Well, its that time. Time again for another, and final, Finding Japan episode by yours truly. It took a while but in this episode, I say goodbye to Japan and all of the fun times that we had. At nearly two hours long, this episode highlights some of my favorite parts of Japan by revisiting clips from prior episodes. Come revisit the podcast with me as we tour through the experiences I had, things I learned, and people I have met.

But rather than give a long-winded overview of the episode, just listen in and enjoy. Details about the future are also enclosed.

Thanks again to all of my friends, all of the listeners and contributors to the podcast, everyone who guided me and helped my find my way through the land of the rising sun. This was truly an amazing life experience and I will never forget it.

Finding Japan has been archived at archive.org for posterity. This site will cease to exist at some point in the future though I will do my best to maintain the feed. Check archive.org for all of the episodes, including prologues to the podcast.

Thank you all.

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Photo taken at the Panasonic Center in Ariake, Tokyo, Japan. Cardboard dinosaurs rule!

Ok, well not really wrapping it up quite yet. Just some thoughts on paying my last rent payment here in Tokyo, a small request to all listeners, answering a letter to my future self, and more. Che-ch-che-ch-checka-check it out!

Show Notes:

• Paying my last rent payment
• Listeners – submit your thoughts on your favorite part of FJ
• Watching an excavator for 2 mins (sorry for leaving that in there)
• Interlude: “Memories of an Old Dog” by Fireproof Babies
• Thoughts on video games in Japan
• Answering future self letter from 1 year ago
• My Japanese ability
• Moving out sale
• Outro: “Uno Two (Instrumental)” by KCentric

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This was too good not to put up.

You asked for it, you got it. Straight from my (old) studio to your ears. This episode is 100% sound tour. Put on a pair of nice headphones and sit back to relax to the sounds of the Japan. The following sounds have been recorded during the last year or so and have been collected for your listening enjoyment.

Show Notes:

• Short Intro
• Clip1: 2007-05-31 Riding the Yurakuchou Line
• Clip2: 2007-09-19 Ariake TOC Building 7-11 Guy with Music
• Clip3: 2007-06-01 Crows at Waseda University
• Clip4: 2007-10-08 Watching Aural Expression Class Video
• Clip5: 2008-01-18 Singing Lame SMAP Songs in Class
• Clip6: 2007-07-07 Watching Tokyo Bousaikan (Disaster Preparedness Center) Smoke Video
• Clip7: 2007-07-15 Awesome French Elevator Music at Doutour Coffee
• Clip8: 2007-12-16 Chilling at a Club in Kobe Talking about Cats with Awesome Funk Music in the Background (Guest Appearance: Terrance from Kobe Beef)
• Clip9: 2007-12-16 Kobe Planetarium Presentation
• Clip10: 2008-04-05 Tokyo Giants Game
• Clip11: 2007-09-20 Sumo Tournament Match
• Clip12: 2007-08-08 Inside the Shinkanesen (Accelerating with Train Announcements)
• Clip13: 2008-04-07 Kanamara Matsuri (a.k.a. Kawasaki Penis Festival)
• Clip14: 2008-04-06 Crazy Sounding Cement Mixer
• Clip15: 2008-02-10 Cacophonous Sounds in Iidabashi (with commentary)
• Clip16: 2007-07-28 Drumming in a Small Park in Shinjuku

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You’ll have to wait until the end to get to the saxophone train on this one. No cheating and no fastforwarding. If so you’ll miss plenty, including some catch up chat, thoughts on what’s been keeping me so busy, and a beer review.

Show Notes:

• What’s been going on
• Linda’s Arrival
• Work
• Meeting up with Saya
• Meeting up with Scott and Karamoon
• New Listeners
• Responding to Blog Comments
• Projects
• Economics, finance, and work-related stuff
• Explaination of how I’d like to keep learning Kanji (help me out)
• Drink Review
• Kamakura Beer
• Daibutsu is there
• Saxophone train

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Let’s get deep again. I tried to mix it up with some pleasant thoughts, some interesting sights, and of course, always deep deep riveting commentary from yours truly (sarcasm goes to 11, you know).

Show Notes:

• Some thoughts about Saizeriya
• Topic: Japan Makes You Busy
• A bit about my lifestyle
• Spending my time on the computer
• “The Four Hour Separation”
• 1 hr of screwing around
• 1 hr of reading
• 1 hr of art
• 1 hr of life
• [Musical Break]
• Why is it necessary?
• Opportunity overload
• 6 hours spent doing nothing this weekend
• Putting more “real” in realtime
• Train announcer gets on my nerves
• Escalator Apologizers
• Some Closing Thoughts
• Music – “Atlantic Midnight” by Jaspertine from CCMixter.org
• Music – “Drugstar” by Pthalo

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Another short video post. This time, lets ride the Yurikamome 8-bit style! Enjoy!

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See, the great thing about only having work now is that I have time to do stuff like this. This video is from the Osaka Aquarium, one of the largest in the world according to their website. In this clip, we get a good view of the main tank for a few moments while I rested amidst the gaggles of children.

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I was just looking at some Google stats and log stats from my hosting company yesterday and wanted to share with you all how great this year has been for Finding Japan. This has been the most successful online project I’ve ever worked on. Even if I haven’t formally defined success criteria, it sure feels like it.
Finding Japan 2007 Statistics

• 13,163 visits (6,107 unique) from 1,556 cities in 97 countries on 6 continents
• 16% of visitors were from Japan
• 20% of visitors use do not use English as their primary language for their browser
• Over 400 GB of data was transferred to you all
• The pre-episode from Feb 22nd was the most downloaded podcast episode
• Tokyo Calling had the most referrals of any other personal site

Thanks again for a wonderful year and I look forward to even more fun this year. Best to you all.

I just wanted to make the readers of this blog aware of the explosion of Japanese McDonalds commercial remixes available on YouTube. Sometimes its best not to ask.

RAN RAN RUUUU!!!

And just in case that made you hungry, here’s the MegaMac that’s back again! There goes the heart.