japan - the general Category Archives
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How to pass the JLPT 1 - Part I

The results for the Japanese Proficiency Exam (JLPT) Level 1 (the highest level) for last December were announced earlier this month, and I was delighted to see that I passed. I passed both the JLPT 1 and the JLPT 2 (which I sat back in 2008) each on my first try. I'm not particularly great at Japanese (I famously confused the words for "poop" and "bean jam" on...
Category Info: featured entry, general, japan - the general, musings, ramblings, recentnews
Tagged as: capybara, how-to, japanese, japanese proficiency exam, jlpt, nihongo, studying, tips
03.03.10

Quiet streets

My mind ended up turning to thoughts about my blog, life and future these days (not necessarily in that order, mind you). It's been almost 7 years since I moved to Japan and I thought that by now I'd know what I want to do with my life. Sadly, this does not appear to be the case. I think the core issue is that I'm a fickle panda: this is a blessing in that I have...
Category Info: featured entry, general, japan - the general, japan - the good, memories, miscellaneous, musings, photography
Tagged as: black and white, harajuku, musings, photography, tokyo, uraharajuku, urban
01.23.10

Akihabara-Ochanomizu Pt. I

And while I have been to both places quite a few times (the former because I have an obsession with cameras (like this one, for example), and the latter for business), I had actually never walked between them - which seems a shame, given that they are located right next to each other. Plus, in most big cities, the most interesting spots are not necessarily those ...
Category Info: featured entry, general, japan - the general, miscellaneous, photography
Tagged as: akihabara, black and white, buildings, ochanomizu, photography, tokyo, urban
01.16.10

2008 Autumn Roadtrip - Part IX

If you want to know more about Amanohashidate, you can feel freeto read about it online , which is something we probably should have done ourselves instead of just rolling up at 6 AM and being like "sooo... uhh, where and umm, how do we see it?" - without even a clear idea of what exactly it was (it's a long sand bar in a bay, by the way) let alone w...
Category Info: featured entry, general, japan - the general, japan - the good, photography, travel
Tagged as: 2008 autumn road trip, 3 great sights, amanohashidate, autumn, bicycles, japan, kyoto, roadtrip, sightseeing, skies, starbucks girl
11.17.09

A few from Tuesday

It was gorgeous autumn weather out last Tuesday, and there are few better places to take advantage of it than the myriad of cafes lining the winding streets between Shibuya and Daikanyama. Thus my spiffy new $14 puffar vest and I headed over to see how much caffeine I could cram down my throat. I managed 8 cups of espresso in various forms over the cours...
Category Info: featured entry, general, japan - the general, japan - the good, photography
Tagged as: black and white, buildings, daikanyama, harajuku, photography, shibuya, tokyo, urban
11.12.09

2008 Autumn Roadtrip - Part VIII

So when I last left off (last month...), our fearless duo had just finished stuffing themselves full of momiji manju and grilled eel bentos and decided to head into Hiroshima city proper to do a little bit of sightseeing. Now, besides Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, the other two cities in Japan that probably most people in America have heard of are Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for obv...
Category Info: featured entry, japan - the general, japan - the good, photography, ramblings, recentnews, travel
Tagged as: 2008 autumn road trip, atomic dome, buildings, genbaku dome, hiroshima, peace memorial, peace park, roadtrip, ruins
10.17.09

2009 World Bicycle Messenger Championships

I'll be back with the next set of pictures from the Yokohama Birthday Bash and of course the next installment of the Great 2008 Cross Japan Autumn Roadtrip soon, but first I just wanted to post a few pictures from the 2009 World Bicycle Messenger Championships held in Odaiba, Tokyo last week. I had wanted to catch the track stand and skid competition...
Category Info: featured entry, general, japan - the general, japan - the good, miscellaneous, photography, recentnews
Tagged as: 2009 bicycle messenger championship, bicycles, black and white, messengers, odaiba, photography, racing, tokyo
09.27.09

2008 Autumn Roadtrip - Part VII

Okay, I have been putting this off long enough, but seeing as how it's already the beginning of Autumn, 2009, I probably ought finish the Autumn 2008 road trip series ASAP. Part of the reason that I've been delaying this post for so long is that in this particular installment, nothing particularly shocking, funny or crazy happened. Oh well. I guess I can't end up floating...
Category Info: featured entry, japan - the general, japan - the good, photography, recentnews, travel
Tagged as: 2008 autumn road trip, animals, autumn, bento, capybara, deer, eel, hiroshima, itsukushima, japan, miyajima, roadtrip, starbucks girl
09.02.09

2008 Autumn Roadtrip - Part VI

My exertion - which flung my donut-lion modesty towel from my body and set it floating about in the current towards an old man near me who instinctively recoiled in shock (whether due to its ratty cuteness or the obvious result its loss had on my modesty at the moment of maximum floating panda-outstretchedness) - proved to be successful (thank god) and I managed to secure a b...
Category Info: featured entry, japan - the general, japan - the good, photography, recentnews, travel
Tagged as: 2008 autumn road trip, autum, bathing, dogo onsen, funny, japan, matsuyama, mountains, nature, onsen, pon de lion, shikoku, starbucks girl, uchiko
07.01.09

2008 Autumn Roadtrip - Part IV

After was seemed an eternity of sitting in the unforgiving darkness, a disembodied voice floated out over the intercom, announcing the end of business hours and instructing anybody stupid enough to pay 500 yen to see these imaginary non-whirlpools to come to the front of the gate, or else face being locked in for the night and forced to ponder over their gullibili...
Category Info: featured entry, japan - the general, japan - the good, photography, recentnews, travel
Tagged as: 2008 autumn road trip, autumn, awajishima, castles, himeji, japan, naruto uzushio, roadtrip, starbucks girl, whirlpools
04.25.09

Ameyoko

I'll post the next installment of the Great Western Japan Autumn Roadtrip soon, but for now, a quick interlude of some rainy pictures from Ameyoko in the Ueno neighborhood of Tokyo....
Category Info: featured entry, japan - the general, photography, recentnews
Tagged as: ameyoko, dark, gray, rainy, shitamachi, tokyo, ueno
03.01.09

Cold Tokyo Days

It's been cold and sort of gloomy off and on recently in Tokyo. There have been some intermittent days of sunshine as well, but for the most part it's just been that long, dull, slow drag through the middle of January. I know I haven't updated in forever, but that's because I've been working on the grand site redesign I've been talking about since last year. ...
Category Info: featured entry, general, japan - the general, photography, recentnews, webcoding
Tagged as: cold, friends, selenium, starbucks girl, tokyo
02.02.09

Tokyo Throwaway Pics

Originally I had a moment of photographic inspiration this evening whilst taking a break from fighting my computer (Adobe InDesign to be specific) in an attempt to make a few hundred name tags for a seminar I have to organize for work. Normally this is a straightforward data merge operation, but due to a comedic series of mishaps, this task has ended up taking me the be...
Category Info: featured entry, general, japan - the general, miscellaneous, photography, recentnews
Tagged as: blue skies, buildings, photography, R. Kelly, tokyo, upshots
10.22.08

Of Pandas, Pears and Home-made Butter...

Okay, it's hot outside and I'm lazy, so let's try something new here and go with the first ever panda videoblog - a rambling, laconic dissertation about pears, supermarkets and making your own butter at home (in case you ever wanted to)....
Category Info: featured entry, general, japan - the funny, japan - the general, ramblings, recentnews
Tagged as: butter, cooking, food, fruit, how-to, japan, michaelpanda, milk, pears, summer, video blog
07.20.08

Wednesday Night...

Just another Wednesday night in The Hood. Nothing particularly special to write about in this post, so for now, enjoy these random photographs. (and yes, I know I need to wash my windows in my kitchen!! haha...
Category Info: featured entry, general, japan - the general, miscellaneous, photography, recentnews
Tagged as: kitchen, photography, sunset, the hood
06.26.08

Tokyo Blue Skies II (Sky Worship IV)

Damn, that title could have used some work, huh? *laughs* At first I was going to call it something like "tokyo upshots" but decided against it because that might bring in exactly the wrong kind of intarnets traffic... (see, 'upshots'......
Category Info: featured entry, japan - the general, japan - the good, photography, recentnews, sky worship
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
06.01.08

Akihabara Wideangle

First shots from the wide angle Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM. Sorry for the lack of interesting subject matter, this was kind of an off-the-cuff series of snaps as I walked around Akihabara. Pedestrians headed home after a long days......
Category Info: featured entry, general, japan - the general, photography, recentnews
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
05.25.08

Nighttime Sakura

Nighttime sakura on a rainy, drenched sunday evening in Tokyo. Can you believe this is the only shot of the cherry blossoms I got all weekend? The irony of it is, last weekend was the last opportunity to see the......
Category Info: featured entry, japan - the general, japan - the good, photography, recentnews
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
04.01.08

Mashiko

A bit out of chronological order, but a few weeks ago a friend and I went up to Mashiko in Tochigi prefecture on a day trip package offered through JR. Tochigi itself is famous for several things, not least of......
Category Info: featured entry, japan - the general, japan - the good, recentnews, travel
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
03.13.08

Snow Panda

Haha, in all the years I've kept this blog, I don't think I've posted as many photos of myself as I have in this entry (and the previous one). Is the panda blog turning into a venue for indulging my......
Category Info: featured entry, japan - the general, japan - the good, pandas, photography, recentnews, travel
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
03.09.08

Castles and Sunsets

I happened to have my camera with me as I was walking home yesterday, so I decided to snap a few pictures of that perfect time in day when the sky rapidly changes from the brightness of afternoon to the......
Category Info: featured entry, japan - the general, japan - the good, photography, recentnews
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
02.11.08

Nekobukuro Kitty Kats

There have actually been some very disturbing things happening here in Japan land (not to me personally, but at the political/civil liberties level) that have put me in a severely depressed mood recently and are making me seriously - like,......
Category Info: featured entry, general, japan - the general, japan - the good, miscellaneous, photography, recentnews
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
11.04.07

Birthday Scarf Panda

There's still a part three to the Great Tohoku Road Trip 2007 (parts I and II can be found here and here, respectively). But it's taking me a while to get to it since I've been kinda down recently, and......
Category Info: featured entry, general, japan - the general, miscellaneous, musings, recentnews
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
09.16.07

The Great Tohoku Road Trip - Part II

After our unsettling experience putzing around the smelly Gates of Hell, we cracked open the guide book and tried to figure out where to go next. "Hey panda, I've got an idea." piped up KC as we headed away from......
Category Info: featured entry, japan - the funny, japan - the general, japan - the good, recentnews, travel
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
09.02.07

Crayon Post, the Time Lapse Video

Somebody asked me how long it took to make the Crayon Post I put up the other day - well as it happens, I was wondering the same thing at the outset, so I had set up my camera to......
Category Info: general, japan - the general, photography, recentnews, technology
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
05.04.07

Emperors Birthday

I look at her. Panda: "Umm, do you need to check my camera or the camera case?" Officer: (looking back at me) "Oh, your camera? No, it’s okay, you can take photos inside!" Panda: "...." Officer: "Just walk that way for the body check and then you can get in." Shrugging, I take my messenger bag and sling it around my shoulder, safe (and entirely perturbed) at the though that had I wanted to sneak a cou...
Category Info: current events, featured entry, japan - the general, recentnews
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
12.29.06

Great Takayama Road Trip II

After our adventures frolicking in the "downtown" area of Takayama (population like 200) and running away in screaming terror from the stuffed knife wielding animatronic denzins of the "Eco TeddyBear Village", we looked at our cheesy tourist map and realized we still hadn't been to the "Hida Folk Village". The "Hida Folk Village" is basically a small enclave of old traditional Japanese houses which have been carefully preserved in their (more or less) original state. They are gathere...
Category Info: featured entry, japan - the general, photography, travel
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
04.22.06

Sun and Rain...

It was simultaneously beautifully sunny and gloomily rainy one day earlier in the week. How crazy! Since I'm suffering from massive writers block lately, I'm afraid you're just going to have to settle for a picture post! The day started......
Category Info: featured entry, japan - the general, photography, recentnews
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
03.26.06

Asbestos breathing Panda

His level of alarm seems a bit low considering I've just raised the specter of a potent airborne carcinogen floating about our immediate environment. Since the man clearly has paperwork to do and no time to devote to worrying about asbestos, I bring up the point with several other people, only to be similarly rebuffed. The over-arching theme seemed to be a conclusion that "if there was truly something dangerous in the air, we wouldn't be exposed to it." Who or what</em...
Category Info: japan - the general, recentnews
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
03.18.06

Random Photos

It was worth it though, to see everything bathed in amber sunlight on the way back down. I've gone up and down this road a hundred times before, and each time thought it was ugly and filled with concrete. But like so many things in Japan, sometimes the beauty is hidden deep down inside of it, and you just have to catch it at the right angle to see it, I suppose....
Category Info: featured entry, japan - the general, mens rights, photography
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
02.14.06

Square root of wha...?

Oh. my. goodness. And this is supposed to help you remember something!? I need a mnemonic just to um, remember my mnemonic! Now if this was as simple as the one above - just using the on/kun readings of the characters, then it might - might - be useful. But what a mess! You've got characters which are read using the Chinese readings. You've got characters which are read using the Japanese readings. You've got characters are read using the abbreviated Japanese read...
Category Info: featured entry, japan - the general
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
01.05.06

Himeji-jo and Acclimatization

What starts as a simple comparison of differences between cultures quickly spins out of control into a series of increasingly disconnected judgments, finally culminating in a bizarre tangent about the supposed submissive role of women in Japanese society! In the process a fully painted - yet completely falsified - picture of moral drama unfolds, complete with villains (Japanese teachers, "repressive Japanese system"), heroes ("I'm not going to sit down and do nothing"), treacherous deeds ("b...
Category Info: featured entry, japan - the general, musings, photography
Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
12.06.05

The last panda

Kind of sleepy, so this will mainly be a picture post. One of my new year's resolutions - to be a better teacher - seems to be paying off as a back-to-the-basics approach coupled with copious amounts of panda patience......
Category Info: japan - the general
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01.18.04

Akemashite, omedeto

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a fun, safe New Year's eve! *sniff* another year, another Tarepanda calendar gone into storage... Here in Japan, there are a variety of customs which are supposed to be observed on New Year's......
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Tagged as: (no tags at this time).
01.01.04

Happy Emperor B-day.

errr.. or not. Most people in this country don't even know his name. Things have been quiet here in the House of Panda (HoP) lately, which suits me just fine. Winter vacation is officially upon me now, though virtually every......
Category Info: japan - the general
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12.23.03

New Year cards

In Japan, it is a custom to send out "Nengajyo" or "New Year's greeting cards". These are little cards you can buy (usually from the post office) for around 50 yen each, and then brightly festoon with a variety of......
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12.18.03

Dragon Ash

Going to the Dragon Ash concert tonight! *jumps up and down enthusiastically* Pictures to follow tommorrow. Also, I am in love with the Acomu Girl (ono mayumi). Pictures of THAT to follow later as well. (translation: another cheezy post filled......
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10.23.03

Ken roku roku

Dusk is setting in the hood... First of all, I am overjoyed to report that finally, finally after months of suffering from withdrawl, disconnection with the world, intense boredom, and lackluster productivity, I am finally getting a computer again. How......
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10.17.03

A is for apple

So nothing exciting has been going on as of late, hence the lack of updates. That and I`m trying to save money to finally buy a computer, so I haven`t been heading over to the internet cafe so often. Ironic,......
Category Info: japan - the general
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10.02.03

Enkai and all that.

had my enkai (welcome party) today (of which I was informed of yesterday morning). Not only that, but today was also sports day, albeit a very rainy one. Pictures of me drunk at the former, and beating up on hapless......
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09.19.03

Goblin goods

A quiet weekend, save for an all-nighter saturday night spent watching a nerve-wracking English victory over Macedonia (I`m steadily on my way to turning into a full fledged brit) at the local sports pub and culminating in what I can......
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09.08.03

An auspicious start...

I apologize for the lack of posts this week - i have been attending a business meeting all week. Speaking of business meetings, the purpose of this trip was ostensibly to "foster a closer, more professional relationship between JTEs......
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08.29.03

All about bicycles...

My predecessor was kind enough to leave me a bike. Two of them, in fact. They`re very nice bikes, I should add, complete with baskets, and a little cute bell, and one of them even has some sort of jerry-rigged......
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08.04.03

So this is Japan... again.

first of all, let me apologize for my horrible spelling in the last post... as many of you may know, japanese keyboards are quite different than ours, and the keys are not only smaller, but in different places (plus with......
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07.31.03

"Nu-uh! According to my Japan p3n0s..."

The battle for Japan has officially begun.... I was sitting at breakfast along with 6 other gaijin, sort of aimlessly staring at the ceiling (jet lag, you see... plus the chandeliers were so pretty...) when some arse in a big......
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07.28.03

In Japan... again

I'm currently in Japan... Things went a lot smoother than I had anticipated. Now I'm starving, and chilling in a fantastically gorgeous hotel. Off in search of food. Thanks to everyone for the support below! And Jenny, CONGRATULATIONS!!!!| 5:26 am......
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07.27.03

The Hood

well, the long wait is over. All in the span of a 3 hours, I got my JET placement in the mail AND a nice long e-mail from my predecessor. The verdict? [b][Redacted - 10.03.2005][/b] - prefecture, probably in......
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05.30.03

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