Living in Japan

Hi, I moved to japan and started making a blog about how i got here. Sometimes people ask me how I got to japan so it might be useful to other like minded people ^^

here it is:
Dan to Japan

What is meant as constructive criticism:

1. I find the font annoyingly hard to read
2. It is too long, rambling, and disjointed
3. "Except" and "accept" are two different words.

I like the website. It's very cute and the style is great.
It's just that it's, as Mike Cash has said, really long.
I did a little skimming of it and found many information I could do without.

Maybe you could make a separate, more informative, shorter blog post?
Like, visa processing, some tips on travel, how long it took, etc.?
I guess I am a very boring person, but I love to read about those things haha.

And by the way, I hope you have a fun time in Japan!

I can't read it for the font. If I were a friend, I might push through it, but as a stranger, it puts you off pretty quick.

That said, the opening paragraph,
"Like many of you Japan lovers out there, who watched chinese kung fu movies as a child and somehow ended up drowning your reality with anime, I wanted to live in Japan. I felt like I would belong in Japan a lot more than I did the country I was born in,"
put me off really quickly.

Relating 'chinese kung fu' to Japan is pretty dubious (Do you love Italy and Renaissance culture? Go to England! People are white there!). I don't have a problem with people loving anime, though it's never been my bag, but that said, I've never met a foreigner here long term who made it a mainstay of their diet. As for belonging, it's mainly your choice of words I feel at odds with, and it may be a minor thing. I like living here mainly because of the safety and the quietness of daily life. I've never been made to feel uncomfortable at any point in my time here, whereas, in my hometown of Toronto, there were a number of places I felt unsafe or out of place in despite being a resident. Mainly this is because of the non-confrontational nature of Japanese culture.

But when you say you would belong here, I get a vibe of Akihabara/One Piece fantasies.

I guess what I'm getting at is that there are a lot of blogs of young guys enamoured with Japanese culture who want to document their tour. And a bunch more by ladies. You should keep working at it to get a unique point of view, and consider simplifying your design in order to highlight the content.

Good luck!

I will take as constructively as possible ^^
It was a default font that grew on me but I shall look in to changing it, thanks!

I am aware they are 2 different words hehe. I'll fix that right away.

Thanks for the help Mikey O' pal

Happy to help. Enjoy your stay!

liar said:

I like the website. It's very cute and the style is great.
It's just that it's, as Mike Cash has said, really long.
I did a little skimming of it and found many information I could do without.

Maybe you could make a separate, more informative, shorter blog post?
Like, visa processing, some tips on travel, how long it took, etc.?
I guess I am a very boring person, but I love to read about those things haha.

And by the way, I hope you have a fun time in Japan!

Click to expand...

Thank you :')
Yeh I guess I should do something about the length... Maybe a 'read more...' type thing. It is a blog on my entire life up until I got there and primarily for friends.

nah its not boring at all. I searched about it a lot when I got interested in moving to japan

Thank you! I'm having the time of my life here

nahadef said:

I can't read it for the font. If I were a friend, I might push through it, but as a stranger, it puts you off pretty quick.

That said, the opening paragraph,
"Like many of you Japan lovers out there, who watched chinese kung fu movies as a child and somehow ended up drowning your reality with anime, I wanted to live in Japan. I felt like I would belong in Japan a lot more than I did the country I was born in,"
put me off really quickly.

Click to expand...

It was a joke ^^;;
and I am now aware how much people love the font lol

nahadef said:

Relating 'chinese kung fu' to Japan is pretty dubious (Do you love Italy and Renaissance culture? Go to England! People are white there!). I don't have a problem with people loving anime, though it's never been my bag, but that said, I've never met a foreigner here long term who made it a mainstay of their diet. As for belonging, it's mainly your choice of words I feel at odds with, and it may be a minor thing. I like living here mainly because of the safety and the quietness of daily life. I've never been made to feel uncomfortable at any point in my time here, whereas, in my hometown of Toronto, there were a number of places I felt unsafe or out of place in despite being a resident. Mainly this is because of the non-confrontational nature of Japanese culture.

Click to expand...

Well actually, many people who love anime grow up loving chinese kung fu movies. I am well aware of the difference in asians lol. It was not a racial slur.
Yeh I understand about the safety. My area was pretty dodgy too. On the bright side I learnt to run fast

nahadef said:

But when you say you would belong here, I get a vibe of Akihabara/One Piece fantasies.

I guess what I'm getting at is that there are a lot of blogs of young guys enamoured with Japanese culture who want to document their tour. And a bunch more by ladies. You should keep working at it to get a unique point of view, and consider simplifying your design in order to highlight the content.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

Sweet thanks for the biiiig comment! Even if your words temporarily hurt my feelings I appreciate your feedback hehe.
It is primarily for friends/myself but I do want others too read my story... So I gotta make it more to the point and shorter for strangers, yet keep the content available if someone wants to read it. I'm thinking of a 'read more...' option. Reckon that would suffice? Or any other ideas?

Nice design, but please change the fonts. ;-)

Also, the background image and the blog are not aligned on larger screen resolutions.

thomas said:

Nice design, but please change the fonts. ;-)

Also, the background image and the blog are not aligned on larger screen resolutions.

View attachment 13066

Click to expand...

Please forget you saw that ^^;;
Actually I already knew this would happen. And also if you resize the screen... but I can't seem to get it right with blogger :'(
Changing the coding is harder than writing new code -_-

The font is now changed lol

thank yoooou thomas!!!

Nothing there that interests me. What's more, if you want a blog to attract others, have something in it that is unique and post often. I know you just got started, but keep it in mind.

Daniel Archer said:

Well actually, many people who love anime grow up loving chinese kung fu movies. I am well aware of the difference in asians lol. It was not a racial slur.

Click to expand...

I don't think it was a slur. It's just a joke whose time has passed. It would have been funnier until the 70s or so. 'Asian stuff is all the same' jokes will just get more awkward as time goes on. Up to you if you want to leave it up on your online profile.

anks for the biiiig comment! Even if your words temporarily hurt my feelings I appreciate your feedback hehe.
It is primarily for friends/myself but I do want others too read my story... So I gotta make it more to the point and shorter for strangers, yet keep the content available if someone wants to read it. I'm thinking of a 'read more...' option. Reckon that would suffice? Or any other ideas?

Click to expand...

Criticism does hurt, but taking it in objectively is the best thing to do. Friends and family tend to be kinder. I usually try to delay stuff 24 hours. When it's fresh, I'm not objective about my own stuff. Simply waiting a day to consider and fix work is worthwhile. Even then, I want to tweak things, but 24 hours tends to give a lot of time to improve.