6 Reasons You Should Use Bamboo Charcoal (Takesumi)

Now that the rainy season is here and humidity is on the rise, many of you may be searching for ways to cope. We’ve already looked at 40 ways to to survive the rainy season, plus 5 more ideas, but today I want to introduce a very useful resource - not just for the rainy season, but all year round.

What is this resource?

Japanese Deodorant: What's in it, What's the Best, and What You Think

Does Japanese deodorant work? Can it even compare with western deodorant? If you're moving to Japan, do you need to pack a two year supply just to survive?

Japan Goggles translates kanji from images

I'm sure many of you know well the frustration of trying to decipher labels, signs, and the occasional menu in Japan. Even if you come to Japan knowing a good number of kanji, unless you know all of them, you may still occasionally run up against characters you've not seen before and wonder how to read with the rest of the kanji you do know.

Nowadays, smartphone apps seem to be the common tools of choice for "surviving" as an expat in a foreign country - and there are so many useful ones for various tasks. I previously wrote about 8 survival tools for living in Japan, including a few of my favorite iPhone apps (ShinKanji, Katsuyo, Kotoba, etc.), and I've also written about the Google Translate app, available for iPhone and Android.

In this post I introduce an iPhone/iPod Touch app to include in the "survival tools for living in Japan" - Japan Goggles. I think it has a lot of potential for anyone who can't read Japanese fluently, and possibly for regular use when out and about (when reading comprehension often is even more critical).

7 tips for going to the movies in Japan

Someone recently wrote me an email asking about movie theaters in Japan, as he’ll be here for the summer and is an avid movie-goer. So, since it IS summer, and people often like going to the movies during the summer, (not to mention, it’s a good way to share A/C instead of running it at home...), here’s a few tips for going to the movies in Japan.

Before we start, two words you should know: 映画 (えいが, eiga) is movie, and 映画館 (えいがかん, eigakan) is movie theater.

1. How to find a movie theater in Japan

Though there are various ways to find theaters in Japan, one site I find particularly helpful is MovieWalker. Yes, it's in Japanese, but it's not too hard to navigate, as I'll show you below.

First, choose your location (red text is mine):