Cross-post from Tumblr (aka. Week One)

1. I’ve been walking around with a shirt button undone ALL DAY.
2. My landlords just gave me a microwave! Because I mentioned that I like to pov-poach eggs in conversation once.
3. Due to inter-lingual miscommunication mayhem, I was stood outside my first school like a dick for half an hour, before realising the person who was giving me a lift to my second school must’ve thought she’d be picking me up back at my apartment.
4. I will be at one school 3 days a week, and two others for one day each. The 3-day school is 10 minutes from my apartment, whereas the other two have really good arcades directly en-route to my apartment. Chun-Li is going to kick some arse over the coming months. My karma is being a big bag of awesome.
5. If anyone has a degree and wants to come over in the very near future, email me! My username on here at gmail dot com. Don’t worry too much if you don’t have much money saved up.

Does putting everything in a numbered list make it easier to read? Probably not.

The following is a repository of links to information specifically for gaijin in Japan. If you're a recent permanent arrival or just on holiday, you'll hopefully find some decent links to satisfy your ravenous appetite for knowledge. Pfft, foreigners.

Language

• Basic verbs (go, learn, drink etc.)
• More extensive info on verbs and usage (will need to know Hiragana to read the verbs themselves)
• “Wa” and “ga” (when to use which)
• Yoroshiku onegaishimasu (what it means, when to use it)
• “Let’s Learn Japanese” series 1 on YouTube, in a playlist

Mobile apps specifically are listed below

Transport

• Inter-city/nightbuses
• Train timetables (tells you where to change trains, prices etc. Make sure you scribble down the kanji for the station you’re going to and your train’s final destination before you leave!)

Shopping/Money

• Amazon in English
• Receiving money from overseas into a JP Post office account (this cost a set fee of £30 when someone did it for me, so only really worth it for larger sums)
• Costco (imported food)
• FBC (more imported food)
• Multilingual Living Information (general info about tax, alien registration etc., quite extensive)

Misc.

• Air conditioner kanji translation

Mobile Apps

Android Apps

• JA Sensei (Hiragana/Katakana learning app)
• JED (Japanese-English dictionary that saves all its data locally, so you don’t have to be online to use it)
• Kanji Recognizer (draw kanji to figure out what it says - good for roadsigns etc. Make sure you get WWWJDIC too, as they work in conjunction)
• Read kanji using your camera (it’s a bit of a faff to crop the image around the specific kanji you want to read, so not great when you’re on the move and trying to figure things out quickly)
• Google Translate (type or speak, it translates and spits it out in Japanese and vice-versa, in very well synthesised voices. Requires a connection, but works well over 3G, and can even work with romaji. Some versions also have conversation mode, which basically turns real life into Star Trek)

iPhone Apps

• Google Translate (see above)
• Human Japanese (very well presented language learning app, more interesting than just flashcards. Full version is pricey so try the lite version first)

Vlog 1: The usual Cribz tosh

Music GunGun 2!

Sorry they're short, blame that fact that I'm a terrible blogger.

Things I learned during my flight:

-Golf courses look awesome from above
-The Olympic stadium will probably need a lick of paint before West Ham start half-filling it
-The people of Hong Kong probably don't know what colour the sky is
-If airline food is awful, I'm going to eat at some proper Japanese dumps and still love it
-Korean Air is apparently sponsored by Pepsi.

Help Dave stay boredom-free.

I am making a long-ass (arse?) journey to Japan on Tuesday, upon whence I will probably not have an Xbox or proper internet access for at least a couple of weeks. I shall need to be entertained. Feel free to leave suggestions and I'll add them to the list.

What should I have pre-downloaded/installed/purchased before I go?

DS
Professor Layton
Pokemon Black
Rhythm Paradise/Heaven

Android phone
Words with Friends (spaceindaver), Wordfeud
The Adventures of Simon Pegg graphic novel

iPod Classic
Lots and lots of Futurama
Friday Night Lights Season One
Firefly

Books/magazines
Peter F. Hamilton - Pandora’s Star
Edge Magazine
GamesTM
Preacher TPB 1

Laptop
Puzzle Agent
Plants vs. Zombies
STALKER: Call of Pripyat
Shatter
BIT.TRIP.BEAT
Torchlight
Osmos

Hello World

Evening (this post is designed to be read in the evening),

My name's Dave, and this is my world domination plan:

1. Move to Japan under the guise of an Assistant Language Teacher
2. Spend my evenings fighting crime ("crime" in this case denotes a lack of pies for sale)
3. Befriend a member of the catering staff at Capcom
4. Sleep my way to the top
5. Use photos of my exploits to blackmail-wangle a job as a translator/English language community manager
6. Demand that Capcom open a Vancouver office and move my job there
7. ???
8. Profit!

So yes, this blog will be targeted at; people considering being a beardy white man in Japan, people studying TEFL or TESOL and want to read the experiences of an idiot living their dream, people who know me and wish I hadn't left, people who have an unhealthy obsession with Japanese culture. Although at no point will I pose with a pair of cat ears on my head, you filthy scallywags.

I will be posting words, photos, videos and perhaps the occasional bit of audio. To begin with, let's get all web 2.0-y and use Google's fancy maps, shall we? I shall be going here:

View Space Indaver's Nerdy Adventures in a larger map

While I already have a Tumblr page and a Twitter account, I will try to keep this page on-topic in terms of Japan and my experiences, but it may occasionally become a repository for my nonsense, a place to crowd-source information, a shoulder to cry on, or just a place where I post pictures of cats being hilarious.

Feel free to post questions in the comments or @ me on Twitter if you have any suggestions for the site or want me to investigate anything in particular.