Progress as of October 24th

So this past week I had a holiday and I got a lot of Japanese done. I've also got more of a clue now on how to progress, so I'm progressing faster and further.

So here's another update on how I'm doing.

I've started RTK2 again, so far I'm on 577 cards.
Vocabulary for N5 has me on 191 words (I think I'll add some more today, so I'll be past 200 then).
I've just finished Tae Kim's Basic Grammar, which contains 11 topics. Now moving on to Essential Grammar, which contains 18 topics.

Japanese-wise, it's been a productive holiday! ^^ Health-wise it's been a bit worse, but hey, you can't have everything.

Watch these little fish as they follow your mouse, waiting for you to click and leave them some food. (Warning: very addictive)

Progress

Wooooh I've finally caught up with where I left off in RTK2.

Like I said in my previous post, I had suspended all my RTK2 cards before my Japan trip, so I wouldn't have a whole load of reviews when I got back. And just now I unsuspended the last cards and I'm up-to-date with my reviews again! ^^ I am quite pleased with myself.

I have been studying more N5 as well. I am up to exactly 100 words now. ^^

Also I have caught up on my Tae Kim studies, reviewing what I'd learnt so far, so tomorrow I can start with a new chapter.

So all in all it's been quite a productive day and I'm pretty proud of myself! ^^

Progress

Well, it's been a while since I've updated. But I've started my studies again. I've been studying vocabulary off the N5 (former JLPT4; Japanese Language and Proficiency Test, the easiest level). That's going quite fast, because I know a lot of the words already and, which I am very pleased about, I no longer have to learn the kanji, because I know them all. So it's just learning the pronunciation, and no longer the writing. ^^

In Japan I bought Flash cards on a ring. They're basically plain flash cards but they are attached by the ring; making them very easy for learning words/sentences. So I've been using those and Anki to learn and review my vocabulary.

I got rather behind on my RTK2 work, so I suspended all my cards in Anki and I'm slowly adding them again, a few at a time (now I only have about 190 of the 560+ cards suspended, so hopefully soon I will have added them all back again and I can start learning more new ones. ^^

My Books

Over the years I have collected some pretty good (and not so good) books on the topics of the Japanese language and culture, so I thought I'd list them here.

It all started with 'Japanese in Mangaland' by Marc Bernabe, which is a nice book to get started with, as it touches on the most important topics and teaches you the most important words and sentences. All of this coupled with examples from manga books.

My bible is 'Remembering the Kanji 1' by James Heisig. I've written about this book before, you can find that post here. It's the best method I know for learning Kanji. It teaches you the writing and meaning of the most common kanji. When working with it, this website was also a lot of help.

The next book I have is 'Remembering the Kanji 2' which is the follow-up to part 1 (duh) and teaches you the pronunciation of the kanji learnt in book 1.

I also have 'Essential Japanese' by Berlitz publishers. This also teaches you the most important sentences and grammatical structures, but I haven't worked much from it. I prefer the website of Tae Kim for learning grammar.

Two books I've recently bought are 'All About Particles' by Naoko Chino and 'Making Sense of Japanese' by Jay Rubin. The former one is about particles, which is basically the hardest part of Japanese grammar. Particles indicate whether something is the topic of the sentence, you can use them to express things like 'also' and 'at/in', but sometimes it's very obscure which ones to use where. Hopefully that book will help me.
I've only just started 'Making Sense of Japanese', but it's subtitle: 'What the textbooks don't tell you', and the introduction by the author, in which he states that the Japanese language is not 'vague' seem very promising.

I've also got some dictionaries: '501 Japanese Verbs' from Barron's. Ever since Eddie bought this in Amsterdam two years ago I've wanted it as well, so I decided to just buy it at some point. It has most of the inflections of the verbs and their informal and formal usages.
The 'Oxford Beginner's Japanese dictionary' and 'Oxford Japanese Grammar and Verbs' were birthday presents from Eddie that I've used quite a lot.

Then I've got a brilliant book called 'Japanese Made Funny', by Tom Dillon. It's a hilarious book about people mixing up words and saying something completely different than they'd intended. I bought that in Japan, along with 'The Japanese Mind', by Roger Davies. This book explains certain aspects of the Japanese culture that are difficult for foreigners to understand.

Another treasure of mine is 'A gaijin's guide to Japan'. 'Gaijin' means foreigner (literally: outside person), and it explains all kinds of things, mostly from modern culture, in a fun and concise way.

I've got a little book called 'Living Japanese Style' which explains Japanese etiquette in a humorous manner.

I've also got a little book called 'How to sound intelligent in Japanese', which teaches you such things as 'I told the club president that in my opinion the rule barring women as members should be reconsidered', etc. XD

I've got a box with cards with opposites on them; the word for 'large' and a picture of an elephant on one side, and the word for 'small' and a picture of a mouse on the other side, stuff like that.

Then I've got some books about food: 'The Manga Cookbook' which has recipes for all kinds of cute stuff, like octopus-shaped sausages and eggs with faces, etc. And I've got a book called 'Japanese restaurants' which I should have brought on my trip with me, as it would have been a great help. It shows which types of restaurants sell what, how to recognise them, and how to write the food items in kanji (so you can also recognise them).

I think that's enough for now. Better use the books I have before buying any new ones, though there are still a few that I want... XD

Dreams

I'm now really beginning to process everything, I can tell. This past week since I've been back I've had dreams about being in Japan or talking about Japan every night. They're quite restless, though, so I hope they become more relaxed soon. :P I was pretty relaxed in Japan (after the initial few days) so I hope to get that feeling in my dreams as well.

Home

Two kilos lighter and many experiences richer, I am now typing this from my sofa, overlooking a garden that looks like it has been touched with Japanese nature's lusciousness... The grass is super high and weeds are everywhere. I guess part of my day today will be spent on making it look Dutch again; neatly trimmed.

But you want to hear about my experiences in Japan, not in Holland, so I'll get to that now. I promise this e-mail will be shorter than the last one. Mum told me my aunt Susan prints these e-mails out to read them and the last one was 6 pages. XD Sorry about that, aunt Susan! You all know I talk a lot... :P

I finished my last e-mail on Tuesday, saying how we got to Tokyo and I was waiting for my laundry. Well, when the laundry was finally dry and all, it was already 5 and since Tomoki was coming over around 7, we couldn't really go out to see anything that we hadn't seen anymore, so we decided to just hang out and relax at the hotel.

At 7:15 Tomoki arrived and we took him out for shabu shabu (hotpot). It was really nice and we sat there eating and talking for hours; learning more Japanese as well. I do hope we didn't keep Tomoki out too late; he had to travel back to Chiba still and he was tired from working so much. I'm glad I don't have a job in Japan; working until 8 is completely normal for them and commuting usually takes an hour or more each way. >< On Wednesday we were out the door at 10 and on our way to (I know some of you are very jealous now, but I know you will all get to go there as well some day) the Ghibli Museum! ^^ For those of you who are not jealous right now, but going: the what? I'll briefly explain what it is. Studio Ghibli is a famous animation studio in Japan, which makes anime (cartoon films). It's not just famous in Japan, but all over the world. Ghibli has a very special style of drawing, which you can immediately recognise. And they have a museum just outside Tokyo, which focuses on the way the main writer, Hayao Miyazaki, works. You see replicas of his offices and lots and lots of sketches, storyboards and pictures he uses as inspiration (of old people, landscapes, facial expressions, etc.) There's also a lot of information on how film works; old film projectors, how backgrounds are used, etc. The layout of the museum is one you are supposed to get lost in. Everywhere there are little corridors, staircases, bridges, you go outside and back in again, it's great! There's lots of colour on the walls and all the lamps are made of stained glass. There is also a big stained glass window in the roof. And your entry ticket is a short piece of film! In the basement there is a small movie theatre where they show short Ghibli movies (15 minutes long) that aren't shown anywhere else. The one we saw was about an old couple who work in the fields all day, then eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, etc. One night, the old man goes out to pee and he notices a group of little mice, the ones that live in his house, dressed in sumo attire, walking into the forest. He decides to follow them and comes across a mice sumo wrestling competition. The mice from his house have to fight these huge white mice, who beat them of course. The next day, the man and his wife spend all day cooking loads of food and sewing new sumo clothes. The mice are very surprised but also very happy. They eat the food and get all nice and fat. That night they go out to the forest again, the old man and woman following them to watch the match. After a very exciting match, the mice manage to beat the huge white mice! And they all laugh all the way home. It was a really cute movie!! The museum was quite small, though, and after two hours we had seen everything (and I bought little Catbus and Totoro stuffed animals and a Totoro handkerchief to go with my bento!). Then we went back to Tokyo. We had to change trains at Shinjuku station, so I decided to go around looking for that huge crossing with the big TV that is so famous. But I couldn't find it right outside the station and I had no idea where to look for it, so we got the Yamanote line to Ikebukuro. Then from the train I did see the crossing, so next time I go to Tokyo I'll have some idea of where to go! In the evening we went to Sunshine City again. We were walking through the shopping centre when suddenly we came across something called 'Namjatown'. There were lots of statues of cats there and it cost 300 yen to go in. Curious, Eddie and I decided to pay and go inside. It turned out to be some sort of theme park inside the shopping centre. There were these cat statues everywhere, and also statues of eagles. There were rides you could go on (but you needed to pay more for that) and restaurants and merchandise shops. One area looked just like an old city street; lots of restaurants, red lanterns, little shrines (with instead of holy items had cats in them), torii gates, etc. It was surreal. XD It's so weird to walk around a place like that and have absolutely no idea what it is for or why or... I will google it after I finish typing this e-mail. On the second floor there was a place called Ice Cream City. It sold... ice cream, duh. ;) It looked like an ice cream city as well, though. Everything looked like it was frozen, you could sit in places that looked like giant sorbets, there were giant displays of all the ice cream that was sold, it was great. So what do Eddie and I end up buying? Something that I think was soy ice cream, looking back on it. It really didn't taste nice and it was really tough, instead of nice and creamy. Out of all the ice cream we could have bought, we ended up picking that. XD That's what you get when you don't understand what's on the packages of anything. >< After leaving Namjatown and Sunshine City, we saw a manga store! I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. There was merchandise everywhere, cosplay clothes, action figures, books... And I found Amber a present, finally! When we got out of there it started raining a bit, though, so we decided to go back to the hotel. I tried to take in all the sights and sounds, since it was our last night in Japan and that started to dawn to me. We went to the same udon place I had been to on one of the first nights of my trip (we were staying at the same hotel) and the guy working there remembered me. He gave us both free boiled eggs with our noodles. And when he heard we were going home tomorrow, he rushed behind the counter and gave me 2 packs of cigarettes. XD I told him I don't smoke, but he was like: "No, is present! You are friend, friend get present!" So I decided to take them. I have some colleagues who smoke so I can give them to them. XD Such a nice guy! On Thursday we got the 9:30 Narita Express to Narita Airport. We had reserved seats so we were traveling in comfort once again. On the train there were monitors displaying flight information and we found out the flight was delayed for an hour. ><

Well, we checked in and dropped off our luggage and then we started the wait. We walked around the souvenir shops for a bit and I bought a really funny book in the book store. It's about funny language mistakes and word mixups foreigners make when trying to speak Japanese. I was really cracking up in the airport, laughing so hard. So that made the wait more pleasant!

We finally left almost 1.5 hour after we were supposed to leave. The flight was booooring. On the way in we each had our own little screens and we could choose which movies to watch and stuff. But we didn't have that this time. There were only screens above the aisle and the one closest to me made me crane my neck really much to see, the one behind that was too far away for me to see well. So I welcomed every food and drink break; a distraction from the boringness. It wasn't very cloudy, though, so I had some nice views of Siberia and Scandinavia. However, we did have a lot of turbulence.

We landed in Amsterdam about 35 minutes later than planned, so that was all right. Eddie and I spent the night at a hotel by the airport, Citizen M, because it was too late for him to travel back to England (Easyjet has flights to Bristol only once a day, leaving about half an hour before we landed). At 3:30 am we were both wide awake. XD So we decided to watch another movie.

Eventually, at around 10am, my dad came to pick me up and drive me to Doesburg. There, I unpacked, burnt all my pictures onto a DVD and drove to mum and dad's to pick up the cats. Cailleach was happier to see me than Billy. XD I managed to stay up until about 12, then got woken up by Cailleach constantly meowing outside the bedroom door at 7:30. I wanted to sleep some more but she really wouldn't let me. She had missed me so much she didn't want me out of her sight anymore, apparently. It's cute and aww and all, but I can't go on holiday anymore unless I have someone staying in my house. Because those two 'cuties' are way too unhappy anywhere else. *sigh*.

So I guess I'll go fix up the jungle, I mean garden, now. Thanks to you all for reading all my stuff and I promise I'll pick out the nicest photos and won't make you watch all 1800. XD

Greetings from Hiroshima, Kyoto and Tokyo

Here's my second-to-last update about the holiday, I'll probably send the last one when I get back to Holland. We're flying back on Thursday already! In the beginning everything couldn't go by fast enough, but now it's almost time to go home, I want to stay longer! I especially wanted more time in Kyoto, that city is difficult to navigate so it's hard to see lots of things in a short time. Also having painful legs doesn't help! But more about Kyoto later. First, back to Hiroshima.

I ended my last mail on Thursday night. We went out to dinner and had okonomiyaki. It is often referred to as 'Japanese pizza', but only because it's round and you can put different toppings on it. It has nothing else to do with pizza. It's basically all kinds of ingredients fried on a teppan (frying plate) covered in mayonnaise. We both had pork wrapped in egg, mine also had a mochi (sticky rice cake) in between. It was covered in a sauce that tasted like curry ketchup and mayonnaise. It was nice, but a bit too greasy for my tastes... The place was on the 6th floor of a building. On this floor were only okonomiyaki restaurants. It's like walking through an alley with restaurants opening up to it on either side. The teppan are like a large counter that everyone sits on side by side. The people who work at the restaurants keep yelling at people passing by to entice them to come into their restaurant (they do that everywhere, we've learnt that it's not rude to ignore them, but I also seem to ignore people that ARE talking to me, like when I was walking in someone's yard in Miyajima XD) Anyway, the guys who worked at the restaurant we went to were nice, though, one spoke a bit of English so he asked us where we were from and how old we were and said he liked a band from the UK, from the 70s, that sounded a bit like 'Chaos UK' (heavy accent).

On Friday we got up early and took the train at 10:15 (25 mins) and the ferry (10 mins) to Miyajima. We could already see the big red torii gate from the boat, it was really exciting! First we walked to Itsukushima shrine, which the torii belongs to. It's super touristy there, but very beautiful. It was high tide, and then the shrine and the torii seem to be floating in the water. We then walked up to Daishoin temple, which was a lot more beautiful with a lot fewer people! Gosh, the treasures they had there... uneblievable! Miyajima is one of the most sacred places in Japan, so all the temples there are well-looked after. Daishoin has a few enormous sand mandalas made by monks from Tibet, it's been visited by the Dalai Lama and the Emperor, and the founder of Buddhism in Japan (the guy whose name I can never remember) is enshrined there, along with other famous historical people. Around the temple were all these nice subtemples, one with a hundred lanterns on the ceiling, and one with a path leading up to it full of little Buddha statues on the sides (I think there were about 200).

We took the cablecar up Mount Misen, the highest peak on the island (530 metres high, but we only went as high as 450 or so). The views from there were great, but it was a bit cloudy and rainy that day, so we couldn't see very far. We could see 'mainland' Hiroshima, though, and going up we saw the red torii and the pagoda nearby.

We didn't stay up long, because I was starving (should have eaten before we went up ><), so we took the cablecar down again and went in search of some food. But as we came by Itsukushima shrine again, it was low tide, which means the seabed between the shrine and the torii is dry and you can walk up to the torii! We did that, of course. I took my shoes off, because the tide wasn't completely out yet and I was still up to my ankles in water (which is wonderful when it's over 35 degrees every day) and lots of seaweed. :P Then we went to a little restaurant where I ate niku udon (udon noodles with beef) and Eddie ate niku soba (soba noodles with beef). It was delicious! I got a couple of souvenirs along the way to the ferry, and I got geta; the wooden shoes that are worn under kimono and yukata. Finally found a place that sold them cheap! They're surprisingly comfortable, considering you're walking on a block of wood. And then we took the ferry and train back to Hiroshima again. On Saturday I got up and ate the cream pan (bread) I had bought the day before. I had bought something a few days earlier and asked the girl what was in it, she sad 'cream' and it turned out to be butter. So I thought: cream pan = butter. Well, it turned out to be pudding. XD I had a pudding bun for breakfast. Nice, but yeah... XD Later we went out to the A-bomb dome; one of the few buildings still standing after the atom bomb exploded over Hiroshima and the only building that is still standing today (and will be preserved forever). Goodle A-bomb dome and you see what it looks like. It was a lot smaller than I thought. It's basically a ruin, but when you think of WHY it's a ruin it is very impressive. Behind it is the Peace Memorial Park. In it is a flame that always burns. It was actually lit from the fire that has supposedly been burning for 1200 years on Miyajima, lit by that guy whose name I can't remember. >< The peace flame will not be extinguished until all nuclear weapons are removed from the world. watching that, Eddie and I both commented that unfortunately it would probably not be extinguished during our lifetime. :( The Peace Memorial Museum is very impressive. It explains exactly what happened when the A-bomb was dropped, how it affected the people and the city, what the residual effects are, etc. It also explained something I was dying to know: why did America decide to drop the bomb on Japan and not on Germany? They played a mean game, though; despite several people saying it was immoral, they decided not to warn Japan that if they didn't capitulate, they would use the atom bomb. What I also liked is that Japan doesn't pretend to be innocent in all this; in the museum is explained what they did during the war as well. After visiting the museum we went to Shikkuen gardens. It was nice, reminded us of Koishikawa Korakuen gardens in Tokyo; because both gardens contain miniature replicas of famous places in Japan and China. But our legs hurt very much, so we went back to the hotel. On Sunday we had to take the dreaded train to Kyoto. The busiest day of traveling during the entire Obon festival, the day all the trains were reserved full, the day we had been dreading. But we miraculously had seats! We were super happy all the way to Kyoto! :D Lots of people got on at Hiroshima, because a lot of people travel to Hiroshima for Obon, as Obon is a festival that celebrates the ancestors and a lot of people died in Hiroshima, of course. So many people were leaving from Hiroshima, and since we got there about 45 minutes before the train left, we were at the front of the queue so we had seats! Yay! At Shinosaka we had to change trains, took a 20 minute regular train to Kyoto and then we were there. After checking in we went to the east of the city, up into the foothills, where there is an area called the Philosopher's walk. It is called that, because a famous professor of philosophy called Nishida Utaro (I did write his name down, so I'd remember it XD) used to walk there during his lunch hour almost every day. It also has a few famous temples along it. One of them is Nanzenji. This temple has a lot of room divider screens that were painted on by famous artists, hundreds of years ago. Some are even gold-plated. Very beautiful, but no pictures allowed. Around the temples are Zen gardens which are gorgeous. Entry fees were 500 yen, though, this is more expensive than anywhere we've been so far. The next place we stopped at is Otoyo jinja, a collection of little shrines that was very nice. And it was free, which we liked. We put some money in the Inari (fox) shrine to thank whoever is out there for getting us seats on the train! Then we walked to Ginkakuji, which means Silver temple. It is not silver, though; it is unfinished; the silver layer was never put on. So it is just a brown temple. XD it is a replica of the Golden pavillion though, which does have its gold layer. More about that later. The stroll garden around the silver pavillion is quite nice, so we spent some time there. This was also 500 yen. After that, we took the bus back to the station, which took us 45 minutes due to traffic! Kyoto only has two subway lines; one running south to north (and vice versa) and one running east to west (and vice versa). There are a few local train lines, most of which don't go near the station. Many people cycle there or take the bus. In the evening we went to Pontoncho alley, a small cosy alleyway full of restaurants. We missed the shrine there, though, I don't know why; it's hard not to see something there, the street is so narrow. XD We also went to Gion, which is the geisha district. We didn't see any geisha, but the stroll through the area was very nice. It's more traditional Japan than the big concrete buildings you see in every city. Near Gion is Yasaka shrine, which is very nice too; it has a big gate which is at the end of a big street, so you can see it from far away. Our legs are getting so bad, though. >< It's getting hard to walk for hours, like we did before. They just get tired very soon. On Monday I went out on my own, because Eddie just couldn't walk anymore. It's a good thing he didn't; it took me 5 hours to view 2 temples! First it took me 30 minutes to get to the Golden temple (Kinkakuji) by bus. No more buses for me. I don't do buses usually, because I get sick. I got so nauseous on this bus I kept contemplating getting off somewhere and walking to the temple. I would have if my legs weren't hurting so much. But when I got off the bus I had to sit down for about 15 minutes before I felt slightly better and was able to get going again. The Golden pavillion is very nice though. It's cheaper than the silver pavillion in terms of entrance fees (400 yen). It is covered in real gold, and it was redone in 1996 or so, so the current layer is still very shiny and beautiful. The stroll garden around it is very nice too. The only disadvantage is all the tourists. It's so crowded there, you can't really enjoy the views, because there's always lots of talking and people bumping into you. I bought a little charm for good health there; they were much cheaper there than at any other place I've seen so far. And for some reason I felt better after touching it. :) I also bought a charm for safety in traffic which I can hang in my car. :P I then went down the street to Ninnaji temple. Or so I thought. I got hopelessly lost. >< I ended up asking an old lady, but she said loads of stuff in Japanese and all I could gather was that I had to go back to the golden pavillion and take another road from there, or something. Then I came past some road workers and I asked them. Another old lady walking by made it clear to me that she would walk me there part of the way! This is the second time someone has done this for me and I am so amazed by their friendliness. It's like: well, I can't explain to you how to get there, so I'll just walk there with you. Most people in the rest of the world would be like: stupid tourist, whatever. Anyway, during the walk there, the lady kept yapping away at me in Japanese. I didn't understand everything, but I did understand she asked me if I was alone, so I explained my friend was at the hotel. She also commented on how tall I was. I tried to explain that everyone is tall in Holland. After about 15 minutes we got to a bus stop where there was a sign that pointed towards Ninnaji. She left me there and I found my own way. It was still an hour from there, though (it seemed so close to the golden pavillion) so by the time I got there I had been walking for 2 hours non stop and I was completely dead. A nice cup of tea at the coffeeshop by the temple did wonders, though. After that I had enough energy to view the temple complex. This also has a really nice zen garden and screens that were painted on by famous old artists. There are several other buildings, including a 5-storey pagoda and a big entry gate. I didn't have the energy left to do the miniature pilgim walk (in Japan there are 88 temples that are known as the pilgrimage temples; Buddhist monks spend weeks walking all over Japan and visit each temple. And behind Ninnaji is a miniature version of this walk which takes about 2 hours). I then walked for another hour down the street where there was a Japan Rail station; from where the trains did go to the station (no more buses for me). So when I finally got back to the hotel it was 5 hours after I had left. ><

That evening we went out again, though, because the 16th of August is the last night of the Obon festival and that evening, large bonfires in the shape of Kanji (Chinese signs) are lit on the mountains surrounding the city. Those bonfires were the reason we went to Kyoto last, instead of before going to Osaka, which would have made more sense, geography-wise. These past few days in Kyoto they had been selling pieces of wood that people could write their wishes and prayers on, and those are burnt in the bonfires to send them up to the gods.

We walked down the bridge and stood where a lot of people were already standing, thinking we could see the bonfires best from there. But the police made everyone get off the bridge at some point, sending us down to the river. An American guy called Fox started talking to us and the three of us decided to walk down the river together to where a lot of people were sitting. And at 8pm, we saw the kanji for 'big' light up on the hill we were facing. It was really cool! :D We walked a bit further down the river and saw another kanji, but I could only recognise the 'woman' part of it and not what was next to it. We crossed the bridge and just saw the tip of one other kanji bonfire. So very awesome!! After that it was back to hostel. We bought some watermelon on the way, that was yummy! :D

I just wish we had had more time and more energy in Kyoto. Next time I go to Japan I will go there first (and rent a bike) to see the rest!

And this morning we took the train from Kyoto to Tokyo. We still didn't see Fuji; the sky was blue but it was really unclear; lots of water in the air apparently. So I saw what I think were the foothills but I'm not sure. At least when we went from Tokyo to Osaka we could see most of the mountain. XD

Well, now it's about 4:25 pm and I am in Ikebukuro hostel in Tokyo. Our laundry is in the dryer. Tonight we are meeting Tomoki and we are eating shabu shabu. It's nice to be back in Tokyo! Tomorrow we are going to the Ghibli museum and the day after it's home already!! O_O It's been a great trip. I've taken about 1600 photos. XD But don't worry; I won't bore you with all of them (only mum and dad). When other people visit me (or I visit them) I'll narrow it down to the nicest ones. XD And of course I'll put the nicest ones online and send you all the link!

Greetings from 広島

I can't believe it's been almost 2 weeks since we got to Japan. And only 6 days left!

I left off at Monday, I think. We went to Nara by train, took us only 45 minutes. The scenery on the way was great; lots of mountains and nice little villages. We stayed at Nakata B&B, a cute little traditional B&B run by a 60-year-old man named Nakata-san. There were tatami mats on the floors, low tables and we slept on futons (which are much more comfortable than they look!).

Nakata-san told us there was a candle festival in Nara that week, which is held once a year, so at 7 we were at the park where the paths and ponds were lit with literally thousands of candles. It was really gorgeous and a great way to see Nara for the first time! In Nara park there are about 1000 deer that are considered the 'messengers of the gods'. They walk around free and are really cute! We saw some on that night. On the way back to the hotel we had nice big bowls of udon noodles in soup. And at a little souvenir stand I had my first conversation all in Japanese! The lady asked me if the souvenirs could be wrapped together, I said that was fine, she told me the price and I paid her. Short, but I was so proud of having achieved it all in Japanese! I swear I have forgotten most I have learnt, because half the time you need to ask more complicated stuff anyway. XD

The next day, Thursday, I had breakfast downstairs (banana, orange and a chocolate bun served by Nakata-san) and I chatted with a French girl and her mother that were staying at the B&B as well. At 10:00 I left to go view Nara, agreeing to meet Eddie somewhere on the way (he didn't feel like going out yet). But after walking for 45 mins, my camera showed the low battery sign! So I walked back to the hotel, changed the battery and walked back into town, Eddie coming along that time. We then proceeded to walk for another 5 hours, I swear we saw most of Nara. At some point I had the feeling we had walked to another city. XD It's a good thing I took a lot of walks in the weeks leading up to this holiday, to break in my new hiking shoes, or I'd never have been able to do it. Poor Eddie wasn't in such good shape, though, he kept complaining I was like his mum, who also always wants to walk everywhere on holiday. XD

We first went to a temple called Shinyakushiji. It proved immensely difficult to find, tucked away in a residential area with streets so narrow I'd be surprised if my car could turn a corner there. We asked an old lady the way and she started explaining it to some random guy who walked by, who then took us all the way to the temple! That was so nice of him! The temple itself is very small, but very valuable; it is one of the oldest temples that are left in Japan. It was built in the 8th century. Inside are 12 statues of demons guarding a Buddha statue.

Then we walked through the forest to Kasuga grand shrine, which is surrounded by hundreds of stone lanterns donated by people. We walked up the hill where we saw more deer (some were going into a souvenir shop XD) and then to the highest temple, the name of which I can't remember right now, but from where we had an amaaaazing view over Nara.

We walked down the hill to Todaiji temple; the largest wooden building in the world (and it's enormous, even though it's now only 2/3 the size it used to be) containing the largest bronze Buddha statue in the world. It was truly impressive and dwarfing being in there, even though it was crowded. There are some other statues in there that are also huge. And there is a pole with a hole through it, lots of people were squeezing themselves through the hole, must bring good luck or something. I didn't go through; it didn't look like my big gaijin hips would have fit. XD

We then walked back to the hotel, and 5 minutes after we got back it started pouring rain and there was a massive thunderstorm!! I was so glad we got back before that broke loose. But the French people from that morning had to catch the train, so they were worried. Luckily it stopped pouring after 30 minutes, so they went to catch the train and we went to get food (McDonalds again, Eddie didn't feel like noodles and I didn't feel like anything really). We had to walk back in the rain, but we had borrowed an umbrella at the hotel.

Wehn we got back to the hotel, I got a Japanese lesson from Nakata-san. He taught me how to say 'difficult' (which is a very difficult word: muzukashii) and how to explain my sister is the oldest daughter, I am the second daughter and my brother is the first son.

The next day, Wednesday, we actually wanted to see more of Nara (there was one temple I wanted to see that we hadn't yet) but the forecast predicted more rain, so we decided to catch the train to Kobe while it was still dry. It took us about 1.5 hour to get to Kobe, having to change trains at Osaka. The hotel in Kobe was almost impossible to find with the map they had on their website. After asking a few people, we finally got there.

After checking in, we walked for 15 minutes to the ShinKobe station to reserve seats on the shinkansen, as we knew the next period would get busy because of the Obon festival which starts tomorrow. But all the trains were full! We could only get a seat reservation on the train from Kyoto to Tokyo, but there were 2 other trains we wanted to get a reservation for. So that was pretty bad. >< On the way back to the hotel we visited a shrine called Ikura Jinja. It was very nice and peaceful there, there was a little creek, so we sat there for a while resting our tired legs and praying for a good trip. We also went to Tokyu Hands, where I also got the kitty bank. This time I got some cute bento stuff (yes, there's some there for you as well, Marlies!). In the evening I felt like another bowl of udon, so I asked the lady from the hotel and she actually walked me there! The restaurant had a large watermill out front, really cool. The neighbourhood the hotel was in has a few houses left from when the Dutch and Portuguese did a lot of trade here, so some actually look European. I had another stomach ache in the evening, probably from the stress from not getting any seats on the train, so I went to bed early, around 10. I dreamt horribly; that I killed Cailleach, and after that I couldn't sleep anymore, so I was awake by 6. So all in all Kobe wasn't that good an experience. In the morning we got to the shinkansen station early and had to wait 45 minutes for a train to Hiroshima, which was packed! Because we didn't have a seat reservation, we had to go into the non-reserved area. Well, we were in the doorway actually. Luckily Bonny's suitcase is very firm, so I sat on that for the entire 1.5 hour. The trip to Kyoto on Sunday, in the middle of the Obon period, will probably be worse. >< We got to the hostel, Hana hostel Hiroshima, and we checked into the nicest little traditional Japanese rooms. Can't believe it's in a backpackers hostel! It has its own little entryway where the toilet is, before you go into the room itself. In the room is a little side room with a sink and mirror. After settling in I went to view Hiroshima castle. Eddie stayed behind, he was too tired. The poor guy isn't used to walking so much, and traveling around so much. Anyway, the castle. Of course the original castle was destroyed in the atom bomb, so this is a replica, but it looks just like the old one. Inside there are old samurai clothes, swords, papers and letters. From the top you have a great view over the city. You could see the A-bomb dome (the building the atom bomb exploded over and was thus spared complete destruction, so today it stands just as it did right after) and Miyajima (where we're going tomorrow). Wehn I got back to the hotel room the news was on; apparently there's a tyfoon over the north and middle of Japan, which is why there was so much rain! Luckily we are to the south of it; here it was just very hot and sunny. ^^ Oh and on the way to the castle I passed a bookstore. So I went in and bought a children's book, which has very easy Japanese; so easy for me to be able to read. But when I got back to the hotel and looked at the text better, I realised most of the story has the exact same lines. >< There are only about 3 or 4 different lines in the book. So yeah... But the pictures look funny.　

And now it's about 7pm. Tomorrow we are going to Miyajima; the one place I most want to see in all of Japan! There is a torii (vermillion Japanese shrine gate) in the water there. The Japanese consider it one of their 3 most beautiful sights. My blog has the shrine at the top. Ever since I first saw this place on pictures, I've wanted to go there, and tomorrow we finally will!! I can't believe I'm so close to it right now... ^^

The day after it's viewing the Peace and Memorial park and the A-bomb dome. That will be pretty sad. :( And then on Sunday we are traveling to Kyoto. So keep your fingers crossed for us the train won't be too packed... Which it probably will be. XD More updates from me from Kyoto!!

Greetings from Osaka

Hi everyone! Another update from me. We traveled to Osaka from Tokyo on Friday. We spent 3 hours on the shinkansen (bullet train). I thought since it tilts in the curves you wouldn't feel it riding at all, but the thing shook and shuddered very much. Anyway, it did go fast and we had great views from the train. Fuji was in the clouds, however, that was a shame. We only saw its base. Perhaps on the way back next week!

We got to Osaka around 6pm, rush hour. We finally got to our hostel (Osaka J-hoppers) after being on really crowded trains. The neighbourhood of the hostel is really nice, though! Lots of little restaurants and stuff. Next to the hostel is a school which has its own vegetable patch which we could see from our window. The room was big and so were the beds, but it wasn't en suite, which is never very nice.

At 7:30 we met our friend Satoshi at Osaka station. He took us to a yakitori (grilled chicken) restaurant where we did not only have the standard stuff like chicken thigh, but also chicken skin, chicken butt, chicken cartilage (that's kraakbeen for you Dutchies) and chicken stomach! Satoshi told us the last one was liver, but he sent us an email later saying he had made a mistake in the translation and it was actually stomach. My stomach got kinda upset from it, but I think that was also from the trip and all; doing way too much in one day.

As we walked back to the station we passed Hep Five, a sort of amusement area for youngsters. On the roof of this building is a giant red ferris wheel! Wish we had had time to go on it.

On Saturday I had very little energy. >< I guess it's from all the things we've been doing and seeing, combined with the heat and humidity. I did go out for 2 hours, to view Osaka castle. It's very nice (google it to see what it looks like) but after walking up to it I didn't have the energy anymore to go inside it as well. So I went back to the hostel and just rested. That evening there was going to be a fireworks display by the river, which could be viewed from the hostel roof. There was going to be free food (yakisoba (=fried noodles) and salad). It is customary for people to wear yukata when viewing fireworks displays in summer, so one of the ladies who works at the hostel helped me put mine on (that took 15 minutes!) and then we went up to the roof, ate and watched the fireworks. Yes, those yukata are as uncomfortable as they look. >< But everyone commented on how nice I looked! On Sunday we spent 2 hours on the train to get to Koyasan, a 900 metre high mountain nearby on top of which the shingon sect of Buddhism was started back in the 9th century. On top there are loads of temples and an enormous cemetery. On the way there we got higher and higher on the train until we were about 400 metres above sea level. Great views of course! The last 450 metres were done by cablecar and then we were at the top. We viewed a few temples and then walked for 2 km through a literal forest of the dead (Doctor Who reference ftw!) with 200,000 tombs, some as much as 1000 years old. So beautiful! At the end of it we got to the main tomb of the founder of shingon Buddhism (can't remember his name just now) and in front of it is a Hall of 1000 lanterns. In it are, as the name says, a lot of lanterns; 2 of which are said to have been lit since the 11th century! Unfortunately it was closed. It closes at 5pm and it was 6:30 by the time we got there. >< That was such a shame! One of the doors was open a crack so we peeped inside, but we couldn't see that much. Then we got the bus back to the station and the train back down. The altitude had really given me a headache. >< I'm used to living on sea level people!!

When we got back to Osaka it was 10 pm and all the little restaurants were closed. So instead of getting udon (noodles) like we wanted, we went to McDonalds instead. XD It was quite funny to be in such a sacred place where they all eat vegan food just a few hours before, and then eating McDonalds. XD But it was good. I got grape fanta, which was not that good. All the grape-flavoured stuff here tastes really sweet and chemically, but then again; so do the actual grapes!

And now it's Monday morning and we are going to view the temple here in Osaka soon and then we're off to Nara!

Second update from Japan

Second update from Japan, on the last night we will spend in Tokyo before traveling to Osaka this morning. We've been able to do and see a lot more, because we've been feeling better. My IBS is almost gone, we're getting used to the heat and for the past 2 nights we've been sleeping through the night instead of waking up at 1am and not falling asleep again until 5 am.

I believe I left off on Monday. The evening after I wrote my last mail we decided to go to Tobu, a large department store, to get some food. Many Japanese department stores have a food department at either the top floor or in the basement. But there are 2 Tobu buildings. One is a sort of university, not a department store. Of course we ended up there first. XD We went to all the floors and each time it was a surprise what we were going to see whenever the elevator doors opened. XD Not the right place, obviously.

We then went to the other one and that was the right one. The food department in the basement was freaking intense! Food and people everywhere. Each different type of food was laid out or displayed in a square, in the middle of which were the cashiers. Who kept yelling what kind of food they had and what was on sale, etc. So you're walking around, trying to recognise anything, through throngs of bustling people, with cashiers yelling in rapid (rabid) Japanese... Well after an hour we had some fruit (very recognisable, yay!), Eddie had some sushi and I had finally found a stand that sold a million kinds of yakitori. I bought 4 sticks, each of a different kind, and we went out into the relative peace of the Ikebukuro clubbing district again. 3 of the yakitori I had were great, the other one wasn't so good, so I didn't eat all of it.

On Tuesday we went to Akihabara, 'electronic city' as it's advertised as. Lots of neon, lots of computer/phone/other electric stuff shops and lots of girls dressed in Lolita clothes advertising a maid cafe (maid and host cafes are places where you are served by very pretty girls or boys and you pay not only for the food and drinks, but also for them to sit with you. They're quite popular here apparently). We went to a large department store where they had these vending machines full of balls with toys in them. I got a few of them, all kinds of trinkets, pretty cool.

Then we walked to Kanda Miyojin Shrine, which is close to bustling Akihabara and surrounded by flats, but it's very peaceful and of course there were loads of cicadas. I swear; the noise those bugs make is unbelievable. Sometimes you actually feel like it's too loud to bear. Like you need earplugs. XD We went to the shrine at sundown (which is 7pm; super early for us West-Europeans) and all these people came to pray at sundown. We wanted to throw a coin in as well but because all those people were there, we felt like it would be a bit disrespectful, as we obviously don't follow the shinto religion.

We went back to the hotel and for the first time this week I ate a normal-sized dinner.

On Wednesday I felt much better; I had slept through the night for the first time and I had some time to get up and get ready in the morning in peace. I did our laundry in the coin laundry downstairs from the hostel. Then we went to Koishikawa Korakuen Garden, a stroll garden which has replicas of famous sites in China and Japan, only smaller. We spent a few hours strolling around there and got stung by so many mosquitoes, it's just unbelievable. I took pictures of my legs, otherwise I really don't think you'll believe me if I say I have 25 mosquito bites on just one leg. But wearing my jeans is not an option in this heat; I prefer my skirts. Today I bought some mosquito repellent, though. I think it worked. I also had some cream to put on the bites, so hopefully it will all be gone soon. I look like I've got some kind of disease or something. XD They're not even small lumps; they're a centimetre across! Eddie's word to describe it was 'grotesque'. XD He has some too, though; first time in his life he's ever had mosquito bites. The mosquitoes aren't even that big, but they're different than the kind we have in Holland and England. They're black. Tomoki had alrady warned us, but yeah..

For dinner I went to an udon shop nearby (for those who don't know; udon are thick noodles). I had passed the shop every time I needed to go to the station and it smelt sooo good outside all the time, so I decided to have dinner there. I got kintetsu, which is the udon noodles in a broth with some vegetables and fried tofu. It was delicious. The guy who worked there spoke some English and he was very excited to hear I was from The Netherlands. He even knew the word 'Nederland' and he said we have a very good soccer team. As I was eating,he came by asking me if it was nice, and when I left he told me to come back again, and I think I will.

In the evening, Eddie and I went to Sunshine City. A sort of... wow how can I describe it? It's typically Japanese: shops full of toys and Hello Kitty stuff, lots of noise, lots of neon, lots of music, pachinko parlours, etc. Just loud and wow. We went to the Sunshine building, which is 60 floors high. On the 60th floor is an observatory. The elevator took about 10 seconds to get us up there. At its fastest it goes 600 m per minute! My ears popped, but other than that it felt ok. What was funny was that the moment the elevator stars, the lights go out, blacklights go out and the walls are covered in cheesy paintings of dolphins and stars and galaxies. Cheesy music plays as well, so much fun. XD

The view from the observatory was amazing. We could see all over Tokyo, on all 4 sides. And.... we saw Fuji! The sun was just setting (it was after 7), so I've got some great pictures of Tokyo in sunset and Tokyo with all its lights after dark. It was well worth the 620 yen we paid each. We spent about an hour there and then we went down again. Just outside that building is Tokyu Hands, a popular store for household items and party items. and there, I bought an Itazura kitty bank!! I've wanted one ever since I saw them on the internet. Here'sa cat with one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AIilzwdREE They are just so cute!! ^^

On the way back to the hotel we passed a McDonalds. Eddie wanted a meal and I got some chips (fries). Then on the way back to the hotel we saw a couple of very pretty boys (with typical Japanese spiky and dyed hair, cool clothes, black nailpolish, etc) and one was fixing his hair as we walked by. I was like: f*ck it, I'm going to ask them for a picture. So I asked and three of them were ok with it (one stepped up to the side) and I took the picture. One of them asked me where we were from and in crappy English he explained they were hosts from a host cafe!! XD Then I couldn't get rid of him, because he didn't understand what I was saying and I couldn't understand what he was saying and I just wanted to be polite and not just walk off. Finally I said in Japanese we were going to eat (I remembered that sentence) and pointed at the McDonalds bag. Then he let us go. XD He was cute though!! So Eddie and I kept joking how we should go to the host cafe and I could hit on the guys, etc. XD Hilarity ensued when, upon returning to the hotel, we discovered that in a booklet with ads that had been handed to us in Sunshine city earlier, there was a Host club guide with pictures of all these nice-looking hosts. XD

So yeah, Thursday (today) arrived and it was still hot, hot, hot and super humid. On TV we saw some Americans and after seeing nothing but tiny Japanese people all day, we couldn't help but say: OMG they're so fat! No offense to anyone. Just the ones on TV were all really big... Anyway, we went to Asakusa, which is the more traditional area of Tokyo; where old Edo used to be before Tokyo was a superlarge big ass city. There's a big temple there, Senso-ji temple, which is Buddhist, not Shinto, like the shrines we've visited so far (shrine = Shinto, temple = Buddhist). If you google Asakusa, you get all these pictures of a big red lantern; that's at the Senso-ji temple. There's quite a few of those. Leading up to the temple is a big street lined with souvenir shops and shops where you can buy kimono, yukata, fans, etc. We got a few souvenirs there and some stuff for ourselves as well (I really hope I'll be able to fit all of it in my bags; I only brought a small suitcase (courtesy of Bonny) and a big backpack, because I've been told on the shinkansen there isn't much room for big suitcases. We'll find out tomorrow. Eddie has a big suitcase, though, so when push comes to shove I can put some of my stuff in his suitcase and take it out again in Holland).

After Asakusa we went to Ueno park, which is really large. Eddie's feet hurt, though, so we didn't see the entire park (I'm so glad I've spent much of the past two weeks walking to walk in my new shoes; otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do all this walking either). We did see the Inari shrine. Inari is a goddess whose shrines can be recognised by the fox statues in front and inside of them. There was also a realllllly cute kitty lying outside the shrine,very hot obviously. I took some photos. In Ueno park is also a Museum of Western Art, which has a big statue called the Gates of Hell outside of it (probably a replica, but still) (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gates_of_Hell.jpg) I took a picture of that, but we didn't go in.

We got back to the hotel and decided to go out for shabu shabu. This is a type of food where you get a large bowl of boiling beef stock on the table and you dip pieces of beef, pork and vegetables in it to cook them. It was super delicious!! And it was all you can eat so we got some refills of beef as well. Now I'm full. XD

First message from Japan!

Hey everyone! Here's my first update from Japan. The subject line says Greetings from Tokyo, if you were wondering. Excuse any spelling mistakes and missing punctuation, it's an annoying keyboard. The space bar is about 2 cm wide and next to it is a button that makes me type in Japanese letters so whenever I accidentally press it, I have to press another button and delete what I wrote.

Anyway,update so far. We arrived last Saturday at around 11am local time. The flight was 10 hours, not 12; I had calculated it wrong. XD We were pretty tired. On the plane we did have extra leg room (that we had to pay extra for, more about that later) but I was right below an airconditoner so I was freezing for the entire trip. >< I got 2 blankets which I ended up pulling all the way up over my head so I wouldn't feel it. I did get to see Avatar; hadn't seen it before, it's very nice! So we arrived at Narita airport in Tokyo and it took us almost 3 hours to get from there to the hostel. Meanwhile, my IBS (Irritable　Bowel Syndrome) had started acting up, so Koosie was not a happy camper. >< The hostel room was the tiniest I have ever seen. It had a double bed (the next hostel, where I am now, has single beds the same size as that hostel's 'double beds') but the AC worked really well. It was in Jimbocho, the booksellers district, and there was some sort of festival going on for the manga One Piece. So they had a sort of treasure hunt about the manga and there were stands displaying original drawings and stuff all over the street. Oh; the heat and humidity are indescribable. If you've ever been to Burgers Bush (or any other zoo that has a replica of the tropical rainforest) in the middle of summer, you know how it feels. Coincidentally, it smells the same as well; a very humid, planty smell. Not unpleasant. The smell, I mean. The heat is very unpleasant. Luckily you canwalk around here fanning yourself and people won’t look at you crazy; they all do it. They also all carry handkerchiefs with which to wipe the sweat off their faces. As I thought before; I am much taller than 90% of the Japanese here, which is useful when looking for something in a busy street (you can see over everyone) but I do get gawked at by schoolkids (and some really cool goths, I was like: yay, they're impressed by me!). So on Saturday night I went to sleep at 9 pm and I was sleeping soundly until 11, when some #%&$ Americans (no offense to the Americans I'm sending this to, but you know you can be loud) started talking really loudly outside our door and in their room which was next to ours. Even after they had stopped, I still couldn't sleep and I was　awake until about 6am. >< That was really the worst night of my life; IBS, heart racing, homesick, everything. >< The next day, Sunday, we went out at around 1:30 pm to meet up with Tomoki, a friend who lives here in Tokyo. We met him at Harajuku station and we walked down Takeshita Doori, the main street for Harajuku gothic/lolita fashion. It was really crowded and really hot, so at first I was like: Meh, I can't handle this. >< After a cup of tea it went a bit better, so we walked down the street. It reminded me so much of Camden Lock Market in London. We went into the main store for Goth/Loli fashion. I swear, I wanted to buy everything there! But it was all quite pricey, even though there was a sale on, and the clothes were all made for Japanese sized people... Eddie bought a belt thatwas priced down from 1999 yen for 300 yen!! That's less than 3 euros, for whoever is wondering. We weren't allowed to take pictures in there, I would have loved to!! We also went to a 100 yen store; everything costs 100 or 200 yen. I got a gorgeous bento there for 200 yen!! Marlies; I stocked up on bento stuff for you as well! It's unbelievable how cheap all that stuff was, compared to buying it online. Got some souvenirs for other people as well and some stuff for myself. Then we went to Meiji shrine; which is on the other side of Harajuku station. That was just amazing. It's got big paths leading up to it through a forest, the noise of the cicadas was incredibly loud, I videoed it so I can let you guys hear when I get back. The paths all had big torii gates at their starts. We learnt how to do the hand cleaning ritual and I put a prayer for good health for myself and safety for my family, with some money, in a box for prayers. Wrote it all in kanji! (Tomoki showed me how; I had never seen those kanji before!) Wehn we got to the actual shrine, it was already getting dark (sun goes down at 7 here) and the shrine was closed, that was too bad, but it was nice walking through that peaceful forest. We got out of the park and it was much hotter outside, back in the city. We got some food at a supermarket (they microwaved it for us) and then we went back to the hotel. this morning (Monday) we had to check out at 11, which we did. I was feeling fine earlier, so I had the rice I had left over from the night before, but as we were walking towards the imperial palace my IBS flared up again, much worse than before (maybe you cannot keep cooked rice overnight after all?) and we had to stay there until 2, until I felt better. I'm pretty sure it's jet lag, because I always get it when I get up early, and my body still thinks it's 7 hours earlier. So yeah, we were contemplating maybe going home sooner (Eddie has been feeling bad as well) but it would be such a waste of money and we wouldn't get to see the nice things outside Tokyo. We can't take day trips as I can't reallyfunction before 2 pm yet apparently. But hopefully by Friday, when we move to Osaka, it will be better. Today we went to Ikebukuro. Here we have a hostel with a much larger room, bunk beds and it's en suite! Ikebukuro is a district with lots of restaurants and some shops, which I saw when I walked around for a while earlier (I bought a gorgeous yukata here; like a kimono only different proportions) for less than 30 euros. However; no postcards to be found anywhere! not even in the post office or the bookshop. So you'll all have to wait for your cards a bit longer. So I'd better end it now, this is costing me lots of money. I'm posting this on my blog as well. Please keep your fingers crossed Eddie and I feel better soon, because this is no way to travel; feeling sick all the time. >< I came here to see all these nice things and I feel like I'm reallymissing out so far.

Final Preparations and Setbacks

Well, in 5 days we will finally be leaving! It's getting so close. Eddie is coming here on Wednesday and on Friday we will head to Japan! ^^

Unfortunately there is a minor setback: Himeji castle is closed from April 2010 until somewhere in 2011 for renovations. I was really looking forward to seeing it. ><

However, I've found a good alternative; Okayama. A small town which is also on the way from Kobe to Hiroshima (as is Himeji) and it also has a castle that looks similar to the one at Himeji (only smaller). And where the one in Himeji is white, the one in Okayama is black, causing it to have the nickname 'The Crow's Castle'. The rest of the town looks interesting too. So hopefully it will be just as good. ^^

I haven't been doing any RTK studies, since I don't want my reviews to pile up again, like they did when I had the computer problems. So I've only been reviewing, but not adding anything.

I've also started Tae Kim's grammar and I wish I had done it sooner. It's so easy and fast! So I will keep that up for a few more days and hopefully I can string a few sentences together when we're there. ^^

Getting up-to-date

So I got my computer back and the virus is gone, yay! But it did leave me a few days behind on my onyomi reviews (I had about 300 due), so I finally managed to catch up with them yesterday. Just a shame after three weeks in Japan, loads of them will be due again. XD

I've also been making all kinds of final arrangements for the trip to Japan. I've ordered my Rail Pass and I've printed out all the hostel bookings and all. Only 3.5 weeks until we go! ^^

Computer problems

So my computer has a very nasty virus that 2 days and 2 IT-guys at work haven't been able to get rid of. So now it's going to have to be reformatted!

I am soooo happy I recently joined Anki online; it keeps all my Anki progress online as well as on my computer. So when that is all deleted off my computer next week, I'll still have the cards I added and the reviews I've done online. However; I am borrowing a computer from work right now and it doesn't have the Japanese language pack installed, so I can't do my reviews online; the kanji all show up as blank squares. (>.<) So I'm looking at a few hundred reviews next week, many of which I won't be able to remember, probably. So yeah, it will take me a few days to catch up again.

I'm also not able to do Pimsleur at the moment, though I do have that saved to an external harddrive so I'll be able to do that when I get my computer back. I've only got up to Unit 19; it's becoming tedious.

I've started studying Japanese vereb inflections as well, so I'll spend my time doing that until my computer is fixed. And luckily Reviewing the Kanji is there and I can keep up-to-date with my RTK1 reviews.

Progress as of June 13th

I've finally made it past the 1/4 point on my Onyomi cards! ^^

RTK2: 517 cards in Anki
Pimsleur: Japanese 2, Unit 17 done

Progress as of June 10th

Ugh, school has been getting busy again, so I haven't had much time. I'm hopelessly behind on my Pimsleur, I don't think I can finish it before going to Japan. Same with RTK! But I'm not too bothered; perhaps I can do some more once the holidays actually start, but I think I'll also need my rest then. XD One thing's for sure; I went to the Efteling (Dutch fairytale theme park) yesterday and I so needed that! When I came home I was really relaxed and my IBS has been very mild since then. ^^

Anyway, progress report:

Pimsleur: Japanese 2, Unit 15
RTK: 475 cards in Anki (yeah, still not on the 1/4 mark, which is 511, by the way, but soon.)

Progress as of June 6th

IBS is slowly getting better. ^^

Pimsleur: Japanese 2, Unit 13
RTK2: 420 cards in Anki. Almost at the 1/4 mark! ^^

I want to see if I can't make it that far today, but I'm a bit worried about the amount of reviews I'll have tomorrow if I do. Everything I add today, I'll have to review tomorrow, and I've already added 28 today. If I add 100 more... Well. We'll see!

Progress as of June 1st

So my IBS has really been flaring up, so I wasn't able to do a lot. Yesterday I did a bit, though, as well as today, so my progress at the moment is:

Pimsleur: Japanese 2, Unit 9.
RTK2: 392 cards in Anki.

Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig - part 2

In my previous post I explained how Remembering the Kanji 1 helped me learn the meaning and writing of 2042 kanji. So that's great and impressive at birthday parties and all, but completely useless if you don't also know the pronunciation. So that's what Remembering the Kanji volume 2 is all about.

It took me a while to get started, because it doesn't really give a set way of studying, like volume 1 did. I had to do a lot of research online and a lot of trying out to find a method that worked for me. But I think I have it now.

For those of you doing RTK2, you'll probably say, after reading this: You're crazy. You should be learning compound words, not loose onyomi! I'll explain in a minute why I am not doing that.

First: What is onyomi and what is kunyomi?
Onyomi is the Chinese pronunciation of the kanji.
Kunyomi is the Japanese pronunciation of the kanji.
As I explained in my previous post, the kanji were brought over from China. The Japanese had their own way of saying words, but no symbols. However, the symbols had their own pronunciation. So the Japanese decided to use both. (This is all putting it very simply, of course.) Onyomi is mostly used in compound words; words that consist of two or more kanji. Kunyomi is usually used when kanji stand on their own.

In RTK2, Heisig focuses more on the onyomi, as we've already learnt single kanji, so kunyomi isn't that hard (though he does give a method for it at the end of the book, which I will explain and tell my experiences with when I start doing it). But since onyomi is used to write compound words, it's more difficult and he focuses on it more.

The method he uses is that some of the kanji can be divided into groups in which all the kanji share a certain radical (a symbol that is part of the kanji) and a certain pronunciation. An example: These four kanji (長, 張, 帳, 脹) all have a shared element (also known as primitive): 長 (sometimes these primitives are kanji themselves, sometimes they are radicals and sometimes they are neither). All four are also pronounced as 'chou' (the u indicates that the o is elongated, so it rhymes with 'show', not with 'chew'. This way, it's easy to remember that a kanji with that particular primitive is pronounced that way.

Sounds like a good method. However, there were a few drawbacks for me. First of all; there are kanji that share the same primitive, which get a different pronounciation. Also, these four kanji aren't the only ones that are pronounced 'chou'; there are 23 others as well. And there's a whole bunch of kanji that fall outside these groups altogether. Lastly, and most importantly to me: Heisig focuses on learning compounds with those kanji in it. However, if I only know the onyomi of one part of the compound, it would be rote memorisation for the other part and that is not the way his method works. So, I decided to find another way to work.

At the Reviewing the Kanji website forum, I found some people talking about the 'Movie Method'. The way I understood it, it works as follows: You take all the kanji with a certain onyomi (for example 'chou') and look at the meaning for all of them (you already know the meaning, because you learnt them in RTK1. Though some meanings there are off, most of them are pretty accurate). You then think of a movie you know very well, for example The Lord of the Rings. And then you recreate scenes with those kanji involved, say you had the kanji for roadway, ring, group, etc, it would be easy. But you also get kanji that don't immediately seem to suit with this film, like delight, or permit. It's the trick to make up a story that can also involve those kanji. Which shouldn't be too hard, after finishing RTK1.

However, I'm not too much of a movie buff and I also didn't want to come up with different movies for allll those different onyomi. Also, I didn't want to use the same movie for all or a lot of onyomi, because I was worried I'd mix up the stories. So I decided to go with making up stories, but not attaching them to a movie. Basically the Heisig method, but instead of there being primitives, there were kanji with which to make up a story. I also always make sure to include the pronunciation, or I still don't remember!

An example of a short one:
Onyomi: suu (スウ)
Kanji: 枢 (hinge), 数 (number), 崇 (adore)
Story: My friend Sue (suu) is off her hinges! She actually adores numbers and wants to become a maths teacher!

I've done all the groups of 3, 4, 5 and 6 kanji so far. The smaller the groups, the easier, but if they are smaller than 3 it gets harder. So I am doing the onyomi with 1 and 2 kanji last. The bigger the groups, the harder it gets as well, but after a lot of practice with the smaller groups, those will also be ok. I am considering attaching movies for the biggest groups, and then dividing them up into little scenes (there are a lot of groups with around 20 or 30 kanji, but some are as big as 40 or 50 and the biggest one has 68 kanji). However, I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

As for reviewing; I downloaded Anki, a programme that works with the Spaced Reviewing System I explained in my other post about RTK1. On the front of the Anki card (the bit that you see first) I put the kanji. On the back (the bit that shows up if you click 'Show card' I put the onyomi and the meaning (doesn't hurt reviewing that as well). I've noticed that not all my stories have stuck as well as others, but that's the same with RTK1 and you can always tweek them a bit.

At the moment, I have about 350 cards in Anki; so 350 kanji I know at least one onyomi of (some have 2 or 3). When I'm done with these, I will probably do the kunyomi at the same time as learning the compounds Heisig mentions in the book. I haven't really thought too far ahead. My main goal at the moment is finishing Pimsleur before I go to Japan and hopefully also finishing the onyomi part of RTK2 I am doing now (though I don't know if I'll make it). It's going pretty fast this way, as did RTK1, so once I have all this out of the way, it will make learning sentences and vocabulary that much easier. ^^

Remembering The Kanji by James Heisig - part 1

So I have already explained a bit about this topic, but I'll explain it with a bit more detail now, so you guys know exactly how I've been learning the Japanese writing system.

First a short explanation of this writing system.

Japanese consists of three different sets of 'symbols'.
- Hiragana (ひらがな): Each hiragana symbol represents a certain syllable/sound. There's the vowels a, i, u, e, o. Then there's the consonant/vowel combinations, such as ka, ki, su, te, mo, and all other combinations. Consonants cannot stand on their own, except n. Here is a hiragana table for anyone that is interested in it. Distinguishable from katakana by their 'curvier' forms.
- Katakana (カタカナ): Each katakana symbol also represents a syllable, the same as the hiragana ones and a few extra ones. This is because katakana is mostly used to transcribe words of foreign origin. Most words are changed around so they don't really sound like their original selves, to fit into the 'no loose consonants' rule, but a few sounds not in hiragana symbols (vi, du, etc.) were added to help out a bit. Here is a katakana table. As you can see, the symbols have straighter lines and less curvy bits.
- Kanji (漢字): This is the hardest stuff and what I've spent months and months learning. And what I use the book for that this post is all about. The symbols, taken from Chinese, respresent meanings, rather than just sounds, like hiragana and katakana. A few hundred years ago, Japan had a spoken language, but no writing system. The spoken language wasn't anything like Chinese, but the writing system came over from there (putting it very simply). So they had a problem: They had sounds in Japanese and symbols in Chinese, both meaning the same things. So, seemigly to complicate things even more for us Japanese learners, they decided to give most of the symbols both a Japanese (kunyomi) and a Chinese (onyomi) pronunciation. They did make up some rules of when to use which, but there are lots of exceptions too. Also, some of them have multiple onyomi, so when to use which? An example: So far, I have learnt three different onyomi for this kanji: 納: na, nan and noo. Some are used more than others, but all can be used.
Luckily for us foreigners (and also for the Japanese themselves) the Japanese government decided a while ago to make a list of roughly 2000 kanji (there are over 50,000 in total) that it is strictly necessary to learn, in order to understand newspapers, regular books, etc. These are called Jouyou kanji and these are the ones I've been learning. Kanji that do not appear on this list, and also verb inflections, etc. are written in hiragana in books, newspapers, etc. The exceptions to this are people's names, some contain non-jouyou kanji, but that's not for this topic.

Remembering the Kanji 1
In comes this amazing book (full title: Remembering the Kanji, Vol. 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters). This guy, James Heisig, went to Japan. He didn't speak or write the language. When he arrived there, he was too late to start the Japanese language course that was already going, and he had to wait a few weeks before a new one would start. So he decided to have a look at the language himself. He created his own system for learning the kanji that allows us to learn them as foreign adults, rather than Japanese children.

Say what, Koos? Well, in universities and Japanese courses all over the world, people are taught the kanji by writing them over and over again (stroke order is very important, and also knowing stroke count, as dictionaries are often sorted by number of strokes), at the same time trying to get all those onyomi and kunyomi (pronunciations) in their heads. Heisig reckons this is like trying to walk to the left with your left leg and at the same time trying to walk to the right with your right leg. It's just very difficult. A common idea among Japanese teachers at universities is that foreigners can never learn the kanji as well as Japanese people can. Heisig also reckons that's crap (and so do I, after working through this method).

In his method, he points out Chinese people learn Japanese much faster than people from other nations. This is because they already know the symbols, their meaning and their stroke order. What he wants to do with his book Remembering the Kanji 1, is get you on that level; learning the stroke order and the meaning of the kanji, while not yet trying to learn the pronunciation as well. He argues that this also goes much faster than trying to learn it all at once, so within a few months you are done and you can move on to learning the pronunciation. And he is right; I finished learning the meaning and stroke order of 2042 kanji in 6 months (while working fulltime!). That's an average of 11 a day, whereas it took me 3 days to learn just the numbers 1-10; stroke order, meaning, onyomi and kunyomi. There were also many days during those 6 months where I didn't learn any, because I was tired or busy, but on my top days I learnt between 60 and 80 in one day!

How does this method work? It's easy. Heisig starts off from the fact that we are not anything like the Japanese schoolchildren, who learn the kanji by writing them over and over again. There are several major differences: we are adults, so we have a different brain. We are capable of abstract thought and imagination better than children. Also; Japanese schoolchildren already know the pronunciation of these words, they just haven't learnt to write them in kanji yet. We, foreigners, do not know the pronunciation yet. Therefore, it would be nonsense to learn them in the way they do.

What he did was show how the kanji are made up of certain elements. To start off, he took the kanji for the numbers 1-10, because most people have learnt them already before finding this method (and if not, they're easy to learn): 一,二,三,四,五,六,七,八,九,十. He also introduced 5 other easy kanji that often come back: mouth 口, day (aka sun) 日, month (aka moon) 月, rice field 田 and eye 目. A lot of kanji can be made up by combining these 15. The trick was: you take the loose elements, take the meaning of the kanji and make a story with a strong mental image to remember it.

An example: the kanji for sun 日 and the kanji for eye 目 make up the kanji for risk 冒. In it, the sun symbol is over the eye symbol. Your story could be: When you look up into the SUN with your EYE, it is a RISK, because you might go blind. That's it; then you know it. There's nothing more to it. Next time you see the word 'risk', you'll know how to write the kanji, because of this story.
(In the book, the stroke order is also given, but it's fairly straightforward and after a while you just know what stroke order a symbol should get, I wrote each kanji twice while learning it, to get a feel for the stroke order.)
Another example. Sun 日 and moon 月 together form the kanji for bright 明. Yeah. Do I really need to make a story for that? XD
After you've learnt a lot of kanji combining those first 15 (and some of them seem really difficult before you start this, like Dr: 博, that's the 47th one you learn) you start learning more new elements and learning kanji with those elements. Each element gets its own meaning that you can use to make your story.
The pieces kanji are built up out of are called radicals. Each radical is an element in Heisig's book, but not each element is a radical. For example, the kanji for bright (seen above) is an element in a kanji that comes back later: alliance 盟, but it is not a radical.

In the beginning, I thought I was doing something wrong, that's how easy it was. I was so proud of myself for doing 10 the first day, I never thought it could be done!

After this, of course, the trick is reviewing and keeping it fresh. If I never again wrote the kanji for risk, I would forget it quite soon. But if I keep reviewing, it stays in my head. For this, I use a Spaced Reviewing System (SRS) on the best site ever: Reviewing the Kanji. SRS makes you review after the amount of days after which you have almost forgotten the kanji again (almost, but not completely). This way, you do not review too much, and have enough time to add more new kanji, but you also don't review too little.

First, you review after 1 day. If you get it right, the kanji comes back 3 days later. Then, 7 days, 14 days, 30 days, 60 days, 120 days and finally 240 days. If you fail a kanji, it goes back to square 1 and you start from the front again.

I soon realised that 10 cards a day was very little; that I could do loads more per day. On the forum of Reviewing the Kanji, there are people who say they do 100 a day and I believe them. However, I was working fulltime and usually tired in the evenings, so I didn't always learn new kanji. I finished on January 31st of 2010, though, and now I can proudly say I know the meaning and stroke order of 2042 kanji. :D

And what's even better; if I were to encounter a kanji I've never seen before, I can recognise the elements, make up a story and remember it as easily as the other 2042! So if I wanted to learn all 50,000 kanji (not saying I do, but hypothetically) I could use this method to learn all of them. It's not just for those 2042 I've learnt already, it can be used for any kanji I come across (Chinese characters too, for that matter).

I'm also using Heisig's method to learn the pronunciation (onyomi and kunyomi) but more about that in part 2, as that is my explanation of Remembering the Kanji 2. ^^

Progress as of May 23rd

Pimsleur: Japanese 2, Unit 5. Getting a bit easier...
RTK2: 343 cards in Anki.

Progress as of May 22nd

Pimsleur: Up to Unit 4 of Japanese 2 done. This is harder than Japanese 1, though. I hardly understand anything of the conversations at the start of each unit, as they are speaking so fast. XD

RTK2: 322 in Anki. Did 35 today, now I'm tiiired.

Progress as of May 16th

Pimsleur Japanese 1 is done (30 units), now on to Japanese 2! ^^

After finishing Remembering The Kanji 1, this is my first new major milestone.

RTK2: 273 cards in Anki

Pimsleur

Some people have been asking me: What is Pimsleur?

Pimsleur is a method for learning simple Japanese conversation skills. There are three parts, Japanese 1, 2 and 3. Each part consists of 30 units, containing sound files of a little under 30 minutes each, supporting notes and extra reading material on the Japanese culture.

The sound files are most important. When you listen to them, you are told words and sentences you have to repeat and then come up with on your own. Later, you also have to combine different sentences you have learnt, and you have to try to guess how to make new words, using the grammar you've learnt before.

Here is a link to the first unit of Pimsleur Japanese 1, for those of you who don't get it and want to hear what it sounds like. :P

I have to say, this works so much better for me than just reading sentences and trying to memorise them. For some of you that might be the way to learn, for me; this is it. ^^

Progress as of May 14th

Pimsleur: Unit 29 done
RTK2: 255 cards in Anki

Acupuncture

Wooh so it's been a few days since I've updated, but my two friends Megan and Patrick were visiting me. I had a great couple of days, I wish they could have stayed longer.

But that's not what this post is about, since it has nothing to do with Japanese or Japan (though Patrick seemed to be having fun practising my Pimsleur with me (more about Pimsleur in a later post) and I think he was doing pretty well, considering it was his first time and I was on Unit 29. XD

No, this post is about the acupuncturist I went to today. It is Asian, after all! And I'd like to share it with people.

As some of you may know, I have IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). It's really annoying and lately it had been bothering me a lot more again. A few years ago I had hypnotherapy, which worked very well, but was unfortunately not covered by my insurance ('We will not pay for this, because you can't prove it's worked' 'I can't even prove I have IBS in the first place!' Idiots. >< ).

Anyway, lately I'd been getting more stressed over completely normal things as well. Also, it's not normal to get stomach aches almost every day, it just isn't. So I decided to give acupuncture a try. ^^

I'll give a description of how it went.

First she asked me all these questions about my complaints, finding out what exactly was bothering me. She said there was most likely a blockage in my Qi (the energy flow in your body). In your body, there are 5 elements: water, fire, earth, wood and metal. Wood is the one that responds to tension, stress, change, etc. Wood is also the element that is supposed to control Earth, which is located in your lower abdomen (bowels, part of your stomach). She said that because my Wood was disturbed, Earth was getting disturbed as well and that's why my stomach hurts.
I then asked her if she could do anything about it, and she said: Oh yes, I can definitely do something about that. So that was a relief!

Then I had to lie down on this bed, with my shoes and socks off and my pants legs moved up, as well as my top. At first she felt my pulse, on both wrists, and said she thought it was quite fast. I told her it was usually fast, and I'd noticed that too.
Then she put four needles in my stomach, near my bellybutton. She said I was so brave for having my bellybutton pierced and she would be too scared to get a piercing. I said: 'No, you only stick needles into other people.' XD
She put some needles in my knees as well (I think two in each), in my calves (also two in each, I think; one of them hurt realllly bad so she took it out again), a few in my feet, one in each hand and one in each ear. I think she also put some in the top of my head, but I'm not sure since I didn't feel anything there.

Then I had to lie there for 20 minutes. I normally find that very boring; I don't have the peace of mind to just lie there and do nothing, but I felt more relaxed now. We chatted a bit about Japan and Thailand and then she felt my wrist again after a while. She said it was much slower now. Then she took the needles out again.

She also advised me to take Chinese herbs in combination with the acupuncture. Many acupuncturists also work with Chinese herbs, but she doesn't. But she gave me the address of a guy in Nijmegen who works with them. So I'll phone him next week.

On the way home, I felt all right, but at home I got more and more tired. XD So I'm going to bed early tonight.

I still have little spots on my body where the nails were, and one spot is slightly swollen, but it's already going down and there is no pain anywhere.

She said I should start noticing an effect right away, so let's hope so!

I'm going back again next week, so I'll let you guys know how it goes then. ^^

Progress as of May 11th

Pimsleur: Unit 27 (did that one twice)
RTK2: 233 cards in Anki

Hostels!

So despite not being able to get into all the hostels and hotels I wanted (stupid hostels making me think you can only book up to three months in advance) I did find some very nice-looking hostels for our stay in Japan. I've mentioned them in a previous post, but here I've listed them again, including links to their websites, so you can check out what they're like!

Saturday, July 31st and Sunday, August 1st - Tokyo
Sakura Hotel Jimbocho, located in Central Tokyo, will give us a chance to explore that area. Also we'll visit Harajuku on Sunday, when the gothic lolitas are out there.
Here, we will have a double room.

Monday, August 2nd - Thursday, August 5th - Tokyo
Sakura Hotel Ikebukuro, located north of Central Tokyo. The Ikebukuro station is the second busiest station in the world, and it gives us easy access to anywhere else in Tokyo. Here we will have a twin room (bunk beds) with private bath.

Friday, August 6th - Sunday, August 8th - Osaka/Koyasan
We'll be staying in Osaka for three nights, visiting Koyasan on one of the days. We will be staying at Osaka J-Hoppers, a chain of backpacker's hostels in Japan. Here we will have a twin room (bunk beds).

Monday, August 9th and Tuesday, August 10th - Nara
On August 9th, we are traveling on to Nara, one of Japan's old capitals, famous for its old temples and beautiful surroundings. We will stay at the Nakata B&B. It's one with a shared bathroom, but since it has only 4 rooms taking 2 or 3 people per room, I don't think that will be an issue.

Wednesday, August 11th - Kobe
Well-known for its beef and the recent devastating earthquake, Kobe is a nice city as well. Here we will stay for one night at the Kitagami Hotel. Here we will have a twin room with private bath.

Thursday, August 12th - Saturday, August 14th - Himeji, Hiroshima and Miyajima
On this day, we will travel to Himeji Castle, an amazing castle left over from Shogun times. At the end of the day, we will travel on to Hiroshima, well-known of course for the A-bomb of 1945. There, we will stay at Hiroshima Hostel, which refers to itself as a Hana Hostel (Flower Hostel). I'm curious! Here we will have a twin room, sharing the bathroom. From here, we will also travel to Miyajima Island, on which there is this beautiful toorii gate that is at the top of this blog.

Sunday, August 15th - Monday, August 16th - Kyoto
We will then take the long trip back to Kyoto, which is near Osaka. We won't go there earlier, because from August 13th-16th there is a festival in Japan called Obon. And on the final day of Obon, August 16th, they light huge bonfires in the shape of kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese) on the hills surrounding Kyoto. This promises to be quite a sight! Here we will stay in Kyoto J-Hoppers, another branch of the same hostel as in Osaka, so bound to be good! We will have a twin room here.

Tuesday, August 17th and Thursday, August 19th - Tokyo
After Obon, we will travel back to Tokyo (like probably about a million other people...) and we will spend the nights at Sakura Hostel Asakusa. Located in the oldest part of Tokyo, I had intended to book the nights at the beginning of the trip here as well, but they informed me they were full then. They did, however, have these two nights for us, so I took them. Here we will have a twin room. It's close to Ueno park. But what I actually want to do on our last day in Tokyo, is visit the Ghibli Museum. Anyone who has ever seen a Studio Ghibli film (Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle, too many more to mention) knows they are amazing and when you look at the museum's website it seems wonderful!

And then on August 19th, we are flying back to Amsterdam. Eddie will stay at a hotel at Schiphol for one night before flying home, so he has asked me to join him there. So on August 20th I will be arriving home, hopefully satisfied!

Progress as of May 9th

Pimsleur: Unit 26
RTK2: 204 cards in Anki

Progress on the trip

So on July 30th, 2010, Eddie and I will embark on a (little under) three week trip to Japan! :D

I don't know how it started out; we were on the phone and Eddie mentioned he wanted to go to Japan with me, and I mentioned how I'd loooove to go there, and suddenly we were making real plans and eventually booking flights and hostels.

Like I said, we will leave from Schiphol Amsterdam on July 30th at around 5:30 pm, and we will arrive at Tokyo Narita at around 10:30 am on July 31st.

We will stay in Tokyo for the first few days, staying at the Sakura Jinbocho hostel on the 31st and the 1st and then moving on to the Sakura Ikebukuro hostel, where we will be staying until the 6th.

On August 6th, we will travel to Osaka, staying at Osaka J-Hoppers for three nights. While we're there, we will also visit Koyasan, a beautiful mountain nearby with Buddhist temples and a Buddhist cemetery at the top.

On August 9th, we will travel on to Nara, known for its beautiful old temples. We were going to stay at a ryokan there, but all those cute little ryokan were booked full, so we'll be staying at the Nakata B&B.

On August 11st, we're traveling to Kobe, where we will stay at the Kitagami Hotel for one night, before traveling on to Himeji Castle and Hiroshima the next day.

In Hiroshima, we will of course visit the A-bomb memorials, but also the beautiful toorii gate on Miyajima which is a picture on this blog.

On August 15th, we will be traveling to Kyoto, to watch the celebrations during the Obon festival. And on August 17th, we will travel back to Tokyo (making a trip to the Ghibli museum from there), from which we will depart for home on August 19th, hopefully feeling tired but satisfied!

Progress so far

Because I decided to start posting this blog over a year into beginnig to study Japanese and making plans for a trip to Japan, I have already made quite a bit of progress that I will share with you now. Please keep in mind that I work a fulltime job, so progress is slow but steady. :)

I'm using a few excellent books and online resources that I can recommend to anyone.

I started by getting a book called 'Japanese in Mangaland', from which I learnt hiragana and katakana in a few days each. Then I didn't do much for about 9 months, because the next chapter was about kanji and it just seemed too much to take on while working as well.

However, in August of 2009 I discovered the most wonderful book ever: 'Remembering the Kanji' by Heisig. Learning kanji was a breeze with this book (I remember being impressed I could do 10 per day when I first started it, and by the end I was doing between 30 and 80 a day), and then when I discovered the website 'Reviewing the Kanji' I was set. I learnt the meaning and stroke order of 2042 kanji in about 6 months. When I finished on January 31st, 2010, I was over the moon!

By then, I had forgotten a lot of my kana, so I used Heisig's 'Remembering the Kana' to brush up on it.

Recently, I started 'Remembering the Kanji 2', which focuses on learning onyomi and kunyomi. I'll explain my method for that in another post, as RTK1 is quite fixed in its method, but RTK2 allows forces you to come up with your own method of studying. It took me a few weeks to figure out how, but I've found a method. Most people doing RTK2 will call me crazy for doing it the way I do, but hey, it works for me.

So most of my time was spent in Kanjiland; I haven't studied much 'real' Japanese so far, except for using another wonderful method: Pimsleur. Pimsleur is one of those 'repeat after me' CD methods that seems to work wonders for me. I tried the whole 'reading and copying and saying' thing, but it took me way too long and I found my retention was much too low. However, with Pimsleur's aural method I retain things much better! Pimsleur consists of three parts, with 30 lessons consisting of 30 minutes of listening. It also has supporting notes. At the moment I am on part 1 - lesson 27, but I plan on doing one lesson a day so I am finished before going to Japan. Sometimes I do a lesson twice, if it features a lot of things I mess up.

All about my trip to Japan in another post!

Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to my blog!

On here, I will document my learning of Japanese (very slow) and the preparations for my upcoming trip to Japan (approaching very fast).

Please enjoy and leave a comment if you like!