Saturday, November 03, 2007

They arrived FINALLY!! ヤット届いたんだ!!

Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, おかげさまで.

Today, I picked up from the post office half of my trip to Japan! 5Kgs of books, all dear to me, have arrived!

Aaaah, what a relief!! I was SO VERY worried. They were supposed to arrive one month ago! Because of baggage limitations, I had to send some stuff to Japan and I chose to send books and printed materials, which was the most cost effective way: 5000 yens for 5Kgs to arrive in two weeks by Airmail.

For some reason, it took one month more to arrive and I was getting really, really worried. I consider those books to be half of my trip to Japan!

Some hastily taken photos with my mobile's crappy camera:

You have no idea how much I was happy to see this.

One of the worst feelings ever is to lose something you really value.
One of the best feelings ever, is to find it again..

Introducing the books.....

Don't bother clicking, the picture quality is so bad that the titles are unreadable.

Free Japanese books of my choice from the Japan Foundation:

Practical Japanese Workbooks series:
擬声語-擬態語 (初/中級) Onomatopoeia (Elementary/Intermediate)
接続詞 (初/中/上級): Conjunction (Elementary/Intermediate/Advanced)

The Japan Foundation displayed and organized all the books that we can choose from and there were JF Japanese language teachers present to give us advice and recommend books according to our needs. I was looking for books to improve my conversation skills, in particular, to get read my frequent pauses and to improve the flow of my speech. So I asked for advice and got recommended the series above.

Onomatopoeia refers to the characteristic Japanese words with the same syllable repeated twice. For example, ぺらぺら (perapera)、すらすら (surasura)、にこにこ(nikoniko) and にやにや(niyaniya). Such words are used very often by Japanese people and also are used to emulate and describe animal cries and musical instrument sounds. Sweet!

As for the conjunction book, I seriously hope to get rid of the stiffness in my speech and enhance its flow.

にほんご敬語トレーニング Japanese polite speech training
I am completely behind with Keigo and I don't know how good this book is, but I hope it helps me some.


While I was in Tokyo, I visited Islamic Center Japan office in the Setagaya ward and I had iftar there, but this is the topic for another post. I recieved a lot of documents from them about Islam and Japan and I also recieved the following Japanese books about Islam:

イスラームの理解 Towards Understanding Islam
コルーンとハディースの根本教義 Basic teachings from the Qur'an and Hadith
イスラームの信仰 The Muslim's believes
40のハディース 40 Hadiths (For those muslims in the know: These are what we call 'the 40 Nawawis')

For me, learning Japanese is not just about taking, it is also about giving. I don't like the one-sided approach of many students of the language, were they embrace Japan and Japanese to the point of forgetting themselves and their cultures. I want to exchange viewpoints; I believe that I can offer something equally beneficial and interesting, just like I'm learning a lot of stuff through my study of the Japanese language and interaction with Japanese people. So, I requested Japanese language books about Islam to read them (if I can) and to lend them to whoever is interested.

ぬすまれた月 The stolen moon
This is a wonderful picture book I got from my dear K-sensei, when I met her in Tokyo. What a relief that it has arrived. Thank you sensei, I will read it and try my best to translate it to Arabic.

Practical Japanese Cooking
A cookbook for my mom. Too bad she just left yesterday to Kuwait for a few weeks. :'(

Unequal Equities
A book I got for a dear friend who is specialized in finance. Too bad, he too will leave to Dubai today for a few days. I hope he finds it informative.

Hiroshima
A book I got from the Peace memorial museum. In the museum, Camera flash was not allowed and my hand was not steady at all, so most of the pictures I took in the museum were not clear. Fortunately, when I opened the book today, I found many of the pictures of the effects of the Atomic bomb, which I tried, but failed to take good pictures of.

Muji catalog and magazine
I like Muji and IKEA. Simple, plain, minimalistic and comfortable. So I took the season's Muji catalog for my family and my twin brother's family to take a look at and get some ideas from.

Plus, many brochures and print out documents...

Alhamdulillah, now I have fully returned from Japan.

Excuse me now, as I perform the happy dance..