Saitao comments

paulinusa- Just curious. Ever notice that 90% of Japanese travelers use hard plastic suitcases. Any thoeries why?

I always thought that it was to make sure the things inside didnt get squished. When I came over here I used two suitcases for all my things, and when I opened them back up some of the items inside were mashed and unusable. Ive been thinking about getting one of the plastic ones for myself, the look nice and they`d be good for if I go back to the states for a visit.

This is one of the few Japanese actresses I like. She's not a complete idiot like most of them, she can act pretty well, and she's not some complete girly girl.

I liked her final comment about the weather. She didn't try to act pretentious, just down to earth.

While video games are a good way to pick up new vocab or fine-tune your language skills, I still think it's best to start with textbooks or a class and work up to them.

Reflections- Your best bet would probably be online. Unless you're in a rather larger city, finding them in person would be pretty tough. PlayAsia.com has a great selection on Japanese games and they ship to America.

I think that at least part of this article is true, playing video games in Japanese can help you learn new vocab, although I have a little trouble committing them to memory. Typically the type is scrolling too quickly of some games for me to look them up. I prefer using DVDs of JDramas with the subtitles on, that way you can pause when theres a word you don't know, and you can choose different dramas that use different groups of technical terms that you want to learn.