I’ve been busy updating the Learn Japanese Pod site of which the latest addition is Kana Invaders a game for learning Hiragana and Katakana. Recently, Jamaipanese was kind enough to make this little video about it. Enjoy.

Last Friday I was joined by Daniel, Yukki, Jim and Sandra at the Pink Cow to record the Fun Friday for Learn Japanese Pod. I don’t know what happened but we achieved a record with over 1900 downloads in the first 24 hours it was put on line. You can check out the episode here.

It was definitely a fun Fun Friday as Sandra told us about her recent Japanese poster give away competition. Claytonian won the latest poster but she is giving more out. If you want to find out how you can win a crisp clean poster from Japan, check out her blog at Japandra.

Another point we talked about is the Japanese Lounge event at the Pink Cow which will be held on Sunday 18th October 2009. You can see traditional Japanese music including shakuhachi and shamisen performances. Entrance is free so you really have no excuses not to come. If you are interested in coming please sign up to the event on Facebook.

Looking forward to seeing you all on the 18th.

I read a great one today on twitface (oh you kow what I mean). “The king of pop is not dead, Mark King of Level 42 is alive and well”. But that hasn’t got much to do with todays post.

Recently I have been wondering about what direction to take my Learn Japanese podcast. At least I know crappy, semi pornographic anime isn’t my thing.I started my Learn Japanese podcast to be a resource for those wanting to study the language and learn about Japan and it’s culture. However, I get the feeling that most people are more into the podcast for the entertainment value. And that’s fine with me because it means I can turn up the goofing around and turn down the overly serious gramar lessons. Plus, I never really learned to speak Japanese from text books, more from falling off bar stools in izakayas across Tokyo. So one way we depart from the normal language podcast is the Fun Friday episodes we (try to) put out every week. They feature, news, views, Japanese bands and general banter related to life in Japan. We just put up the latest episode which features music from Natccu and Yugo Sato two awesome acts from Japan. Incidentally I was introduced to Yugo by a good friend and general music know-it-all who runs the Tokyo Werewolf website which covers the underground music scene in Japan. Ethan is a talented guy, someone, give him a job, please!

In the future I’d like to concentrate more on the music scene here and interview artists and play their music on Fun Fridays. You never know, we might even learn some Japanese accidentally during the process.

Another project I am working on is a new website called Blow Your Speakers. I am doing this with a good friend, DJ, master brewer and all round talented fellow called Stone. We dig around dusty records, make mix tapes and stick them on the site. This site is dedicated to Stone’s talent for finding awesome music and me pretending to be a DJ when really I am an HDJ, hard disk jockey.

So check out Blow Your Speakers and our latest mix tape.

The picture above is of my trusty iPod digital recorder and a Ramune flavored Kit Kat. If you want to find out more you’ll just have to listen to the latest Fun Friday.

Here are some of the latest statistics from Japan concerning the current swine flu outbreak:

Infected people: 311

Daily deaths from malaria in Uganda 320. Sorry, I know that has nothing to do with Japan.

Affected cities: 7

Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo, Shiga, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama

Media Hype: Plenty

Oops, did we just use words like pandemic and apocalypse? BEHIND YOU! PIG!

Panic level: Nuts, crazy and then some

People, step away from the TV and take a deep breath. Yes, yes, I know the net isn’t much better.

Shameless profiteering: Up 456%

An elementary school kid from Kansai has been selling surgical masks at a 300% mark up to help his fellow man.

Amount of statistics made up on the spot: 87.6%

I was watching a report this morning where enthusiatic journalists were counting people wearing masks walking out of stations in various major cities around Japan. In Yokohama, one of the reporters announced that during a one hour period they counted 122 people wearing masks which accounted for 50% of the people they saw. So they were seriously telling us that they only saw 244 people come out of Yokohama station on a Friday morning? See, there’s this thing called maths…

Ratio of my respect for humans to virus: 0/1

One thing I have learned, when shit happens, make ‘em panic and sell, sell, sell.

OK, OK, I’m putting my soap box away. Yes, let’s be over cautious when it comes to viral epedemics but couldn’t we panic with more taste?

BTW, did you like the stats in swine pink?

The stills in this video were taken by during my various travels and adventures in Japan. Most of the photos were taken in Tokyo such as temples, bars, business men in Shibuya. Other pictures were taken in Nikko, Osaka and Chiba. One of my favorite photos was of the man walking through the temple with a traditional Japanese umbrella. I was lucky enough to get that shot in Kagurazaka.
The music in the video is a snippet from “You are I” a track I composed and produced. The vocalist is an amazing singer called Sae who I wish I could work with more often.

Enjoy.