Here is a list of useful websites and resources for Japan and learning Japanese. We have chosen sites that we frequently visit and use.

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While reading the news on the NHK website I found this hilarious story on JAL. Poor old JAL, they’re like the bigger, older but more hapless brother of ANA who just can’t seem to get it right.

According to this article, a JAL pilot was arrested by police for urinating in public on June 23rd near his hotel in Honolulu. He was kept in custody and as a result, the flight he was supposed to be on was canceled.

According to police, the 53 year old co-pilot was caught urinating in the trees after drinking at his hotel. In violation of state law, he was kept in custody for two days and was given a fine of $25. He was due to co-pilot flight 75 bound for Narita on 25th. However, after failing to turn up to work, the flight had to be canceled affecting 297 passengers.

According to other JAL employees, he had had one small bottle of wine and five small bottles of beer. He went for a walk outside and peed in the bushes as he thought no one would be watching.

JAL issued an apology to the passengers and said they would be looking into how to deal with the co-pilot.

Language note

In the original article, the phrase, 立ち小便 – tachi shonben is used. It literally means peeing while standing and in this case means peeing in public. Some people shorten it to 立小 or tachishon. In Japan tachishon is not as heinous a crime as it would be in other parts of the world

[podcast]http://media.libsyn.com/media/japanese/ff20090626.mp3[/podcast]

Holy okonomiyaki, it’s Fun Friday podcasting at you from a humid Shibuya with me Alex and the lovely Waka sensei. If you don’t know what Fun Friday is, it’s a podcast with music, chat, news and other general hilarity from Japan.

In this week’s show we covered quite a few topics including the weather, haiku, the economy and a story about a crazy guy who has been stealing garden ornaments. The poor man said he stole the ornaments, took them home and then he talked to them as he was lonely. Maybe not as original as most traveling gnome pranks but more bizarrely entertaining. (Original article here)

The featured bands in this week’s show were Natccu, a talented singer song writer who will be touring the UK soon. Check here site for details.

At the end of the show we played some Yugo Sato, a  unique blues guitarist and singer from Tokyo. Yugo Sato was introduced to me by my good friend Ethan Green, creator of Tokyo Werewolf, a website that covers the underground music scene in Japan. Someone give this talented man a job.

We also talked about the latest goings on at Learn Japanese Pod which involve tidying up the site and a new set of articles and lessons which will be posted on the main site. Here’s what it looks like:

Monday – J-Slang

Weekly lessons on slang and the street Japanese you usually don’t find in text books

Tuesday – Main Lesson

As always we will be bringing you the main podcast lesson on Tuesdays

Wednesday -Kanji

We are thinking of doing some sort of weekly kanji lesson. Still thinking about the details but that should be coming up in the next week or so

Thursday – Japan guide

We will try to post some kind of travel guide and reviews at least twice a month for those interested in exploring Japan

Friday – Fun Friday

Of course. Did we really need to tell you that?

If you have any questions or comments either leave a comment at the bottom of this post or send us an email at info[at]learnjapanesepod[dot]com