Taiko Tricks
There will be a TV show on tomorrow (January 1) called "The 44th New Years Parlour Tricks Competition 2007" in which two teams will compete in a taiko tournament. The teams are WaT and Ungirls (アンガールズ), which I assume are comedy teams (I don't watch a lot of TV, so I'm just guessing here). Apparently the teams are given one month to practice a taiko routine that usually takes 3 years to learn. You can see the results on Fuji Terebi (Ch 8) from 6pm to 8:54pm (174 minutes).
And, if you read this on the day it was published (New Year's Eve), you might want to watch Kouhaku Uta Gassen (紅白歌合戦), the traditional show that everyone (or maybe just older people these days?) watches on December 31. You can read more about this show on Wikipedia. The show will air from 7:20pm to 11:45pm on NHK (Ch 1).
Print This Post
BlizzardBoy Talks about Dolls
Here is an interesting article by BlizzardBoy, a Tsukuba area blogger, about dolls designed by Yuki Atae.
Print This Post
Living in Tsukuba Guidebook
This is from the TAIRA mailing list:
The City of Tsukuba would like to announce that the 2006 English edition of the "LIVING IN TSUKUBA" GUIDEBOOK FOR FOREIGN RESIDENTS publication is now ready and available at the Sakura Branch Office of Tsukuba City Hall. It will soon be distributed to all City Hall branch offices. In Japan, it is called the "Tsukuba-shi Zaijyuu Gaikokujin no tame no Seikatsu Benri-cho"or "Seikatsu Benri-cho" for short.
This publication, with updated information (current as of late Winter/Spring 2006) is distributed for free by the City of Tsukuba as a service to non-Japanese residents of Tsukuba. The English language version also features information written in Japanese which may or may not be the original version. In most cases, the data was originally translated from the original Japanese article, but in some cases, information was translated from English. Other portions were written based on the experiences of foreign residents. This edition looks similar to the previous edition of 2004. Much older versions are available at the Tsukuba Central Library (Chuo Toshokan).
Print This Post
Good News for Pollen Allergy Sufferers in Tsukuba
The Ministry of the Environment says that the diffusion of Japanese cedar and cypress pollen in Spring 2007 in the Kanto area is likely to be around 25% of a typical year. This is very good news for people who suffer from pollen allergies (花粉症, kafunshou). The amounts are different for different parts of Japan, but in general, it seems like the problem will be mild to normal this year in most places.
Read the press release from the Ministry of the Environment.
Print This Post
Kanji Practice Made Fun
Have you seen the ads on TV of people using Nintendo DS to learn kanji? I just saw one on TV this morning and I have been trying to find out more information about the whole thing. The software is called Kanken DS (漢検DS) because it is made by the people who produce the Kanji Proficiency Test (漢字能力検定, kanji nouryoku kentei, which is often shortened to 漢検, kanken).
It seems that the software is available through Amazon.co.jp for 3391 yen (which is less than it sells for at K's Denki where it was about 3900 yen). The Nintendo DS machine itself costs about 22,000 yen and is also available through Amazon.co.jp (or for a bit less than that on kakaku.com).
Here is a little thingy that will let you test out the interface. Unfortunately the sample questions are quite hard, but you should be able to get a feel for the software anyway.
Print This Post