Monthly Archives: September 2008

The search is complete!

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January 31st, 2009: It’s finally time to post the remainder of my search. I’ve faked the post dates to match when they were found.

Today I finally found the remaining cows. The final 3 “mini-moos” were spread through the upper floors in the Oazu building, so were almost impossible to find without the map.
The final cow was on the other side of the JR Tokyo station, which I’m pretty sure isn’t technically in Marunouchi.


Minimoo 73Minimoo 73

 


Minimoo 72Minimoo 72

 


Minimoo 71Minimoo 71

 


Cow 64Cow 64

 

Today’s cows: 64
Today’s mini-moos: 71, 72, 73
Total cows to date: 65 of 65 cows, 8 of 8 mini-moos, 10 of 10 cows of europe.
Remaining Cows: none.

Chillin’ with the minimoos

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January 25th, 2009: It’s finally time to post the remainder of my search. I’ve faked the post dates to match when they were found.

I found 2 of the remaining “minimoos” with the help of the map. They were on the third floor of the Marunouchi building, in quite a nice spot overlooking the autumn sunshine outside.


Chillin with the minimoosChillin’ with the minimoos


Minimoo 67Minimoo 67


Minimoo 66Minimoo 66

Today’s cows: none
Today’s mini-moos: 66, 67
Total cows to date: 64 of 65 cows, 5 of 8 mini-moos, 10 of 10 cows of europe.
Remaining Cows: 64, 71, 72, 73.

Hidden cows

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I went looking for cows 10 and 12, since I knew roughly what area to look in. I found cow 10 without too much trouble, it was at street level opposite cows 9 and 11, and open to the footpath, but in a corner under a recessed building entrance.

After about 15 minutes looking for cow 12 I broke down and checked the map, which showed it was in the Kokusai building. Even then it took me another 10 minutes to find it, since it was in the basement (there are about a dozen restaurants down there).


Cow 10Cow 10


Close-up of cow 10Close-up of cow 10


Close-up of cow 10Close-up of cow 10

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Cownt-down

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After checking through my list of cows, and I have the following left to find: 10, 12, 37, 64, 66, 67, 71, 72, 73. The last five are all minimoos.

I went looking for number 37 today, since cows 32-36 were all in or around the Marunouchi building. After spending about 15 minutes looking around I asked at the reception, and sure enough, it was on the 5th floor.

Cow 37 was quite unusual, it had been split in half and then put in what looked like two semi-transparent shipping crates!


Cow 37Cow 37


Cow 37 frontal viewCow 37 frontal view

So while we were there we tried out Kua Aina, a Hawaiian burger chain. Nice burger, a bit pricey.


Kua Aina on the 5th floor of the Marunouchi building Kua Aina on the 5th floor of the Marunouchi building

Today’s cows: 37
Today’s mini-moos: none
Total cows to date: 62 of 65 cows, 3 of 8 mini-moos, 10 of 10 cows of europe.
Remaining Cows: 10, 12, 64, 66, 67, 71, 72, 73.

Remembering the Kanji

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For a long time I believed that I would never be able to truly read and write Japanese, more specifically the Kanji, no matter how much effort I put in.

The most common method of teaching Kanji relies on rote-memorization – the same method used by the majority of Japanese children. If you’re going to be immersed in a Japanese environment for 15 years or more, then I guess you’re going to remember them eventually, no matter how poor the method.

My Japanese teacher in Australia took another approach – just don’t teach Kanji at all! Suffice it to say that didn’t help much. I would find myself starting to recognize some simple common Kanji, but when I tried to write them I would only have a rough idea of the shape. And there are many Kanji that are very similar, often differing by only one stroke, so it’s very easy to mistake one Kanji for another.

The 2000 (or so) Kanji needed to be generally literate just seemed like an insurmountable obstacle.

Then I found Remembering the Kanji Volume 1 (RTK).

The cover of RTK volume 1

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