haha, love the lil plane dropping down in the water. plip.

excited to see the other pages! ventures in another country are always interesting...

Not the best language-learning solution in my experience. Only marginally helpful on a long plane trip, and not terrible when learning kana and some kanji. Still better than Rosetta Stone, though. Maybe consider JapanesePod101.com -- got lots of free lessons.

Aw man, hope to come to your fan club or something next time you are here in Japan!

Totally seconded about that DS Coach Character design! I remember playing Rym's version and I was kind of like "heh." It's not terrible, but kinda stereotypical.

Also, glad we ran into you guys at the MoCCA. It was nice to see you! I'm excited to hear about the exploding volcano and stuff in the comic.

Ooooh boy, you're playing My Japanese Coach. I wrote the lesson plan for that game. ... I'm sorry. I only got a single pass at writing the lessons and they made me move some lessons around. I didn't even get to double check anything afterwards because they made me get back to programming.

I'm assuming that you remember hiragana from what you have written in the comic. Whatever you do, don't try to learn how to write from this game. Someone who didn't know Japanese did it and got the stroke order all wrong. I advise using the level skip cheat so you don't have to write the character wrong to progress....

I for one welcome our new Mass Effect fan-art overlords.

Suck.
At least the seat next to you was empty, apparently.
Having two armrests is always taken for granted until you're on a long flight with only one.

Nope, not me, don't mind at all. :D Especially since Japan is one of the places I must go someday.

Oh man, I bet we "played" the same DS learning game... my husband and I were like, "hmmmmmm this is questionable" re: the design and the music!

Also I had a really awkward conversation with a bunch of Japanese tourists today (as I work in the tourism industry) and I was like, "oh good lord I need to take classes" as I stumbled through half-formed sentences. And it only makes it worse with every "your Japanese is so good!" as I have to shake my head frantically and demur that nooooo, it is not.

A good way to practice and retain any language, I feel, is to follow Twitters (or Tumblrs) in that language. For instance, for Japanese, I follow a few of my friends, plus the artist Gurihiru and Hideo Kojima. I use the Rikaichan plugin for Firefox/Chrome to translate any characters I may not understand. It's not perfect, but it keeps me relatively fresh, plus I always get a little dose every day so that I don't lose my comprehension entirely!

Also, I tried out that game. That character design was... Hmmm... Yeah.

GARRUS ARTS FOREVER! 8D just wanna say that...

Gad, that must have been "fun" with the kid behind you. Planes really need to have a non-screaming-kid section. (I wonder what she hated -- the long plane trip, having to go home, school starting or maybe the in-flight movie.)

this is me with Polish.

Please do share any more wonderful Garrus fanart you happen to come up with. Pleasepleaseplease. I love the ones you made previously, and Garrus is just the best.

No way! I also flew to Japan on that exact same day. I've just gotten back but I already want to return :(

More travel diary strips (and ME fanart) please! I enjoy reading about the travels of others.

I always get something dumped on me on long flights, be it homemade beetroot preserves by a Bulgarian housewife or a clumsy person tipping over their plastic cup of tea. Thankfully I've been able to avoid bored and malicious kids by picking late-hour flights. Any arm rest hogging also becomes less of an issue when everyone's half asleep.

Can't help but wonder what it is that makes it so hard to correct others or their children when they're being asses. On a plane it's probably the fact that any escalation of conflict would probably end in an emergency landing these days. Oh happier days of yore...

Hey, don't start blaming me for friday the 13th horrors, I already have enough troubles with people and on my favorite day too.

But as I can tell, you guys travel... a lot. You might do more traveling than most business guys I know. That is, unless these conventions are just down the street, then, then, that's a different story.

Also, to finish off my rant, I have often seen many horrible stereotypes in personal trainers, I've been down in Mexico and have been taking the Rosetastone thing. That device makes horrible stereotypes.

Love the fact that you made all the sound effects Japanese characters!

がんばってね！

Can we see the Mass Effect art?

On my 12 hour flights, I either mess about on my phone the entire time playing games, reading, and/or watching shows I downloaded (huzzah portable battery pack for an extra charge) since I don't have a laptop/tablet or I take a double shot of melatonin and am just out of it.

And at least you're small! Flying while you're even slightly above average height is uncomfortable. Flying as one of those giants who are 6'5" or higher must be hell.

Me again from 2 posts up. Internet has been down, working my way backwards through the archives. Ignore that post.

btw Garrus & Tali are the best

So... why didn't you practice with your dad?

Guh yeah that 13 hour flight here is bloody hell on wings. I can never sleep on a plane, too dry, too noisy.
My last flight back wasn't so bad, read the entire Hunger Games trilogy. That was probably the best airport purchase I've ever made.

Fantastic post but I was wondering if you could write a litte more on this subject? I'd be very thankful if you could elaborate a little bit further. Kudos! Tresa Cariaso

hello very nice to meet you. i am new here. see you.