Japanese study update

A couple years ago I decided to stop directing my studies towards the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), since the level I was attempting was starting to include topics that I couldn't stand (like writing formal business letters), so I adopted a new relaxing study philosophy based on fun! Although I never really expect to be "good" at Japanese, it's still one my favorite hobbies that I never want to give up, so I gladly spend some time every day with it. I really don't have a goal for my studying, other than just enjoying the act of learning something new. Each morning I study kanji using KanjiBox on my iPad (a very helpful app that has definitely improved my reading), and I'm a devoted paying customer of iKnow, since I absolutely love the feeling of accomplishment I get from working through their online courses. Most importantly, I meet with my excellent tutor Kumiko every week for reading and translation practice. We have been using a fantastic book that I bought years ago called Issai kara Hyakusai no Yume (1歳から100歳の夢), which contains short essays written by 100 people aged 1 to 100 answering the question "What is your dream?" Most of the essays are fascinating and often touching, and the progression from little kids to adults has been a nice match to my Japanese learning progress! Each essay begins with that person's typical daily schedule, so recently I thought I would write one of my own just for fun. See if you can figure out my exciting day!

５：００　起床
５：３０　iPadで漢字を勉強
６：００　朝ご飯
８：１５　電話で両親と話す
８：３０　出社
８：４５　仕事
１１：３０　家で昼ご飯
１２：００　インターネットで単語を勉強
１３：００　仕事
１４：３０　散歩
１７：００　帰宅
１７：１５　趣味（漫画、レゴ）
１８：３０　晩ご飯
２０：００　ビデオを見る（特撮映画、アニメ）
２２：３０　就寝

Scanning project

Every year I make a list of projects I want to complete, and I always try to think up a few new decluttering ideas, which is getting difficult since I've done so much in this area! I remembered that in my garage I had a box of all kinds of papers: journals, poetry, high school and college papers, childhood artwork, and so on. Although I had already reduced this to one document box a few years ago, I decided I might as well go all the way, so I decided to scan everything and get rid of the paper for good. It took me a few months, but it was kind of fun to just mechanically do the same thing over and over while watching a video and drinking a beer. It was pretty nostalgic seeing everything I had written and I was kind of amazed the volume of it, covering all the major events in my young life, and now one of my new goals is to actually go back and read it all! I also threw my complete collection of trading cards in the mix, and it was nice to dig through those again. After all that scanning, I have everything backed up in three places (including two offsite), and now it's much easier to enjoy everything since I don't have to dig it out of a dusty box. Here are my final totals, plus a random sample of some of my scans (that aren't too embarrassing to share):

• 1086 journal pages
• 1301 trading cards
• 756 songs and poems
• 410 school papers
• 129 drawings and artwork
• 385 other things
• 4067 items total

View Trading Cards: Star Wars and other movie cards from my childhood
View Questar: Homemade comic book with hilarious artwork
View Galactic Gazette: Geek newspaper I made with my school friends
View Comic Books: Overachieving high school report with illustrations
View Romeo's Quest: Shakespeare-inspired role playing game I made in college

LEGO trains update

Several months ago I decided to change my LEGO train track layout. I used to use my switches to make a double-loop, but my Emerald Night had a little trouble navigating those tight curves, so I created a single loop in an "L" shape with more straight sections. I ended up using my switches to make two spurs that I can use to park my Passenger Train and Cargo Train, and I'm pretty happy with the much larger design! I haven't really added many more buildings, but my city is kind of overrun with vehicles now, since I just can't resist buying sets like the Garbage Truck and the Dump Truck. I also had a ton of fun building the huge Public Transport Station (my Black Friday impulse buy last year), which included some cool structures as well as more vehicles, including a cute street cleaner truck with brushes! My Toy Story train is put away for now, but I plan on getting it out again soon since I haven't made a video of it since I motorized it. Speaking of videos, I decided to buy a Hot Wheels Video Racer on a whim, which is a standard size Hot Wheels car with a complete color video camera built right in! I was able to fasten it to each of my trains at various angles to film a "point of view" video of what it looks like to ride around in my LEGO city! Although I mainly love building LEGO sets and marveling at the imaginative design that goes into each model, I relish the times when I can find a way to play with my sets like a kid!

Watch video: LEGO Trains Point of View

Decluttering via eBay

One of my decluttering goals for this year is to finally sell some collectibles on eBay, and I've been working away at it every weekend! On Friday I pick a new item to sell, do my research of looking at completed auctions to find a good price, take my photos, and post my listing. I stopped collecting Disney pins quite a long time ago, and those have been selling really well (my best went for nearly $30 for a single pin), but I've also listed a few Jpop CDs and DVDs (that I bought when I was collecting more than just Morning Musume) and also some old manga series. It's fun to check how many views and watchers my auctions get, and sometimes the suspense is great! Shipping hasn't been too much of a hassle, since almost everything I've listed will fit in a small flat-rate postage box that ships for five bucks, and I can even use eBay to print the postage at home (I got some special printer labels to make this even easier). I like reading the feedback from my buyers, and it's cool to see my star rating go up (it's certainly not huge, but much bigger than it was a few months ago). I'm definitely not getting rich, but I always make enough to feel satisfied, and I'm glad to sell to someone who is actively interested and appreciates these items. Of course, these sales end up in my PayPal account, which is immediately used to fund my current collections (mostly Godzilla toys), so this is also a nice way to keep buying goodies without going broke! I really like using eBay's iOS app (on both my iPad and iPhone), since it's so fast to check on my auctions, and the notifications about items I'm watching have really helped me win some cool stuff!

Instagram friends

Since I started using Instagram over a year ago, I've added a new photo almost every day (I'm up to 339 photos so far). Almost all of my pictures are of my toy collection, so lots of other Instagram users have noticed me and started following my photos, since my collection spans a lot of interests like Disney, Star Wars, LEGO, PEZ, and Japanese toys. Most of these followers post fantastic photos as well, so I follow them and see their new posts every day. I really don't know anything about these people, but it's fun to interact with these new "friends" by seeing their daily images and making comments! I'm kind of proud of the eclectic group that enjoys my photos. I have several Japanese followers: two are in Hokkaido (and constantly post beautiful snowy landscape and architecture photos), another is a cute Japanese girl who loves all things Disney and frilly and often posts pictures of her pet rabbit, and two more are fantastic geeks who must visit Akihabara every day to take photos of the latest toys to hit the stores. I have some cool Star Wars followers also, including one hardcore fan with Star Wars tattoos and an amazing costume collection. I love posting a photo each day and seeing "likes" popup (I usually get around 10 per image), and I sometimes comment with my followers (even in Japanese, which gets a surprised reaction). I love my daily routine, and Instagram is a fun part of it! By the way, you can check out my Instagram photos on Statigram or Flickr.

Yuji Sakai Godzilla dioramas

My latest collecting obsession is miniature Godzilla dioramas sculpted by Yuji Sakai, a famous Japanese toy sculptor who produces amazingly detailed kaiju creations. I stumbled upon one of these toys in Little Tokyo during a Los Angeles trip, and then later I bought a few more at an anime convention, but I've only recently started to seriously grow my collection. Each diorama is only about three or four inches high, so they don't take up much room on a shelf, but just like all collections, they look great when you get a bunch of them together! They each depict a scene from a different Godzilla movie, often based on an actual frame of the film, and the detail is stunning. You may not know that a different Godzilla suit was used in nearly every movie, so there are always differences in the eyes, dorsal plates, and even the "ears". Sakai not only captures these subtle variations in Godzilla perfectly, but he also creates cool landscapes that really bring these toys to life! Several different series of these dioramas were released in Japan around 2007 by Bandai, so I don't even know how many total pieces there are to collect. I have 15 so far, and there are plenty more available on eBay. I've bought most of the cheaper ones, so now I'm faced with shelling out for the expensive ones (some are rarer than others, of course), but I think I'll stick with it! I've been regularly including these Godzilla toys in my daily Instagram photo series, and it's always fun to try to find the best angle for an exciting shot!

Disney Die-Cast Attractions Collection

Several years ago (around 2005), Disney made a series of toys called the Die-Cast Attractions Collection, only available at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. They were really cool die-cast metal versions of the various attraction vehicles, usually with some fun characters siting inside and enjoying the ride! Since I absolutely love the classic DIsney attractions, I started buying these as a way to commemorate my many visits to the Disney parks, but soon I become obsessed with finding the complete set, so I started hunting on eBay and other places online. Besides attraction vehicles, I soon discovered they also made parade floats (mostly cars from the old Stars and Motor Cars Parade at Disney's Hollywood Studios), and they even made a few deluxe vehicles with more detail (such as the Main Street Fire Engine and the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad engine) with nice plastic display cases included. Back when I was buying these, I reached a point where I thought I had them all, and after doing a little research I think that's true (minus a few specialty items), thanks to a website I found with an overview of the whole collection (scroll about halfway down). Lately I have been taking snapshots of these with Instagram (also available in a Flickr set), and it's been so much fun to think about riding the Matterhorn Bobsleds, the Jungle Cruise, Pirates of Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, and of course all of the Fantasyland dark rides! These toys seem to be fairly rare now, and I've seen some being sold for ten times what I originally paid. I'm proud to have this series in my Toy Museum!