Notes to Myself

Landmark Tower Gallery

Have you heard of Minato Mirai 21 (MM21)? Maybe not. Have you ever been to Landmark Tower in Yokohama, Japan? If so, then you've been to MM21. It's an incredible area and somewhere you have to visit if you come to Japan.

New Landmark Tower Views Gallery

I took my mum to see Landmark Tower on one of her last nights in Japan. The night was hot but beautiful.

As usual I whipped out my camera to take some photos; making impromptu tripods on precarious railings also got my heart racing!

We took a lift to the 69th floor of Landmark Tower. You have to pay 1000 yen to reach this viewing obvervatory but on a clear night it is well worth it. I'd also like to go during the day some time.

So I present to you my finest series of night photos yet - Landmark Tower Views.

> What is Minato Mirai 21?

Wordtank G50

This is the next part of my 'searching for the perfect electronic Japanese dictionary' story. I'll describe the reasoning behind my final purchase. In short, it came down to Sharp and Canon. In particular, it was between the Sharp PW-9700 and the Canon Wordtank G50.

These two denshi jisho are the latest in each line of products (August 2004) and it was my task to pick one. So, read on to find out what I discovered and what influenced my final choice.

Branding, swish-design and overall 'wow-factor' can be important when buying any piece of electronics. In this category, the black Canon Wordtank G50 with chrome cover clearly wins hands-down. Physically speaking, the Sharp unit is bigger and it's design looks a little awkward and ugly to me. The screen is nice and big displaying lots of information, but on the other hand it takes up more room in your bag.

The Sharp has so many dictionaries (overkill?) that the menus leading to each dictionary are teired on the screen; there are not enough buttons!. With the Canon, all the dicitonaries that I want to access quickly are only one button push away. It's up to the buyer to decide how many and what type of dictionaries are required.

Train Spotter

Two young very attractive girls got on the train 5 minutes ago. The grimy old man in front of me immediately started to take a good look. Continously. 30 seconds later he had his glasses on for a better inspection. Not too subtle.

To be fair, he's just got off the train: perhaps putting on his glasses was merely preparation.

Denshi-Jisho

One of my friends has a rather nice Canon Wordtank electric dictionary or denshi-jisho (電子辞書). As I wrote previously, I was in the market to upgrade to one of these powerful electric dictionaries. So, I asked my friend about denshi-jisho and what advice she had about them.

Then I did a quick bit of research on the Internet to see if any useful information would be available. The single most helpful page I found was Japanese-English-Japanese Electronic Dictionaries, written by a gaijin for gaijin (no offence). This page has great information about dictionaries, some of which I may end up repeating below (note: not copying). I didn't have much knowledge about denshi-jisho until I read the page and had planned on getting a Casio until I learnt more about the features that I needed to study Japanese effectively with a denshi-jisho.

The good dictionaries have a 'jump function' which enables the user to select any given word from a dictionary and then jump to the same word in different dictionaries (all contained on the one unit). So for example, if you look up a Japanese word using the English-Japanese dictionary but you can't read one of the kanji, what do you do? Select it and jump to the Japanese-English dictionary or Kanji dictionary and you'll gracefully 'jump' around between various dictionaries.

Then there are word notepads to store words you want to remember. Using these you can test yourself using mini test modes (more of a 'the entry content or head word is missing, please think about it and then press Enter' than a real test).

To read in more detail I suggest you click the link I mentioned earlier.

Back to my friend. She owns the Canon Wordtank IDF - 4100, as pictured above, which I believe is recommended to many foreigners studying Japanese in Japan. There are newer models, for example, the Wordtank G50, but the added features are not worth the extra money to some people. She is now pretty speedy at using all the different functions and was only to happy to show me how to use it. She loves her dictionary and recommended it to me.

So after reading all of the forementioned Internet advice and listening to my friend my choice became, 'Sharp or Canon Word Tank?'

Rubbish Day

Oh, I just love rubbish day. It comes 3 times a week but that just isn't enough. The feeling of satisfaction throwing away all that stinky stuff in the bin next to your sink, it's just too good.

Now, if only I'd waited until I'd finished making my tea to throw away this tea bag. But I didn't and it would seem stupid to go outide again with only a tea bag. I'm looking forward to Friday already!

Mum Comments I

For 2 weeks I was a buzy little bee. Mum arrived at the beginning of August and stayed until the 17th.

Some of her comments included:

• Shiny trucks and cars
• Way too hot (she was unlucky this summer)
• Bills under your restaurant table a good idea
• Japanese drivers dangerous
• Fashion is 'anything goes', which is good
• Girls wearing such clothes in London are hookers
• Girls wear 'going out to party' shoes all the time
• No-one seems to speak English
• Tatami is nice
• Can trains really be on time all the time?!
• Japan is the best country in the world!

Karate Kid

Daniel-san has learnt how to speak Japanese. I'm watching Karate kid on Japanese cable television complete with full Japanese audio dubbing. It's a strange sensation...

"Live or die, man?!" - Daniel wins fight
"Die!"
"Wrong." - Honks guy's nose

The End

Tag Board

I've just installed a new feature to Notes To Myself. Provided by TagBoard Message Board, I have added the aptly named 'Quick Notes' to the side-bar of the site.

After a trial period I'll decide whether or not to keep this feature but it looks to be promising if it's not overly abused.

So, please post a quick note and leave messages for other visitors =)

No Loose Socks

My friend's daughter, who is a 3rd year junior high school student, was talking about the loose socks fad the other day. It came as a surprise to me that according to her loose socks in Japan are falling out of fashion in favour of normal high tight socks almost to the knee.

Since that conversation I have been paying more attention and I have seen far less loose socks. Could this really be the end of an era? One of the images of Japan may disappear!

Seeing as I am now at junior high school where the students don't dare break as many school uniform rules and in general don't wear loose socks as much, perhaps this decline has been going on for some time.

I'll ask some of my friends who work as ALTs at high schools to see if this piece of information is valid...

1st Dictionary

When I first arrived in Japan I bought two dictionaries. The first was 'Kodansha's Furigana Japanese Dictionary: Japanese-English English-Japanese' by Kodansha, as listed in my recommended Japanese books list to the right. Using Hiragana and Katakana to search for words is better than using roman letters and the dictionary provides good example sentences for many words.

[Credit to TheHY for his recommendation of this dictionary.]

However, due to my erratic study habits, most of the time, if I was studying, I was out and about, sipping coffees in Excelsior and browsing over my other expensive Japanese books. This made the Kodansha dictionary a little redundant most of the time as it's pretty heavy. More of a study-at-home dictionary.

What I wanted was a second dictionary - a portable and convenient electronic dictionary. There were many electronic dictionaries on the market, most of course designed for native Japanese people. So, many of them were too difficult for me to use and had more functions than I needed.

So, I found the stop-gap I needed, the Seiko RM2000 Japanese/English Dictionary with Roget's II New Thesaurus, aimed at learners of Japanese. Using my new little machine I was able to translate between English and Japanese without me having the ability to read kanji. Even example Japanese sentences can be read without knowing kanji.

Just having this with me in Japan gave me a sense of security. I hated being in a country and thinking that I couldn't get my message across in Japanese should anything untoward happen.

Olympic Tennis

As I arrived at my local supermarket/department store I wondered into the electronics section. Olympic tennis on the huge TVs in one corner immediately caught my eye.

Who should be playing other than Martina Navratilova and Ai Sugiyama. As opponents in a women's doubles Olympic quarter-final tennis match I just had to watch. I stood there for about 30 minutes to see the match to the end.

(5)Shinobu Asagoe & Ai Sugiyama (Jpn) beat (3)Martina Navratilova & Lisa Raymond (USA)

The last few games were great and though she was on the losing team I was amazed at how Martina Navratilova still plays at such a level - I mean, how old is she?

Good luck to the Asagoe Sugiyama pair in the semi-finals - Go Japan!

Book Battle

Just a moment ago I was doing battle with the girl sitting next to me on the train.

She's just dying to spy the inside of my new book.

The fact that she's an elementary student is clearly shown by her distinct lack of "stealth peeking" at my book. But then, not even this technique would get past my all-seeing eye.

With my complimentary paper book cover, clear height advantage and minimal page opening angle she doesn't stand a chance.

Yes, I am selfish. Back to the battle...

Foreign Darling

This very popular Japanese book written by Oguri Saori is called, "My Darling is... a Foreigner" (ダーリンは…外国人).

On the front cover it says, "If you married a foreigner what would it be like?"

Inside you'll find a manga (comic) style series of amusing short stories about a Japanese woman who marries a foreign man.

I've been told it's a good read and today I saw it again at the book shop. I couldn't resist the cute cartoon strips any longer and snapped it up.

By the way, part 2 (ダーリンは外国人(2), 小栗 左多里) is also available.

Ayu Festival

Summer in Japan has a couple of good things going for it: festivals and fireworks.

On Saturday 7th August I went to the Atsugi Ayu Festival fireworks display. The display, to my knowledge, has the highest number of fireworks in Kanagawa-ken, or at least for miles around. Other places such as Yokohama get more visitors but have fewer fireworks. With last years attendance at around half a million people and lots of firework action to come, I went hoping to be impressed.

The atmosphere was great. People streamed out of the stations towards the river as darkness came down. I've never seen so many girls in yukata before (a light summer type version of a kimono) - I just love those big bows. Seeing these girls on trains at times still feels odd, but no-one hardly gives a second look.

Then there were the food stalls. If you come to Japan make sure you find some festival food: yaki soba (noodles) and yakitori (chicken on skewers) are two of my favourites.

Of course, while I was there I was snapping away with my camera. Though I mananged to get a few decent shots it's a shame I didn't have a tripod because the fireworks were the best I've ever witnessed. At some points the sky in front of us was entirely lit up and the 'waterfall fireworks' as I will call them, were stunning.

Yes, then there were the other clever types such as smily faces, stars, galaxy-like objects and Sony even had the cheek to spell out their brand name in the sky!

Each set of fireworks was sponsored by a company and though I doubt many people listened, each sponsor company's name was announced as the sky exploded with colour. I guess Sony had their thinking caps on.

> Atsugi Ayu Festival Mini Gallery

Mobile Viruses

BBC News reports 'Game virus' bites mobile phones.

A mobile phone "virus" inside a pirated copy of a game called Mosquitos is roaming file-sharing and software download sites, say security experts.

This is quite a funny story in that the actual trojan virus was created by the makers of the game in the first place - not the group that hacked and released it for free.

While the fact that viruses will hit phones more and more as time goes on doesn't really surprise me, I don't think that it's something many people haven't really thought about.

One of the most interesting points of the article for me is the last paragraph:

Japanese mobile giant NTT DoCoMo recently announced it was planning to provide protection for its customers. It is the largest mobile network in the world with 46.6m subscribers.

I had no idea that DoCoMo was the largest mobile network in the world.

Other companies in Japan seem to be gaining customers though; many of my friends have moved away from DoCoMo to Vodafone, TuKa, Au and others. Just for the record, I am with Vodafone - the only thing I have against them is their advertising: Beckham.

Nail Serection

Images of Japan

Not the greatest of photos but this picture captures two of the things that come to mind when I think of Japan: Mount Fuji and the Shinkansen (bullet train). What other common images of Japan are there?

Translator

My father's side of the family is Malaysian-Chinese meaning that at home they speak a Chinese dialect while they can all speak Malay and English - with the exception of Granny who can't speak English!

When we visited Malaysia, my sister and I found ourselves in a frustrating situation. Basically, all plans about the days events were made or changed in Chinese and we might be lucky enough to be told what was going on at the end in English.

Yes, you may well be thinking, "Shouldn't these kids be able to speak Chinese?" but that's another story.

Fast forward a few years and here I am in Japan with my Mum visiting for the first time. Upon going out with her and a Japanese person who has only a sprinkling of English vocabulary it was time for me to try the ultimate task: be a translator. Now, with my level of Japanese this is challenging enough but I came to several conclusions.

When planning a day in one language one person is always waiting, practially clueless to what is going on. If you should change plans then it's often difficult to keep everyone up-to-date on everything.

It seems to be easier on the translator (with limited ability such as myself) not to translate everything, just bits and pieces so that everyone has a feel for most relavant conversations.

I realised that the Malaysian experience was something that I perhaps shouldn't blame my relatives for - yes, though could speak English, but as I've just said, it's difficult to keep everyone up to speed on everything.

Finally, if you are translating for you Mum there is one perk to this job. That is, if she tries to tell someone an embarrassing childhood story about you and asks you to translate then it's up to you what you say... and what you don't.

Blazing Trail

Site updates have been lacking but for once I have a good excuse. My mum arrived the other day and we've just returned from a great Kyoto trip.

The weather wasn't all that great but the heat was fierce. The mozzas were out in force trying to suck blood from my ankles. But many exquisite temples and gardens were visited, Zen gardens were relaxed in, hundreds of photos were taken, (too) many souvenirs were bought... it ended up being a great trip.

If I have time I may even upload some photo galleries for your kind viewing.

Location Unknown

You could never guess where I am writing this from. My exact location even I am not sure of.

There are mini balls of lavender beside me. Unreadable Japanese buttons are bothering me but I can guess their meanings.

I've already grown bored but I know an exciting thing awaits me if I am patient.

It's no good, back to sleep.

Viking Food

Here in Japan eat-all-you-can style buffets have a strange name. I asked my friend about it and he sent me an email with the story of the name's origin. What follows is a heavily edited version of his email which I presume was a cut-and-paste from a website somewhere. Is this true?

In 1957, Tetsuzo Inumaru, chief manager of the Imperial Hotel, travelled to Copenhagen to find inspiration for a new concept for his hotel restaurant. During his stay in there he had Smorgasbord which is traditional Scandinavian buffet style meal (all-you-can-eat-buffet).

He ordered the master chef of Imperial hotel, Nobuo Murakami who was training at the Hotel Ritz in Paris at the time, to study Smorgasbord. When Murakami returned to Japan in 1958, Japan's first smorgasbord special restaurant was opened on the 1st basement level of the Imperial hotel.

With the opening of the restaurant, the employees were asked for names for the new style of eating. In the end "Viking" was decided on. The name of "Viking" was named after the film titled "The Vikings" starring Kirk Douglas. The employees associated the Viking's meal with Smorgasbord. So the new restaurant's name was decided: 'The Imperial Viking'. Since then buffet style food has become known as 'Viking', or 「バイキング」.

Imperial Hotel

[Credit to Jun - and scorn if this isn't right!]