Here are November’s Hacks from the Past:

1. Learn Kanji with your Nintendo DS - Here is a review of a Kanji learning Nintendo DS game I did. It’s addictive and it’s still on the shelves. Check it out!
2. Find Cheese in Japan #2 - several more options for finding cheese in Japan. Must read for cheese lovers.
3. Learn Japanese with Google - How to use google search to help you with Japanese. Google images can give you 100s of pictures of your unknown words, and you can use plain old search to find millions of example sentences.
4. Faster Miso Soup Trick - a little trick to dissolve that miso faster. With pictures!
5. How to win at UFO Catcher - Learn how to win stuffed animals at UFO Catcher. Actually, this is just a link to a great tofugu article. Check it out from the original source.

That’s it! If you have any tips, send them in and you could appear in next year’s November Hacks from the Past.

You can also arrange to pick up your package from Amazon.co.jp at conbini too! (You know… for purchases you don’t want your family to know about…)

I didn’t know that! This is good to know with Christmas right around the corner.

Thanks adora!

Does anybody know if its ok to ship any online orders to the konbini?

Hello!

Here is a Nihon Hack that some people may not know (if it hasn’t been posted yet). Living in Japan, one difficulty I have found is finding easy access to western style toliets. Sometimes you can end up in line waiting for a long time, or be unfortunate enough to not find a bathroom at all. the best soultion to this problem is the ever amazing convienience store (conbini)! Usually there is a clean, western style bathroom in most of your major name brand conbini’s like Lawson’s or 7/11. This has been a real life savor in busy places like Osaka!

This is pretty true. They are usually much cleaner than station toilets, and not a far walk from most stations.

And in case you didn’t know:

Also, some other good points about conbini’s is that if you have any bills to pay at all, like gas, electric, phone, or anything else, you can usually pay it at the conbini. This even includes purchases from amazon.co.jp!

Hope that helps!

It does! I often pay bills, especially shipping/handling bills, at the conbini. You should too!

Thanks Heidi!

Do you have any more convenience store tips?  Send them in!

I’ve been looking at your site and thought I’d send you this tip.

For those whose kanji reading ability is still low, or for those who are willing to admit that they can’t read them all, there is an Open Office extension that is very useful – all for free. To use this hack, the free Open Office software needs to be downloaded and installed. The extension is called Itadaki (a quick search will bring you to the extension project page). After installing Itadaki as well as the accompanying dictionary file, you can load a document in Japanese and have Itadaki add readings to every character in the document. Some of them will need to be corrected, but Japanese people will be impressed with your kanji ability, even if you give the wrong reading. Hope it is useful!

I did the search for you. Here’s a direct link to the extension project page: Itadaki Furigana

Thanks Ben!

Do you know of any good software extensions/plug-ins to help with Japanese on the computer? If so, send them in!

1. Shinmai - rice fresh from the harvest. It looks, smells and tastes better. Read how to find it in the store.
2. House brand cleaning products - Find out how to spot which house brands are good, and which ones to avoid.
3. 300 yen steaks - Learn how to get steaks and other perishable food on the cheap.
4. Akebi part 2 - I weigh in again on the crazy purple Japanese fruit.
5. Reverse zousui - zousui isn’t just for saving old rice
6. Plan your train trip online #1- for those of you who ride JR West
7. Plan your train trip online #2 - for the rest of you

If you have any tips, send them in. I have a few reader-submitted tips on the way, so stay tuned.

I decided to tempura batter and deep fry some ice cream with some of my Japanese friends. We had mixed results ;) But since it was one of my first times deep frying anything, I didn’t know what to do about the left over oil! My friends suggestion that I strain it and use the oil again but I didn’t want to have used oil lying around since I never plan to deep fry anything ever again! bleh.

My friend then suggested this stuff:
固めるテンプル (katameru tenpuru)
It’s very easy, you just add it to hot oil and let it sit for a while. It’ll solidify and then you can throw the whole thing out! (I’m sure you’ve heard of it before)

But, since I can’t read Japanese all too well, I went online looking for an easy explanation of what this stuff was and what I could expect from it. I ended up finding a number of websites showing how to make candles out of regular oil and this powder!

http://web.kyoto-inet.or.jp/people/sugicom/kazuo/neta/bake14.html

I haven’t tried it yet but it seems interesting. Have you ever seen something like that before?

The package might look something like this:

Thanks Nina!

NinaSama also sent in a tip request. Can anyone help?

Recently I went to Hiroshima for the Sake festival. I know that Sake can leave me with a horrible hang over the next day so I decided to check out some 飲み薬 at the conbini. I found this stuff called “gold” something-or-other ginger drink. I was told that if you drink it before drinking alcohol that you should be fine the next day. I had my doubts since the source was a bit unreliable. But I drank it and I was in fact fine. But I can’t tell if that’s just because I’m a morning person or I just drank less sake than I thought.

So, basically, I was wondering if you knew of any good Japanese drinks that help cure/prevent a hang over. Things other than just Pocari sweat and other sports drinks that my friends usually drink to try and cure themselves. They don’t really work for me :P

Thank you for reading all my long winded explanations! Thanks for writing such a great blog!!!

Anybody know any anti-hangover tips? I hardly drink at all anymore, so I have no idea! If you have any solutions, please leave a comment!

Hi Thomas, (and everyone)

I think I have a hack that would be of great use to anyone living in Japan. Having spent four years there myself (that’s right, I had to leave in order to preserve my sanity) I can apreciate how hard it often is to do simple things due to cultural and linguistic differences. Well, this hack is in the linguistic category. I have found a plugin for my browser that allows me to handle kanji and new words in general, at least while online.

The plugin in question is called “Rikaichan“. I have it for firefox in both my mac and my pc. I’m not sure if it’s available for explorer and honestly I don’t care because I find explorer to be about as efficient and productive as an Eikaiwa Manager’s meeting.

Once you’ve installed Rikaichan, you’ll need to decide what language you want to use. You can have Japanese and English, Japanese and German, Japanese and French or Japanese and Russian. You’ll need to download and install the dictionary before you can use it. There is a dictionary for recognizing names as well. I suppose this is so someone named “Tanaka-San” doesn’t come up as “Rice Paddy Middle-San”. Which though a little amusing, doesn’t help us know how to address people!

Using Rikaichan is really easy. All you have to do is go to your tools menu and click on Rikaichan and then go to a Japanese site and run your mouse over some Japanese that you need help reading. It’s smart enough to recognize that certain groupings of kanji signify one word rather than a couple. It’s not perfect at this, but it does a much better job than I can!

Granted, due to the grammatical differences and what I would describe as a different “headspace” or “world view” inherent between English and Japanese, the more Japanese you already speak, the more complete your understanding of the written Japanese will be. Having said that, even if you’re still struggling trying to understand what station the place you’re trying to go to is at, or what the name of a certain store or organiation is, this plugin can help you a great deal.

Good luck!

Rikaichan is awesome and I often use it for reading random Japanese wikipedia articles (a great way to practice reading, btw).  It’s really easy to use, and pops up definitions on mouse-over.  Way faster than using a paper dictionary or even a denshi-jisho.

In case you missed the links above, you can get Rikaichan at the official site or from its Firefox add-ons page.

Check it out! Thanks Ryan!

Do you know any cool Japanese add-ons/plug-ins? If so, let me know in the comments or drop a mail to the address in the sidebar!

Many many years ago when I was working in a very old trading company in Osaka, old building, smoke stained walls, etc. At 17:00 we would always have a 15min tea break with a small snack provided by the company. (This apparently was to hold us over till our 21:00 dinner break)…these were the old days.

In the summer we all got a hard boiled egg, every day on rotation it was someone’s duty to take the eggs out an hour before so they warm up and wont crack, then we would put them in a plastic bag with a little tap water then submerge the bag in the potto with the top hanging out, close up the lid and in about 20 min we had a nice hard boiled egg with our tea. 15 min gets you a nice onsen tamago. 4 Seasons and 4 different treats, Spring pickles, Summer tamago, Fall baked sweet potatos & Winter baked omochi on the gas heater. We still try to carry on the tradition with the family now on the weekends in Sendai.
Be well, br, T

Egg + plastic bag + potto = hard-boiled egg! I gotta try this at work. Thanks TedinAsia!

Other potto hacks:

• Use your potto for pasta
• Use your potto for quick veggies

Since not everyone was here at the beginning, I thought I’d start a new series of posts where I go over past hacks.  I’ll do these once a month, and they will basically be links to past hacks for the given month.  It’s September now, so here is your September Hacks From The Past Roundup:

• How to Never Waste Rice Again - Ever come home to find a rice cooker full of old, stale rice? This hack will tell you what to do with it.”
• Save On Cleaning Products By Buying Refills - Explains how to identify refill packages, which are cheaper than buying a new bottle.
• Homemade Tofu Soap Dish - Make your own soap dish from a tofu box. Step by step instructions. The best soap dish you’ll ever own!”
• How To Find Cheese In Japan - Do you like cheese? Good luck finding it in the grocery store! This hack will help you find a great selection of cheese that can be shipped right to your door.
• Mystery Fruit: The Akebi (part 1) - Japan has some unique fruit you may not be familiar with. One of them is the Akebi.

Enjoy! If you have any hacks you’d like to share, please send them in!

That’s all for now.  Peace!