DISQUS

Congratulations Gary, all the best for the rest of your time on this trip and then into the future. Look me up for a beer if and when you make it back to Japan.

Looking forward to seeing 3.0 Gary, its been a long time coming since you first mentioned it was happening ...... good luck with it.

Nope, it's self serve and very convenient .... also very common place here.

I live about 10 minutes walk from the park .... it's a great place to find some topics and take some photos.

Always good to mix things up Chris, nice work.

Foreign workers aren't necessarily the first to go ... this article is worth a read. http://www.dlapiper.com/Japan/publications/deta... and also here's the labor laws ... http://www.jil.go.jp/english/laborinfo/library/...

If you're employed locally as a Japanese Employee you have the same rights as the locals.

I appreciate the detailed response Gary. It`s actually about what i would have thought too. I appreciate that you`re also doing it similar to what i would do with respect to accomodation and eating out all the time. I coudn`t slum it like some peope do and dont see the point .... if i couldn`t afford to do it the way i want then i would cut the trip short.

As a comparison for anyone that thinks that money is a lot ... to "stay put" in one place like i am it costs me in USD ...$2450 per month for rent, $70 to get to work and back each day and $50 for food each day. So for a month my total spend on just those 3 things is about $5350 .... less than 12 monhs for 60K

Some generic teaching advice. I'm not a trained teacher but many years ago part of my job role was to teach. We were given NO training on how to teach, we were thrown into the deepend. Although i knew the software i was instructing on i didn't know the courseware that well and also i had never stood in front of a class of strangers before. It's not easy at first but it does get better, much better and you will enjoy it. As for learning how to do this i'm not sure you can by any other means that just getting up there and doing it.

I had the added challenge of being mid 20's at the time and having students ranging from 18 to 50 all wanting to try and trip me up. Easiest way to overcome it was to let them know very early in the peace that i"ve forgotten more than they know. You wont have this issue teaching English so you should have a group of people willing and ready to learn from you.

If i were you i'd try not to think about and plan this too much, just get a job teaching and work out what you need to do to make it easier as you go. Good luck.

From a few years living here and many efforts at learning the different areas of Japanese i see the following being the order of most importance.

- Listening, being able to understand. If you can understand what they say then even a basic reply from you can be understood from the other party.

- Speaking, once you can understand what's spoken to you, developing better speaking skills will make for a good conversation, understood clearly by both parties.

- Reading, the more you can read the better, but if you can speak Japanese and you find words, be they hiragana meanings or kanji you don't know, then at least you can verbalise. The other way around isn't so handy.

Writing, seriously, i barely write in English let alone Japanese so that should be the least of your concerns.

Of course. being able to do all at once is a benefit, being able to write may help you remember to so i'm not saying all are done 1 after the other, they should be done in parallel and weighted accordingly.

Still, 2 yrs on and my Japanese is shite to say the least, getting better though and i'll get there.

Anyway, my 2 cents, no right way, no wrong way, the way that works for you is the best way.

The majority of my posts are, as you can tell, written in 1 go, rather hastily and posted with little care as to making it "perfect" ... the only thing i do later is fix spelling mistakes cause they annoy me.

I agree with the 'have a go' approach no matter what the subject is.

It is hard to use Japanese at work though for fear of embarrassment and also need to be productive. I'm not here to learn Japanese nor does my boss pay me to learn it, i'm here to do a job in the most efficient means possible, which with most Japanese colleagues speaking English, means working in English.

Just reading about the "intervention" they think you need from Tech Crunch ... man you spend some serious time on Twitter! I can`t help but to wonder if it`s not a waster of my time too ...... it really gives nothing back IMHO.

She does look quite chuffed with it doesn`t she??!!

Bearing in mind the "NEW" test scale comes into practice in 2010 next year is the last year with 4 levels it's a good idea to push yourself for level 3 next year ... otherwise you'll be doing what i do, level 4 for a few years in a row!

Wow, 2042 in 3 months, great goal Chris, all the best with it. Nice idea for a regular post too, keep it up.

Nice work creating this list Chris. Don't forget the headlines of ~50 Japan blogs (including Nihongo Notes) direct into your Twitter account by following http://www.twitter.com/Japan_Blogs

"I believe that women are at their most beautiful ........ "So do I Jonas, so do I !

What area is that Chris?

Nice work mate, keep it up.

Nice, didn't know about this mountain.

Sounds good Jonas, will be interested to see what you come up with each week.

Hey Jonas, i've updated Japan_Blogs on Twitter to include this new feed, i've also subscribed so it will appear in the Other Japan News section on my site.

Good luck with the new site mate!

If only the Mega Mac looked like that when it came out! It's a prick to eat but tastes OK.

I'll be visiting Miyajim for the first time in April next year, looking forward to it.

Very amusing reference to the Dong Gary, picked up on the tweet yesterday.

Guessing it's only for the US though.