Live in a small apartment in Japan, or anywhere else, and having trouble finding a place to store all of that toilet paper? — here is the solution.
AEON/Jusco started selling a super-compressed version of toilet paper — packing 7 rolls worth of paper into 2 compressed rolls. I have personally tried this out. There is [...]

Okay, so you moved to Japan or you’re planning a visit, but the closest you’ve ever come to speaking the language is watching The Last Samurai. No problem, no worries, you can quickly improve your entire experience in Japan by setting aside a little time to learn hiragana and katakana, the two basic Japanese alphabets.

Quick overview if you’re completely new to Japanese:
Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji are the three written components of the Japanese language. Kanji are the Chinese Charaters used in Japanese. Some characters have remained the same as their Chinese counterparts, but many characters have been modified over centuries[…}

I came across an interesting post on the official Gmail blog regarding their new Gmail-embedded translation tool. One of the goals of this new function is to allow people without a common language to communicate via Gmail without having to go through the pain of writing or reading in a foreign language. This is a valiant effort and it is a tool of great potential. However; as anyone who has studied a foreign language knows there is a certain degree of art required when translating from one subject to another.

To test out this new Gmail feature I decided to let Gmail translate a speech I delivered in Japanese at a friend’s wedding last week. To do this I copied and pasted the speech into my Gmail and then sent the email to myself. I then opened the email selected ‘English’ in the scroll box. To my pleasant surprise it was comic gold. See below.

NOTE: you will need to activate the translate feature for this scrollbox to appear. See the Gmail blog for instructions.

Below is the original speech in Japanese. If you can read Japanese you will notice the speech is fairly formal with no laugh-out-loud funny comments…

I recently returned from a business trip to Arizona where there are confirmed cases of Swine Flu. I wasn’t really worried about going to America and being exposed to this new flew but I knew upon my return to Japan that I would come upon scrutiny from Japanese health officials.

On my return flight from San Francisco to Narita all passengers were told to fill out a one page ‘Health Questionairre’. You are required to fill out your name, Passport #, address, phone #, etc. After the informational questions are finished the form moves on to the health-related questions.

Have you ever tried to carry a banana in a bag? Then you already know that it becomes a bruised mush by the time you get where you are going. If you like bananas and you’re often on the move, then buy a banana case now. The case pictured above runs about 500 yen and [...]

I commute to Tokyo daily via the Saikyo line. It is not a bad ride, but sometimes it can get crazy. If the train runs late, you can count on being packed in like a sardine. You may hesitate thinking that you cannot possibly get in, but you are wrong. I have found there [...]