Minimalism - Online Income - ESL - Japan
I can’t believe it’s been two months since I last posted on the Long Countdown. I even missed the last Japan Blog Matsuri about Favorite Places in Japan, which was a shame because this place would certainly qualify: This is one of many beautiful, sandy beaches at the foot of Shizuoka prefecture’s Izu Peninsula. We went down there in Golden Week, and it was Rikuto’s first time ever to see […]
I just heard that my poor dad tripped on the pavement while running for the bus and knocked his two front teeth out. I do hope he gets well soon. In the meantime, here’s a little ditty to cheer him up: If you can’t view the video, watch it here on YouTube. Update: My dad’s got a new set of pearly whites, and my mum wrote an entertaining poem about […]
Life for a Japanese teenager is supposedly harder than for anyone else. The pressure to study hard has driven many people over the edge, as demonstrated a couple of years ago when there were a spate of suicides among junior high school students in Japan. The Japan broadcasting corporation, NHK, has an educational channel filled with children’s programming every evening. Currently they are playing a song by Angela Aki which […]
Over on the Daily J, our friend Tori is working hard to bring Japan’s community of bloggers together. As well as projects such as Nipponster and Japanopedia, he is regularly giving exposure to blogs and community-driven websites such as JapanSoc. To my surprise, he has started on a series of video tutorials for each of the tools on my JapanSoc Toolbox page, starting with a guide on how to install […]
I was just looking around at the Japanese videos on youtube.com, and came across the following ‘English lesson’. I know we talk about using role-play to teach English, and how chants are a good way to remember phrases, but come on! This is just silly! I must confess that I’ve never seen anything quite like this on Japanese TV, but I guess it must exist. Maybe I’m not up early […]