What is AccessJ?

In all our fury of thrice weekly posting, filling our beloved readers' heads with (sometimes) useful and (sometimes) funny information about how to not simply live but thrive in Japan, AccessJ's second birthday almost slipped by without a proper tip of the hat.

Coincidentally, this is also our 500th post.

That's five hundred articles to help make your life better in Japan. Sure, you've probably skimmed our list of recent posts and moused over the popular posts display (whose top contenders might just be interned there for life), but have you taken a good look at our archives? In two years, we've run the gamut of:

February Roundup

Holy smokes another month went by.

Well, I'm sure you're all gagging to know what you might have missed on AccessJ this month.

Well, this:

ヤフー cooking up a storm with two posts about angry foreigner-hating Japanese people: first on the need (or lack thereof) of ALTs in school, the next simply on how crap ALTs in Japan are.

Me writing like a badass about Changes to the Alien Registration Card, making awesome recommendations and Anki Study Decks for JLPT N3 Textbooks.  I helped the needy with my article on Unemployment Benefit in Japan, and still had time (thanks to a leap-year) to educate the masses on the annual car checkup you're supposed to do/have done.

Laura posting about Hina Matsuri, which is all about dolls and little girls (I won't judge), and two great ideas in our Worksheet Sunday series.

Then LP wrote a 2-part article on the changing scene of Japanese job interviews, and reliable Dan tried his best to entertain us with several new Banking in Japan posts. And good God if that wasn't enough, he also posted about Comparison Shopping Online. Get it while it's HOT.


Next month is going to kick this month in the goolies. I've been busy writing an in-depth 5-part guide to the User-Shaken process, whereby you can save about 100,000 yen (literally) on your car MOT. There will also be plenty of other goodness written by other, lesser authors (have to let them do something, you know).

Anyway, enough nonsense, follow our RSS feed so you don't miss anything next month, butterfingers.

You can also keep up-to-date through Twitter or Facebook, if you like "liking" and "twatpix" (and hey, who doesn't nowadays?). Also, don't forget that we now have a Pinterst (don't you wish YOUR website had a woman involved?). There you can see some of our best bits, and some extras from outside sources.

January Roundup

Merry Bloody New Year! This is going to be a great one for AccessJ, I can feel it in my loins.

I had a New Year blog roundup post half written at the end of December, but found myself 57 metres under the sea when it was supposed to go live.

So, for all you who feel genuinely offended and have been foaming about it (or not foaming without it), here is the best of the past two months:

November Roundup

November was super-exciting at AccessJ!

We learned all about how the internet works! As a result, some template changes have occurred. Not only that, but a much bigger change is about to take place (see next month's Roundup if it doesn't jump out at you).

Even more exciting is that I bought two new plants for my fishtank! And there were two little shrimp in the bag! Lucky! Then they both got eaten by the fish immediately, and one fish died... then another one... possibly as a result of introducing some new ones.... so they may all die soon.... TENSE!

Anyway, so we posted 18 times last month, the most interesting of which were:

The release of AccessJ's Anki JLPT decks. If you're taking the JLPT in... 2 days, isn't it? Then you should probably go study now. Use our decks!

Going to the dentist, Pharmacies and over-the-counter drugs in Japan - Dan's health series continues
Brewing your own beer - Dom's health declines
English-Language Newspapers - for those who still want print news in this modern day and age
Whey Protein - need a boost?
Import Duties - Fun for all the family (who are importing goods into Japan(not fun))
Virtual Travel in Japan - the welcome return of author LP features a lovely eTrip around Japan
Cheap Car Navigation units - at last!
and How to find local events in your area

We also had two semi-guest posts last month. One by request: Dekotora Trucks Video about lorries covered in lights and mirrors, and one re-post of some excellent job-hunting vocab from Twitter friend Maggie Sensei. Anyone else wishing to have something featured here should contact us.

And of course don't forget our weekly Worksheet Sunday series, which continued to provide solid teaching ideas for elementary and junior high.

Another month done. Time for me to get back to studying for the JLPT which I will be lucky to scrape a pass in.

October Roundup

We've got a new feature here on AccessJ. (OK, it's not really new.) It's called the monthly blog roundup, and it allows us to travel through time and space, introducing you to the entries of the last month you may have missed.

September Roundup

Forgot all about this this month. Sorry for the delay.

What did you miss in the last four (well, five) weeks?

Well, first of all you missed the August blog roundup - wouldn't want to fall behind there. Missing an AJ blog is like missing a train, except for the vital difference that with a train, an almost identical copy turns up shortly after. And, trains kill people; never forget that. AccessJ never killed anyone (in fact, as you will find out next month, we actively help out those with suicidal tendencies.) In short, next time you miss a train, thank your lucky stars it wasn't one of our entries.

Anyway, not content just with the roundup, we then went on to post some other stuff:

Happy Birthday to AccessJ!

This plastic, gormless, empty-
headed Gumper symbolises
the kind of site AccessJ is not.

Well, it's been just over a year since AccessJ's first posts went live.

Back then, it was just Steve and I, pooling some knowledge gained through complicated daily-life experiences and sharing them with the internet.

One year on, and we have two or three new writers, have stuck rigidly to our 4(or more)-posts-a-week goal, have brought in almost 300,000 hits and made absolutely no money.

But we're not going to bug you with PayPal donation links. AccessJ is all about giving :D One day we'll be big and successful. Until then, just keep reading our entries and leaving comments.

Cheers!
TeamAJ


PS: We've had a few inquiries about guest posting in the last few months. Although none of them have been successful, if you have something you think would fit the AccessJ style and provide a good read for our viewers, contact us.

August Blog Roundup

月末です。

I went on holiday last month (yes, I had a great time, thanks for asking!) and missed the roundup, so here's the best of July and August.

We were blown away by the popularity of our Japanese Pen Spinning post this month, which scored 26,000 hits in 48 hours, while our lovely video about Taking a Poop in Japan failed to get anything near 10% of that :(

Dan finished his in-depth guide to Japanese Cellphones and quickly got stuck into an excellent series on Getting a Credit Card.

Laura continued her elementary lesson plans in our Worksheet Sunday series, and still had time to write about Buying Japanese Edibles in England, and the Japanese Straight Perm available at your local hair-dressers.

I posted a handy video explaining how the Japanese Postal Address System works, and several articles about studying Japanese: The Worst Mistake You Can Make Learning Japanese (or any language), JLPT Past Test Papers, and two articles about kanji - why Kanji is So Useful for Learning Japanese, and the Best Way to Learn Kanji.

I also made it known that I am running a series of long-distance runs for charity this year. Every month I will run one half- or full-marathon for Save the Children Japan. Any donation will help the needy. I did a run last week at the base of Mt. Fuji which was incredibly difficult thanks to the altitude and terrain. Make it worth my while!

The mysterious LP has also been posting, letting us know how a Japanese Girlfriend will Affect Your Japanese, as well as polishing a great article on getting an ETC card without a credit card.

June Blog Roundup

Well, it's definitely summer, isn't it? In a couple of weeks we'll post about how you can tame that crazy heat in your house. For now, here's what you may have missed on AccessJ this month:

Speaking of the heat, I posted a short while ago about How to Not Sweat Like a Beast. Vital reading to minimise those huge sweat patches.

A very popular post covered the best way to learn the Japanese hiragana and katakana alphabets. More posts on learning Japanese to come in the next couple of weeks.

We brought back the Being an ALT series this month, with entries covering working in multiple schools, getting molested at those schools, and an explanation of why it doesn't have to be so easy to be an ALT. More to come.

We showed all those out there with the Japanese IME or a Japanese computer how you can type some really cool symbols. In fact, you can type so many that it needed a second post.

Let's not forget the inclusion of a brand new writer at AccessJ: Dan has been busy putting together a guide on Japanese cellphones. You can read about The Basics, Important Paperwork and Pre-Paid Phones. Expect a new entry on that each Friday until literally everything has been covered.

And speaking of new writers, Laura has decided to help us out on our Worksheet Sunday series. We've used several of her ideas in the past, and she's now busy writing up a guide to teaching the Eigo Noto textbook series in elementary schools. Her first entry went live this month. Other WSs this month included "Will you...?", "He was, they were" and "Are You From...?" for Junior High.

As always, there's plenty more where that came from, so check the archive pages at the top of this page for other great articles from AccessJ.

May Blog Roundup

May has been and gone now, and taken with it all the pretty colours of spring, leaving us only with the creeping humidity and threatening reveal of dozens of praying mantis eggs.

Anyway, this month saw us pass 100,000 hits since late last year, and the growing AccessJ team provided you lovely readers with some great posts as a thank you.

Recent Blog Roundup

It's been a long time since we did a roundup of our recent blogs, and as our readership has taken something of a jump since new year, here's a rundown of some of what you may have missed.

Review of the Year 2010

Happy New Year!

This is our first new year together, treasured reader. Thank you for your visit, we hope you found what you were looking for. If not, why not email us what you need and we'll see what we can do.

Anyway, thanks go to the almost 20,000 hits we've had in the last few months; we've been much more successful than we expected.

But chances are you've missed some of our wonderful posts, so here's a list of some of the greats that may have slipped beneath your otherwise highly efficient radar.

• About the cold winter we're in:

Why are Japanese houses SO COLD?
How to insulate your Japanese house for the winter

• Daily life

How much will I get paid teaching English?
The cost of living/utilities in Japan
Finding an ESL job in Japan
Our "Job Spotlight" employment series

• School stuff

5 random school lunches from Japan
The 5 most annoying pages in the New Crown textbooks
"Wot dis? Dis pen!" Appaling Japanese English set to change?
 Elementary school - The Hello Song vs "Anything OK"

• Popular posts:

How to find and make a Japanese penpal
Our "Budget Accommodation" series
Using an Amazon Kindle to study Japanese
Soaplands - the Japanese brothel
Robots in my toilet
Driving schools in Japan

• Fun things:

The Japanese obsession with ear cleaning - mimikaki and mimisouji
The top 10 dirty Japanese phrases




And don't forget to check out our guides page for all the important information about living and working in Japan we've posted this year.

December also saw the unveiling of our new "Photo Tuesday" series, where we post interesting or nice pictures relevant to recent posts. If you have any images you think we should up, let us know through our Facebook page.