WS: Do You Know How To...? JHS 3rd G

This is taught in Junior High towards the very end of 3rd grade.

This sheet is very similar to my first grade Did You..? sheet, in that students have to guess if you know how to do something or not, and then play bingo with their answers vs the truth (correct answer = one filled bingo square).

Click here to download the sheet (save the document to your computer to make it display properly).

This is great for you and the students to bond - they love hearing more about you and your wacky gaijin life.

That's pretty much all there is to it, though you can add a writing exercise using some of my blank handwriting sheets ("Mr Dom knows how to ski, but doesn't know how to make takoyaki").

You should be able to fill about 20 minutes with this, plus a little more for writing.

Simple, effective, free!
As always, you can use this as many times as you won't, but please don't reproduce it elsewhere.

Cherry Blossom Blooming Calendar

Japan-Guide has a useful big-city page on this, but here is a more detailed schedule for this year's sakura blooming which was found in a similar format on the March AJET eBulleten:

Full bloom dates are approximate:

Kyushu Area
Okinawa:     Finishes early February
Kagoshima:     Open: 1st April        Full Bloom: 10th April
Miyazaki:     Open: 22nd March    Full Bloom: 30th March
Oita:       Open: 22nd March    Full Bloom: 30th March
Kumamoto:    Open: 21st March    Full Bloom: 30th March
Nagasaki:    Open: 22nd March    Full Bloom: 31st March
Saga:        Open: 22nd March    Full Bloom: 31st March
Fukuoka:    Open: 21st March    Full Bloom: 30th March

Chugoku/Shikoku Area:
Kochi:         Open: 20th March    Full Bloom: 28th March
Ehime:        Open: 25th March    Full Bloom: 2nd April
Kagawa:    Open: 25th March    Full Bloom: 2nd April
Tokushima:    Open: 28th March    Full Bloom: 4th April
Yamaguchi:    Open: 26th March    Full Bloom: 3rd April
Hiroshima:    Open: 26th March    Full Bloom: 3rd April
Shimane:    Open: 29th March    Full Bloom: 6th April
Okayama:    Open: 26th March    Full Bloom: 3rd April
Tottori:        Open: 30th March    Full Bloom: 7th April

Kinki Area:
Wakayama:    Open: 27th March    Full Bloom: 4th April
Nara:        Open: 28th March    Full Bloom: 4th April
Hyogo:        Open: 28th March    Full Bloom: 5th April
Osaka:        Open: 26th March    Full Bloom: 3rd April
Kyoto:        Open: 31st March    Full Bloom: 7th April
Shiga:        Open: 2nd April    Full Bloom: 9th April
Mie:        Open: 30th March    Full Bloom: 6th April


Chubu Area:
Aichi:         Open: 25th March    Full Bloom: 2nd April
Shizuoka:    Open: 26th March    Full Bloom: 3rd April
Gifu:        Open: 31st March    Full Bloom: 7th April
Nagano:    Open: 7th April        Full Bloom: 13th April
Yamanashi:    Open: 28th March    Full Bloom: 5th April
Fukui:        Open: 3rd April    Full Bloom: 10th April
Ishikawa:    Open: 4th April        Full Bloom: 11th April
Toyama:    Open: 3rd April    Full Bloom: 10th April
Niigata:    Open: 9th April        Full Bloom: 15th April

Kanto:
Kanagawa:    Open: 23rd March    Full Bloom: 31st March
Tokyo:        Open: 24th March    Full Bloom: 1st April
Chiba:        Open: 29th March    Full Bloom: 5th April
Saitama:    Open: 26th March    Full Bloom: 2nd April
Gunma:    Open: 29th March    Full Bloom: 5th April
Tochigi:    Open: 31st March    Full Bloom: 6th April
Ibaraki:    Open: 5th April         Full Bloom: 13th April


Hokkaido/Tohoku Area:
Fukushima:    Open: 8th April        Full Bloom: 14th April
Yamagata:    Open: 15th April    Full Bloom: 21st April
Akita:        Open: 24th April    Full Bloom: 29th April
Miyagi:        Open: 10th April    Full Bloom: 16th April
Iwate:        Open: 19th April    Full Bloom: 25th April
Aomori:    Open: 22nd April    Full Bloom: 27th April
Hokkaido:    Open: 1st May         Full Bloom: 5th May

That's the lot. We hope you enjoy this year's cherry blossoms. Remember it's not a proper 花見 (hanami) party without a big blue tarp and cheap sake!

PT: Weird J Cars

Photo Tuesday makes a triumphant return on Thursday! Here are a couple of bizarre cars I saw this week.

Japan has a lot of odd vehicles, including the K-Truck which takes advantage of the low tax on 660cc engines to provide a truck to small-scale farmers, builders etc.

We've written extensively about various aspect of cars. Why not give some of them a read:

• Japanese Driving Test tips
• Getting a Japanese Driving Licence from Scratch
• English Language Driving Schools
• Converting a Foreign Licence
• International Driving Permits
  
• Differences Between American and Japanese Driving
  
  
• Buying a Car in Japan
• 5 Japanese Cars for Tall People
  
• Buying Gas/Petrol in Japan
• Registering Your Parking Space

J Cellphone Novels

Over the past several years, the cellphone novel has taken off as a new storytelling genre in Japan. The stories are lauded as a way to keep kids reading and at the same time criticized as piles of incomplete sentences built with simplistic vocabulary.

...which means they're perfect for students of Japanese!



If you're at an intermediate level of Japanese, the cellphone novel is a easy way to bring yourself a few tiny screenfuls of Japanese text a day written in a way that is either within your reach or very accessible through tools like Rikaichan. The stories are easy to comprehend yet engaging, like little cans of condensed human emotion, and the size of each work and each page makes them feel manageable. They're available free online on cellphone based sites, but are also often accessible by PC. And as mentioned in the article above, popular ones even make it to paperback presses in Japan.

Although they aren't very scholarly, they are a step towards understanding a Japanese that street-smart textbooks can only hilariously fail to portray. That is, cellphone novels are written in the way younger generations talk to each other in texts, while chatting, or in casual personal conversation. This doesn't mean you need to need to add what you learn here to your daily vocabulary (in fact, don't: You'll probably sound something like the cast of Tokyo Drift.) I'm just saying that no matter how immaculate your teineigo is, it's only one facet of a much larger whole.

So if you haven't, consider peppering some cellphone novels in among your study of Japanese.

A great comprehensive site for them is ケータイ小説野いちご, located at http://no-ichigo.jp/

The site is pretty overpowering in its compact pinkness, so if you need a more concrete location to start, try these specific works: 甘めな年上彼氏 is a fairly recent composition that made it to press; the author, going by the pen name 秋雨, is publishing a sequel in installments as well. My own introduction to cellphone novels was 私の腐った人生, the story of a girl who spiraled into the world of Japanese soaplands as a result of her first high school crush.

Running Tokyo Marathon 2011 part 2

Well, 2011 marathon is over now. I ran it (yesterday, in fact), so here's a walk-through of the race-day process for those of you looking for detailed information in the coming years. Unless the world ends in 2012.

You may also be interested in part one of this guide, which goes over the application procedure and offers some details of the course.

First of all, you'll want to have a look at the 2011 race guide pdf. It should still be on the Tokyo Marathon site here. It has various figures on how many people finish in what times, cut-off times, average weather conditions etc.

Bib collection
You will have to go to Tokyo Big Site on the Thursday, Friday or Saturday before the race to collect your bib, race t-shirt, maps etc. The process only takes a few minutes, but you're then forced to walk around the Marathon Expo, which is one giant shop/advertisement rammed full of people. They do have some cool things there, like professional gait assessment and expert tips on your running form.

Race day details
The guide tells you to get there at 7:30, even though the race doesn't start until 9:10. Do this. Some people (including me) found themselves in a queue for the toilet which almost made them miss the baggage check-in. And be sensible and plan your route to Shinjuku with extra time for full trains/mistakes.

• The baggage check-in is for clothes for you to change into after the race (closes at 8:30am). It's very well organised, and you shouldn't have to queue long to use it, although you may face a little walk to find your truck (truck number is on your bib). When I finished the guy took one look at my ID number and immediately produced my stuff.
  
• Getting to your position on the starting block will take a while if you're anywhere but the back. It took me about 20 minutes to get from baggage check to block G, and that was after the rush.
  
• Predictably, you'll be delayed crossing the starting line by the mass of people. I crossed at almost 11 minutes after kickoff (this is subtracted from your finish time).
  
• Members of the public will be very friendly, wanting to high-five everyone, offering sweets and snacks, ice etc.
  
• At the end, you will first walk through a corridor of excited staff who will give you a sports drink and free towel, then have your timing tag cut off your shoe, then swap the tag for your medal, then get presented with a bag of free things - water, leaflets etc. - then march through another line and get some muscle spray, SoyJoy meal bar, fruit etc (probably varies with sponsors) before collecting your baggage and changing in a huge hall (women get a room). Then you'll be let into the family area and follow a frustratingly slow group of people on a mammoth march to the trains, which is easily one of the most agonising and soul-destroying experiences known to man. Be smart and work out some kind of alternate route / call a taxi. And check which of the three nearby stations is the one for you. If someone can give you a lift/carry you you will feel like you owe them your life.
  

First timer advice

• The crush will slow you quite a bit at the start. Try not to be tempted into weaving in and out at this stage, as it just costs energy.
• Throughout the race you get free water and energy fluids. If you haven't tried the energy stuff before, don't do so on race day - it may go straight through you, give you cramps or cause the diarrhea.
• Also, don't eat the bananas, bread or sweets offered unless you know you can handle them during long runs. Your best bet is to take along something you know works for you.
• If you need the toilet and it isn't urgent, keep an eye out for the queue lengths. I waited until 15km to go, despite a pressing need, when I spotted a queue of only four or five people. I've heard of people waiting 10+ minutes.
• Don't forget plasters on those nipples, anti-chaffing stuff on your privates, bum crack, etc.

More

There are various events going on along the route, which can be enjoyed by spectators and runners (although rather quickly for the later). This year they had taiko drummers, dancers, a brass band, and several other things including loud speakers playing YMCA. The whole procession of runners spontaneously did the dance. I liked that. Details of all these things will be on the map you get at registration.

WS: Would You Like? JHS 3rd G

This is a worksheet designed for use in the early days of third grade (Chapter 2, Do It Talk of New Crown).

It's a simple idea I've used several times for other grammar points, too. It's very easy, but still fun for good classes.

It requires little explanation, so I'll keep this brief.

Expect to fill about 20 minutes, and be prepared to sub some students with scissors and glue/tape.

• One sheet per student. Here it is (as always, just download it and open in Word to display properly)
• Starting in pairs, then later wandering around the class, students ask each other "Would you like something to eat/drink?"
• This can be changed to "What would you like for dinner" etc.
• The other student answers from the clipart (write on food names if needbe)
• The first student cuts out the appropriate picture and hands it over with a "here you are" (or "I'm sorry, I don't have that)
• Stick the picture on the plate
  
• You can then get them to write some sentences if you like. Feel free to use the lined sheets I posted a short while ago.

As always, use this as much as you like, but please don't redistribute.

Budget Japan Rail Pass - Seishun 18

You've probably heard of the Japan Rail Pass in the guise of the bullet-train option. It's a good deal, but only if you travel around a LOT on your trip to Japan.

For those of us that live here, or that want a more relaxed vacation, there are various other options.

One such is the JR Seishun 18 (or "Seishun juuhachi kippu" to give it's full name). The map to the right shows the coverage of this ticket.

Here's the deal:

Price: 11,500 yen
Duration: Five days (don't have to be consecutive)

Not only do the days not need to be taken together (so you could use it only for your longer journeys), but you can also share it with other people. For example, if you both use it on one day, it counts as two of your five days.

The ticket is valid for the duration of the season (see below), and you can even sell back unused parts of your ticket to the ticket office.

The ticket is only valid on local and rapid JR trains (including kaisoku night trains). This isn't too bad, but does mean that you may spend 4 hours getting somewhere which only takes one or less on the shinkansen (at 20% of the cost). I went all the way to Shikoku from my little town in Nagano, and because I had to use the JR Iida line (slowest train in Japan) it took 12 hours. A bus and shinkansen combo would have taken much less than half that but cost 14 times the price.

The train time site Jorudan is great for checking times, as it even has a search option just for this type of ticket (Japanese site only, so you'll need to be able to write or paste your destination stops. Reading the resulting info should be easy if you use our recommended Japanese browser plugins). Check the 青春18きっぷ検索 heading.

Here's the catch:

You can only use the ticket during certain times of the year (school holidays). They are:

March 1st to April 10th (must be purchased before 31st March)
July 20th to September 10th (purchase before 31st August)
December 10 to January 10th (purchase before 31st December

More

• Buy the ticket from the ticket booth on most JR stations.
• You will need to show the ticket at the gate every time you enter or leave a station (you cannot use the automatic ticket readers).
• It's fine to stop off for a few hours and continue the same journey later in the day (it won't use another stamp on your ticket).
• Details on the JR website.
• http://www.hyperdia.com/ will show you prices and times of bullet train and JR trains for comparison, as does the Jorudan site briefly mentioned above.

New Site Layout

50,000 hits later we decided not to use the default template anymore.

Driving Test Tips: Position in the Lane

To a Japanese driving test proctor, it's not enough to just drive in the correct lane. You need to drive in the correct part of the correct lane in order to impress them with your driving safety. Yes, this is absurd. And yes, it is necessary to do this to pass the driving test. At the Shiojiri licensing center, I witnessed nine people (myself included) who were told they'd failed the test primarily on this point.


First, for you drive-on-the-right readers, let's have a quick review.
In America, cars drive on the right side of the road, like this:

With cars in the lane, it might look something like this:

And in Japan (and the U.K. and select other countries around the world), traffic flows in the opposite direction, with cars on the left side of the road:

Pretty simple, right?
Well, here's the trick: In Japan, cars on the road are ideally supposed to look something like this:

Yes, they're driving in the left lane. But notice where they're driving in that lane. In Japan, not only are you supposed to drive on the left, but unless you are planning to make a right hand turn within the next hundred meters, you're supposed to keep the car as far to the left side of the road as you safely can. This is what proctors are looking for in their driving tests, and this is why most people are confused why it takes them so many attempts to pass the test.

It takes some practice, especially if you're accustomed to compensating for space on the right side of the car instead of the left, like most American drivers are. And, this isn't behavior you learn naturally while driving in Japan, because a lot of Japanese people don't do this on real roads. But once you practice and get this point down, it becomes so much easier to pass the driving test, because the proctor isn't constantly ticking off points because you're not driving how Japanese people think you're supposed to drive!

A Proper Look at Japanese Face Masks

One of the things many people associate with Japanese people is the face mask.

People who have asked me about this generally think it's something to do with not being subjected to other people's germs, but also that they are largely ineffective.

This blog will give you the full facts!!!!!!!!!!!

First of all, the masks worn by many nations in SE Asia are usually used to contain the wearer's own illness, not protect against the ghastly cooties of strangers. This is something of a moral responsibility for the wearer. That's not to say that many people don't wear them as protection from other people, pollen etc. too. In fact, some people even reportedly wear one if they can't be bothered to put their makeup on.

Although the effectiveness as a shield is often debated (although backed by some studies), for keeping your germs to yourself masks seem pretty handy. The added bonus of hindering an unconscious dirty finger in the mouth or nose also gets a thumbs up.

Many mask manufacturers claim their masks have a 99% germ stop rate, but the National Consumer Affairs Centre of Japan ran some tests which put the figure more in the region of 95% to as low as 50%, which still seems pretty high to me when compared to nothing. Japan Probe also covered this, and commented that the lower end of that estimate is applicable to masks which don't fit your head properly.

It's also important to note that apparently after something in the region of 0.5-3 hours, the dampness caused by respiration makes the masks dramatically less effective and they must be changed.

Regardless, given that the masks themselves are so cheap (a box of 50 can be found for around 400 yen) and do seem to work to a certain extent, I'm all for them.

There are many different mask types and styles, including tiny little pads which just about fit over your mouth and nose and look more like a miniature face-bra than anything else. You can also buy, of course, cute versions: purple and black pig-noses, whiskery cat faces, Rilakuma designs etc etc.

More

• This kind of hygiene-conscious practice can also be seen elsewhere in Japan. For example, karaoke booths mostly offer plastic wrapped, sterilised microphones, most shops will have an alcohol squirter for your hands at the entrance and exit of the store, and bank machines will nearly always dispense sterile, crisp banknotes (that's why they all look new)!
• The Annals of Internal Medicine published a report which claimed that masks did indeed reduce the risk of catching influenza from others.
• If you're interested, some guy has written a review post about various different flu masks he bought...
• The ever-ready Japan Probe has two vaguely humourous flu-mask video commercials from Japanese TV. 
• As Danny Choo pointed out on Boingboing.net, you can also buy plugs for your nose if you have a cold. Less effective at limiting germs, but you need never worry about drippy nostrils again! Just beware of firing them across the room when you sneeze.

WS: 1st Grade JHS - Did you...?

Junior High students start using the past tense towards the end of the first grade, and here's a fun activity to do using "did you... yesterday?"

This one's all about you, so you can change it any way you want to best suit you and your activities.

Steps:

1. Download the sheet (may not show properly in Google Docs, but will look fine on your computer),
2. Give each student a copy,
3. Practice words/check new words,
4. Students colour the stars if they think you did do something, and leave blank if they think you didn't,
5. Then get the class/teacher to ask you all the questions and play as bingo.

That's it. Simple, but fun.

Yet again we have education superstar Laura to thank for the idea behind this.

As always, this is free to use, but please don't redistribute.

Convenience Store Printers: Everything Short of Transforming into Robots

I love the all-in-one copiers in Japanese convenience stores. It's great to have access to a copier any time of the day or night for those of us who are bastions of non-procrastination and deadline management. But not only that, I love these all-in-one copiers because of all the other amazing things they do for me.

Here are five features that, if you haven't already tried them, you need to check out on your local convenience store* printer:

(7-11 happens to be the closest convenience store to my home, and so far they have the most extensive feature set I've encountered among convenience store copiers. Some features and images I post here pertain specifically to the all-in-one machines kept at most 7-11s in Japan, so keep that in mind if you want to try this out.)

1) Advanced Copy Features
Those of you who have worked in an office may not be so surprised about this one. High-end copiers have a lot of fancy features like 2-sided copying and copying "thumbnails" of multiple pages to a single sheet. Convenience store copiers have these functions, too, though they're buried a little way down in the menus. One special feature here is meant for people who just need a copy of their ID for an application: The machine takes a scan of the front and back of your license, etc., then enlarges and prints both scans out onto one side of a single sheet of paper. (On a 7-11 machine, this is under the いろいろコピー menu.)

2) Faxes
If you ever need to send a fax on the go (or at home, because who buys a personal fax machine anymore?), convenience stores are your best friend. Just pop in the coins, dial the phone number, and run the document through. Easy stuff.

3) Scanning
Convenience store printers are all generally equipped with flash card and USB readers to print off digital pictures. But, they also offer the reverse service. You can place documents into the machine and have them scanned back into digital images (PDF, JPG, TIFF, and more) which are saved onto the USB memory stick you plug in. It's not cheap to scan like this (around 50 yen per scan!), but if you need something digitized in a hurry, this is a great option to have.

4) Document Printing
This is my second-favorite feature on a 7-11 printer, and one that I haven't yet found in other convenience store chains. Not only is it possible to print off digital photos at these printers, but you can print off documents too. Just save it to your SD card, USB reader, etc. and print away. It's as cheap as copying: 10 yen per page in greyscale. 7-11 handles PDF, XPS, and XDW files. The only tricky thing here is that you can't play around with page size. The printers seem to only want to print PDFs that are of A4 size (or near A4 size, like 8 1/2" x 11") pages. I saved a B5-sized document and took it to one of these machines once, only to find I had to drive back home and do it over again.

5) Net Print
This is my favorite feature, hands down. In fact, it is so good, it needs a separate article. It does everything that document printing can (as explained above), plus more, and the only reason I list document printing separately is because Net Print costs a little more. But yeah, if you haven't heard of or made use of Net Print, you need to check it out.