ハローウィン： パンプキンを摘みましょう！

For my students - they can learn a little about Halloween in America.

watch all the way to the end for the cool Jack-O-Lantern designs!

-J

A.M. 11:00 - HY (with subs)

HY have been one of my favorite J-pop bands for a while now, but recently I've been listening to their album "Street Story" over and over again, which is unusual for me with Japanese music.

But I really like their melodies and that they share lead vocal duties between the main male vocalist and the female keyboardist, who both have interesting voices.

Anyway - I'll have to rent their new CD soon and put it in my iTunes so I have something new of theirs to try.

Enjoy!
-Jason

Happy Anniversary to ME!

I've been actively posting to YouTube for just over two years now, so I marked the occasion with the short video above, which I filmed at the local Shimane Museum of Ancient Izumo.

I've had a fun time with my YouTube channel, and I plan on posting plenty more vids in the coming months before I leave Japan next year.

Enjoy!
-Jason

October in Japan - nice weather and BIG spiders!

just me enjoying the nice weather for a few minutes at school the other day...

Enjoy!
-Jason

The Beatles Live in Indianapolis 1964 Part1

I've been a Beatles fan what seems like all my life.
I had an article I wrote about the way their music has affected my generation published in Rolling Stone magazine.
I've read all the biographies, listened to every album, seen all the films.

And now I have YouTube. It's a great resource to search for interesting Beatles footage, like the montage of clips in the video above. The sound quality is particularly good for a clip like this - the makers must have had access to the sound board for the vocals.

Modern groups, such as The Backstreet Boys, or The Spice Girls, or Britney Spears, and the reaction they evoke from their teenage fans will often be compared to Beatlemania, but it's not the same. There will never be another Beatles. They were of a time and a place and the impact they had is eternal and crosses all borders.

Enjoy!
-Jason

Appreciation

I now have over 800 subscribers on my main You Tube page.

I used to leave a comment on every new subscribers channel page - a quick thank you for subscribing. But I've added so many people in the past few months that I'm now at least three weeks behind.

Having a channel where youu give advice is both good and bad. About once a week now I get a PM over at YT that reads something like this...

you probably get these thankyou emails all the time, heck, you probably get emails that start off saying 'you probably get these thankyou emails all the time' all the time haha.

anyways i have watched all the jet vlogs and im so glad i did because its exactly what i want to do with my life when i get myself a bachelors degree, now i have a good idea of how to prepare and some of the things i should expect to experience.

Id just like to say i think it was a very kind thing of you to do, making all the jet vlog's to help all the people interested.

so thankyou very much.
Hope you have a good life.

Kyle

And believe me, I appreciate everyone of these emails. It's nice to know that not only are people watching my vlogs, but that they find them helpful or even inspiring.

But I also get a ton of poorly worded or simply unreadable emails. And these from people that want to one day work as English teachers. And I also get asked a lot of silly questions now - about living in Japan mostly, but I get some really wacky questions as well.

I think the most annoying ones for vloggers like me - who have a bunch of vids on our channels - is the type of question that we've answered many times before in previous vids or that could easily be answered with just the simplest Google search.

And my viewership is tiny compared to some of the big YouTube vloggers that have many thousands of subscribers - i can only imagine what there inboxes must be full of.

I'm really happy that YouTube has given me an opportunity to reach out and help potential JETs and people interested in living in Japan. I've met a bunch of interesting people online from all over the world.

So thanks for watching and stay tuned - more to come!

-Jason

Those weird foreigners

This clip made me smile.

The student wants to help a foreigner, but can't remember what to say in English. Her English teacher looks on amused, and then attempts to show her hows it's done.

With English subtitles.

Yakitate Japan - British Stereotypes

wakiness from the world of Japanese anime

Hey!Say!JUMP PV 真夜中のシャドーボーイ

currently one of the hottest boy bands in Japan - this group, known as Hey!Say!Jump! is so popular with my students.

So this posting is for some of my kids who check out my blog from time to time.

collecting omake (giveaway toys)

Star Wars toys on Pepsi Nex - 4.jpg
Originally uploaded by Jason In Japan.

Anyone that's known me for a while will tell you I like to collect things. DVDs, CDs, comics, etc.
I also went thru an action figure phase in my 20s - usually Star Wars and comic-related figures.
I don't really collect any of that anymore, but coming to Japan has opened up a whole new avenue of collecting for me.

Japan makes cool toys. No doubt about it.
And they often attach small version of these toys to food products - mostly beverages - as an incentive for you to buy them.

Over the past 4 years I've collected all kinds of these "omake."
I've got Snoopy figures, The Incredibles figures, Disney dioramas, etc.
Recently, to celebrate the arrival of a big Star Wars fan convention in Tokyo, the makers of Pepsi Nex - a diet Pepsi cola that I really don't drink, attached the kick-ass Star Wars "bearbrick" toys to their 20 oz bottles.

So I dashed around for 3 or 4 days, hitting all the local conbinis (convenience stores) and I was able to get a complete set of 16. Yoo-hoo!
What I'll do with them - I'm not really sure, but they sure are cool! :D
I took two out of their package (gasp!) and one dangles from my key chain, and the other dangles from my daily bag.

The other really cool omake I got into was tied into the World Cup in 2006. Coke came out with these round discs with a soccer ball-style flag of each participating country. So there were 32 to collect. The hardest one to find was Japan - no big surprise there. I was able to get 29 of the 32 before they disappeared from shelves.
I had a few duplicates too.
I kept em, thinking that maybe down the line I would complete the set and then just sell the whole collection on Ebay.
But this past summer I taught a lesson to a group of local Japanese boys going to Ireland to play soccer in an international tournament. And I ended up giving each of them one of the discs.
I still have about 8 discs - I kept all the "big name" countries, cuz they are pretty cool.

They had a great series of metal pins for the Olympics recently, and I got two the first day I saw them, decided I would try to get all 12, and the next day they were GONE. Oh well - at least I drink Coke. Anyway want a Pepsi Nex?

Craig Ferguson,

Good stuff from a recently made US citizen.

Rural Japan Life (RJL) - Vlog #4 - Taisha Goen Matsuri

My last summer festival in Japan in my current location.

I had a great time seeing all my students and having some great "stall food." :)

Enjoy!
-Jason

Applying to the JET Program - Vlog #1 - Get the Application!