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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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’m back in Japan finally. After a wonderfully great time with my family and friends, I’m back to the grind here in Tokyo. A quick update of my travels and some brief impressions after leaving and then returning to this country. Enjoy!
Show Notes:

• Arrived back in Japan
• Been up for 22 and 1/2 hours
• New toys from Christmas
• Continental Airlines entertainment systems
• Getting Into Tokyo - Narita Express vs. Keisei Skyliner
• My occluded view of Mount Fuji
• Impressions on leaving Japan
• Impressions on coming back to Japan

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Its been a while since I posted just some pictures. These are just a few samples of some more pictures that you can check out from my set called August 2007 - Miyajima over on Flickr. There are many more from other areas we went to during this summer’s touring of Japan, including Hiroshima, Nikko, various places around Tokyo, Mount Fuji, and more. Its been taking me forever in order to get everything posted, but I’m working away at it slowly but steadily.

New podcast this weekend? I sure hope so!

Short video clip from the Tokyo Game Show. I only had my cell phone on me that day so I was only able to get some small video. No narration or commentary, just some sights from the show. Hope you enjoy!

 FJ47 - Tokyo Game Show [2:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

As if actually being in Japan weren’t enough, today I ventured into Second Life today to see what I could find that was Japan related and perhaps find a venue for some more in-depth language practice. This was also to do some research for an upcoming video episode that I wanted to do. More on that later…

I first found this sign on “Help Island”. Pretty encouraging to see the use of Japanese even in the introduction section. This area is like a sandbox and full of just random things.

But I was able to find Japan city pretty easily. I only explored one area since the area I wanted to go to was not available at the time. Notice the grid map over my left shoulder which shows all of the land areas for Japan City. This is my “I am the master of Japanese Text” pose.

In Japan city, I quickly met some people. The person all the way on the right then proceeded to give me some items that I was able to keep - including a maid-cafe thing that follows you around. When you double-click on it, it brings you to a maid-cafe. I could have sworn I saw this guy at Tokyo Game Show. Something fishy here.

Ahh, but certainly like real life. It all goes downhill real quick. This Mr. Slick turned into Ms. Lush and proceeded to drink large beers and stumble around wildly. Though it sounds immature, all interactions were in Japanese so it did have at least some education aspect for me.

Overall, I think Second Life has some potential for learning another language. Japanese support within the program is great and definitely has some advantage to your helping your reading skills. Also, since the last time I have checked out Second Life, there is also voicechat, which makes conversing with people in their language that much easier.

I want to explore some more as I get some free time, but at least for now I’ve gotten myself situated and can find some other areas to practice Japanese in. Now, if I can only find that maid cafe in Akiba… (^_-)/

Man and beast collide… well not really. But we did get to hang out with some deer. Enjoy the sites of us interacting with some deer on the island of Miyajima during our vacation in this quick 3 minute video, complete with mellow music for your deer-viewing enjoyment.

Notice he goes right for the star in that photo!

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Alex joins in for the conversation about our Mt. Fuji experiences. We get sidetracked a little bit first with a few random topics: movie theaters in Asakusa, and the saga of our washing machine. I originally thought this would be a multi-topic episode including the review of the Nintendo DS dictionary and Ubercaster, but alas it wouldn’t fit - we’ll save that for episode 37.

Picture above is for SanNakji: “Yes those are vending machines”. Alex and I hope you enjoy this nearly hour long episode!

Show Notes:

• Intro
• Movie Theaters in Asakusa
• Washing Machine Troubles
• Mount Fuji
• Getting to Mount Fuji
• Stations
• Descent
• Wrap Up

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This is a short slideshow of some sights and sounds captured in Asakusa during the Tanabata festival. The history and meaning behind the Tanabata festival is quite romantic and really quite interesting. Check out some more info here on Wikipedia.

Enjoy the mellow music and shades of blue as I walk you through Asakusa to Ueno taking in the sights and sounds of the festival. This is a larger frame size file but the download should be very short, only about 4MB or so. Make sure you download and view it. Viewing it here on the website will not let it display in its full size.
If you like this format, please let me know. I would love to get some feedback on it. This type of video podcast is very fun to put together and doesn’t take much time. I’m using what I’ve learned from Stuart Isset’s piece I featured back in April.

 Podcast Video [2:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

(Photo used with Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 2.0 License - Original)

A few days ago, I had to head down to the Tokyo Regional Immigration bureau. What fun!! However, there was one redeeming result of the trip: I was able to ride the Tokyo Monorail. I’m fairly familiar with most of Tokyo’s transportation systems, but I had never ridden this particular line. It was a great experience. If you visit Tokyo, I recommend you make it a point to ride this line, second to the Shinkansen of course.

What is different about the Tokyo Monorail from other lines is it is completely above ground. Sure, most of the JR lines are as well, but the Monorail soars above neighborhoods and between buildings - a feat that the JR lines do not accomplish. When you ride JR, you see track and rocks as you ride in an area specifically laid out for train travel. When you ride the Tokyo Monorail, you literally fly past buildings and over people as they tend to their daily lives.

I hope you enjoy this short video. I had to use a little different method to put it together since it came primarily off my cell phone.

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