Posts Tagged ‘japan’

Anime is a great cultural item that has made learning Japanese particularly inviting to many English speakers. It is also a big reason that many people in all parts of the world want to learn Japanese.

However, there are other reasons, too, for wanting to learn Japanese. Some people are interested in Japanese because Japan is the second largest economy and it would help them greatly in their business efforts. Some people are impressed by Japan’s deep cultural traditions.

Japanese can be mastered and you can become proficient in it just like any other language, however, we must remember a few things if we want to truly be successful.

Japanese is one of the more difficult languages to learn for English speakers because it does not use the same script for reading and writing and also because it has few similar words with English.

A language like Spanish, for example, shares many root words with English simply because the two languages have been in greater contact for longer and because English has borrowed a great many amount of words from Latin which is the basis for the Spanish language.

What this means for studying Japanese is not that it is impossible but just a bit more difficult.

What this truly means is that you must have a strong desire to learn that Japanese language if you are going to be successful in becoming proficient in it.

If you really want to learn Japanese to a high level, then make sure that your reasons for studying it are strong.

Whether you want to have a better glimpse of the Japanese culture and traditions or whether you want to have a better understanding of your favorite anime series, make sure that the desire is strong in your heart for learning Japanese.

This will ultimately keep you going on the long journey that studying Japanese entails. So, make sure that you are able to stay strong when studying and keep going no matter what. Just remember your reason for studying Japanese every time that you feel you are beginning to falter in your studies.

Author Robertson Kunz has a language learning guide: learn a foreign language fast. Japanese learners: learn fluent Japanese.

Japan can be a melting pot of choices for anyone, no matter what interests they have in terms of passion and hobbies. For the anime fan, visiting the East Asian country and legendary places like Akihabara is just like going to heaven. There are many toys and figures that would keep a collector occupied for days on end. However, one might not notice a nice attraction located in a small town just minutes away from the busy heart of Japan. The serene city of Mitaka is where you can find the museum built by the famous animation legend Hayao Miyazaki. The Ghibli Museum must not be missed by any real anime fan.

Created with the image of the original Ghibli studios in mind, the museum also contains numerous memorabilia that one might recognize from the movies. Known by just about every anime fan in the world, films like Grave of the Fireflies have bred new followers in anime constantly. The success generated by the films have led to Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki being crowned one of Japan's cultural icons in the industry. With the museum, everyone would be able to understand and experience why this is so.

The attraction is now much more famous and popular from the time it was first open to the public. This initially led to large crowds descending in hordes and it was more than the museum could handle. Unusually for such an establishment, the management decided to make it harder for anyone getting tickets to the Ghibli Museum, in an effort to curb the crowds. It also prevented the exhibits from getting worn out or abused due to too many visitors within a short period of time. It was also a moee that led to periodic maintenance so that visitors can enjoy something new each time.

Once inside the museum, any visitor will be awashed in awe and amazement. If there is one place or thing that could convince anyone of the magic that exists in cartoons or animated films, it would be the Ghibli Museum. The exhibits are pure technical genius that have science, mathematics and creativity all blended into one. Those who would like to experience a studio for an animation artists can head straight to the second floor of the museum. One will be pampered by the great number of options in the two souvenir shops that the museum houses.

Even with the daily limits being placed on visitor numbers, there remains thousands of people who are not able to resist a trip to the museum in Mitaka. Many fans do not take for granted that they have plenty of time to make the trip anytime. It is also one of the most recommended places to stop by for anyone visiting Japan, especially within the city of Tokyo. Going on a Ghibli Museum day tour definitely provides one of the highlights for many a traveler who made the effort to venture there. Even if one were not a fan of the culture, it can still provide plenty of thrills and spills in every way.

Japan is one of the most beautiful countries in East Asia with her many attractions and sights of nature such as park, lakes, majestic mountains and quiet countrysides. They provide a perfect balance of urban charm and seductive nature, and the locations that illustrate this the best way are her parks. Some can be found in the modern cities that are the focal point of busy Japan, while others flourish in Mother Nature with quaint little towns and villages.

The national parks in Japan are often high on the itineraries of first time visitors to the country. As we all face the pressures of the modern world, it is a simple but pleasurable experience to travel to faraway destinations that allow us to escape from that if only for a moment. There could be nothing better to satisfy that than making a point to visit the Japanese gardens and parks that infuse both Eastern and Western culture?

Taking up more than five per cent of the total land area in Japan, there are 29 national parks within the country. While locals are an ever present in terms of visitors, there is an increasing number of foreign tourists who are eager to have a taste of what the nature of Japan has to offer. Some of the most popular parks are the Nikko, Shiretoko and Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Parks.

Nikko National Park is guarded by the small city of Nikko, which houses a small population. However, visitors arrive non-stop to see for themselves the scenic beauty of the area. From the peace and quiet of Lake Chuzenji to the towering awe of dormant volcano Mount Nantai, the park covers an immense land size that stretches over four prefectures. Even visitors on a budget Nikko National Park day tour would be able to enjoy other highlights that include the large Kegon waterfall as well as the Toshogu shrine that has become a recognizable landmark for the city itself.

Mount Fuji can safely be said to be the one sight that everyone associates most often with Japan. But, the area in which it is located has a quiet elegance of its own in the form of the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. It has an even larger area relative to Nikko park. This is due to the inclusion of Mount Fuji, the Fuji Five Lakes and other locations within it. There are even tiny islets found within the region, giving credence to the feeling that it is Japan's biggest national park.

Perhaps one of the most understated parks in Japan is Shiretoko National Park. It is a true natural haven untouched in the most part by civilization or commercialization. In fact, there is no way one can get there on wheels. There is also diverse wildlife that cannot be found elsewhere in Japan, while the flora and fauna existing within Shiretoko had prompted UNESCO to mark the area as a World Heritage Site, a great achievement for a humble site in a modern country.

Whether it be an adventure to the wilderness in Shiretoko, an experience with national symbols in Fuji-Hakone-Izu or visiting Nikko National Park on a tour package, Japan’s national parks have so much to offer for the eager and willing traveler. One will never cease to be amazed by a country that has an advanced and modern metropolis in its city centre of Tokyo, while surrounded by such extensive and beautiful nature.

“We may simply have lost our appreciation of hand-crafted goods.” Igarashi san has been making chochin paper lanterns in his little shop for his entire life. His pop too, and his grandfatherand great grandfather and even great, great grandfather. The tools & hardware that surround him today, in reality, have outlasted his ancestors, their wooden surfaces worn smooth with age. Since the start of the Meiji era (1868 – 1912) Kanazawa citizens have been purchasing Igarashi chochin from the store, in the heart of old Kanazawa’s merchant district, close to the back of the castle. The shelves are stacked high with beautifully decorated lanterns – vibrant bursts of color peppering the dusty confines of the small workshop.

Chochin lanterns have a reasonably long history in Japan – there’s evidence of them being employed in churches in the tenth century – and were used primarily as a transportable method of lighting. Only occasionally used inside, they traditionally hung outside a house, temple or business or else in the entrance, prepared to be postponed on a pole and carried before anybody going out at night. Igarashi-san reckons that at one time they were so widely used there would be been around 40 or fifty chochin shops just in Kanazawa. These days there remain only himself and one other local craftsman in the trade and the other fellow ( Matsuda-san ) has long since diversified, making traditional umbrellas his mainstay.

Making a chochin is a fiddly, fairly delicate procedure despite the attractively simple appearance of the end result. And, when asked what are the most important qualities in his profession Igarashi-san replies, his bright eyes dead heavy, “patience and concentration.” The average sized lantern according to Igarashi-san, at roughly thirty cm across, can be produced at a rate of roughly 2 a day by one man including almost all of the painting. However some actually giant ones have left the Igarashi shop over the years – his biggest was a matsuri monster measuring five shaku ( one shaku = 30.3cm in the old Eastern measuring system) in diameter with an intricate year of the rabbit design on it. The old lantern maker is hard-headed about the fact that people want cheaper, mass-produced, plastic covered lanterns today – he even sells them himself – but he is confident in the knowledge that a well-made paper lantern is a wonderful thing, superior in a number of ways to these garish modern impostors.

“You can fix a good chochin,” he tells us, “you can replace one rib or fix a hole in the paper no problem.” “Plastic lanterns have no internal frame and can’t be patched.” A paper lantern no matter how well made lasts only about a year ( natural beauty is always fleeting) whereas a plastic one might last twice that and cost half as much. On top of that, we as a society might have simply lost our appreciation for handmade products. Price has become our main motivation as clients. We do not care to know how things were made nowadays, or who made them, or else Igarashisan would be the prosperous head of a chain of shops.

The walls of the Igarashi Chochinya and his ready-to-hand scrapbook sport innumerable monochrome pictures and press clippings showing a proud, broad-shouldered young man with robust, thick arms and a fetching grin showing off elegant paper spheres with matsuri lights glimmering in the background. Modestly showing us them, his warm, friendly grin only slips barely as he tells us that he will be the last of his folks line making lanterns here.

For more information about travel and useful tips for tourists, visit famouswonders.com and check out Japan suspension bride.