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 minimoos’

‘Mimimoo number 67’

‘Mimimoo number 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.

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 number 10’

‘Close-up of cow number 10’

‘Close-up of cow number 10’

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 ’minimoo’s.

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 number 37’

‘Frontal view of cow number 37’

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’

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.

I went to lunch with some colleagues today, and stumbled across 3 miniature cows on the third floor of the Shin-Marunouchi building! I checked the Cow Parade Tokyo website, and cows 66 to 73 are “ミニムー”s (“mini-moos”).

‘Mini-moos!’

‘Posing with the mini-moos!’

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 (known as RTK).

‘Remembering the Kanji Volume 1’