Japanese traditional toy: Kendama Posted by keiko on Nov 27, 2013
Recently, my older son bought his first Kendama (Kendama,けん玉) with his allowance (Okozukai, お小遣い). It sounds like a lot of his friends at school are playing with Kendama these days. Kendama is one of the Japanese traditional toys that has been around for quite a long time. When I was growing up, it was one…
Do the Japanese Celebrate Thanksgiving? Posted by keiko on Nov 19, 2013
Are you ready for Thanksgiving? With Thanksgiving fast approaching next week, I am sure everyone is excited and perhaps, getting ready for a big family get together. In Japan, although people might not celebrate quite the same way as in US, we actually do have a similar national holiday called “Labor Thanksgiving Day (Kinro-kansha-no-hi, 勤労感謝の日)…
Explore Japan – Todaiji Temple in Nara City Japan Posted by keiko on Nov 18, 2013
Hi there! Many of you out there might have heard about Nara city (nara-shi,奈良市) in Japan where you will find the Todaiji Temple(Todaiji, 東大寺). Todaiji Temple(Todaiji, 東大寺) is famous for the “Daibutsu(大仏) ” or “Great Buddha of Nara” Statue, which is considered as the largest seated Buddha Statue in Japan. (Daibutsu(大仏) is a Japanese word for large statue…
Hajimemashite! Keiko-desu. Posted by keiko on Nov 14, 2013
はじめまして！ Hi, my name is Keiko(恵子). I am a new Japanese blogger for Transparent Language. I am really excited to be here! Since this is my first blog post, let me first introduce myself. I was born and raised in Gifu(岐阜), Japan. I moved to U.S after graduating from high school. Since then I’ve lived in…
Don Quijote is calling! Posted by yuki on Jun 26, 2013
It has been a while since I was in Japan the last time. So I have decided to spend my summer vacation 夏休み (natsu yasumi) in Japan. I made a list of things and places I definitely want to do and see. Therefore I am going to share some of the things on the list…
Eat more veggies! Posted by yuki on Jun 14, 2013
Inspired by the post about vegetable names in the Italian blog, today I’m going to introduce you the most popular vegetables 野菜 (yasai) in Japan. There are a lot of vegetables that are very popular in Japan but that are quite unknown or not common in the US or in Europe. Whenever I visited…
How to say Goodbye in Japanese Posted by yuki on May 27, 2013
Last post was about how to say hello in japanese. As there are many ways to say hello, there are also many ways to say good-bye. The most well-known word for good-bye is probably さようなら (sayounara). I am sure you’ve heard さようなら before, but actually it means like good-bye forever or for a very long…