RocketNews24

Speaking of RocketNews24, their website contains a ton of English language articles that is all about Japan. Well, and the rest of East Asia. Check it out; it's a website I'd include on my "Welcome to Japan" list of articles for all of you new to Japan or looking to learn more about Japan and her culture. Check the articles out at the URL http://en.rocketnews24.com/category/japan. Or for all about East Asia (including China, Taiwan, and Korea), check out their main English site at http://en.rocketnews24.com.

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!

Learning Japanese

This blogger/poet started studying Nihongo and he started following The Japan! Japan! Blog and other blogs, and apparently he wrote a few articles for Nihongo Ichiban on the topic of "A newbie's journey through Japanese." He lists those articles on his blog, which is at this link:

A newbie's journey through Japanese: The very small archive

He talked about why he started to study Japanese and why he thinks it's important to learn how to read Hiragana and Katakana and not just rely on the Romaji all over the place nowadays in Japan. And finally he lists some podcasts that he listens to that have helped him improve his fluency in the language.

Nihongo Ichiban, by the way, is a good resource for learning Japanese.

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!

Who is Jack n' Poy? [did you know?]

Image from Wikipedia

"Jack n' Poy. Hale hale hoy! Sinong matalo, s'yang unggoy!"
(Jack and Poy. Holly holly hoy! Whoever loses, he's the monkey!)

If you're Filipino, you know how that chant goes, and what we do while chanting it.

Yup, in English, it's actually called the Rock-Paper-Scissors (RPS) game.

Leaving Japan Stress Free. A guide for expats leaving Japan

Check it out on SayonaraJapan.com.

Welcome to Japan (Part 1)

This one is probably a long delayed post.  But now, I have a purpose and better creds to write it.

** First, you might have noticed that I haven't posted anything here since early February 2011, and it is primarily because I became so busy since...  And then the big earthquake happened.  While we are very thankful to everyone who expressed their concern, and that we have been generally safe and are practically back to normal for over a month now, we still express deep sadness over what happened and continue to pray that all those affected get their lives back up moving again.  And here's hoping that we will be better prepared for the next big thing that nature will bring. **