Katsura Hashino talks Persona 5, life and his new projectI waited so long for Persona 5 to finally hit the stores and when it was there I only played it for about 35 hours. Which is nothing for a Persona game. The series director Katsura Hashino directed al…
Ordering the items from outside of Japan
I already wrote a pretty extensive article about ordering items from Japan but I wanted to make a special post solely focused on Bar and Cocktail gear. To make things short: Use Fromjapan as your proxy to order the items for you. Their rates are the cheapest, their packaging is awesome and they are fast as f… (use my link for sign-up and we’ll both receive a 500¥ present by fromjapan)
I used their service countless times over the years and have yet to be disappointed.
Like always, if I discover other worthwhile brands for importing or some better shops I’ll update this post accordingly. But for now, Naranja has been my main choice. They offer free domestic shipping for orders above 10.500¥
There is a variety of brands in Japan who make quality bar gear. Glasses are usually imported from Riedel (Austrian brand) or Schott Zwiesel (German brand and the glasses I use in my home).
Yukiwa | ユキワ – Naranja
The most well-known brand for Japanese bar gear and home of the Baron shaker (which really is a beauty) . Apart from their Cocktail selection, they offer coffee drip pots which are highly regarded in the scene. I’m a little part Italian though and am used to my classic pressure Espresso machine so I have no experience with preparing coffee that way.
Birdy | BIRDY – Naranja
A brand with probably the best back story in cocktail shaker history. Tetsuya Yokoyama was struggling to come up with a new product for his families struggling car part manufacturing business. Struck by fate he decided to try making the worlds best shaker and after meeting the cocktail artisan Erik Lorincz they came pretty close to it. Their website explains the whole technical aspect of the shaker in detail. It all boils down to the fact that due to a special inner coating, the ingredients will move even faster and so-called “air bubbles” will be added to the mix.
Be that as it may, the whole BIRDY collection looks and feels pretty great and if you’re into the look why not treat yourself to some new special cocktail gear.
Mr. Slim | スリム – Naranja
Probably the best looking and most handy jiggers around. The inside of the openings sports a small line which lets you separate each volume and gives you an additional jigger size. They also have a pretty nice
Yamachu | ヤマチュウ – Naranja
The Japanese ice pick maker and even if you didn’t use one before just looking at these beauties makes you want one.
Here are some pictures of my last order I made at Naranja and was proxied by fromjapan. Japanese packaging is just the best, wish I could receive domestically shipped goods in that condition.
Weddings are always a blast. Meeting old friends you haven‘t seen for years, good food and drinks. I met a longtime buddy of mine who always had a sweet tooth and a special interest in making cocktail…
And that’s exactly the problem why so many Japanese learners get discouraged from learning so quickly – because it can take ages until you will be able to actually use some of the Japanese you studied so hard for. Especially when you’re planning to visit Japan you want to be able to instantly use the stuff you learned. I vividly remember the time when I first went over to Japan. Studied by myself, went through the Kanji (still using the Heisig method back in the day) and couldn’t even order a meal. Maybe it was just me but I would’ve loved to get my hands on a book that’s so focused on daily usage like Nihongo fun and easy.
This book was made for Japanese beginners who’re planning to visit Japan and want to be able to function in daily conversations. No fancy grammar points or vocab. Just every day problems like asking for the next ATM around or ordering in a restaurant. Things you definitely want to do and how awesome is it if you can directly use that Japanese that you just studied (granted, you have to be in Japan for that). The first couple of pages are in full color and I instantly loved the food pictures which will come in quite handy if you’re heading out to grab your first couple of meals in Japan.
Just have a look at the pictures to get a feel for the individual lessons. I initially bought this for my next trip to Japan when you just want a quick view on how to do some daily things and don’t sound like a complete dork. And I think it’s a great book to have if you’re with someone who isn’t studying Japanese but is interested in the language. What better way to dive directly into that foreign language and try yourself ordering the next meal at the Izakaya nearby.
There are a bunch of different textbooks for learning Japanese and if you really want to start studying my main recommendation will always be Genki. But it takes a while until you will be able to comm…
Unfortunately there are no real translations of all the texts in the book, just the ones for the key points which can be found in the back of the book. What I really like are the different sets of text which are all dedicated to a specific theme. Advertisements were one of the more exciting ones and it really makes sense to have some for translation. They’re shot, easy to understand and you can instantly use your new knowledge when you pick up a Japanese magazine or wander the streets of Japan (in that case, lucky you).
I already have a couple of books by Ask Publishing (like Understanding Japanese Grammar) and really like their stuff. Nice artwork and content. Always neatly organized and presented. Like always just have a look at the pictures and choose for yourself if this title might be something for your Japanese learning repertoire. It’s especially a tough one this time because I have nothing to do with the JLPT itself for what this book is especially made (for the reading comprehension part at least).
I’ve never been interested in taking one of the JLPTs but I was kinda interested what their difficulty level for reading comprehension would be. So I just bought one from the well known JLPT preparing…
Easy stories in Japanese which you can read in 10 minutes (１０分で読めるお話), the title of the book explains it all. You don’t a CD with the spoken text here (like with the graded readers) but each book just goes for the cost of a normal manga (700¥) so you can’t complain. In between the pages are some light color drawings thrown in and the protective wrapper gives the whole package a nice quality feel to it. I made pictures of all the books I bought. From grade 1 up to grade six. just have a look for yourself and decide how you enjoy the stories.
There is nothing more discouraging than a never ending story in Japanese. You really want some manageable pieces to read especially when you’re still constantly looking up new words. The Easy stories to read in Japanese series has several different sub lines as well. I picked up one of the stories which’er supposed to read with a friend of yours. I thought there would maybe be some back and forth dialogue in there but this edition is just centered around stories about friendship.
Unfortunately this post has been lost in the latest restore of Japanese Tease which may explain why the text differs a little from the one you may have read before. I picked these books up a while ago…
get you started to learn Japanese. But if you mastered the basics there was no really comfortable way to learn new vocabulary. And you really need to learn a lot of vocabulary when you want to be able to read Japanese.I used Anki for quite a while and just wrote down all the unknown words I encountered when reading some manga or stuff in general. Not a bad way to get introduced to new words but a stressful one. After all, writing everything down in Anki takes time and if you want to do it the right way you should actually write down the whole sentence the unknown word appears in.
And that’s where iknow.jp comes into play. Formerly known for its once free Japanese core sentences you learn all Japanese by (you guessed it) sentences. Always coupled with a fitting picture to give you an image to think about as well. Everything is fully voiced, did I mention that? And after using Japanesepod101 for quite a while I really noticed how important it is to train your listening comprehension as early as possible.
When I wrote about Kanji Box being a neat app to practice your grammar skills a reader recommended iknow.jp to me. I had a quick look at their site and just did their placing test to see how things are going and where I would be able to start. Nice feature, that you don’t have to start again with the very beginnings. Sometimes it’s not a bad way to start again, to repeat the basics but on the other hand, nobody wants to go through all the more common words again and again if you already know them by heart.
Not having the feeling of making any real progress for yourself can be frustrating and that’s exactly what we don’t want to happen. To feel frustrated or annoyed by learning Japanese. After all, we’re in it for the long run.
No matter what field you’re in no matter what you’re trying to learn from Physics to law to anatomy. What matters most when studying is sticking to a routine. A daily routine at best. I’ve already wri…
