Living & Working in Ishikawa, Japan
Everyone told you to get a smartphone for your Ishikawa JET tenure, but whether you’re running iOS or Android, your phone is only as useful as the apps you put on it. Here are some recommendations to get you started or to make your life a little easier.
For Both Android and iPhone
Yurekuru Call (EN and JP, free). An earthquake warning app. Uses your location and your phone’s notification system to give you up to a minute’s warning before an earthquake is projected to hit your area. Highly recommended–it may be the only English language warning you get.
Japan Goggles (EN, free). This nifty app uses your smartphone camera to recognize and translate kanji words. It might take a moment for the app to recognize the right kanji compound, but it’s still incredibly helpful.
iConnect (EN, free) Published by AJET, this app is a converter, phrasebook, directory, and national event guide all in one! If you miss the JET Diary, this app is for you.
Ishikawa Travel Guide (EN, Free). Uses Google Maps to show you nearby sights throughout Ishikawa. Unfortunately, the gourmet list is lacking, but the list of sightseeing spots and activities is comprehensive. Good for exploring a new part of the prefecture!
北鉄バスビュワー Hokutetsu Bus Viewer (JP, free). Japanese language bus route-finder and schedule for buses all around the prefecture. Allows you to bookmark your favorite bus routes. It can also use your current location to find nearby bus stops.
乗換案内 by Jorudan (Free, JP). Japanese only. A nationwide train route finder and schedule. Recognizes romaji place name input. Includes a Live feature that notes train delays. The paid version, 乗換案内プラス (norikae-annai plus), is 630 yen in both stores and allows you to save routes.
EnjoyLearning Japan Map Puzzle (Free, JP). Want to get 上手 (jouzu) at Japanese geography and prefecture names? This drag and drop prefecture map game will help. It includes hiragana readings of the prefecture names, too.
Platform-specific apps are after the jump!
Registration for all levels of the JLPT has finally moved into the 21st century. Beginning now, you can register online for the test, and new forms of payment–credit card, convenience store payment or furikomi–are available. Of course, if you like wasting your nenkyu at the the post office, the old system of mail application is still in place.
Test registration for the July 1, 2012 test won’t open until April, but I decided to give the new MyJLPT system a try. See my screenshots and explanations of the system below the cut.
You’ve probably found many of Ishikawa’s Must-See Fall Spots, but now iPhone users have a tech-savvy way to find great foliage wherever they may travel with Rurubu (Fall Foliage 2011), a free app designed to help you scope out the best spots around Japan.
Use the Location function to find foliage wherever you are. Clicking on a red pin will give you more info about the spot, including its peak color time–apparently Kenrokuen is best viewed from mid-November to early December–public transit directions, address, contact information and a full description (Japanese only).
This fall, try using technology to guide you into the great outdoors!
Get Rurubu from the iTunes store
Find recommended foliage wherever you go!
Get more info about each spot (Japanese only).
Say good-bye to these restricted messages with a VPN.
I don’t know how many hours the JET community has spent lamenting the loss of access to sites such as Hulu and Pandora due to international copyright restrictions. Since many foreign shows do not have broadcasting licenses in Japan, expats in Japan can’t access sites where they are streamed legally online. While many JETs have felt the temptation to use other measures to keep current with their favorite TV shows and media from back home, I strongly suggest looking into a little-known legal tech fix to get access to those sites back: the VPN.
A VPN – or virtual private network – is an encrypted network you can set up with a client and is often used to protect your personal data to unauthorized parties online. Using a foreign VPN client will mask your IP address with a non-Japanese IP address, enabling you to access sites that may have international restrictions (Pandora, NBC, Hulu, Netflix just to name a few). Also, your personal information is encrypted, protecting your online activity and personal data.
The VPN client that I’ve used for the past year is Hotspot Shield – available for both Mac and PC this client has given me access to restricted sites back home. Fair warning: Accessing Hotspot Shield will use a fair amount of bandwidth so a high-speed internet connection is necessary. Even so, I recommend closing out any other applications that may be using internet bandwidth (chat clients etc.) when using a VPN client. If you want to shop around and look at other clients, I recommend going through a trusted site such as CNET to circumvent the risk of viruses or worms.
Readers: Have you ever used a VPN? What clients do you recommend? Let us know in the comments!
Melanie is a 3rd-year ALT in Kahoku. She has been enjoying her favorite shows back home legally thanks to VPNs.
Whether you’re bored at work or are an enterprising Japanese learner, “Read the Kanji” may be just the website you’ve been looking for.
Read the Kanji (www.readthekanji.com) is a a bright, graphic quiz aimed at Japanese learners of all levels. With decks available for hiragana, katakana and kanji (decks are aimed at the old JLPT levels), you can set your difficulty—no worries, you can change it any time!—and go. The program has built-in hiragana assistance (i.e., even if you type in romaji, your text will appear in hiragana. No need for Japanese input capability!). Make sure to turn off Rikaichan or any other dictionary apps; the target kanji are presented in plain text.
The quiz format is customizable; show what you want, hide what you don't.
The preferences allow you to show or hide a variety of hints, such as English definitions, Japanese sentences and English sentences (all are shown in the screencap above). See your progress in colorful visuals and statistics.
"The Grid" shows your kanji (or word) proficiency in colors.
Feel the ego boost as more of your grid turns green over time. Each answer contributes to the algorithm’s calculation of your proficiency. (Tip: Don’t type too fast! Stupid mistakes are still counted in the calculation.) If the grid doesn’t enhance your experience, check out more detailed statistics about your progress (screencap below).
For the statistically-minded, check detailed information about your progress.
Unless you signed up for an account years ago and forgot about it like I did, you can “get your feet wet” with free access to the hiragana, katakana and JLPT 4 decks before buying. Once you’re convinced that this is one of the best time-wasters/study aids ever created, a yearly subscription is available for $20 (USD).
Joanna Clark is a 2nd year ALT in Kahoku City and a fan of technology, time-wasting and sometimes studying.
Starting today Hulu has launched in Japan as a monthly subscription service. For ¥1480 a month you can enjoy unlimited use of Hulu services including access to all the programming available to Hulu users in the United States.
To see how Hulu Japan would be different from Hulu America, I signed up for a one-month free trial expecting to have my mind blown. When I first heard Hulu was going to launch in Japan as a subscription service, I was so excited. Hulu didn’t let on as to how Hulu Japan would be different from Hulu in the U.S. so I let my imagination get the better of me. I imagined instant access to hundreds of J-Dramas and other Japanese shows as well as access to American and other foreign shows that were available on American Hulu. What I found was Hulu, regular old Hulu in Japanese.
Honestly, I don’t know how Hulu is going to work in this country. I don’t even know who Hulu is trying to target in this country. Are they looking to attract normal Japanese people? Foreigners living in Japan? Anglophiles? It feels like Hulu just said “Hey let’s make people in Japan pay for Hulu America, they’ll love it because it’s American.” No, Hulu. No we won’t.
If they were trying to target foreigners they’ve made some key mistakes. First, you can only sign up for the service if you give them a credit card number– no furikomi or pay at a convenience store options are available. As many of you know, getting a credit card in Japan is incredibly difficult for foreigners, meaning we’d have to sign up using credit cards that were issued in our home countries. So then I’m not paying ¥1480 a month, am I? I’m paying (at today’s exchange rates) $19.25 U.S. PLUS fees for using my credit card overseas.
I’m not opposed to paying for content, but the content has to be worth buying. Right now, it’s not worth the ¥1480 a month to see Hulu in Japan when there are other ways of getting the American shows you want to watch for much cheaper. I recommend holding off on buying a subscription to Hulu Japan until they get their act together, which may be a while.
Melanie is a 3rd year ALT based in Kahoku who now has to remember to cancel a Hulu Japan subscription before she gets charged for it on Oct. 2.
According to a joint press release issued by Docomo, KDDI, SoftBank Mobile and eAccess (Emobile), you will now be able to SMS across carriers in Japan starting on July 13, 2011.
What does this mean for you, the humble cellphone user? No need to have the “What carrier are you?” conversation when you exchange information with a new friend. Starting on July 13, if you have a phone number, you’ll be able to call and text to all users cellphone on Japanese networks. If you’re going to make the leap from email to SMS, though, make sure you understand your data/messaging plan!
Of course, you’ll still have the option to send the fancy deco-mails that make Japanese cell phones so fun to use.
Check out the source article (English) at The Japan Times.
Jalan.net is, by far, my favorite place to book hotels. The site has a lot of great deals and has very detailed information on the hotels: closest train station, amenities, services, photographs, maps, and what meals are included. Plus, you can search by what kind of accommodations you want: ryokan, business hotel, single, double, Japanese-style room, and so on. Until recently, Jalan was Japanese-only, but they have opened an English version of the website.
The English site features all the details of the Japanese one, and the interface is the mostly the same but has the international traveler’s’ needs in mind.
With the new JETs arriving in two months, now is the time to upload your favorite lesson plans, proposals, and notes to Entrepreneurial Teacher. Give your successor and the rest of the Ishikawa JETs the benefit of your knowledge and experience in a format they can access before they even get to Ishikawa!
For example, what recipes went over well at English Club or your international cooking lesson? What would you do differently at your next eikaiwa? What are the best games for elementary first graders? What tips do you have for writing an event proposal?
The content of ET is only as good as we make it. Get a head start on your departure preparation or your orientation material collection today!
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100% of the proceeds from 2:46 – Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake will be donated to the Japan Red Cross. The Kindle e-book is available for purchase at the US and UK Amazons. If you do not have a Kindle, you can download a FREE Kindle app for your Mac, PC, or smart phone with your purchase.
The 2:46 Quakebook project started with a tweet and is on the verge of something great, a way that we can help all those hit by the the March 11th, 2011 earthquake and its aftermath.
Led by OurManInAbiko, a call went out across Twitter for contributors to create a book to raise funds for Red Cross Japan. The idea was to share the stories and experiences of people actually on the ground during the earthquake, whilst raising funds for the Red Cross.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected by this event; from those directly in the earthquake zone, the path of the tsunami, in the evacuation area around the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, to those in many other areas of Japan, whose lives have been disrupted by rolling power blackouts, poor road conditions, food and water supply difficulties, and more.
The contributions in 2:46 Quakebook have come from a wide variety of sources, and include photographs, personal accounts, drawings; each telling their own tale.
All revenues from sales of the book goes directly to Red Cross, Japan. We urge you to buy the book, buy a copy as a gift, promote it, share it, tweet about it, review it, blog about it, link to it, etc.
The tale of the evolution of QuakeBook can be found under the hashtag #quakebook on Twitter.
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