Monday, January 26, 2015

Recent Buys

Recent Buys January


Chiffon Knit Pullover/Earth Music&Ecology
I bought this sweater to use for work but it turns out I love it so much that I've been wearing it over the weekend too with my new Totoro pin from the Ghibli Museum.  I love the little tulle part on the bottom the most.


FuwaFuwa Heart Dress/E Hyphen World Gallery Bon Bon
I'm so happy with this dress that I bought during the New Years sales! It's warm and cozy and all-around adorable.  The image of the back wasn't available in the blue color which is the one I bought.


Oh Happy Day Hand Bouquet/ETUDE HOUSE
My hands have been dry because of the weather lately so I picked up this cute little hand cream from Etude House.  I bought the one that smells like candy, 


Play 101 Pencil/ETUDE HOUSE
I bought this one in the silver glitter color to use around my eyes!

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

New Sanrio Character: Hummingmint


I mentioned in my last post that deer are my favorite animal so it's no surprise that I have been so excited about this new Sanrio character named Hummingmint!  The Sanrio Japan website offers this description:
ハミングミントは歌を歌うのが大好きな小さな子鹿の女の子。チャームポイントはピンクの♡の鼻先と白い♡の模様。1月デビューのおしゃれな新キャラです!"
Hummingmint is a small fawn girl who loves to sing songs.  Her charm point is her pink heart nose and white heart pattern.  She is January's stylish character debut! 
Hummingmint is not the first deer Sanrio character.  Deery Lou, a brown, male deer character, was created in 2002 but I have not seen much of his merchandise in the past few years.  Deery Lou's color scheme is a lot more vibrant than Hummingmint's whose signature colors and product designs remind me a lot of Swimmer brand items.

There is already a selection of merchandise available, all of which I am quite taken with.  My sweet friend Kaley already bought me this cup and chopsticks set as a gift!



I still have my heart set on getting the little plushie and a backpack to use when I go out with my camera.




Check out the new Hummingmint merchandise here!
Let me know who your favorite Sanrio character is in the comments.  Is it even possible to choose just one? ~♡

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Kobe and Hiroshima Trip!

I had some time off for the holidays and went back to America for Christmas week.  But the next weekend after I came back, my friend Megan and I went to Kobe and Hiroshima before starting work again.  I had never been to either of these places so it was a really fun time.

冬休みで一週間アメリカに帰りました。日本に帰りましたの時のつぎ週末でメガンと神戸と広島に行きました。神戸と広島行ったことありませんでしたからとても楽しかった。

I took the night bus through Willer Express from Shinjuku Station to Kobe on Friday night.  It left at 10:15 PM and arrived at 6:30 in the morning.  This cost me about 7,000 JPY which is a good deal compared to taking a shinkansen which would have cost maybe about 18,000 JPY.  I don't sleep very well on buses so it was a bit torturous but I think it is a really good and cost effective transportation option for travel within Japan.

新宿駅から古部へナイトバスを乗りました。価格は7,000 JPYでした。新幹線の価格は高すぎるだからバスの価格は素晴らしいです。バスで眠れにくいと思います。でも大丈夫でしたよ!

I hope you enjoy my photos from the trip.  I took so many so please click through to see them.  I had a really wonderful time and recommend visiting both these places if you ever have the chance!

古部と広島の写真ぜひぜひ見て下さい。この旅行はとても楽しかったもおすすめは広島と古部に行きます。


Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Kyary Pamyu Pamyuseum: Sweet Costumes in the Candy Forest


I love jpop artist Kyary Pamyu Pamyu so I was excited to see her costumes in this adorable exhibition.  My friend Paul and I went to go check it out.   It was called "Sweet Costumes in the Candy Forest" and that's exactly what it was!  I love how they created a whole environment for the costumes.  It really made this exhibition a unique experience.  I took a lot of photos so please check them out~

このきゃりーぱみゅぱみゅが大好きです。私とポールは「きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅーじあむ」に行きました。名前は「いしょうもりもりおかしな森」です。この名前は本当です!たくさん写真を取りました。ぜひ見てください〜














I think that Kyary's costumes are often displayed in various locations throughout Japan.  For more information please check out: http://www.kyarymuseum.com/

I hope you enjoyed this post even though it's quite a bit late.  I have been up to a lot so that means I have lots more coming.  Thanks for reading!

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Learning Japanese

Many people have asked me a variety of questions about Japanese language so I hope I can answer some of them in this post.

Do you speak Japanese and how did you learn?

I don't speak fluent Japanese by any means but it's more than enough to get by in Japan.  I'm still learning so much every day and have gotten so much better since moving to Japan.  I think that my listening skills are best and speaking skills are worst but everything has improved a lot lately.

I started learning Japanese in high school and took 3 years of courses.  But I definitely did not do my best work in class.  I kind of tuned out when kanji became difficult for me because I couldn't find a way to learn them well and became frustrated.  Looking back on it, I regret taking my high school courses for granted.

And then I honestly dissociated from a lot of Japanese / kawaii things for a few years of college for a bunch of reasons.  My school didn't have Japanese courses either so I didn't have any practice until I went abroad to Kyoto for 5 weeks and took an intermediate language course.  Then I took one semester of Japanese at a university close to mine.  That was basically it before I moved to Japan about 2 years after.


How can I start learning Japanese?

I recommend taking a course if it's available to you.  Japanese is a lot different than English and it helps to have a teacher to put it all into context.  But if you don't have that option, there are still many ways for you to learn on your own!  In fact, I think most language learning takes place outside of the classroom.

There are 3 alphabets in Japanese, but first step is definitely learning the hiragana characters.  It's easy to find flashcards of them online.  I also practiced a lot with filling out blank charts because writing helps my memory personally.  It's important to know how to read hiragana before learning other aspects of the language.  I recommend using the textbook series called Genki.  You can read a thorough review of it here.


Can I learn from watching anime?

You can certainly learn a lot from anime.  I learned my first Japanese words from watching subbed episodes of Sailor Moon as a child.  I think it's good for learning vocabulary and grammar in a context that helps you remember it.  However, there are many levels of formality in Japanese and sometimes if a person learns most of their Japanese from anime, they end up speaking too informally in the wrong context so that's something to be careful with.  My friend suggested watching dramas is better for learning conversational Japanese, but I am personally more of a fan of animation.


Is studying or working in Japan helpful?

Yes yes yes!  Overall, being in Japan in any capacity is good for language learning because it's immersion.  However, I would highly recommend working in Japan over studying here.  When you are a student or in some kind of educational program, you are going to make friends with many other English speakers.  Although you will meet Japanese students too, you are more often going to be around foreign students.  But if you work in Japan, depending on the job, you will probably be working in a Japanese work environment.

In my experience, when I studied abroad, I had a lot of fun and practiced speaking and reading when I was out, but most students on my program didn't know much Japanese.  So when we were with the Japanese students, English was the language of choice.  My language skills didn't improve very much.  In my current job, I am the only foreigner in each of the 4 Japanese public schools I work in.  While I speak English to most of the English teachers, to communicate with almost everyone else, I have to use Japanese.  And everyone around me speaks Japanese too so I'm fully immersed.  Even at my part-time job it's pretty much the same thing.  The 3 and 4 year-old students don't know much English at all so I usually have to speak Japanese with them too.  Another nice thing about working in Japan is that you will learn more professional and polite ways of speaking.

If you are curious about my job in Japan, check out this post here.


How do you study now?

I have found that the textbooks really don't do it for me anymore because it's difficult for me to retain information without context.  This is why living in Japan has been so helpful to me personally- everything is within the context of my daily life!

There are a couple other things that have been helpful to me lately besides what I mentioned earlier about my job and watching anime.  Japanese music has been really helpful for me to learn kanji and new vocabulary as well.  You can find karaoke versions of most songs online with all the lyrics too!  I learn a lot of those and sing them when I go out with my friends.  I think it has helped both my reading and vocabulary a lot.  I also find that writing in Japanese, even if it's not 100% perfect, helps me practice grammar points and learn new vocabulary, especially because I can take my time in doing it whereas I find that speaking is more rushed.

As I mentioned before, I work in Japanese public schools and when I don't have class, I sit in the 職員室 (teacher's room) and listen to conversations happening around me.  If I hear a word that I don't recognize, I look it up in a dictionary.  I have noticed that the more Japanese I learn, the more obvious it becomes when there is a word I don't understand because it sticks out in the conversation.

I was going to write some more about this but Sharla made a great video of ways she studies Japanese and I happen to have found that all of them work well for me too!  She's really great so please check out her video!





I hope that some of this information has been helpful to you.  Please comment below if you have any helpful study tips too!

がんばって!