• An Average Night Out

    An Average Night Out

    The following is not actually a single narrative of one continuous evening, but a composite of many. It’s written as a representative summary of my average night out in Kyoto. Nothing is exaggerated. It’s Saturday […]

  • Into the Lion's Den

    Into the Lion’s Den

    How many of you have heard the name “Transdniestr?” Not too many, I’m guessing. Transdniester – also known as Pridnestrovie in Russian – is a small rogue nation occupying a narrow strip of land along […]

  • Mostar

    Mostar

    Although I’d suspect that most people have never even heard the name “Mostar,” a relatively small town in the Herzegovina region of Bosnia-Herzegovina, it turned to be one of the most intriguing places I’ve ever […]

  • KaZantip 2011: Black Sea Paradise

    KaZantip 2011: Black Sea Paradise

    Warning: This post contains a few NSFW photos. View only in good company 🙂 The Republic of KaZantip, the legendary Eastern European Shangri La of parties, lasts for just one month a year in a […]

  • The Mega Trip Part 9 (The Great Wall)

    The Mega Trip Part 9 (The Great Wall)

    With the land-based portion of my adventure through China nearly over, I realized that I was still missing a significant piece of what I wanted to see before returning to Japan. Kung Fu. So, after […]

  • A Different World

    A Different World

    Ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased to announce that this post officially marks the first time in almost two years that I’m actually writing about the country I’m in! Welcome, at long last, to Cambodia 😀

I was last seen 5 months ago in Los Angeles, .

E3 Revisited (VIDEO)

 Japan, Public  No Responses »
Feb 192005
 

imageFor no apparent reason, after finishing today’s Kanji study I decided that I wanted to hear the Metal Gear Solid 2 soundtrack. But instead of heading out to my local CD rental store (you can rent audio CD’s just like DVD’s here) I decided to take the lazy/cheap approach and just search for it online. After not too long, I stumbled on an FTP with a file called “e3.avi”. What could it be? Could it be…some Russian guy’s home made video of his trip out to LA for E3?? Yes, it could!

E3 is the electronic entertainment industry’s biggest annual convention. In addition to the video games they have movie stars, live concerts, athletes, models, and just about anything else you can imagine. The last two years alone we saw Snoop Dogg, Anna Nicole Smith, Gary Coleman, Vin Diesel, Tony Hawk, Jurassic 5, and Elijah Wood there. It’s basically a playground for guys…and it’s HUGE! Continue reading »

Random Things

 Japan, Public  3 Responses »
Feb 162005
 

imageYay! I bought a TV for my room! Now, I know what you’re all thinking – WHY is this guy buying a TV when he’s just barely surviving financially as it is? Well, aside from the fact that I got it used for $30, it’s a GREAT study tool. For some reason 99% of Japanese TV (shows, news, even commercials) has subtitles that match exactly what’s being said, meaning that I can learn BOTH spoken Japanese and kanji. Two birds with one stone. Yeehaw.
Continue reading »

The Other Direction

 Japan, Public  6 Responses »
Feb 152005
 

So, yes, being sick sucks. I’ve spent the last 2-3 entire days in my room just trying to sleep and drink as much water as possible. However, some good news does arise from this series of uneventful days: I managed to make my way over to Shijo and buy those kanji cards and book that comes along with them. Best $130 I’ve ever spent.

I mean, no matter which way you twist it the task of learning the meanings, readings, and writings of 2,000 abstract characters is not going to be easy. But this is without a doubt the best method I’ve seen so far. I’ve looked through soooooo many different books that claim “how to never forget kanji again” and it’s always been BS until now. It’s an interesting (and completely different) approach where the order of ALL of the characters are re-organized in a certain way, and instead of completely learning each character before moving onto the next, first you learn all 2,000 MEANINGS and WRITINGS, then on a second pass you learn the pronounciations and compounds. There’s more to it, but to sum it up I learned the meanings and writings (no readings) of 150 new kanji yesterday, and when I woke up this morning I could still perfectly write 140 of them. To put that in perspective, during my 15 months of formal Japanese study we covered a total of 270 kanji. I’ll have doubled that in two days. Continue reading »

Rethinking (VIDEO)

 Japan, Public  4 Responses »
Feb 122005
 

So, I’ve been here for about a month and a half now, and while I have been having a lot of fun, I have to say that I’m not at all satisfied with how my Japanese language has been progressing. Almost every day I’ve been putting long hours into memorizing as many vocab words as possible just so that I can understand daily speech, but I feel like I’m no better off than when I got here. I can still hardly speak or read an issue of Doraemon without looking up every third word.

Either I’m doing something wrong, or the path to learning a language is just a lot slower than I’d initially thought.

In either case, at this rate I highly doubt that I’ll be as conversational as I wanted to be within the short period that I’ll be here. I’m still keeping my fingers crossed, though, that this will all change once school starts. I’ve also just decided to splurge $100 (eep!) for a FULL set of kanji flashcards, covering all 2,000 of the Joyo Kanji. Hopefully this’ll save me a lot of time in preparing the cards and help me get a’movin a little more quickly. Continue reading »

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