Find Your Local Fireworks Displays

We're in the midst of summer now, and any long-term visitor of Japan knows what summer here means: Weekend after weekend of crepuscular booming in your neighborhood!

Event news and entertainment site WalkerPlus has put together it's annual Fireworks Display Calendar, with a cute (and highly distorted) little map of Japan you can click on to find dates and locations for fireworks and summer festivals going on wherever you live or are visiting in Japan.

Take care to arrange your method of travel and accommodations beforehand. Large displays in Japan are well-known for their massive crowds, blocking off whole segments of cities from vehicular traffic and tying up mass transit lines for hours following the grade finale.

Japanese Moths

Moths are wicked cool! Right?

Well, Japan has a large number of pretty exotic looking baby moths (caterpillars to you and me), some of which are even poisonous. They turn into a wide variety of pretty swanky looking adult moths (i.e. moths), too.

Luckily for the moth enthusiast, there is a website devoted to detailing each and every Japanese species. It's in Japanese, but not hard to work out.



Here it is: みんなで作る日本産蛾類図鑑
The site lists 80 species groups of moth, a few of the coolest varieties of which are included here for your pleasure. It also has reams of data for you moth buffs out there.

Epicopeia hainesii hainesii

Cyanea Syntypistis Izuensis

Neomicropteryx Kazusan

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• You may think some of these look like butterflies. Well, yes, they do. The differences between moths and butterflies are very minor, the most significant being that when at rest moths spread their wings, while butterflies hold them upright and together.
• The picture at the top of this entry is the awesomely named Nemophora Metalica.

Free Origami Cut-out Kewpies!

Not got an origami Kewpie? No? Never fear, you can have one for free!



There are tons to choose from on the Kewpie website.

The coloured bars above the different Kewpies are categories, each containing a large selection of the weird baby in different outfits.

Click みる (see) to view the one you want, and then ダウンロードする (download) to download the .pdf.

Print out, fold, awesome!

The options at the top of the page offer various other free things, like calendars, screensavers, etc. Woo!

Local Event Guides

When it gets to the weekend, hanging out at home or revisiting the same pub for the umpteenth time can be a drag. Why not use the Internet to find something new to do? Any Google search can pull up a number of websites with local event guides, of course, but why spend your time wading through all those garbage sites to find the few that regularly update and have events you might actually want to attend when we'll introduce two to you right here today!

One of my personal favorite event guides is the JR West and JR East sister-site combination "Odekake-Net" and "Eki-Net." Their starting pages aren't much to gloat about. Although Odekake-Net gives you a large friendly map of western Japan on its home page, this isn't what you actually want to be clicking on. And Eki-Net's layout is just another Yahoo! Japan style mess of thumbnails and text. For the real gold of these sites, follow the directions below:

Odekake-Net
That large map on the front page will give you some good info about famous locations to visit in Japan, but the far more impressive, constantly-updated list of events is more easily accessed from the pull-down menus at the bottom of the site. Under the button labeled イベント検索, pick the prefecture or region you're staying in or visiting, and you'll find a friendly and useful list of seasonal events going on around you. The list includes items like festivals, flower shows, and museum exhibits, along with their running times, entrance fees, and addresses of their locations. It's provided me with some nice day trip ideas, and you might find it useful for date ideas or planning family outings as well.

Eki-Net
For you Eastern-Japaners, the event list is located along the right side of Eki-Net's starting page. It has a similar pull-down menu, labeled 祭り・イベントはこちら♪ and with a similar location selection set-up. Click on your prefecture and then hit "検索" to get the same type of event list as Odekake-Net offers: You'll be able to find out how long each event is running, how much it costs, and exactly where it is.

If you have any favorite event guides that you use in Japan, please let us know. We're always interested in expanding our horizons, too!

Virtual Travel in Japan

Earlier this year, NHK unveiled their "Michishiru" interactive map site, a virtual tour guide of places and events all over Japan, introduced through streaming video segments of NHK on-location footage. The site targets a Japanese audience, as a way to find out about different destinations to visit within Japan.

However, it also makes for good intermediate-to-advanced Japanese listening practice, and even travelers who don't read or speak Japanese well will find that the intuitive interface and videos speak quite well for themselves.

Just drag and zoom the map around to any part of Japan you're interested in and click on one of the "Play" icons for a virtual tour of it!

Check out the site here: NHK映像マップみちしる

Brewing Your Own Beer in Japan

Japanese beer is very expensive in bars. Sure, you can buy cans for 200yen, but if you want to save some money (or are infuriated over the difference from the prices of your home country) then why not brew it yourself?

Got the space? And the patience? Check out below.



Brewing beer in Japan is legal if the alcohol content is 1% or below, but the government has as-good-as admitted they don't really care and couldn't police it if they did - indeed, even huge chain department store Tokyo Hands sells brewing equipment*. And the good news is, if you brew over 60,000litres a year you can apply for a brewer's licence!

Beer in Japan is a great website which we have linked to before. In researching this article I came across their guide to home brewing, which is far better than anything I could have written.

So, for more information on where to buy supplies, go straight to BeerinJapan.com's guide.

One of the major distributors of homebrew equipment in Japan is Black Rock, and they have a guide on exactly how to work your beer making machine here. Black Rock recommend leaving your beer for as long as possible, but checking the taste for satisfaction at 3 weeks, 3 months and 6 months (the latter presumably being a good guideline for how long it should take).

Most online shops are listed on BeerinJapan, but here's a couple I found anyway: A shop on Rakuten, and this site.


*This doesn't mean we back your brewing enterprise.

Live International TV in Japan

Missing your favorite rugby matches, Wimbledon or wheelchair athletics? Need your fix of Neighbours on BBC1? Desperately need to watch your social and mental inferiors kick a ball and fall over deliberately?

Here's how you can keep up to date.


VIPBox is a website residing in the grey area of streamed audiovisual content. The site itself is legal because, in it's own words:

VIPBox is an Internet Service Provider offering a platform which merely displays links to audiovisual content located on servers of third parties and provided and/or transmitted by third parties. VIPBox does not host nor transmit any audiovisual content itself and does not control nor influence such content.

Put another way, watching the streamed content on there may not be considered legal, depending on your region and other factors. If you think that some sports giant is going to come crashing down on you, you may want to skip this one.

Anyway, there you can watch all your favourite sports, and also TV from the US/UK.

Buying Scuba Diving Equipment in Japan

As with several other things and previous posts (vitamins, clothes etc), the cheapest way to buy scuba gear in Japan is to not actually buy it here at all. Rather, import it.

I have just bought loads of equipment, and hunted out the cheapest international deal to do so. Here are my findings.

The cheapest site on the internet appears to be www.leisurepro.com

Postage is incredibly expensive to Japan, mainly because they use FedEx Express which only takes 48 hours. I ordered 2 full sets of gear and paid 177USD postage. If you contact them privately, you may be able to negotiate a cheaper shipping option. You will also be charged an import tax if the value of the items is marked on the box and the content is not (water sports equipment should technically not be taxed). Again, you might be able to get around that if you email privately, but I was only charged 3,200yen on a 140,000yen order.

Regardless, even with postage and customs the prices can't be beaten in Japan.

One tip, though - if you are ordering several items, then your best bet could be to use their "Create Your Own Package" feature. The set packages can be very cheap, but prices fluctuate almost daily. One day the Mares #2 package will be 671USD, the next day 911USD. The jumps are that big. So, either make your own or keep an eye on your favourite package over time.


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• Although you can take air tanks on aircraft, they need to be prepped for inspection (not sure how that would work in this scenario, but it's probably not an issue if they're new), and you may find it easier just to rent or buy in Japan.
• It's also worth checking LeisurePro's "used" section, which seems to mostly consist of ex-display models with big discounts.

Turn Your Books into eBooks for 100yen!

If you have a physical book you would prefer to have as a digital book, then we have the perfect service for you.

Read on for more details and the link!


ScaNow.jp will scan your 350 page or less book for 100 yen. Not only that, but their website is in English (sort of).

You will have to pay (a little) extra if you would like the .pdf on a disc instead of downloaded, want the cover scanned too, etc. but most people will be happy with the 100yen option.

Process

• Fill out the online form and pay (they accept PayPal, amongst other methods).
• Send the company your book, or get an online shop to deliver directly to ScaNow.
• They scan it and send you the file within 1-3 working days.

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• If you want your book back again, you'll need to pay postage and may find that it just isn't worth it.
• Files are watermarked, presumably to prevent piracy. So watch your back if you share with friends.
• Most of the other pay-option are things you can do yourself for free, such as changing the file name, or scanning the front and back covers.

The New Kindle and Japanese eBooks and Manga

Well, the new Kindle has come out! In fact, three have. The original version with the keyboard has been replaced by one without a keyboard (still eInk), the same device with a touchscreen, and a new, full colour Kindle rival to the iPad.

How will this affect your manga and Japanese reading??? Let's find out.

Well, the good news is that nothing has really changed on the keyboard-less version (or the touchscreen version of that) except the price, which now starts at 79USD, so head to our guides for

Studying Japanese on the Kindle
Reading manga on the Kindle
and Japanese eBooks on the Kindle

for that info.

More good news is that they all ship to Japan, except the Fire, which would require a friend in the US to be a middleman.

The Kindle Fire, however, is totally different. It's basically an iPad for much less money (199USD). You can read manga in full colour as regular images, so no need to convert with our guide (although you still can, which will save a lot of the somewhat limited disc space). You can also now watch movies and TV shows. No need for a guide for that, as the Kindle Fire comes with one.

Although I don't have a Kindle Fire, I am sorely tempted to pre-order one. It seems pretty flashy for the very low price tag. check it out on Amazon.

Readers in the UK aren't lucky enough to have an announced date the Kindle Fire yet, but you can still get hold of the new keyboard-less device: Check out the Kindle on Amazon.co.uk. I bought one last year, and it genuinely changed the way I read both books and manga. Can't praise it enough.

In fact, check back on Monday for our guide on how to change your physical books into eBooks for only 100yen!

Japanese Language Online Radio Stations

Exposure to spoken Japanese is an important part of learning, of course. So, if you aren't actually in Japan, how about the radio? More portable than TV and film (that is, if you record it).

And so, here is a list of Japanese online radio stations:

The list comes from site tunein.com, which is, unsurprisingly, a radio streaming site.

For the freshest content, go straight to their site here.

You can filter by genre, so if you want talk radio, or just to listen to enka or J-pop, adjust search settings as appropriate.

Get Cheap ZMA Suppliments in Japan

If you're health-conscious or a fitness enthusiast, then you probably know what ZMA is. If not, here's a blurb from elsewhere:

ZMA is a scientifically designed anabolic vitamin and mineral formula. It specifically contains Zinc Monomethionine Aspartate, Magnesium Aspartate, and vitamin B-6. It is an all-natural product that has been theorized to significantly increase anabolic hormone levels and muscular strength in trained athletes. 

In fact, ZMA is thought to be one of the only natural and completely safe methods of supplementation to significantly increase testosterone and growth hormones. ZMA has also been known to increase muscle mass, strength, power, and even enhance sleep quality.

The following is an article about how to very cheaply (and completely safely) make your own ZMA in Japan.

For my purposes, ZMA promotes deep, restful sleep, and recharges and strengthens my muscles after difficult workouts. It genuinely makes a difference, especially noticeable with quality of sleep. Not only will your sleep be incredibly deep (without any drowsy side-effects), but it will also be littered with bizarre dreams throughout. Don't ask me why, but it's kind of cool (see lucid dreams).

Anyway, in Japan, as in most countries, ZMA is very expensive. You can still buy it, of course.

However, if you know the composition of ZMA tablets, which is very simple, you can buy the component parts much, much more cheaply.

ZMA is composed of Zinc, Magnesium and Vitamin B6 in the following approximate amounts:

• 30mg zinc


• 450mg magnesium


• 12mg B6

The cheapest way to buy these elements from Japan is actually to import them. I've found UK nutrition store Health Span UK to be the cheapest so far. Postage to Japan is only 4GBP/520円 per order (any size).

I recommend you order a year's supply:

• 360 15mg zinc tablets (7.95GBP) x2


• 90 375mg magnesium tablets (6.45GBP) x4


• 360 50mg B6 tablets (7.95GBP) x1

If you would prefer to have the exact dosages (not necessarily that important), then you can order from Nature's Best, who will charge an extra 25% of your order for postage:

• 360 15mg zinc tablets (8.50GBP) x2


• 150 150mg magnesium tablets (11.50GBP) x8


• 180 50mg B6 tablets (8.60GBP) x2

1GBP = about 130-140円

I'm sure there are American/Canadian/Rest of World sites that also offer cheap vitamins. If you track down any good deals, let us know in the comments.

AccessJ is not affiliated with any companies in this article.