Another milestone: 5000+ pageviews for the first 29 days of March. Time for another round of Thanks!

Thanks ありがとう Thanks ありがとう Thanks ありがとう Thanks ありがとう Thanks ありがとう 

I wonder though if it's still possible to beat 6,000 this month. Anyhow, I'll keep the posts comin' so stay tuned. Thanks again!

Blog Stats Update + Thanks! + Please share! :) @japanjapanblog

Just wanted to mention that last February was our best month yet with 4,278 pageviews, edging out January by 20 pageviews -- and considering January had 3 days more (i.e. 31 vs. 28).

Today is March 15, roughly halfway through the month, and we're already at 2,500 pageviews. Can we reach 5,000 this month?

Help me out, friends! Please share the blog posts on Twitter and Facebook or simply share the homepage via e-mail:

http://twitter.com/japanjapanblog
http://www.facebook.com/TheJapanJapanBlog
http://japan.ronjie.com

Thanks a bunch!

Bento! #249: Okura to Nameko no Okakaae + Updated Photo: Demi Chiizu Chikin Katsu

I posted a photo at http://japan.ronjie.com/2012/11/bento-161-demi-chiizu-chikin-bentou.html of my squished bento box from 3F. Here's a better photo:

And I had this as for my dose of vegetables:

オクラ = okra / lady fingers. なめこ = a type of mushroom. おかか和え = that fish flake "sauce" thing. Pretty good.

Oops, sorry. I corrected an earlier blog post. Please check out the updated contents!

Today, I was browsing through my earlier blog posts and I realized that this blog article:

http://japan.ronjie.com/2013/02/bento-230-fish-and-chips-and-my-first.html

Just looked exactly the same as this:

http://japan.ronjie.com/2013/02/bento-229-beer-coated-potatoes-chikin.html

So now, I just wanted to announce that I updated the former with the correct content. Here's the link again of the post with updated contents:

http://japan.ronjie.com/2013/02/bento-230-fish-and-chips-and-my-first.html

In that updated blog post, I have 3 new photos showing my fish-and-chips, and this new drink I tried called C.C. Lemon.

失礼しました！

あっ、すごい！ありがとう！

I broke 3,000 pageviews last November, and for some reason, it slumped to under 2,900 in December. But for January, we're back on the trendline, baby! Thanks to one and all for coming, reading, commenting, and sharing! Please continue to spread the word. :)

Sorry! ごめんなさい！Gomennasai!

Forgot to post one yesterday. Super busy! But, one is coming soon. Regular posts start tomorrow!

Thanks also for visiting regularly, guys! I'm close to 4,000 pageviews this month. It's just getting bigger each month! I hope to post more interesting stuff soon. Please do leave a comment if you have questions about my posts or if you have requests, or if you yourself have tried the things I've talked about.

Thanks a bunch! どうもありがとう！Doumo arigatou!

[Advertisement] Please check out my other blogs!

Check out RAW, my once-a-day what's-new-and-interesting-on-the-internet blog. It's mostly funny or interesting internet videos, but I do link to some cool and interesting websites on occasion.

Check out rTV2, my online "TV." It features a number of channels, including my very own RAW TV and R2, which are compilations of all videos featured on RAW. While watching, you can look up Wikipedia on the right side to find out more about the stuff they're talking about in whatever video you're watching.

Are you a structural engineer? Check out my engineering block at http://engg.ronjie.com/. I have a few other blogs and websites, and you can find links to them at www.ronjie.com, but Japan! Japan!, RAW, and the engineering blog are my top ones. rTV2 is somewhat experimental, and I really made it for myself, as I don't have any TV here in Japan (it's expensive to buy one, plus you need to pay a monthly fee of about US$30 just to even use broadcast TV). Meanwhile, I don't like internet videos because you have to choose what to watch next each time. I just wanted good old television where you just choose a channel and let them show you whatever is on their program. You can always press "Next Channel" (or "Previous Channel") like you would do on an old school telly, until you find something that interests you. Or, just turn off the TV altogether. :D

Thanks for your patronage, guys!

Whoops!

I forgot to bring my camera to the cafeteria, so I don't have photos of what I had new for today. Well, it's nothing so new. I was going to show you that they now have new, smaller bowls for "L" size don (rice bowl) meals. Awww. But it still felt "L" to me, nonetheless. I also had one of their newest desserts: apple caramel (アップルキャラメル / appuru kyarameru) cake. It was 105 yen, and it was small. Typical spongy cake with icing. But can you imagine a round cake, 8-inch in diameter, sliced up into 16 slices, and voila. 1 slice is just that small. It was still delicious, nonetheless. I also tried French dressing for my salad, perhaps for the first time ever. It was surprisingly good, actually. I still love Italian though. I'll have the same exact meal when I get the chance and update today's blog article with photos. Stay tuned!

Thanks! Again!

Screen capture taken last October 29.

It's another record month - my best month yet. Thanks to all of you for visiting and for coming back again and again! My pageviews have risen month-over-month since around June this year, to over 2,500 pageviews for October 2012. Prior to June, I've had an average of only around 400 pageviews per month since I started blogging my Japan 2.0 experience in April 2010. Wow. Thank you all, once again!

If you can see from the stats above, many of my visitors came by way of the Japan Blog List. Welcome to all of you who clicked through JBL. If you haven't yet heard of JBL, go over there now and find out more blogs about Japan. It's at http://www.japanbloglist.com/.

For your entertainment while you're in Japan, please do also check out my 2nd most popular blog, RAW (ronjie.com around the web), at http://ronjie-raw.blogspot.com/.

You can also read through my Japan 1.0 experience from way back in April 2005, if you're interested. Links to the archived articles are below, but for a bit of nostalgia, you can check out how my blog looked like back in 2005 at http://ronjie-japan2005.blogspot.com/.

どうもありがとうございました！

UPDATE: The final tally was 2,653 pageviews for October 2012. Sugoi!

Bento! #84 - Yuzukoshou Hanbaagu

Or "Yuzukoshou Burger." With "M" size rice, this is only 399 yen from the school cafeteria. According to Wikipedia,

Yuzukoshō (柚子胡椒?, also yuzugoshō) is a type of Japanese seasoning. It is a paste made from chili peppers, yuzu peel and salt, which is then allowed to ferment.[1] It is usually used as a condiment for nabemono dishes, miso soup, and sashimi. The most famous types of yuzukoshō come from Kyushu, where it is a local specialty.

Yuzu is by the way a kind of citrus fruit found in East Asia. According to me:

Yuzukoshō Burger is sweet, sour, and yummy.

Also, this one had a rather huge, larger-than-usual burger patty. It's not 100% beef though, of course. It came with some lettuce and a cherry tomato. I dressed the lettuce with some Italian Dressing which I think complemented the Yuzukoshou sauce quite well.

Speaking of beef, I think I might have said in previous posts that the Pawaa Don (Power Rice Bowl) is like gyuudon (beef rice bowl) with egg. It actually contains pork, not beef.

Thanks for Visiting!

There's still about 4 days to go in August, but the Japan! Japan! blog's number of pageviews has already exceeded that of last month's. As you can see in the graph above, it's my second record month in a row. And for the past 30 days, I have had almost close to 2000 pageviews, making my total pageviews for this blog just recently pass my previously number one engineering blog.

I should make a special shout out to our visitors through The Japan Blog List (JBL), which at this point is already the blog's second best source of traffic. And that is considering I applied to be included in the list just a month ago, I think. In that sense, I guess JBL is definitely a good resource for all of you new to Japan or interested to read up about Japan-centric stuff.

At third place, of course there's the Japan Blog Directory, also a very useful resource for those new to Japan, which started all this big jump in my pageviews.

Of course, my shift in topic to mostly about food and my extensive use of photos, and also having a presence on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus has all helped, but it is all nothing without your patronage and frequent revisits.

So, once again, DOUMO ARIGATOU GOZAIMASU!

Announcement - The Japan! Japan! Blog

By the way, I just wanted to report that for a week I was in the Philippines where my internet connection was probably 100 times slower than here in Japan, and well, I didn't really had the chance to have Japanese bento to take photos of. And of course I enjoyed all the Filipino food I had during my one week vacation business trip to Manila. That explains why I didn't have any posts for about a week last week. In September, I'll be out of town again (back in Manila) for a personal visit and I hope to be able to visit some Japanese (or Japanese-themed) restaurants in Manila then, and upload photos of the bento there. But there's just that chance I'll have a two-week absence from regular blog posting in September.

At the same time, I've become quite busy yet again with tons of work and backlog that I need to attend to. I am scheduled to graduate in March and well it would really suck if I have to delay my graduation, even if that would probably mean more Japan! Japan! blog articles for you all.

And lastly, I should rant about Blogger having troubles with their post-by-email service. When I started posting photos of my bento meals, I had the convenience of being able to blog directly from my phone which I use to take photos of the bento. But in the past two or three weeks, that was not possible anymore and so it becomes a little bit more difficult to post new bento articles as soon as I can gobble them up. Add to that again, that I have become quite busy yet again.

Nonetheless, here's to more bento photos at least in the next couple of weeks!

Japan! Japan! is now on the Japan Blog Directory, which lists plenty of must-reads for first- and old-timers in Japan alike

More specifically the Japan! Japan! blog is now listed as one of the "Green Belt" blogs under the "Foreigners in Japan" category. As of today, I am currently a featured "new" blog on the Japan Blog Directory (JBD). If you have a blog about Japan, too, you can register your blog to their listing as well.

JBD basically has three categories of blogs:

• "Black Belt" blogs are the veterans that have been established for a while now and are also recognized as top blogs by other bloggers and the media.
• "Green Belt" blogs are the challengers who have blogged for more than a year but have not yet received the public recognition to become a black belt.
• And finally, whereas some blogs are only maintained for a year and then abandoned, "White Belt" blogs are blogs that have not yet seen their first anniversary and therefore still have to show that they will last. Visitors to the Japan Blog Directory are encouraged to visit these "White Belt" blogs and give advice where necessary. After a year of existence, the white belts graduate to green belts.

All that said, JBD is a great place for reading about Japan from the perspectives of foreigners living in Japan, foreigners outside of Japan, Japanese in Japan, Japanese outside of Japan, blogs about Nihongo, travel and food blogs, and many more. If I were to add to my "Welcome to Japan" 2-part article series, this should be one of the top sites to check out. Visit JBD today!

Stats Update

2 years in and here are The Japan! Japan! Blog updated stats.

I'm nearly at 6,000 pageviews for 266 posts (inclusive of 53 posts from my Japan blog version 1.0 from 2005, and of pageviews of those 53 posts since I copied them here).  That's an average of more than 20 pageviews per post. Not bad.

My top article is my "Welcome to Japan (Part 1)" post, which has had 237 pageviews. The other members of my top 5 articles are:

• "Filipino restaurants in Atsugi!" 120 Pageviews 
• "Upo, green papaya, and sayote alternatives in Japan" 107 Pageviews 
• "Pinoy Restaurants in and around Tokyo" 56 Pageviews
• "Welcome to Japan (Part 2)" 56 Pageviews

I think those articles are appropriately my top 5. Interesting though is that, while the "Welcome to Japan" series is understandably in the top 5, the other three posts are about food. It's just past lunch and I feel hungry again. Hmmm, this reminds me though that I should update the restaurants list in Atsugi, and Tokyo, respectively because some of these restaurants do not exist anymore.

Anyway, my number 1 traffic source is Google Search. Interestingly, I found out that when you do a Yahoo! search for "Sayote in Japan," my blog article "Upo, green papaya, and sayote alternatives in Japan" is the number one search result, while in a Google search it is only the third result.

Pageviews by Countries as of 19 April 2012. Courtesy of Blogger.

In terms of countries where my audience comes from, this is more or less the breakdown:

• United States 2,162 
• Japan 1,294 
• Philippines 505 
• Germany 272 
• Netherlands 172 
• Russia 153 
• United Kingdom 106 
• Ukraine 93 
• Canada 47 
• France 44 
• Others 1,070

It's very interesting that my blog has had the most visits from the US, and visits from the Philippines only rank 3rd, considering that my expected audience are Filipinos coming to Japan. But then, there are many Filipinos in the US, and maybe most of my traffic from the US are from Filipino-Americans. Or my Filipino-American relatives. Or, I would think there are many Americans who are very much interested in Japan, Japanese culture, and travelling to Japan, and they see my blog and look at it as a blog in English by a foreigner in Japan, and so they can relate. What surprised me the most though was the many visits from European countries. Of course, English might be spoken and understood in those European countries more than in other countries and it helps that my blog is in English. I did meet one German national who stayed in Japan for a few months as well, and I did visit the Netherlands for a week on official business, but I'm not sure if those two things have anything to do with the (small) traffic from those countries. Finally, the list also shows that, no, I'm not the only one visiting my own blog regularly just to increase my pageviews because I haven't been to the US nor use US-based proxy servers to look at my own blog. Haha. I've actually disabled that (i.e. counting of my pageviews in the stats), of course. But I guess Japan as a traffic source coming in as #2 and not #3 or lower is not much of a surprise. Anyway, these are very important stats, readily accessible through Blogger, and they give me good insights as to what things I can do to better improve and tailor my blog to my actual audience.

[I checked just now: back in September 2010, I only had around 180 pageviews and my audience came from only 7 countries. And back in May 2011, I also had similar stats as today, except of course I had much less pageviews. I also think that having a video blog on YouTube, and cross-posting on Facebook, Twitter, and occasionally Google Plus, provides a ton of additional exposure for this blog. Great!]

Finally, it is also very interesting that I still have more visitors using Internet Explorer instead of Chrome. That has a ton of implications behind it. And, nearly a quarter of my visitors are using Macintosh computers and around 8% are on mobile devices. Very interesting.

Pageviews by Operating Systems as of 19 April 2012. Courtesy of Blogger. 

Pageviews by Browsers as of 19 April 2012. Courtesy of Blogger. 

Once again, どうもありがとうございます to one and all.

Food. Pinoy Food.

If you noticed, most of my posts are either about Pinoy Food, or (Other) Food.  I have 55 posts about Pinoy Food, and 52 about Food.

Then I have 51 posts about being Busy.  And 32 about Basketball and Problems, 29 about Weather.

Hmmm, that about sums it up for me for my first 4 months here in Japan.

Thanks!

Wow, Blogger now has a feature that lets you see statistics for your blogs.  And this is what I have, since May 2010:

United States 84 Philippines 70 Canada 23 Russia 2 Australia 1 China 1 Germany 1

I'm now on at least 7 countries!  Yahoo!  Errr...  Google!  Thanks to all ye viewers.  I hope you found something interesting here on my Japan Blog. :-)

Japan... Version 2!

Back in 2005, I visited Japan... no, actually I lived in Japan.  It became the most memorable time of my life then.  I had a lot of fun, learned a lot about Japan, about technical stuff (wind engineering), and well, I also had my share of misadventures and all that, as a foreigner in a foreign land.  While I tell friends of my stories, some of them say it must have been a nightmare.  Not at all.  I loved it.  Anyway if you haven't yet, read my Japan 1.0 blog.

Now, almost exactly 5 years later, once again I am visiting - and actually living - in Japan, starting tomorrow.  But this time instead of 2 months, it's 3 years.  I am taking up my PhD studies at Tokyo Polytechnic University (or in Japanese, "Tokyo Kougei Daigaku"), and specifically under their Global Center of Excellence (GCOE) Program on "New Frontier of Education and Research in Wind Engineering.

Here's to less "misadventures" and yet more fun and even more learnings and experience in the Land of the Rising Sun!