After several years, the charming little Korean series created by SamBakZa involving a Cat and Rabbit has come to a close. It’s a series of animated shorts with little-to-no dialogue that paints a thoughtful social and cultural message. What happens when two people from different races fall in love? What if society dictates that such cross-cultural relationships are taboo?

Known as ‘Heavenly light mushrooms’, these bioluminescent fungi are not our usual shade of sapphire blue found often found in the deep sea, but an eerie emerald green colour. Just in time for Christmas then. They are Japan’s Mycena lux-coeli mushrooms, found in the Southern Wakayama prefecture. Apparently the mushrooms only sprout for a few days in the rainy season, growing from fallen logs that are rotting on the forest floor. (The Japan Times)

Illuminations, fashionable restaurants, Christmas cake, KFC, omnipresent Santa Claus avatars, Disneyland and the infamous love hotels. It’s Christmas in Japan everybody! Okay, so you may have heard about KFC providing the Japanese Christmas Day ‘turkey’ or seen the seas of beautiful blue neon lights, but what about the romantic side of Christmas? For many people, Christmas Day in Japan is Valentine’s Day, take two.

Finally! After a week of tinkering and tweaking (and tweeting, for that matter), Knowing Nothing is re-born! **Click here to see it!** This is the third incarnation of the site, version 2.5, codenamed ‘Kurage’ (just because codenames sound cool!). The site has been completely overhauled structurally! Read on for explanation of everything (including a secret feature!) and how I did it. Please give me your brutal, honest feedback on the new design!

After several months of preparation, the 2008 JLPT level 1 finally went down on Sunday. Even after my serious bouts of cramming, creating numerous Anki decks, audio files and learning over 1200 words in just two short months, I feel that I have fallen short of the 70% pass mark. There was just too much to learn in the time I allocated!