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This is yesterday’s little buddy. My camera didn’t have a wide angle lens which is why you don’t get quite the full picture in either image. They were housed in the Niōmon (仁王門), each in a separate box that looks more like a giant, wooden cage. I stuck my camera through the “cage” to take the pictures.
I took the pictures from six feet off the groud. They must have been a couple feet off the ground and about 8-10 feet tall from head to toe.
Kongorikishi, or Nio, are a pair of demon-looking protectors found at the entrance to many Buddhist temples in Japan. The one pictured here can be found at Seiryo-ji Temple (Shaka-do) in the Sagano area of Kyoto. I’ll show you his partner in protection tomorrow.
My wife is currently enrolled in her second term of Japanese. One of her classmates turned her on to Human Japanese 2, a software package designed to teach someone with no knowledge of Japanese how to speak, read, and write Japanese. We downloaded it last week and have been messing around with it ever since.
I’ve been pretty impressed with this package, although I must admit that I haven’t tried much of the competition. The main reason for not comparing it to the other programs out there is you have to fork over $50+ for them (and sometimes well over $100) before knowing if the software is even useful.
The audio is very good (even funny at times when you get to compare how a foreigner pronounces a Japanese word versus a native for instance); the lessons are logical and clear. Stroke order is animated (and always correct unlike My Japanese Coach) and easy to follow. They even toss in some Japan culture items between some of the lessons.
Overall I think this is an excellent package for the price for anyone at the beginner level in their Japanese studies. One of the nice things about Human Japanese is you can try it before you buy. Once you are ready to buy, the version from Amazon is actually cheaper (at the time of this writing at least) than if you purchase directly from the publisher. The trial version allows you to go through the first 12 lessons. The full version gives you another 28 lessons. I don’t know if the version that costs about $20 adds anything to the first 12 trial version lessons.
If you are past the beginner level in your Japanese studies then this software won’t be of much use to you. It would be really nice if they did a subsequent version for more advanced learners.
I’ve previously mentioned some useful Japan and Japanese related websites. Most of them deal with learning Japanese. I’m now accumulating links that aren’t language related but will prove useful for someone living in Japan (since we will be doing so in less than four months). I’ll start with a few I know. If you have any to add to the list please do so as a comment to this blog entry.
Japan Train Route Finder allows you to enter your beginning and ending destination (in romaji). The site will then provide you with a variety of ways to get from Point A to Point B, including the fastest way and the cheapest way. We used this a lot on our trip in 2007. It saved us much time and money.
Weather Forecast (Tenki Yoho) is a Japanese version of weather.com. I suppose you can just use weather.com, but I like the Tenki Yoho site better. You can see the whole country at a glance, see how the day compares to averages, and learn Japanese weather terminology (if you can read some kanji) on Tenki Yoho.
Hiking in Japan is a blog with dozens of hikes listed in sufficient detail that you can actually get to the hike location (I hope). The hikes are sorted by prefecture or region so you can find hikes near your location easily.
Softbank’s inexpensive cell phone service is what we plan to use to call each other in Japan. For about $10 a month we can make free calls to each other. You have to purchase a Japanese cell phone though as foreign cell phones don’t work in Japan.
What links have you found useful?
Today’s photograph is of the net castle in Hakone Open-Air Museum mentioned in yesterday’s blog entry.
