Win What You Want

Flutterscape (if you haven’t figured it out by now) is a site that sells Japanese goods… with a twist. Regular people in Japan take pictures of items in their local area (at stores, and such), and then they put those pictures up on Flutterscape with a description, price, and so on. They buy the product from their local store when you pay for the item (your money goes to Flutterscape and is kept safe until Flutterscape gets the item to ship to you), and then you get the product a little bit later. Because of this business model, there are a ton of fun things on the site… which makes it hard for me to choose what I want to giveaway, and why I want you to choose for me.

Everyone has different things that they want, and everyone wants something ridiculous from Japan, so now’s your chance. You can choose ~$200 worth of goods from Flutterscape.com and win it (then get it shipped to your home).

How The Contest Works

This is a pretty high-prize contest, so the contest rules are a little more difficult (compared the the previous two).

You do have two choices, though. You can either write a blog post somewhere (I like WordPress, if you don’t have a blog right now and want to create one), or you can create a video and upload it to YouTube. Both have equal weight in terms of scoring, so choose the one you like most. Here’s how the contest works:

1. Go to Flutterscape.com and find approximately $200 worth of things you’d want to win. It can be whatever you want as long as it’s found on Flutterscape.
2. Write a blog post or make a video telling me why you want/deserve these things you picked out. Be creative!
3. In the blog post / in the YouTube description section, link to the items you talk about / want to win, so I can make sure they exist and you’re not making stuff up.
4. Send your entry to contests@tofugu.com. Contest ends July 21, 2010.

Scoring system is a combination of random and preference. I’m going to take my favorite blog posts and my favorite videos, and then I’ll probably amidakuji them to pick a random winner out of my favorite 6-8 entries.

There you have it. ANYTHING YOU WANT. I’m really looking forward to seeing what you want. Feel free to link to your entries in the comments as well! Okay! Go ahead, get started! Questions? Pop them in the comments. So, what do you want to win?

P.S. If you like funny Japanese products, you should follow @flutterscape on Twitter.

Related posts:

1. How To Buy Anything From Japan With FlutterScape [+Giveaway]
2. 8 Ways to Win Unlimited Japanese Lessons (and counting)
3. Two (or Three) More Days To Win These Flashcards

P.S. Stick around to the end of this post, where you can win a sexy green USB man.

I bet a lot of you know all about “rock, paper, scissors,” the other way that Japanese people make decisions, but did you know about amidakuji? When you need to assign people or things to an equal number of outcomes, amidakuji is the best way to do it… plus, it kind of reminds me of all those pipes mario smokes has to walk through.

If you look at the info-graphic above (from Wikipedia), you probably should be able to understand how it works. The important thing is that there are an equal number of outcomes as there are things to make decisions on. If you do this, then everything works out in the end, every time (i.e. no one outcome will be chosen twice!).

Amidakuji is used for all kinds of things. I’ve experienced it with distributing prizes (this is how I think Christmas exchanges should happen), distributing chores to do (who has to clean the bathroom this week?), and choosing partners / opponents in various games and activities. It’s actually incredibly useful if you use it in the right situations.

Speaking of using it in the right situation, remember that Flutterscape contest from a few weeks ago? I used amidakuji to figure out which of the six finalists would win the prize. Congrats to the winners!

For those of you who didn’t win don’t cry for too long, because Flutterscape giveaway two out of three is upon us, and I’m giving away two “Midori Otoko.” These “green guys” are actually 2GB USB sticks. When you pop off their heads, you can access their USB dongle, plug it in, and make use of their binary knowledge. They also bend around, which means you can make them do Yoga, apparently.

Midori Otoko Rules

1. Make sure you have a Twitter account (and follow @tofugu and @flutterscape if you haven’t already!)
2. Write an awesome haiku about Flutterscape on Twitter (don’t know what Flutterscape does?). Haikus are 5-7-5 syllables.
3. Make sure you include the #flutterscape AND #haiku hashtags. If you don’t, I won’t be able to find your tweet, because I’m going to use this search on Twitter.
4. Optional: Post your haiku in the comments of this post, too, because we all want to read it.

I’m going to choose the winner sometime soon (Maybe a week? Maybe two?) so get your tweets up there. You can tweet multiple times, but just be careful not to tweet too much, otherwise your overwhelming number of tweets may take away from the punch of your winning tweet. I’ll pick two of my favorites and then send you a direct message if you won (so you should make sure to follow @tofugu on Twitter!)

[Midori Otoko on Flutterscape]

P.S. Stay inspired to study Japanese with the (free) TextFugu Inspirational E-mail List.

Related posts:

1. Two (or Three) More Days To Win These Flashcards
2. 8 Ways to Win Unlimited Japanese Lessons (and counting)
3. How To Buy Anything From Japan With FlutterScape [+Giveaway]

FlutterScape seems a little complicated at first, but really it’s quite simple. There are people in Japan going around to various stores taking pictures of things they want to sell. They don’t buy these things from the store until you buy them. Once you buy the item, they go to the store, get the item, and send it to FluttersScape HQ in Japan. Once FlutterScape gets it they forward the money along (or will send it back to you if the person never gets the item for you) and will send the item to you. Seems complicated, but all you really need to know is that you can safely buy something without much worry about getting screwed over very very easily.

What Can I Buy?

Between the time that FlutterScape just started (I was poking around back then too) and now, FlutterScape has really stepped things up in terms of items available. You’re still not going to be able to go to the site and find anything and everything you want (that’s what the request feature is for, keep reading), but you’ll definitely find a lot of interesting and wonky items to keep you interested for a while. Personally, I’m really into the weird crazy stuff (even though I’ve tried to go a bit more minimalist), and always feel tempted every time I visit the site, which is more and more recently. I’m not much of a shopper but it’s hard to help myself.

There are a bunch of categories you can search through, as well as an actual search function, so if they have what you want then you should be able to find it… but what if they don’t??

Requesting An Item From Japan

Over the last few months, whenever somebody asked me where they could be “Item A” or “Item B,” I’d forward them along to the FlutterScape CEO who would help find the item. I’m guessing he got tired of this and decided to create a request feature (genius!) so that no matter what it is you want from Japan, you can find it.

The part that stands out to me isn’t the text areas, it’s everything else. Let’s go through the request features – I get a little giddy just looking at them.

Is This An Auction? This is if you wanted to buy something off, say, Yahoo Auctions Japan. Ho-Lee-Crapola. You can put your max bid, the URL to the auction, etc, and someone will bid for you based off your criteria. Then, if they win it they’ll send it to you like a regular FlutterScape item. Wow.

Pictures: Perhaps you don’t know what the item is called, and only have a picture. Fear not, you can upload a bunch of photos and someone will try to find it for you. It’s more likely that someone in Japan knows what the Japanese product is, so pictures are the perfect way to go.

YouTube Video URL: There’s a good chance that a lot of cool Japanese items are discovered via YouTube, so if that’s how you did it, then you can share a video of it as well.

Wow, every base I can think of is covered, here. It’s nice and simple, but they did a really good job with the request feature.

Does FlutterScape Work?

A couple of months ago I was introduced to FlutterScape, and decided that I needed to get some Rummy (chocolate with rum raisin inside). I got 20 packs of the stuff, ordered it, and approximately a week later I had a box of Rummy in my mailbox. Mmm, and they were (and are) tasty too. I can’t say what experience other people have had, but things worked out well for me and I imagine it’ll work out well for you too. Try things out on something small, and see how you like it. I think I’ll be using FlutterScape to buy many fun Christmas Presents this year (no Rummy for the younger cousins, though).

Win One Of Three Cupmen!

I have three Cupmen to give away. If you’re the cup noodle eating type, you’ll know that you have to put something on top of your Cup Noodle to keep the lid down while you wait for the hot water to cook and soften the noodles. I usually use my wallet. Now, though, you can use these little “Cupmen” who hang over the top.

Here’s the product description:

“After pouring hot water over your instant noodles, get a helping hand from the hardworking Cupmen. Watch as it turns different colors while desperately trying to prevent the lid from flicking back up. Enjoy a few minutes of fun with Cupmen until your noodles are ready to eat.”

Aww, if that doesn’t win your heart over, I don’t know what will. Here’s more information on Cupmen.

Winning one of these three Cupmen is very simple. You don’t even have to leave the page! In the comments, tell me why you need this product oh-so-bad. Feel free to go into a (fictional or non-fictional) account on how painful it is to make ramen using your shoes, or something like that. I’m going to pick my 6 favorites, and then three will randomly be picked from there. So, although there is some luck involved, quality comments are going to be key to get into that top 6! You have (approximately) a week to get your comment in!

Oh, and if you tweet about the contest, you won’t have higher chance of winning, but you will get some brownie points, you brown-noser you.

Great, so there you go! Win yourself a Cupmen so you can have the full Cup Noodle experience. Speaking of which, I bet FlutterScape has some noodles to go along with it in their Japanese Snacks section.

Oh, and if you have a lot of extra time, you should check out the short film “Mr. Cupmen” by fake French Video artist Jacques Koichi.

P.S. If you eat ramen, you should subscribe to the Tofugu Newsletter.

P.P.S. If you like Japanese “things” you should follow Tofugu and FlutterScape on Twitter.

Related posts:

1. How Wacom Japan Gets You To Buy Their Very Expensive Tablets (Cute Mesmerization)
2. Alternatives to Rosetta Stone Japanese (i.e. Should I buy Rosetta Stone?)
3. How To Get Into Mixi (Without A Japanese Cell Phone Email Address)

Only two or three more days before you can win these White Rabbit Press flash cards. If you missed it, at the end of this video I told you how to win them. Lucky for all of you, I’ll tell you how to win them right here in this post, as well.

How To Play

1. Make sure you have a Twitter account
2. Follow Tofugu on Twitter (you know, so I can direct message you if you win).
3. Write a tweet telling me where / how you would use these flashcards. Pictures and videos are also game.
4. Most important thing is to include a #tofugu hashtag at the end of your tweet, otherwise I won’t be able to find it when I choose the winner! All you do is add #tofugu to the end of your tweet.

Creativity is a plus, though if you tweet something that’s totally impossible I probably won’t be choosing it (i.e. using these flashcards in Space is probably not going to happen for most of you).

What You Win

White Rabbit Press graciously sent me a bajillion flashcards to give away, including Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. Pretty much all the flash cards you’d ever need to learn a majority of the kanji you should be learning. The cards are sexy, contain lots of information, and are kind of heavy if you carry them all at once. Pretty sweet for studying under 50 kanji at a time, though.

When Will The Winner Be Chosen?

Probably this Friday or Saturday (March 5ish or 6ish, 2010), or whenever I feel like it, so keep sending those entries in while you can.

How Many Times Can I Tweet?

As many times as you’d like, though I’m only choosing one. There’s definitely a balance to be achieved between quality and quantity, though, so be careful.

Do I get a rabbit with my flashcards?

Nope.

When Should I start?

Anytime, right now, probably.

Related posts:

1. 8 Ways to Win Unlimited Japanese Lessons (and counting)

Have you heard of eduFire SuperPass? Maybe you’ve seen the big banner in the right-side bar. Essentially, SuperPass is a subscription program over at eduFire that lets you take unlimited (SuperPass) classes for a low fee of $29 a month. We’re talking less than $1 a day here, and you can get a lot out of it. I’ve definitely seen a lot of people really improve their Japanese over the last couple of months way faster than if you were meeting with someone once a week, or something along those lines.

BUT, I know a lot of you are poor, and if only you had the chance… just one chance (or eight chances?)… you would eat it up and try your best (and then get pretty good at Japanese!). There are eight blogs out there giving away eduFire SuperPass subscriptions right now. I’ll be giving away some on Tofugu at a later date, so for now, I’ll have to bid you farewell and send you off to eight amazing blogs. Check out their other posts too – all of these blogs are blogs I already read, and you should too!

How to Win eduFire SuperPass

1. RainbowHill’s Language Lab:
Brett is an Aussie who lived in Japan for a long time, and is also a teacher on eduFire! So, if you won his contest (or any other contest) you might end up taking lessons from him! His contest involves Twitter and tweeting. It doesn’t get any easier than that, right? For your chance to win, head on over to his Japanese language blog and figure out the details.

2. Caught Red-Handed:
Don’t get caught red-handed not checking out this site. I always love the extra work that goes into each and every post. Just like the beauty of the website, to win your copy of SuperPass on this blog you have to do something beautiful as well… write poetry. Specifically, a haiku. You can post the haiku on Twitter or the comments of the actual post. You can read more rules by visiting this super-sexy Japan blog.

3. DumbOtaku:
Feeling a little dumb? We’ve all been there once or twice, where we made a huge mistake and people look at us funny. DumbOtaku’s contest is all about mistakes… more specifically, Japanese language mistakes. Got a funny one? Head on over to DumbOtaku and share it with the world (to get your hands on some juicy SuperPass).

4. RockingInHakata:
Deas has been RockingInHakata for a while now, but he hasn’t had a logo to show for it. Fancy yourself a designer? Think you can outdo his plain text header? I think you can. Head on over to RockingInHakata now and help this guy out! For your hard work, you’ll get yourself a month of free Japanese lessons!

5. TheNihonSuki:
I think a lot of you have a favorite Japanese word, right? Like mine is 滅法. TheNihonSuki would like you to use your favorite Japanese word in a sentence. That’s it! For more details check out the contest page.

6. Jamaipanese:
Hey Mon (can I say that?). On this blog, you’re being asked a bit of a riddle, and it’s not too difficult too! I have a feeling if you don’t know the answer already, you can find it somewhere on the Jamaipanese Blog. For more details, check out the contest page… Mon.

7. GakuranMan:
Wow. Not just one prize… More than one prize! If you don’t win tasty SuperPass, you can win some tasty sweets instead! Though, we all know that sweets are a fleeting pleasure, whereas language acquisition is forever (take that to the diamond commercials). All he wants is a tag-line for his site. I’m thinking something along the lines of “Gakuranman – Shouldn’t wear one of these when it’s warm.” Hmm, I think you could do better.

8. Claytonian:
This guy had a bat in his possession. Not like a wooden or aluminum bat, but like a Batman bat. That’s pretty cool. Also pretty cool that he’s giving away a SuperPass subscription. All you need to do is want it. That’s it. So do you? Punk?

More contests are coming, so check back on this page occasionally, or follow me on Twitter. Even if you don’t want SuperPass, definitely just check out these blogs. Every single one of them are great, and I read / follow them too.

FAQ about SuperPass

• What can you learn?
  It’s not just for learning Japanese, though it is the most popular subject (which means more classes). There are all sorts of other classes as well, including social marketing, cooking, other languages, business, and more, all of which you can take with a SuperPass subscription. You aren’t limited to Japanese, though I assume most of you are interested in Japanese.
• How much does it cost?
  It’s normally $29 a month (if you don’t win one of these prizes), though the first week is only $1. Not too shabby a price to try it out, right? And it’s super-easy to cancel, of course.
• Does it work?
  I suppose that depends on you. If you take advantage of it and take a lot of classes (it’s unlimited, yo!) then it works really well. I’ve seen a lot of people grow a ton in their Japanese ability over a pretty short period of time. It’s really all about how much you’re willing to put into it. Of course, if you subscribe and never go to any classes, you won’t improve at all. Duh.
• When will Tofugu give away a subscription or two?
  Later, later, later. Well, not too much later. Keep watching.

Any other questions? Ask them in the comments. If you don’t have any other questions, hurry up and check out those other blogs.

Also, you should follow me on Twitter.

No related posts.

Two weeks ago I put up a post about Tenso, the Japanese shipping company, and asked you all to write a haiku in order to win a slick t-shirt. I’ve been through them a bunch of times now, but can’t choose just one. That’s where YOU come in. I need you to vote for your favorites. You have one week to vote, and then we’ll see who won. I’ve narrowed it down to five… which one will you choose?

VOTE NOW!

No related posts.

I follow hundreds of Japan-related blogs, just so I can keep up with the Japan-news (and the blogging competition, too). It may seem really difficult to follow so many blogs (not to mention all the others I read), but with RSS, it’s super easy… Oh, and did I mention addictingly fun, too?

Tofugu is currently participating in DailyBlogTips’ “Blogging Idol 2,” which is a pretty big competition that has a lot to do with RSS. Right now, Tofugu is in 11th place (out of over a hundred), and would definitely love your help! You can make our dreams come true by voting for us (pretty please?), or just by subscribing to our RSS feed, which is what I’ll be telling you about after the break. Just so it’s not too much e-begging for you to handle, I’ll be spinning it in a way that makes things wonderful for you too:

What is RSS?

RSS is one of the most amazing things to ever grace the Interwebs. RSS feeds, paired with a feed reader, make it really easy to subscribe to hundreds of websites, and get the new content of those websites sent directly to you as soon as they are available. For example, if you were subscribed to Tofugu, you would have gotten this article in your RSS reader right after I hit the publish button, not to mention articles from other websites as well.

To subscribe to a website via RSS, you’ll need an RSS Feed Reader. My personal favorite is Google Reader, which can be accessed here (if you have a Google account). From here, you have a couple of options. You can click on an RSS icon / RSS link on a website, or you can just insert a URL into the Reader and it will find a feed for you. From here, you can organize your feeds to make it easier to read.

I’ve made this video, as well. It repeats a lot of stuff above, but shows you a live example of how RSS feeds work. Oh, and I wear the panda hat… how embarassing.

Japan-Blogs to Follow

I know you won’t believe it, but there are other Japan-blogs out there besides Tofugu, as well. Here is my list of Japan-Blogs that I follow. Definitely take a look and find something you like! If you have any more suggestions, put them down in the comments to share the love!

Alt Japan [rss]
Ampotan [rss]
An Englishman in Osaka [rss]
An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla [rss]
Clast [rss]
cScout [rss]
Danny Choo [rss]
GlobalTalk [rss]
Japan is Doomed [rss]
JapanProbe [rss]
JapanSugoi [rss]
Japundit [rss]
JeansNow.net [rss]
Kirainet [rss]
LongCountdown [rss]
Mari’s Diary [rss]
Mutant Frog Travelogue [rss]
NihonHacks [rss]
PinkTentacle [rss]
Rising Sun of Nihon [rss]
Rocking in Hakata [rss]
Shisaku [rss]
Tae Kim’s Blog [rss]
GaiJin Tonic [rss]
The Tokyo Reporter [rss]
Tokyo Kawaii etc [rss]
TokyoMango [rss]
TV in Japan [rss]
What Japan Thinks [rss]
Weird Asian News [rss]
Xorsyst [rss]
Yamatologic [rss]

Simplifying your Japan-Blog Searching

Now, there is a way to make things a little easier. JapanSoc is an aggregator of the best Japan related articles on the web. People vote up articles to make them more popular. Think of it like Digg for Japan articles only, which makes it great if you like Japan. You can even subscribe to JapanSoc’s RSS Feed to get the best Japan articles directly to your Reader.

How to Help Tofugu in Blogging Idol 2

If you’re feeling charitable, please help us out in this contest! You can do it in two simple steps:

1. Vote for us on this page

2. Subscribe to our RSS feed! :)

3. Subscribe to other Japan Bloggers as well.

If we win, everyone will get a super sexy prize (that is, if information is sexy). If we don’t win, well, you will get a sexy prize a little later. Either way, thank you all sooo much for all your support! Couldn’t have done any of this without you!

Related posts:

1. 8 Ways to Win Unlimited Japanese Lessons (and counting)

First, I’m giving a free online lecture about learning Japanese. It’s titled: “Top 10 Free Online Tools for Learning Japanese.” If you’re interested, it will be a great lecture, and I’ll be doing it twice, one for the folks in Eruope, and one for the folks in America. You can see both of them by clicking here. We’re currently in Beta testing for the classroom style lessons (or lecture, in this case), so it won’t cost you anything, and I think I’ll be giving a good lesson, so I hope to see you there. If you don’t intend to show up, though, please don’t sign up. Seats are limited, so please respect those who might want a spot.

Second, the little contest over on the edufirejapanese Youtube Channel was extended, so you have one more week to make a video and have the possibility of winning three free 1-on-1 lessons with any tutor you want. Also, eduFire has sweetened the deal, and is including a $25 gift certificate to each of the three winners for learnoutloud.com, as well as a t-shirt. Everybody on the Internet loves t-shirts. Even I don’t have an eduFire t-shirt. You can win it, and make me feel jealous.

There you have it. Join me in my lesson for free, and go make a video to take part in the eduFire contest! Thanks!

Related posts:

1. 8 Ways to Win Unlimited Japanese Lessons (and counting)

So, as I promised (and a day late), here’s how you can get you fill of free Japanese lessons, right from your own home. There’s two ways to do it. The first way involves a contest (I’ll talk about this more a little later) and the second way just involves clicking around a new Youtube channel I’m a part of. Let’s go into more detail!

Get Free Japanese Lessons on eduFire Contest

So, eduFire let me start up a little contest. Basically, we want you to tell us why you want to learn Japanese. We’ll pick our favorites from three categories. Here’s the video on that one:

I really encourage you to join this contest! I’d love to see your videos! I want to know why people want to learn Japanese too! It helps me to know what the Japanese learning world is doing, plus, you get a chance to win some free Japanese language lessons with any of the tutors on eudFire. I’m excited to see them!

The new eduFireJapanese Youtube Channel

I’ve been making “Japanese lesson” videos on a new Youtube Channel. There have been a lot of requests for me to do lesson videos, and so I saw this as a great opportunity. I won’t be the only one making videos on this channel, though, so you’ll get a whole lot of perspective, and it should be really really good. Here’s one of my recent videos on that channel.

There are more videos (and more in production), so go check it out and enjoy!

Announcement Video

And, in case you’re interested, I made a video on the Tofugu Youtube Channel announcing all this (just in case you don’t want to read. I know, it’s tough sometimes).

Anyways, thank you all for all the support so far, and I hope these things will help you get better at Japanese! I’ll continue to do the same old thing here at Tofugu, but definitely check out those other places I mentioned. Here they are: “Free one-on-one Lessons Contest” and “Lesson videos on Youtube“

Related posts:

1. 8 Ways to Win Unlimited Japanese Lessons (and counting)

If you’re a winner (one of those lucky people pictured above), contact me ASAP so we can choose you a flavor. More info about flavors further down.

So, what if you didn’t win? Well, here’s an option for you, if you want it:

I’ll send you some Gumi, but you’ll have to pay for it. The place I buy it at isn’t the cheapest place, and you might be able to find it for cheaper online, though from what I’ve seen so far other places charge tons for shipping. Still, someone else might have me beat on price; I don’t know, I haven’t really checked. I’ll throw in a handwritten note, though, so maybe that’s worth a little bit? Here are the flavors that are available. Winners, you should pay attention to this too, since you’ll have to choose as well.

• Grape
• Muscat (green grape)
• Kiwi
• Strawberry
• Pineapple
• Mango
• Litchi
• Peach
• Melon
• Orange

Now, I can’t guarentee that I’ll be able to get the one you want (since I get it at a grocery store), so please give me your top three choices, and I’ll do my best to get your #1 if at all possible. You’ve got a week to let me know, because that’s when I’m able to go get them, so if you’re interested in this offer, then do it before then. If you won this contest, please also do it by then. Trying to conserve car trips, ya know?

Here’s the price:

Domestic USA shipping: $10.00 for 1 Gumi + Shipment. $5.00 for each additional flavor.
International Outside USA shipping: $15 for 1 Gumi + Shipment. $6.00 for each additional flavor.

Not the best prices in the world, but I also don’t want to have to send out too many either. Still, I think it’s (somewhat) reasonable. You’ll also be helping me to pay my rent this month, though, profit margin is pretty tiny, I think, especially with gas considered into the equation :(

If you send money via paypal before August 21, I’ll send you tasty Gumi. My paypal address is koichiben@gmail.com.

Thank you so much for all that participated, I hope you enjoy Twitter!

Related posts:

1. 8 Ways to Win Unlimited Japanese Lessons (and counting)