food

Omurice is the Japanese answer to a grilled cheese sandwich. It is every kid's favorite food. It's everyone's most nostalgic comfort food. It's the ultimate late-breakfast-early-lunch meal. A lot of people think of healthy, raw, fish-based meals when they think of Japanese food. That's true, of course (sushi, sashimi, onigiri) but I think the best Japanese food is the home-style foods that families regularly eat.Omurice is just a fried egg wrapped around fried rice. Omelet + Rice = Omurice. It is sometimes decorated with ketchup. Omurice is good because it can be modified easily. In restaurants, it is made to order so if you're a vegetarian or have allergies, you can often ask them to leave something out. Usually, you can't do this in Japanese restaurants. Obviously, it's not good for people who are watching their diets, but if you only eat it in the morning, it's a delicious treat. Vegans can't eat Omurice, but that's pretty obvious. Omurice is super easy to make at home!! Just fry some rice (one day old rice is best for frying. It is less soggy and absorbs flavor better) mixed with vegetables (or meat) and any kind of spices. Then, fry a couple of eggs (more or less, depending on the size of the omelet. Personally, I can only eat one egg so if I make it for myself, I make a mini-omurice. Most Japanese guys eat a 3 egg omurice.) If you make this for a Japanese guy or a Japanese child, they might start to love you.

-Fry the rice with vegetables (meat, tofu and beans are also nice additions)
-Fry an egg or two or three
-Wrap the flat egg around the rice.
-Decorate it with ketchup.

If you don't read Japanese but you want to surprise your Japanese friend with homemade Omurice, just copy any of these:
すき - I like you!
大すき - I like you a lot / I love you
おいしいよ - This is delicious!
おはよう - Good morning!
オムライス - Omurice!
チユー! - Mwah!

Mahjong Love in Japan

I love Mahjong so much! I'm so happy I'm finally learning how to play the game I have wanted to play for so many years. I'm also happy that I'm learning Japanese-style Mahjong, which is harder than Hong Kong and Chinese style Mahjong. That way, when I play it with my Chinese friends back home, I won't have to learn more complicated rules. One of my friend's aunties is teaching me Mahjong in exchange for English lessons. This lady is so cute and well-traveled. She lives in a gorgeous home in Kyoto, so I visit her there almost every weekend and play Mahjong with her. The pictures are from when we met at my friend's house. Manabu has two adorable little girls. (Do you see little Hinata in the picture above?) She is always stealing the game pieces. Everyone calls her Otenba (It means mischevious little girl).
My Mahjong teacher is the lady standing in the dress. She is so sweet. She is a Christian, which is really rare in Japan. She doesn't smoke, gamble or drink, which is fine with me because Mahjong is usually a game played for money by drunk men in a smoky den of a room. I prefer just playing "Health Mahjong", which is what Japanese people call Mahjong with no cigarettes or alcohol. When we play at on the weekend at night, if she leaves the room for any reason, my guy friends quickly drink shots of vodka. Ha. I don't, though. I play it her way.
If you know anything about Mahjong, check out my amazing win from last week!! I am so proud of this. The two matching pais to the right side were my Doras!! They were twin doras and it was a TSUMA. I'm still not very good, but if this was beginner's luck, I can't wait until it happens again.Also, my friend gave me his old DS as a present so that I could play Mahjong and Kanji learning games. I am getting Dragonquest tomorrow because it comes out on DS tomorrow morning.

Happy Belated Tanabata!

Tanabata is a Japanese holiday that falls on July 7th. It is based on a Chinese legend that is sort of like Romeo and Juliet. Tanabata is a really romantic holiday in Japan. Nice restaurants are all reserved on July 7th and love hotels are all snapped up. It’s a popular holiday for high school students and junior high school students.

People decorate a bamboo tree with origami and pretty paper decorations. They write their wishes (usually love-related wishes) on a paper and hang it to the tree. Check out the wish one of my students wrote! Funny!The most romantic thing that happened on that day was that YOSUKE PROPOSED TO NAMICHAN!!! They've been dating for 8 years. If you go back to my posts about Yamanashi camping trips or Tokyo summer fireworks, I posted pictures and stories about them. Congratulations to my friends in Tokyo.

Here is the story of Tanabata, from an email one of my friends forwarded to me.

The Tanabata Legend

A long time ago, TEN-KOU, the god of the sky, had a daughter called ORIHIME. Everyday she wove cloth for the Gods with a special machine called TANAHATA. It is believed that the word TANABATA comes from the name of this weaving machine, TANAHATA.

TEN-KOU was worried because his daughter worked every day and did nothing but weave. So he introduced her to a guy on the other side of the river named AMANOGAWA (to us it's the Milky Way). His name was HIKOBOSHI or KENGYU. KENGYU took care of cows and was a workaholic. (I am not sure why he has 2 names. But I think KENGYU means cow care-taker, and HIKOBOSHI is his actual name.)

When they met each other, they fell in love immediately, and spent all their time together. As a result, all the cows became sick and the gods' clothes became worn out, but there was no new cloth to make more.

This made TEN-KOU very angry and he stopped ORIHIME from meeting KENGYU anymore by taking her to the other side of AMANOGAWA. This made the two lovers so sad that they couldn't work. TEN-KOU also felt sorry, so he decided to let them meet each other once a year on July 7th if they worked hard.

Now, they work as hard as before and look forward to seeing each other only once a year.

Traditionally, people wished the sky would be clear on that day so the two could meet over the Milky Way. If it rained that day, the water level of the river AMANOGAWA got too high and could not be crossed.

A Charming Japanese Couple

This is one of my favorite pictures of Japan I've ever seen. It's just a young guy eating a sandwich in the park with a duck. So simple. It's from this Flickr. The person who took it has lots of other Japan-related photographs. Please take a look.

Free exercise in Japan (and... I'm running a marathon in October!!)

Last month, I temporarily quit my gym and my Japanese lessons so that I could save more money. Now, I doubt I'll go back to either of them. I found a cheaper and stricter Japanese teacher who teaches from my home. I also found the best possible exercise place in Japan, and it's free. It's the stairs in my building. Like most Japanese people who live in cities, I live in a MANSION. No, it's not a real mansion. That's Katakana English for an apartment or a condominium. My MANSION (apartment) has over 20 floors and of course they're all connected by a long staircase. The staircase is ideal.

-Japanese people in apartments don't usually greet their neighbors or come out of their houses. This is not a "porch" culture. Neither is it the kind of culture where people will borrow sugar and eggs from you because you live next door. Perfect. Nobody even sees me do this.
-My stairs are outdoor stairs but they're not visible from the outside. That means that they are not hot or stuffy and they're also not displaying me to the whole city. When I pass the 10th floor, I get a nice breeze, too.
-The stairs in my building are very solid and soundless. This assures me that I don't disturb people when I exercise.
Of course, nobody wants to be a spectacle while they're exercising. If you live in NYC or anywhere with stairs clearly visible to people below (fire escapes, etc), you're not going to be able to do this. Who would want to run up and down this thing again and again? Also, you might not be able to do this if you live in some old haunted-looking place or in a building with a really isolated stairwell full of potential creeps.And obviously, this famous scene would never have happened if some dumb kid were racing up the stairs training for a marathon. Use your discretion. If you're disturbing people, quit running up and down the stairs. Moon river is a great song, isn't it?

I'm running a marathon in October! It will be my first marathon. I'm training almost every morning and night now. I'm running and climbing stairs and walking home from work (this takes one hour) every day. Does anyone have any marathon tips?

Katakana English : Yesterday, I ate a viking.

There are so many reasons why Katakana irritates me, but the main reason I hate Katakana is that it makes Japanese people learn incorrect expressions that they think are English. This gives English teachers the annoying task of making people unlearn bad habits. English expressions are adopted in most other countries, but at least in other countries, the English that they adopt is usually correct. It may erode the mother language, but at least it is legitimate English. The Katakana English that people use in Japan gives them odd expressions that Japanese people believe is English but is actually neither Japanese nor any other language.

Because of Katakana English expressions, Japanese people can read and perfectly understand the following sentences:

-I want to level up my style so I can be smart enough to fit into an S one piece.

-Supermodels are almost all very smart people.

-That metabolic girl who lives in my mansion wears so much make that she looks like a new half.

-Where's the consento in this mansion? I need to use it for my pasocon.

English words changed into Japanese English words

Roller coaster ------------> Jet coaster
Improve ------------> Level up (It's a verb. As in "I want to level up my English.")
Do your best ------------> Fight (ファイト) (pronounced "faito faito")
One on one ------------> man to man (マンツーマン)
Windshield ------------> Front Glass (フロントガラス)
Laptop ------------> Pasocon (personal + computer) (パソコン)
Trend ------------> Boom
Innocent ------------> naive (ナイーブ)
Chapstick ------------> lip cream (リップクリム)
French fries ------------> fried potato (フライドポテト)
Cheating ------------> cunning (カンニング)
Reception desk ------------> Front (フロント)
Don't worry about it ------------> Don't mind (ドンマイ)
Overweight ------------> Metabolic (メタボ)
Japanese company employee ------------> salaryman (サラリーマン)
Dress ------------> one piece (ワンピース)
Car horn ------------> klaxon (クラクション)
Complimentary item ------------> Service (サービス)
Hair salon hair ------------> make shop
Electrical plug ------------> Consento (コンセント)
Autograph ------------> sign (サイン)
Buffet / all you can eat restaurant ------------> Viking (バイキング) (I actually had a kid write, "I ate a viking after school with my mother yesterday" in an essay)
To get engaged ------------> goal in

More Katakana English here...

Katakana English Part Two: I need to level up my style for my walk down the virgin road

Here are some more examples of Japanese English (Katakana English) so that you can understand people when they speak English to you in Japan.

Apartment / condominium ------------> Mansion (マンション)
Stapler ------------> Hotchkiss (ホッチキス)
Wedding aisle ------------> virgin road
Mechanical pencil ------------> sharpen
makeup / cosmetics ------------> Make (メイク)
Transsexual ------------> new half
Microwave ------------> range (レンジ)
Stroller ------------> baby car (ベビーカー)
Short hair cut ------------> shortcut (ショートカット)
Upgrade ------------> version up (バージョンアップ)
McDonald's ------------> Makudonarudo (Why didn't they spell it 三クダ－ナルズ instead of マクドナルド? And Ronald McDonald's name is changed to Donald McDonald, which is funnier than anything)
Smart ------------> slim (in English it means "intelligent")
Style ------------> body type (in English it means "fashion sense")

Kanji Mistakes are so Funny!

Sarah writes one of the funniest and best blogs about Japan. This story about her most embarrassing moment in Japan made me laugh so much. My biggest Kanji mistake was probably when I accidentally wrote "きょうねん” (享年: The year that a person dies) instead of ”きょねん” (去年: Last year) in a text to my friend. It must have sounded like a creepy email from a ghost. "The year I died, I went camping in Yamanashi." So that's my Kanji mistake story. Sarah's is funnier.

Sarah is from South Africa. She lives in Sapporo. She is a total foxy lady in her pictures. She has a lot of inner strength and is also really funny. Please read her whole blog, but first read this story from it. SARAH WROTE THIS:

"Kanji and the Art of Embarrassing Yourself
So I moved to Japan (that you know, right? :p ) and the first thing that hit me was that I didn`t understand anything. It was like being in a foreign country (hahaha). If you don`t know anything about the Japanese language - all you need to know is this - it`s made out of THREE different alphabets. One called katakana which looks like this セーラ　(that`s my name), hiragana which looks like this ありがとう！(which says arigato! or thank you) and thirdly, Kanji. And when you write, you mix all three like this - 南アフリカから来ました。　Which says `I`m from South Africa.`

I desperately wanted a kanji name. Kanji is so freaking cool. So, I set about finding one that matched the syllables of Sarah - Se & Ra.
I started with Se - 世　which means World.
Ra was a little harder. There aren`t all that many Ra kanji - so I found a bunch and asked my friend Masa what they meant. The one I liked best was this 裸- and I asked him to translate. He said `noodle`. And since my family calls each other `noodle` (Sarah-noodle, pass the salt, please etc) as a term of endearment, I thought that 世裸　World Noodle, would be a fitting and apt name.
Only, he didn`t say Noodle.
He said Nu-do.
Which means naked. And for about 3 weeks I went around showing everyone (my students! friends! boss!!) my new kanji name - 世裸　World Naked.
I should have had business cards made. Only I`m not so sure people would`ve known what kind of business i was in exactly."
-from Sarah

What's your funniest / most embarrassing moment?