Chopsticks for Kids!

If you have kids of your own, or ever watched a friend's kids struggle with chopsticks, Jake Ludington's Mediablab has a great video on how to make "kid friendly" chopsticks. Enjoy.

Getting away? Park and fly!

One of the great things about living in the Yokosuka area is the proximity to an international airport. Yes, Narita is 90 - 120 minutes away by car, bus or train - but at least we don't have to FLY there to catch an international flight. One of the best ways I've found to help ease the strain of getting away via Narita is to use the "park and fly" long-term parking services near the airport. The one I recommend is DAD Narita Parking System. Make a reservation in advance and then on the day of your flight just drive your own car (the option to do this is AWESOME for families with small children). When you get near the airport give DAD a call on your cell phone and they will meet you at the terminal. Right there at curbside. All you then need to do is empty your car of bags, kids, spouse and turn the keys over to the DAD staff. They'll drive your car back to their lot and secure it safely until you return. When you return just call them from baggage claim and in just a few minutes they'll drive your car right back to the terminal where you simply hop in and drive home. They have an English-language website, which is very helpful. Prices seem reasonable enough - leave your car there for a week or more and it's around 11,000 yen ($100). This is definitely a 5 star recommendation.

Swap Meet, Japanese Style.....

Looking to buy some inexpensive, second hand goods? There will be a Flea Market in Honcho, Yokosuka City, (right in front of the gates of the US Navy base) on Saturday and Sunday, July 22nd and 23rd, from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM each day. You can expect over 100 vendors, plus live music and street performances. Enjoy the day and the bargain shopping!

Skype Hack..... Keeping in touch is easy & cheap.

Skype is nothing new, well, to tech geeks anyway. But with a little work and a little money even average Joes like me can use it to make communications with the "folks back home" a little easier. First, sign up for a Skype account (it's free) and download / install the software. Then buy a year's Skypein access for around $40. Skypein allows you to reserve a real honest-to-goodness telephone number "back home", pretty much wherever back home is in the world. So if your family mostly lives in, say, Chicago, pick a phone number with a local area code for Chicago so when family and friends call it's a local charge. Skypein works like this - if your connected to the Internet in Japan and logged into Skype, when your Mom calls your local Skypein number in Chicago your computer "rings" here in Japan. Skypein also comes with Skype Voicemail, so when your family and friends call your Skypein number and you're not connected they can leave a voice mail that you can easily retrieve and play they next time you log in to Skype. Lastly, buy $15 or so of Skypeout credits. Skypeout allows you use your computer to call any regular or mobile phone almost anywhere in the world dirt cheap (calls from Japan to a landline in the US are around $.03 per minute). So here's the hack..... Set your Skype account for Call Forwarding to your phone number here in Japan. So now when Mom calls your "local" number in Chicago the call is automatically forwarded to your phone here in Japan. For landlines it will cost around $.03 per minute, to mobiles it'll run around $.15 per minute. For the average user $15 of Skypeout credits will last a long time for this quick, easy and relatively cheap way for your family and friends back home to reach out and keep in touch with you.

Train Schedules Made Easy

The absolutely best way to get around in Japan is by train. Notice I didn't say "cheapest" (that's another post all together). Here's a very easy to use website to help you find the correct route and times to get from where you are to where you want to be. The website japan-guide.com has a nice "how-to"article on riding trains.

First post.....

As an avid reader of books, magazines, websites and blogs, I hope to share some of the interesting and helpful things I learn about living in Japan, and in particular, the area around the City of Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.