Vacationing 2008
By thomas | July 20, 2008
Tomorrow my family and I are leaving for a little two week vacation to a place we’ve never been before. That means I won’t be here. Just letting you know so you won’t get upset if your comment isn’t approved in a timely fashion :).
In the meantime, I have a favor to ask. Right around the end of July and beginning of August, a whole new wave of foreigners will come to Japan: foreign exchange students, new JETs and others. If any of these new visitors come to your neck of the woods, would you mind telling them about NihonHacks? One of the reasons I started this site was to help newcomers to Japan. The more people that know about the site, the more potential hacks and tips we’ll have to share with everyone else. Thanks!
Enjoy the rest of your summer and stay as safe as possible!
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Topics: Site News | 1 Comment »
JLPT Application Forms
By thomas | July 16, 2008
I haven’t checked my bookstore to confirm it, but according to this site, applications for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) should be available for purchase as of yesterday. If you are taking the JLPT this year, hurry over to your nearest major bookstore and purchase your application. They cost 500 yen.
You can send in your application starting August 1st.
I’m taking level 2 this year. How about you?
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Wild Fish vs. Farm-raised Fish: How To Find The Good Stuff
By thomas | July 7, 2008
Fish are good for you. But did you know that some fish are better for you than others? I’m not talking about katsuo vs. hirame. I’m talking wild fish vs. farmed fish. Wild fish, the kind that are caught in rivers, seas and oceans are much better for you than farmed fish, the kind fed and raised in a crowded tank.
Why are wild fish better for you? BrainReady explains (the article mentions salmon, but whatever):
It’s also important to know that only WILD salmon has been shown to contain the highest levels of the good stuff that your brain & body crave…as wild-caught fish grow and evolve their muscles, tissues and fat levels the hard way, fighting for survival of the fittest in the oceans and rivers. By contrast, many or most farm-raised salmon exist in a locked-up, artificial and sometimes contaminated environment and thus have to be fed food (or worse, color added later just before going to market!) to make them LOOK orange and healthy instead of white and sickly. Ewww!
Ok, so we know that wild fish are better than farm-raised fish when it comes to nutrition. How do we know which one we are buying at the grocery store? Look no further than the label. For fish that are farmed, the word 養殖 (ようしょく [youshoku]) will appear on the package. This word means something like “bred”, “raised”, “cultivated”. Stores are required to indicate farm-raised fish this way.
For wild fish (ie. the good kind), there are a couple different ways stores do it.
- They will write 天然 (てんねん [tennen]) on the label. This word means something like “natural”. Tennen fish are caught out in the water, not raised in a fish farm.
- They won’t write anything at all. The simple lack of the 養殖 (farmed fish) label is evidence enough that the fish is wild.
That’s it. Here are two pictures of salmon I bought at the store. Can you tell which one is farmed and which one is wild?
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Topics: Japanese Food | 7 Comments »
Find A Place To Stay In Japan With Gaijin House Japan
By thomas | July 3, 2008
Travelling in Japan? Want to save money on lodging? Why not try a guesthouse? Gaijin House Japan can hook you up. Jason from Gaijin House Japan sent along this information about their site and I think it will be useful to many readers. Check it out.
GAIJIN HOUSE JAPAN, GUIDING GAIJIN TO THE BEST GUEST HOUSES
Gaijin House Japan is, at its heart, a guide to guest houses - shared houses or apartment buildings where travelers and locals live together, sharing the facilities. Living in a guest house is a great way to start out in Japan as it is a wonderful opportunity for networking.
Renting an apartment in Japan for the first time can cost as much as 6 times the first month’s rent! By comparison, guest houses are a much better deal. With only a small deposit and no extra fees, they provide safe, clean, affordable accommodation while searching for an apartment or on a short term stay. They come equipped with kitchen facilities, Internet access and laundry facilities, and each room is usually furnished with a small fridge, TV and a futon or bed. Since the actual features and overall quality of each guest house can vary enormously, however, a resource like Gaijin House Japan can make the difference between a successful and a miserable stay in Japan.
Gaijin House Japan’s main feature is a continually updated series of articles on every guest house across the length and breadth of Japan. We allow travelers to comment on the guest houses they have stayed in, thus providing an “in person” view of Japanese guest houses - the good, the bad, and the dirty!
What Gaijin House Japan also does is give the smaller guest houses a chance for exposure. It seems when you search for a guest house, you always see the same ones showing up, usually big corporate ones with high advertising budgets. Gaijin House Japan was created to show what is really out there, giving equal time to large corporate guest houses as well as small family-owned “hidden gems”.
Features of Gaijin House Japan include:
- Guest House FAQ - All the common questions asked about Guest Houses.
- Guest House Articles - Detailed articles on every guest house across Japan, including photos, videos and travelers comments.
- Gaijin House Lounge - A friendly forum where members can talk about travel in Japan and share helpful tips.
- 100% FREE Classifieds – Look for share-mates, roommates, rooms, and even “sayonara sales” for selling your stuff when you leave Japan or buying stuff when you arrive.
- Useful Links - Learn even more at other recommended websites about Japan.
For so-called “Gaijin”, Japan can be an intimidating place to visit, let alone live. Cultural norms, rules & regulations, even the common functions of everyday life can be confusing at least to visitors who seek to make a good impression in their jobs, at school and in society. By providing a guide to guest houses across Japan, Gaijin House offers newcomers a way to quickly establish a comfortable home base from which they may learn about Japan from others in similar situations.
ABOUT GAIJIN HOUSE
Established in early 2008 by the creators of JapanLinked.com(http://japanlinked.com), Gaijin House’s mission is to organize the bewildering number and variety of guest houses catering to foreigners in Japan into a single, easy to access website. The site also acts as a “virtual guest house” in itself, providing an invaluable resource for newcomers to Japan who use the site as both a news & information source, vacation travelogue and services directory.
The company’s website is http://gaijinhousejapan.com/
Check them out!
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Homemade Umeshu
By thomas | June 11, 2008
It’s June now, which means it’s the Japanese rainy season, which means that it’s ume season, which means that it’s umeshu-making time. My favorite Japan blog Blue Lotus has posted an excellent article about making homemade umeshu (Japanese ume liqueur). It looks extremely easy to make, and the step-by-step guide is filled with beautiful pictures. Here’s one of them (used without permission. Hope you don’t mind):
I’m taking a trip to the store tomorrow to get started on this little project. Head on over to the original article to learn more. It’s a great read!
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Topics: Summer | 4 Comments »
Custom Hanko Artwork
By thomas | June 4, 2008
This tip won’t save you time or money, but it is pretty cool. Have you ever wanted your own personal seal (判子 hanko)? Maybe you have one already, but you want a cooler custom-designed hanko? You can get your own custom-designed hanko at www.87mama.com (read “hana-mama”).
After our son was born, my wife thought it would be fun to get him his own hanko. She did some searching and found 87mama.com, which is a father/daughter hanko-making team that specializes in custom hanko artwork. They had a forum where you could request a design for any picture you wanted so we decided to give it a shot. My family is originally from Sweden, so we tried to think of some design that would express our son’s Swedish heritage. We needed something to symbolize Sweden and yet be simple enough that it would show up well on a small rubber stamp. We chose the Dala Horse. We posted this picture on the request forum:
They said that it may take up to a month to get a reply (depending on how busy they are), and during our wait my wife and I decided that we would also like to get our own Dala Horse hankos. So we added a comment to our post saying we wanted three and listing our names. Not long after, we got a reply with this photo attached:
冬馬子 is my name in Kanji (とうます）. One cool thing about being a foreigner in Japan is that you can choose your own kanjis. I actually chose this combination as a joke back when I was a university student in Japan. Having 馬 (horse) in your name is a little silly and the 子 makes it look like a girl name. For whatever reason, it stuck so I still use it. It’s good for getting laughs at the elementary school.
Anyway, looking at the sample, we liked the Dala Horse design right away. Next we had to finalize some details about our order (wood color, stamp size, case) and then pay by bank transfer (credit card is also possible). Once they received our money, we moved on to the next step, which is tweaking the hanko design to get it just how we want it.
After paying, this was the first set of samples we received (click to enlarge):
My last name isn’t really “Helmut”. The designer just guessed based on the katakana to show us how romaji would look on our hankos. We didn’t really dig the romaji, so in our reply we told her to ax them. We said we liked the bigger horse style with the names written in one vertical line. We weren’t sure about the font yet. The next set of samples we got was this (click to enlarge):
Ooh! Awesome! We like the more angular font better than the cursive one. Just for fun, can we see a right-facing horse for Kazuko? (click to enlarge):
Glad we could see it, but we like the left-facing one better. For my own, I like the right-facing Dala Horse. We decided that we wanted Kazuko(A), Thomas(A) and Noah(B). Final answer? Yes. One last look (click to enlarge):
And within a week, we got them in the mail!
Stamped on the envelope:
Here they are with their nifty cases:
Poorly-focused attempt at a closeup shot:
Daddy, my new hanko matches my jammies!
There’s just something awesome about having a Dala Horse hanko. We may be the only people in the world who have them.
Our hankos came out to 7035 yen a piece, which isn’t cheap, but we got fancy cases and a large size stamp face. You could forgo the case and get a smaller stamp and make it under 5000 yen. That’s not unreasonable for a personalized, custom-made, hand-carved hanko. What a cool souvenir for your stay in Japan!
You will need some Japanese (or a Japanese-speaking friend) to communicate your needs to hanamama. If you have an idea you’d like to try, post a message on their request forum with a picture and the name you want on your hanko.
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Topics: Japanese Services | 4 Comments »
Japanese IME Kanji Selection Hotkeys
By thomas | May 20, 2008
Here are a few quick tips for the Japanese keyboard. Let’s say you want to type in a kanji. To do that, you type in the hirgana reading and press space. As a result of all your hard work, you get a list of kanji like this:
If your kanji is on the list, you’re done! You can just press the corresponding number or arrow down to the correct choice.
But what if your kanji isn’t on that list?
If you want to avoid hitting the down arrow a million times, you can press SHIFT-DOWN (or PageDown) and it will scroll down to the next set of ten choices. Page through until you find your kanji.
Even better, you can click that little double-arrow button to open up all possible choices in a table. Once open, you can select your kanji by clicking it, or using a combination of right-arrows and numbers.
Even better than that, instead of clicking you can press TAB to open up the table.
These tips are useful for typing names/words that you don’t know how to read as a compound, but know how to read as individual kanjis. It’s also useful for rare or made-up words that the Japanese IME just doesn’t recognize. The other day, my wife was searching amazon.co.jp for a novel called 錦繍 (kinshuu). Typing きんしゅう in the Japanese IME didn’t produce the compound needed, so she had to type each kanji in individually. Using these hotkeys speeds up the process.
For more Japanese IME shortcuts, check my earlier article about the Magic Katakana Hotkey
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Topics: Japanese Computer | 6 Comments »
Homemade Tofu Planting Pot
By thomas | May 8, 2008
Recently married Jason of j2fi sent this hack in a long time ago, and I think its about time I posted it up, since its a great idea. You know those little plastic containers that tofu comes in (the kind you can use to make a badass soap dish)? The ones that look like this:
Well, they have another use. In Jason’s words:
These containers are also great in the early spring to get a head start on gardening. Just dump some dirt in there, plant a seed, and by the time the weather is warm enough to plant, you have a seedling growing healthy and strong :)
I tried it out with some parsley seeds and check it out!
They look like they are ready to transplant! Herbs can be expensive to buy in Japan, so you can save some bucks by planting your own. Growing plants will also give you a good way to put that old rice compost you’ve been making to use. And what’s more, you get to eat some delicious tofu to start off your project!
Thanks (long overdue!) for the tip Jason, and congratulations on your marriage!
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Put Your Veggie Scraps To Good Use: Compost
By thomas | April 15, 2008
Fresh herbs are expensive in Japan. Can we spice up our cooking on the cheap? Yes! Reader kk sends in a 2-part tip that can save you cash and has the nice side-effect of putting your trash to good use:
- Grow your own herbs
- Use your food trash for compost
In kk’s words:
I grow my own fresh herbs since the herb selection at most markets here is dismal and expensive for fresh. I also grow cherry tomatoes and zucchinis sometimes on my balcony.
Anyway, a perfect use for your old rice and scraps from your veggies and meals is compost! Much better for your plants than the fertilizer they sell in the store. I have two buckets I use for this purpose. You will initially have to put a little dirt in your first bucket. Then start adding the food. Shake up the bucket every time you add new food. Eventually you will start putting food in your second bucket so the first can fully compost. Then you have a constant rotating stock of compost.
If you have coworkers that garden at all, you can give them compost too. Most will love it because from my understanding homemade compost isn’t a common practice in Japan.
What a great way to use all your old akebi peels, hassaku pith and old rice. Thanks kk!
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Topics: Japanese Food | 4 Comments »
Get Cheap Stuff At The Recycle Shop
By thomas | April 13, 2008
Do you like Japanese stuff? Do you like to get it for cheap? If so, you are in luck! Ryan Coffey of www.movetonanaimo.com writes in with a great tip about how to get used (and not-so-used) stuff for very cheap: Recycle Shops. Here’s the scoop:
I like your site. You is be way kewl.
I’m surprised though that you haven’t put a post up yet of the best hack of all. (That I know of anyway.) And that would be the “recycle shop” or in usual English the 2nd hand stores. I mean, in Japan, no one is really interested in buying stuff that isn’t new. So the whities who know this hack can get their stuff super super cheap if they know where a good 2nd hand shop is there and they have an eye for quality. I used to buy my omiyage there for my friends back home. But that was just the beginning of it. My home was filled with furniture, dishes, kitchen goods, appliances and so on that I got for stupidly cheap at the 2nd hand store, most of which was almost like new or at least worked fine. Even now that I live back in Canada, I still do much of my shopping in those stores and bring the stuff back to Canada. I just had sukiyaki tonight in a nice iron sukiyaki nabe that I bought in January. The thing had never been used and my guess is that if I bought it new at a regular store it would have been at least 6000 en, but I only paid 800 since it had sat in a box for 20 years or so. Not like it matters. It’s great quality and mint condition. I had to peel stickers off of it to use it even.
The caveat is that you can’t sell the stuff back to them in the end though when you leave Japan. They actually charge you to give them the stuff so they can sell it. And as it’s still cheaper than throwing the stuff out/getting it recycled, it remains the best option. This is one of those things you can only understand if you’ve lived in Japan for quite a few years. It’s also something that, if it doesn’t make you really angry, you’ve been there WAY too long and it’s time to go home!
Great tip! You’ve convinced me to seek out second-hand stores where I live (Himeji). For anyone else wanting to do the same, a google search for リサイクルショップ plus your city name would be a good place to start.
Thanks Ryan!
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