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Being Sick, Japanese Translation

This evening I sat down to do a writing exercise that is due next Monday. We have to turn in two short writings about our Golden Week weekend. Since I spent most of mine up until Thursday sick, I tried to describe this as best I could in Japanese. I’m really passionate about the subject right now. 😛

Anyway, in reading my short story, I was pretty proud of it so I’m posting it here. The Kanji I know I’ve included as well. I think there are probably many mistakes, but again that’s the goal of having homework corrected. Feel free to butt in if you see something glaringly wrong and can’t possibly stand me handing in something like this. But its probably better I get it corrected so I learn something.

わたしのゴールデンウィーク＃１

ゴールデンウィークのあいだじゅうに、私はかぜでした。先週の日曜日から今週の日曜日まででした。たいへんでした。月曜日に、ぐすりやへ行きました。そのぐすりのねだんは１６５０円でした。くすりや員は、私に「毎日、三回一つをたべて下さい」って言いました。それから、そうしました。でも、私は木曜日まで、もうかぜでした。だから、木曜日にクリニックへ行きました。いしゃは、私にもっといいぐすりをくれました。私は「本当にありがとうございました」って言いました。うちにかえって、ねました。金曜日も、ねました。

Translation

My Golden Week

During golden week I had a cold. It was from Sunday of last week to this Sunday. It was terrible. On Monday, I went to the medicine store. The price of the medicine was 1,650 yen. The medicine store guy told me, “Take one three times every day”. So, I did it. But, on Thursday I still had a cold. So, on Thursday I went to the clinic. The doctor gave me some better medicine. I said, “Really!!, Thank you very much”. I returned to my house and went to sleep. I also slept on Friday.

Right! I’m off to write the second on talking about my experiences in Ueno Park and Asakusa today. I saw 50s greaser dancers and got denied entry to a restaurant because of my gaijin status. What fun!! 🙂

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Episode 16 – Medicine and Parks

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Is it true? Is it true? An audio episode?! Yes, I know its been a while but I pulled up my bootstraps and got myself in front of the mic for a good hour today. After editing out all the coughs and false starts, this one comes down to about 41 minutes or so. A full episode follows, complete with a brief sound scene at Mos Burger, only in Japan segment, and two big topics. Listen to my gravel-like voice in true stereo as I whisk you through the Japanese medical experience and my reflections on the park.

Show Notes:

  • Golden Week and what I’ve been doing
  • Being sick in Japan
    • This cold is kicking my ass
    • Pharmacy / medicine store experience
    • Japanese medicine
    • Japanese clinic experience
      • Armpit thermometer
    • Comments on Japanese health-care system
  • Park visit today
    • Had to get out of the house
    • Listening to Jazz while biking through Tokyo
      • Comparing Japan to New York
    • Mos Burger Sound Scene [3 mins]
    • Only in Japan: How many dogs can you take to the park??
    • Japanese park teaches me to relax and enjoy life
  • Another story about my bike
    • Proof that I’m not the only manly-man riding a mama-chari bike
  • Updates
    • Computer work
    • Yurikamome video footage
    • New episodes
  • Hi’s and Hello’s
  • Rock concert podcast ending [it takes for ever]

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Episode 15 – Biking Through Tokyo

Bike bike bike

Yeeeesssssssss. Here it is. The episode you’ve all been waiting for, “Biking Through Tokyo”. I hope I didn’t talk it up too much prior to this. I edited this over the weekend. The footage had been sitting on my drive for about 2 weeks, just dying to be put to good use.

I had to be a little creative with the editing since alot of it was bumping. It’s alot like drinking too much coffee the way it runs now. Please don’t eat anything while watching this. Hopefully you will enjoy some of the sights of Tokyo as I did on that day. Oh, and instead of shownotes, here are delicious time-code notes where I’ve marked points of interest that I don’t mention in audio.

Show Notes

  • 0:00 – Fancy-schmancy intro as always
  • 1:00 – The dreaded Nissan’s Business Japanese makes a guest appearance
  • 1:06 – Note the super-secure bike lock
  • 1:37 – じてんしゃ is Japanese for Bicycle (pronounced “ji-tenn-sha”)
  • 1:47 – That is a highway on/off ramp
  • 2:18-2:25 – If you look closely, you can almost see the kitty-cat sticker on the bell. LOL
  • 2:58 – Ferrari
  • 3:40 – Notice how many different types of sidewalks there are yet??
  • 3:47 – I pedal through people in Asakusa-bashi w/o touching my feet on the ground – You have no idea how hard it was to navigate that with one hand and film at the same time. ^_^
  • 4:22 – The Asahi Beer building

Special thanks to Gustav Young from Oddioblender for letting me use the track “Frantic Footsteps” for this video. Please check out the site for more great glitchy nerdcore music. I listen to this album constantly!

Alternative video link (Google Video)

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My Get Well Kit

Get Well Kit

Click here for the original flickr photo with notes.

I’ve got a bit of energy so I had to do something today. The last two days I’ve been sick in bed. But I have not had a lack of entertainment. Twittering from bed, games, movies, and phone calls are all allowed. Why is being sick as an adult so much more fun than being sick when I was a kid?

Seriously though, I feel like a truck hit me in the head and I’ve got a busy two days ahead so I hope I’m able to head out tomorrow. The strangest things have been coming out of my nose and throat today. But alas, がんばります！　^_^

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Episode 14 – Riding the Tokyo Monorail

Tokyo Monorail

(Photo used with Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 2.0 License – Original)

A few days ago, I had to head down to the Tokyo Regional Immigration bureau. What fun!! However, there was one redeeming result of the trip: I was able to ride the Tokyo Monorail. I’m fairly familiar with most of Tokyo’s transportation systems, but I had never ridden this particular line. It was a great experience. If you visit Tokyo, I recommend you make it a point to ride this line, second to the Shinkansen of course.

What is different about the Tokyo Monorail from other lines is it is completely above ground. Sure, most of the JR lines are as well, but the Monorail soars above neighborhoods and between buildings – a feat that the JR lines do not accomplish. When you ride JR, you see track and rocks as you ride in an area specifically laid out for train travel. When you ride the Tokyo Monorail, you literally fly past buildings and over people as they tend to their daily lives.

I hope you enjoy this short video. I had to use a little different method to put it together since it came primarily off my cell phone.

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Great Photo / Video Piece

I have my iTunes pointed at del.icio.us for crawling of videos with Japan related content. Today something amazingly touching and very creative showed up in my iTunes. Below is a link to a movie of photographs by Stuart Isset.

StuartIsset

©2007 Stuart Isett/www.isett.com (used with permission)

This piece is truly moving, giving a great sense of the intimacy of Japanese life, the highs and the lows, and things one doesn’t see when they take the tourist route.

If you are at least interested in Japan or at the very least, love great photography, please download this and watch it. Also, check out Stuart’s site or his Flickr photos. Over here, I’m learning that finding Japan is also about finding other people’s impressions of Japan. This truly is an inspiration, perhaps for future episodes. Thanks Stuart!

Video Link

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Episode 13 – Tokyo Calling Crossover

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This episode is the first ever, Finding Japan <=> Tokyo Calling crossover episode. Not really sure what else to call it. I met up with Scott Lockman from Tokyo calling a few weekends back. We spent very little time getting to know each other since we had already known each other through our respective podcasts. However, we did share the common interest in technology, the future of podcasting and more.

This interview occurred in a noisy hotel front coffee shop in Tokyo. If you can stand the background noise, please listen. Enjoy!

Show notes:

  • A brief chat on the creative process and writing every day
  • Formats of podcasts / how Tokyo Calling developed
  • Why do people listen to podcasts?
  • Privacy and the Internet
  • Future of social networking

I’d like to thank Scott for taking time out of his busy day to chat. Hopefully this won’t be the last of such episodes.

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Podcast Archives

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On the last post, people had left some comments which made me dig into the reason why iTunes was not showing all of the episodes. Turns out, WordPress limits the amount of posts per page by default to 10 so Feedburner was only picking up the last 10. Well, no more. I fixed the problem and I think both the Feedburner feed and the iTunes store should have all of the episodes listed after I post the next podcast.

Can’t wait? Then get them all by visiting the page for now. I can’t promise they will be anything of interest, but it does include videos from my first trip to Japan. Cheers!

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Episode 11 – Bike-capades and Yaki-Soba

I should have given the cops some Yaki-imo. Confused?! Well listen in to today’s episode and get acquainted with the Yaki-imo truck vendor, the cops, and my dinner. This episode comes straight from my kitchen while I cook up one of the only dishes I know how to make here in Japan, Yaki-soba. MMmmm. ^_^

Show Notes

  • Making Yaki Soba
  • Busy as sin, so I can’t mail anything right now ^_^
  • More about GTD
  • Buying a bicycle – Mama Chari
  • Getting pulled over by the cops, on a bike
  • Bear with me while my food cooks LOUDLY – it doesn’t quite work well in audio does it?
  • Should I post the TokyoCalling duel interview clips?
  • Helmet’s “Size Matters” in Japan has two bonus tracks
  • Dark side of podcasting
    • Terrance is a patient guy
    • And I start using street lingo while explaining it, what’s with that?
  • Listen to A Year in Japan’s episode on Love Hotels
  • Yaki-imo やきいも Truck Recording – Stone Roasted Potatoes

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