Tekka-don!

Today I wanted to eat a Tekka-don, which is Raw tuna on Rice. I was going to the usual place near Kobe Station. Is not particularly good, but convenient, but....

But... at the last moment, i took a different way and found another shop. I've decided to give it a try. Surprise! not only the real thing was better looking than the plastic model at the entrance, but it really looked fresh and the size of those tuna slices were amazing!

The price? The same as the other restaurant, 800 Yen ($10).

After that, since I was feeling a little sleepy, I wanted to get an Espresso. Espresso's are not cheap here. Around 300 Yen ($4) at starbucks. Sturbucks is the only place so far, where the espresso is really...an espresso-shot. Small cup, big taste. ;)

I miss to start the day with an espresso each day... In december I will go for few weeks to switzerland...and i'll bring back a Moka italian style coffee machine ... not the same as an espresso, but still goot to start the day with!

New Level, New Textbook!

With the beginning of the new Class, we got, after a week or so, a new textbook. Now things are really getting more difficult. When I started learning japanese, the grammar didn't look so difficult. But the truth is the opposite.

Besides the text book above, which is only in japanese, I went to the book store and bought 3 big books on japanese grammar: Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. There is really a lot. The language itself and the basic sentence structure is easy, but there are so many special words that are used to give difference in meaning to the sentence.

After more than 6 months, what i can understand watching TV is maybe just 10%. It looks more challenging than expected, but i'm not giving up ;) !

Outlet Shopping Day!

Today was shopping day. I went near The Akashi bridge where they have quite a Shopping Center. There are many Outlet Stores (something like Fox Town for the experts ;). I was suprised to see how GOOD the prices were. Really outlet prices! For instance Lacoste Shirts Retailed in Switzerland around $90, were sold for about $50. I saw Samsonite's luggages discounted 50%.

The Place for the stores looks like a small shopping town on the sea side. They little boy jumping up and down in the video above, seems to have a lot of fun... Too bad it was just for kids ;)

I'm not really a Shopping fan (unless about buying electronic stuff :p), but I found a nice pair of Nike shoes for around $70 USD.

I go out by chance right at sunset. I was lucky! The view was simply astonishing...

An Amazing BBQ Day!

Today Was an amazing day! Clear blue sky and we got there, not a cloud! Wow! Warm as well, we could just stay outside in t-shirt.

Today was the Official Welcome BBQ party of the Toyo Japanese College (神戸東洋日本語学院). The school organized everything, from the grill to the meat. We only had to bring our own drinks.

I'ts a pity the BBQ is only once a year... I remember my last BBQ (before this one) was with my Colleagues in Acer in the summer of 2008. Grilling is my passion ;)

After lunch, we went to the shore, and everybody started jumping. So i took some pictures of which i post a couple of them...

I think these will be the last days of sunshine and mild weather before the winter comes. Then it will be quite cold until April next year.

Interesting thing: Japanese houses don't have a Central heater. They use Oil heater or the Air Conditioner that can be switched to "Heating-Mode" in winter. All electric. I was a little bit surprised and i'm not sure why. Interesting thing is that most houses are family houses not high buildings. Maybe the cost for a central heater and realated installation (besides the cost of oil) is a reason why nobody has one...

Japanese Dictionary

Before learning Japanese, I didn't know how one can search for Japanese words in a Japanese dictionary.

To be able to find unknown words, you still need a little of knowledge on how to write them and their background (the technical terms are "Number of Strokes" and "Radical" (the base character that is the base for complex Kanji).

Luckily, being in the 21st Century comes to help. We have now Digital Dictionaries. No, i'm not talking about the Junk dictionaries sold in Europe, and if you don't know what i'm talking about, just check them out next time you go to your local electronic store.

What i'm talking about, are Full Featured Electronic Dictionaries like the one i bought a couple of years ago. They are not cheap. They range from $200 up to $700 or more depending on the features (in Japan, with some dictionaries, you can watch TV as well).

My dictionary is not that advanced. Only Black and White and no TV, but still the price was (2 years ago) around $500. Additional language modules can be added separately, even though, when you choose your dictionary, you choose your main language (i.e. JAPANESE-CHINESE, JAPANESE-ENGLISH).

The Menus and functions are in Japanese only, so you need a little of experimenting the first times.

So, here is how it looks like:

In this case, i'm writing the word, you've seen on the top picture, and I need to be careful to follow the exact order of the strokes and the number of strokes, or the dictionary will not be able to figure out the word i'm looking for and might return another one.

Once the word is found succesfully, i get all the informations needed, like all different meanings, suffixes and Radicals (the base kanji) in this case Tree (木 - KI ) which is also, in this case, the pronounciation of this kanji. Just saying the word "KI" without knowing the Kanji, might mean machine but also Three and about 20 other things, each meaning, has it's own different Symbol.

Really a big help!

New Hi-Tech Mouse

Since lately i've talked about some Technology news, here another thing that is really eye catching. The Apple Magic Mouse. Check out the video here it is all a multi touch sensible surface (it can identify how many fingers you are using and, based on that, perform different actions)...

New Term Started!

Last Week, Tuesday 13th, The new term started. Most of the students are the same, but we moved on the 3rd floor. 80% of the class made it from A class to C class. We basically skipped B class. I hope we will get more chances of reading real texts and not have only grammar.

It's actually getting difficult. Now we are studying the level of politeness. There are many in Japanese. So far we have seen 4 levels:

1) Speaking to friends
2) Speaking Polite
3) Speaking Honorific (i.e. talking to your boss)
4) Speaking Humble (say things about yourself to your boss)

The interesting one is the 4th one. With this way of speaking, you talk about yourself in a lower level compared to the person you are talking to. For instance: You will use level 3 if you ask the person if he had lunch, but to the same person you will use 4 to say that you had lunch.

It's kind of difficult, because the vocabulary changes dramatically. The word for "eat" is for the respective levels:

Level 1) Taberu
Level 2) Tabemasu
Level 3) Meshiagarimasu
Level 4) Itadakimasu

As you see, is like learning a full new vocabulary for about 50 words (for now) and remember which one goes where ;)

Here a picture of me at the lesson:

Well, you might wonder what happened to my hand. The interesting thing is that the class on the 3rd floor belongs to the Medical School in the same building ...

Besides hands, there are legs, various body organs, skulls, heads and brains for disassembling. This class will last until April 2010 ...