Konnichiwa!

Yesterday I downloaded an app for my phone from the Android Market called Survive Japanese. It's a fantastic game by iStudyCampus which has given me a new dimension to my learning. It's a text-based RPG in which you save hiragana and kanji puzzles to progress. I'm really excited about maybe learning some kanji, and I can't believe it only cost about 90p!

I've pretty much learned hiragana, and I'm beginning to get to grips with katakana, but kanji is a complete mystery to me. Let's hope this game can help! If you have an Android-based phone I really recommend it. There's a free trial version out there too but to be honest, for under a quid (it's $1.50) you can't really go wrong.

Now, this being the weekend after Bonfire Night, we went next door to Louise's mum & dad's for a fireworks party (we live next door to my future in-laws, which is great as it saves on taxis!). Fortunately for our cat, four rabbits and two hamsters there were no really loud ones. I've always enjoyed fireworks, and once or twice in my youth I even made my own... I guess fireworks are another very Japanese pastime - I wonder whether I like these things because they're Japanese, or whether I love Japan because of these things?

Over the next few days I hope to get a few Japanese recipes on here - tonkatsu, pork ramen and yakisoba noodles to name a few. Think I'd better keep my firework recipes to myself though, for everyone's sake!