Japaneats その2 - お好み焼き (おこのみやき - Okonomiyaki)

Japaneats 2 features my favourite Japanese food - お好み焼き. It's one of the most famous specialties of the 関西 (かんさい - Kansai) area and with good reason. It's easy to make, delicious, filling and you can put nearly anything you want in it. In fact, the name literally means "grilled things you like". What could go wrong?

バレンタインデーとホワイトデー (barentain de- to howaito de-) Valentine's Day and White Day

Sunday was ホワイトデー in Japan, which is a very similar followup to バレンタインデー that takes place one month later on March 14th. Why do they need two separate days? The answer is fairly simple, if a little strange.

Mind your Ys and Ws

A couple of interesting Japanese abbrieviations I've noticed:

ワイシャツ (waishatsu - white collared shirt) is often written as Yシャツ.

W is often interpreted as "ダブル" (daburu - double), so you'll often see things like Wチーズバーガー (chi-zu ba-ga-), meaning "double cheeseburger".

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to drop my Yシャツ at the drycleaner and pick up a Wチーズピザ (chi-zu piza - cheese pizza) for dinner.

Places to visit in Hyogo 1: 城崎温泉 (きのさきおんせん - Kinosaki Hot Springs)

Hyogo Prefecture is home to some of the best 温泉 (おんせん - onsen - hot springs) in Japan. One of the better known areas is 城崎, in the northeast of the prefecture in 豊岡 (とよおか - Toyooka) city. It's a small town of natural hot springs and 旅館 (りょかん - ryokan - traditional Japanese inns) that is very popular with locals and tourists alike. Having gone up there last weekend, I can certainly understand why!

学校の生活その１：食堂 (がっこうのせいかつその１：しょくどう - gakkou no seikatsu sono ichi: shokudou) - School Lifestyle 1: Canteen

School life in Japan is different to that of Western Australia in many ways. In an attempt to try and capture some of these, I'm going to give you a tour of my two schools in a series of posts called 学校の生活. If you're planning to come over here on a school trip or exchange, hopefully this information will be particularly useful for you. Like all good things, this one starts with food. Have a look at the 食堂 (しょくどう - shokudou - canteen) menu and see what you think.

自動販売機 (じどうはんばいき - jidouhanbaiki) - Vending machines

自動販売機 (or sometimes just 販売機 - はんばいき - hanbaiki) literally means "automatic selling machine" and will probably be one of the longest Japanese words you learn. They've become a bit of a symbol of Japan and if you come to visit, you'll see why. You'll notice that there are a lot of them to say the least - the most of any country in the world, in fact. There's apparently one vending machine for every 23 people here (and the population is about 130 million). It's rumoured that they even have them on top of 富士山 (Fujisan - Mount Fuji)!

Let's have a closer look at a couple of our 5.5 million friends and see why they're so popular.