Sankeien Garden, Yokohama

If the University of the Philippines' Diliman Campus has a "Sunken Garden," Yokohama, Japan has "Sankeien Garden." It would have probably been best to come here during fall or during sakura season. We didn't have time though to go around the whole place because we were still going somewhere that might be closing early (see the next episode's video). Entrance fee: 500 yen.

Odawara-Hakone-Gotemba-Fuji

I had a couple of friends visit over from Singapore and the original plan was to visit Hakone to get a good view of Mt. Fuji. We bought the Hakone Free Pass so that we can go around the Hakone area freely.

We first made a pitstop though at the Odawara Castle. And then we went on the Hakone Sightseeing Cruise on Lake Ashi (also known as Hakone Lake), the Hakone Ropeway (i.e. cable car / cable-suspended gondolas similar to the one connecting mainland Singapore and Sentosa), and Hakone Tozan Cable Car (i.e. train being pulled by cables, like San Francisco's cable cars or the Peak Tram going to Victoria Peak in Hong Kong).

Finally, we went out of our way to the Gotemba Premium Outlets in Gotemba, only to find the best views of Fuji-san for this day trip. From Gotemba Premium Outlets, it took us 3.5 hours to get home inclusive of all the waiting for the infrequent night time trains. Had I known earlier, we could've gotten home an hour and a half earlier if only we had spent around 500 yen more each and used a different route. But anyway, we had a blast.

Sanja Matsuri (Three Temples Festival), Asakusa, Tokyo

I went to Asakusa in Tokyo to meet some friends, and what do you know, there was a festival going on! I looked it up and apparently it's called the Sanja Matsuri (literally Three Temples Festival). Incidentally, it is three days long, starting on a Friday and ending on the 3rd Sunday of May. They say this is one of the most attended festivals attracting over 1 million locals and tourists over its three-day course.



NOTE: The video was "enhanced" using tools provided by YouTube.

How to Cook Ramen

Check out this article from MustLoveJapan.com about how to cook ramen. I've always only eaten ramen that has been prepared in restaurants, cafeteria, or instantly. I wonder how it is to actually make ramen at home.

By the way, new Nihongo word for you: "Tonkotsu." Pork bone broth. Yummy.

Japanese researchers invent "Shiri" robot

Image from Express Chemist.

Where "shiri," by the way, is Japanese for buttocks. Read this article and watch the video on Kotaku. Of course, apparently the same Japanese researchers have also invented The Hug Machine and The Kiss Machine, all in the name of science and medicine, ladies and gentlemen, mind you.

Talking about "Shiri," here are some Japan-related tidbits that might be interesting:

1. "Shiri" is usually prefixed by "o" as in "oshiri," or as in "ocha" where "cha" means tea, or "ofuro" were "furo" means bath tub, or "okane" where "kane" means money, and so on. I think people would say the "o" makes it more polite, but I don't know if that makes sense.

2. When Apple introduced the iPhone 4S with its voice-controlled assistant feature named "Siri," Japanese tweeters were laughing all around Twitter about it having a name that means buttocks. In Japanese pronunciation, they do not have a "si" sound, instead they use "shi," and thus "Siri" is pronounced like "Shiri" in Japanese, just as they say "Ey Bee She" for "A, B, C."

3. I don't know what the Roswell sci-fi TV series actress portraying the character Liz Parker, Shiri Appleby, would say about all this.

Why "Japan! Japan!"?

Japan, Japan: natural and cultural wonders

Happy Holidays! Golden Week holidays, that is, for those of us in Japan. And Labor Day Holiday Weekend, that is, for folks in the Philippines.

Some of you probably wondered, why "Japan! Japan!" for a blog name. Well it's three things.

First, before I embarked on my (2nd) journey here in Japan, that's how my very good friends wished me well.  They greeted me "Japan! Japan!" And by Japan, they actually meant J.A.P.A.N. - Just Always Pray At Night.

Secondly, it was my second sojourn in Japan, so it wasn't gonna be just a simple Japan blog like last time that was easily (attempted to be) copied by other people months later. So this time around, it was going to be a Japan! Japan! blog. While in my Japan 2005 blog, I was a little bit "diplomatic," as where the people I met were, since I was only a visitor for two months, in the current "Japan! Japan!" blog series, I'm in a more hostile situation and so I have had to be a little bit more fierce, like that dragon in the photo accompanying this article.

Thirdly, it's catchy and unique. I haven't found other Japan-related blogs named like so. I've so far only found one movie entitled "Japan Japan" - note the absence of exclamation points - which I strongly don't recommend to watch, by the way. It is an indie film but it would probably be a for-Adults-only movie. And then there's this Vimeo also entitled "Japan Japan," showing a video of a couple singing a song because they ♥ Japan.

I could think of a number of other justifications and what not for "Japan! Japan!," but you know what, those three are my only real reasons. And actually, I did not name it "Japan! Japan!" until after I started video blogging and some nut already got japanjapan.blogspot.com. But that's not as cool as japan.ronjie.com because I can tell my friends or put in my videos something like, "Visit Japan! ...dot ronjie dot com." :-D

How Nihongo has given birth to new languages, and the case of the missing Beef Misono, Chicken Teriyaki, and Torikatsu

Read this interesting article from Tofugu, entitled "How Japanese gives birth to new languages," via this (ad-supported) link: http://j.gs/uxx. That article reminded me of the most popular "Japanese" fast-food chain in the Philippines, Tokyo Tokyo, and their Beef Misono (and now, even Tuna Misono).

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.

Arigatou

April 16 marks my 2nd anniversary here in Japan, and the 2nd anniversary of The Japan! Japan! Blog (version 2.0). I hope to stay just 1 more year here and earn my degree by March 2013, but that is unless I could find a nice job here afterward. Fittingly enough, after 2 years here, it is only today that I learned that "arigatou" ("thank you" in Japanese) actually has a Kanji, although in most cases I only see the Hiragana version of it:

ありがとう (Hiragana)
有難う (Kanji)

Apparently the first Kanji means "possession" and the second one means "difficulty," and combined it becomes "in trouble" (in Chinese) or "grateful" (in Japanese) and is actually pronounced something like "yuunan" or "arigata."  The う is Hiragana obviously, not a Kanji character, and instead it is placed to make sure the "arigata" is pronounced as "arigatou."  This is just my speculation but I think "arigatou" might be short for "arigata wo," that together with "gozaimasu" literally means "There is gratitude" or "Gratitude exists."  In any case, you'll probably see "arigatou" in Kanji in very limited instances, and if it would be written in Kanji, it would be in a situation where politeness is necessitated and you would usually see it with "gozaimasu," which generally turns greetings into polite form, like "ohayou gozaimasu" (good morning), and so on:

有難うございます

To all readers of The Japan! Japan! Blog as well as viewers of The Japan! Japan! Video Blog, and to all the people I've met in Japan who has made my stay here so far a very enjoyable experience, どうもありがとうございます / Dōmo arigatōgozaimasu / Thank you very much po. ("Po" being the Filipino equivalent of "gozaimasu," in terms of turning an ordinary sentence into polite form.)

Sakura Hanami in Chidorigafuchi

The Japan! Japan! Video Blog Episode #36 features our videos from our trip from Atsugi to Chidorigafuchi in Tokyo for some cherry blossom (sakura) viewing (hanami).  It's over an hour long, because the cherry trees are just so nice to look at, plus there's just so many of them. If you want you can skip over the "intro" which features some along-the-train-route sights of Tokyo, and start at around the 10:30 mark to see sakura already. We also dropped by the Nippon Budoukan and the Yasukuni Shrine.

Check out Culture Japan

I think I've previously linked already to Danny Choo's website (www.dannychoo.com) which features some interesting and well-produced content on Japanese culture. He's done a number of videos on Japanese culture as well, encapsulated in the series aptly called "Culture Japan." These videos have even been featured on Tokyo MX TV in Japan, across the whole of Asia on the Animax Network and across America on Mnet America. Here's the official trailer for the just-concluded Season 1 of Culture Japan:



While this is a full-length (more than 1 hour) digest of Season 1:



To watch more Culture Japan videos, including the Season 2 trailer, check out their YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/tokyostormtrooper/featured

Hanami in Zama

In the Japan! Japan! Video Blog Episode #35, we feature my first sakura hanami (cherry blossom viewing) experience at the Camp Zama base in Zama, Kanagawa, Japan. I just discovered that "Karupasu" (Calpas?) Russian sausage thing! Know any place where I can snag some of those?



For the stabilized version of the video, click this link: http://youtu.be/6Q7cKtkoerQ

The fastest and cheapest way to remit money to the Philippines from Japan [Updated]

This post was formerly titled: "I (heart) www.GCASH.jp!!!"

Oh, the difficulties of having to pay bills at home while you're based in a very foreign land. I have told you guys about GCASH.JP through an earlier, short blog post, but man, o man, it is only now I've dipped my hands in it and it's like… holy water! (For you pundits out there: I said it's only like holy water; it is of course nothing like real holy water.) But it is truly a miracle, a real blessing from Up Above. Amen.

Long story short, I have some cash in my bank account here in Japan, and I needed to remit some to my bank account in Manila. How long did it take using GCASH? About an hour, and all from the comfort of my own home. How much did it cost? It cost me around 3.25% of my remittance amount¹. That's very cheap! And very fast. Now that's what you call a wire transfer! I ♥ GCASH.JP!!!

Contrast all that now with the time when I transferred using my Japan-based bank's over-the-counter remittance services for the same amount of remittance applied at the same time of the day (nearly 3pm): roughly 1 banking day, and 11.6% of my remittance amount¹!  That's more than 3 times the cost!

Okay, the length of time it takes is not really a good point for comparison. I had internet banking set-up for my Japan bank account, and so that helped hasten things up. Plus, I also had to pre-register on to GCASH. Now, to go to my bank branch, I had to actually spend at most around 220 pesos for my roundtrip bus fare and 40 extra minutes for the trip. It was just before 3pm when I got to the bank, and we were told that the transfer might not be made until the next banking day. Otherwise, maybe it could have been just as fast, save for the 40 minutes to travel to our bank branch.

Enter the internet banking facilities of my bank. What actually happens is I first transfer to a pre-assigned local Japanese bank account associated with my GCASH account. I just do it online from the comfort of my own home, no need to pre-enroll my transferees' accounts (unlike BPI, but I heard China Bank and a few other banks allow you to make funds transfer within the Philippines without pre-enrolling as well).

In under 10 minutes, the funds from my Japan bank account is already in my GCASH account. And then in around 30 minutes or so, the funds from my GCASH account are already in my Philippines-based bank account.

I should also mention though that the 3.25% tax for remittance via GCASH is because I have a coupon, given to new GCASH members, expiring by the end of March.  If without the coupon I would have paid around maybe 4%, which is still not so bad, and still nearly 3 times less the cost for transferring bank-to-bank, Japan-to-Philippines.

I should also mention that GCASH's Customer Support Staff are a delight. I interacted with an English-speaking Japanese via e-mail, and then later I got a call from a Tagalog-speaking Filipina who was very polite and very helpful (although she did not really have the answers to my issue that time). Speaking about my issue, I was on GCASH's English website and my bank's is in Japanese, so there was a little bit of a disconnect there even though I could use Google's translation functions, and that led to my problem but I eventually figured it all out. Thanks also to Google!

My local Japanese bank, by the way, is Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. I would think that services offered through other Japanese banks are on the same level. Being in a city far away from Tokyo, my local branch does not have people who can speak English so that was a difficulty. Just by using the online banking facilities and Google Chrome as web browser, it didn't matter as much that the website is in Japanese.

GCASH, by the way, is a service by Softbank Payment Services here in Japan, and "guaranteed" by Globe (yes, the cellphone company) in the Philippines.  You can do a bank transfer to over 15 other banks in the Philippines, including Citibank, Chinabank, PNB, and MetroBank². You can also transfer to someone's GCASH account in the Philippines as "Mobile Money" - they can use it as prepaid cellphone load, and a number of other things, but I think it might be difficult to "withdraw" the cash. The remit-to-GCASH-in-the-Philippines option I believe has even cheaper rates. You can also remit to selected remittance centers in the Philippines, like Globe Stores, some pawnshops, and some banks. I can also actually transfer to my GCASH.JP account through convenience stores, but that costs a little bit more and the nearest one is about a 5-minute walk away.

¹ Relative to the exchange rate based on historical rates shown on www.exchange-rates.org.
² [UPDATE/ADDENDUM] They sort of advertise that you can transfer to PNB and MetroBank bank accounts, and it gives you the impression that you would need to have an account at only those two banks. But the truth is, you can transfer to probably all Bancnet member banks. But there are some additional requirements for certain banks (I forgot which ones though), and you'll be informed of those requirements as you use the service. Anyways, the one big question we have is: This is somewhat a service of Globe - an Ayala company - and yet why does it seem impossible to transfer to BPI - another Ayala company!?  That is so weird.  But anyway, in the experience I recounted in this blog post, we transferred to ChinaBank.  Tell us in the comments how different your experience might be if you had used other banks, or if you had used ChinaBank as well.

5-Thirsty in Japan?

In the Philippines, one of the beer companies featured a TV commercial which introduced the concept of "5-Thirsty," i.e. at 5:30pm, after work hours, it's time to invite friends and drink... beer, of course.

Anyway, here in Japan, I've noticed something happening at around 5:30pm as well. And no, it's actually not a 5-Thirsty thing. I've noticed it for a long time now, but it is only today that I paid attention.

It's two things.

Firstly, there are PA ("public address," in case you didn't know) systems in all neighborhoods here in Japan. It has many benefits, obviously, like when there's some impending disaster like a tornado or tsunami or fire and so on, or some message from the local government (and maybe national government?) needs to be disseminated fast.

But, they play chime tunes as well on those PA systems. Like, if I'm not mistaken, at 12 noon, they play a chime to signal 12 noon. Maybe it is to signal lunch break.

In schools, at the start and at the end of every class, or at the start and at the end of public announcements from the school administration as well, there's a chime that plays, that I believe is usually the same sound as the Big Ben's chime.

15 minutes or less before closing time, stores usually play an Auld Lang Syne chime right before announcing closing time.

Today, at exactly 5pm, there's this chime that played again for the Nth time now since I've been here in Japan. I did some search and apparently it's called "the Chime of Love," and the tune is from a song / nursery rhyme entitled "Yuyake Koyake," which I believe literally translates to Sunset Burning. If you haven't guessed yet, it is to signal the sunset and it is meant to inform children, for their own safety, that it is time to go home.

Here's a video capturing the Yuyake Koyake "chime of love" moment during summertime at one rather urban neighborhood in Japan: http://youtu.be/18-YzchO6xs

And here's a video of someone playing a more complex version of the tune on piano: http://youtu.be/k3rtMAr79AQ

I asked a Japanese friend and, considering the different sunset times per season here, he informed me that Yuyake Koyake does not usually play at 5pm. Here are the play times, at least here in Atsugi, Kanagawa:

March, April - 5pm
May to August - 5:30pm
September, October - 5pm
November to February - 4:30pm

For more information, I found this explanation (and another recording of an actual Yuyake Koyake "chime of love" at another neighborhood here in Japan) which might be interesting to you as well: http://youtu.be/Iez63nk6J6w

Graduation time!

Not for me, though. Not yet. But for many students, March is graduation month. I went to Tokyo today and I noticed a lot of women - mostly younger women - in what I thought was "traditional" Japanese kimono. The first thought was, maybe it was their graduation attire. Anyway, I asked a Japanese friend and I was half right. It was graduation attire but it was not "traditional" Japanese kimono like this:

(Image taken from http://www.1carat.jp/images/kasou/kimono/kimono_img.jpg)

Instead, what I saw were actually called hakama, and they look like this:

(Image taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakama)

My friend added that these clothing styles are obviously very different from Korean traditional attire which looks like this:

(Image taken from http://blogimg.goo.ne.jp/user_image/03/c3/684b1b938b472ffdce5e613af44a3080.jpg)

Anyways, I googled "hakama" up and found that at least one definition says the hakama is also a traditional Japanese attire. My friend clarified though that it is not as mainstream as the more traditional kimono.

Remembering 3-11

It's been a year since the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011. What an experience that was. Anyways, check out this very interesting visualization (i.e. a dynamic infographic) of the earthquakes in Japan (M3.0 or stronger) in 2011: http://youtu.be/eKp5cA2sM28. For contrast, check out this version for earthquakes (M4.5 or stronger) in the whole world in 2011: http://youtu.be/cwWn_W6ZbT4. These were featured on LikeCOOL. Finally, let's try to remember 3-11 through this well-prepared news video from ABC's 20/20 show from a year ago, that I saw just now: http://youtu.be/9nTlgtf7TME.

Easily send money from Japan to the Philippines at some of the lowest rates

It's actually powered by Softbank Payment Service. Check out http://www.gcash.jp. The website can switch between English and Nihongo.

Kamakura! (Video Update)

About a month ago, I posted my video of our visit to Kamakura. When I was editing the video, I wondered where this certain clip went. I thought I lost it forever, but well, here it is!

Rural Atsugi

Our professor invited us to a walk around school - a rural area of Atsugi, with plenty of farm land, hills, and all that - and 20 of us went along. We walked for an hour and twenty minutes under a generally sunny winter day. The video below is a 10-minute, super-fast-forward version (8x speed) of the original.

Kamakura!