Coming up on this blog..

Yup. Back alhamdulellah safely to Tokyo from a long tireful full-of-events-and-joy trip to Praha (Prague) in Czech Republic.

This blog is only aimed at posting helpful information about Japan. So, I will be posting about my experience in Europe, from the eye of someone living in Japan.

Thanks to Lufthansa's old planes (but really, REALY amazing customer service) there was no video on demand in my seat so I spent the time reading books, papers, playing DS and preparing posts for this blog. I have prepared the following posts I will be publishing soon, enshallah:

- Speaking English is.... Weird!

- Europe in the eyes of a tourist

- What I missed in Japan

Soon.. Just keep following!

First paper published..

In short,

I will be leaving to Prague, Czech Republic, very soon enshallah.

Through my research, I have reached to an equation that relates *cough, cough, Technical details alert* the noise in a wireless signal with the digital processor used in the receiver. I submitted this equation as a scientific paper to the 12th IEEE (Insitution of Electrical and Electronic Engineering) Symposium on Design and Diagnostics of Electronic Systems (DDECS) and it G O T A C C E P T E D!

I am so happy for such news. But, I could have never reached such results without the absolute full support of Tokyo University. They have provided everything starting from laboratory equipments ending with supervision by the professors. In addition, Tokyo University will be paying for the whole trip expenses I have to make to Prague to present my research infront of the world's scientists. I thank my god for giving me a chance to study in such a University.

Ofcourse, this full support in the University could have never had an effect except if I had another full support at home. My wife, may god bless her, has helped me all the time and always gave me the confidence I need to reach such results.

I will be detailing more about the trip soon.

AEON Laketown, a HYYUGE shopping experience..

I have been so busy the last previous months that I did not even notice such a big event in my neighbourhood. The grand opening of AEON Laketown, one of the biggest (HUGEST?) shopping malls I have ever seen in my life. From their website:

Total commercial area of approximately 220,000sq m, diverse range of 565 specialists shops and service providers all in one place! AEON Laketown is being opened as the commercial hub of a new town called Koshigaya Laketown being created by the Urban Renaissance Agency in Koshigaya City.

Koshigaya Laketown is located on the shores of a 400,000 square meter lake (Chosetsuchi) and will be home to around 22,400 people (approx. 7,000 homes) and will include detached houses, condominiums, pedestrian paths and parks. Through its innovative combination of lakeside living and an urban lifestyle the Koshigaya Laketown will be unique in Japan. The AEON Laketown shopping center is located alongside an arterial road, the East Saitama Road...

On my first visit, it took us, me and my wife, around 2 hours to "fastly" scan the place. This mall is huge and has its own JR station, only two stations away from where I live (5 minutes by train). The mall is divided into two main sections called KAZE and MORI. To only go around KAZE section, while checking out "some" of the shops, it took us more than three hours. We did not even dare to check the shops of MORI by then!

Ofcourse, needless to say that its always packed with hundreds of shoppers. But since the place is actually not-Japanese-style-shopping-mall, you do not notice or feel the crowd. This American style (or Jordanian style?) mall reminded me alot with Mecca mall in Amman, but ofcourse at least four times the size. Restaurants are all scattered on the third floor with the cenima, while other shops and brands like Zara, adidas, Gap lie on lower floors. The shops are big and, to my surprise, are not packed with items everywhere, and they do not make full use of the space as I got used to in Japan. They have items I could not find throughout Tokyo so far! For example, I could not believe it when I saw a shoe that could fit my feet, or a tux that doesnt make me feel like a giant!

As for the prices, yeah everything is a little bit more expensive inside. But its worth the while since the mall is standing on a river (lake) and just sitting there enjoying the view from the glassy walls of the mall while drinking your favourite coffee is more than enough.

Here is a video for some parts of the mall (watch in youtube for high quality):

Question: How safe is Japan?

I was reading this artice at Japan Times and found it to be very interesting. It answers the question of "How safe is Japan?" in some details.

I will post some of that article here and the rest is here.

In Japan, paper advertisements hang from the ceilings of train cars. In how many other countries would that be a viable advertising option? Certainly not in my hometown of Melbourne. Back in Australia, the majority of those ads would not survive any given Saturday night.

The buttons that train guards push to play those pre-departure jingles: They are fully exposed! Anyone can walk up and push them. And yet nobody does. They would back home in Melbourne.

The fire extinguishers frequently found sitting out by the sidewalk: No one rolls them down the hill at 3 a.m. Amazing!

Fish tanks that are less than fully secured: Oh my! Back home, the occupants of those tanks would greet the Sunday sunrise floating on their backs in a murky goo.

Valuables: When you lose your wallet in Japan, chances are you'll get it back — cash intact and cards untouched.

Salarymen asleep on the train: They are woken at the terminus with a sympathetic prod by railway staff. Inevitably, the bag containing both laptop and wallet is still resting on the overhead rack.

The last train: Hundreds of drunken people sardined into carriages and not a hint of aggression. Back home, guys would be squaring off on every second platform.

Violent crime: The average victim of violent crime in Japan is attacked by someone they know. Random violence is rare. Perhaps this explains why it is so common to see solitary girls and women wandering home on narrow, dimly lit streets — even in the wee hours in the entertainment areas of big cities.

Police apprehension: It has become apparent in the last couple of years that the average member of the Japanese constabulary is not exactly fleet of foot. Could the extraordinary number of wanted criminals who simply walk into police boxes and give themselves up be one of the reasons why?

The incarceration rate: The prison population of Japan tends to hover around the 60 out of 100,000 mark. For most Western nations it is at least twice that number. For America, more than 700.

iKnow.. Do you know?

After hitting my head against the wall for several days for not knowing about this before, here I am carrying to you one of the best news ever for Japanese language students.

iKnow.

iKnow is a free Japanese language teaching website that provides great tools and techniques to help you improve your Japanese. iKnow will help you increase your vocabulary not only for conversation purposes but also gives you a good helping hand in memorizing Kanji and building complete sentences. iKnow is suitable for beginners, intermediates and advanced students as well.

iKnow is divided into three main sections:

1. iKnow study:

iKnow study helps you in studying new vocabulary and memorizing them. iKnow gives you a chance to select your current level in Japanese and starts with you from the point where you think suits you best. This section will help you memorize around 6000 words and phrases along with their kanjis.

As shown in the pictures below, this section first starts by introducing the new word along with its Kanji, voice pronounciation, type and meaning. Then, the program puts this word in a useful sentence, along with the sentence's pronounciation and meaning while being pronounced in voice with fluent Japanese. After you memorize a couple of words, the program will start testing you and checking if you really memorized the previous words, or not. I can no more explain this, you have to see for yourself.

2. iKnow dictation:

This section improves your listening skills along with your writing skills. A sentence, which you already have learned in the previous section, is introduced and you are asked to fill in some blanks. To do so, you have to listen to the sentence a couple of times. The picture below shows iKnow dictation.

3. iKnow BrainSpeed:

This section is like a test or a quiz for all information you have learned in the previous two sections. Its fun and can help you realize how much this learning was useful to you.

After knowing about this program, I have been using it and it totally helped me improve my Japanese and Kanji collection. You have to try it too. Try it, and post your comments about it here.