Using Japanese Emoji on Facebook Update

A few months ago, I described how to enable the Japanese keyboard on an iPhone to access the Emoji characters.  It’s not difficult to do, but if you don’t need a Japanese keyboard, it seemed kind of silly to install it just to get those Emoji.

But with iOS 4.3.5, you can enable Emoji in any country, on any iPhone without installing the Japanese keyboard.  It’s super easy to do, so get out your iPhone and let’s do this.

Just as stated in the original article, first go to the iOS Settings App.

tap settings button

Next, scroll down until you see General.  Tap General.

tap general

Then, you need to tap International Keyboards.  And then tap Add New Keyboard.  Scroll down to the E’s and tap Emoji.  And you’re done!

scroll down and choose the Emoji keyboard

this how my list of installed keyboards looks. i have english, japanese and emoji keyboards installed.

And that’s it!  Now you’ve got Emoji on your iPhone and you’re ready to rock and/or roll.  The Emoji keyboard is always accessible.  But just a heads up, not every website can handle Emoji, but in my experience, it seems like there are a lot of them.  Some will change the look of the characters, or some will only display them for other iPhone users.

Alright.  Hope this helps.  If you want to see a list of the Emoji characters and get a little bit of the background, please check out my original post about it HERE.

Using Japanese Emoji on Facebook

EDIT: Because of changes in iOS 4.3.5, you can now install the Emoji keyboard without installing a Japanese keyboard.  For the new directions, please go here:
http://markystar.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/using-japanese-emoji-on-facebook-update/

People keep asking me how to do this, so I figured I should just make a blog post and make the details available to everyone.  After all, it takes seconds to set up and will make your Facebook posts standout all the more.

Because Japanese uses Kanji, an ideographic writing system, it’s only logical that including pictures or emoticons along with text would be a natural thing to do.  All Japanese cellphones come loaded with tons of emoji (絵文字 “pictographs/emoticons”).  There are sets specific to au, Softbank, and DoCoMo (the major cellphone carriers in Japan).  But there is also a universal set that is cross platform (and even displays on computers).

When the iPhone was released in Japan, immediately people started complaining about how boring it was because it didn’t have emoji.  After a few months, Apple released an update to the iPhone OS that among other things, brought universal emoji functionality to the Japanese input systems.  People in other countries don’t know much about this feature (and other awesome iOS features) because they are peculiar to the Japanese input keyboards.

I’m not sure if there’s a way to do this via the computer (but seems like there must be since the emoji are displayable on computers).  If there is, I don’t know how.  Also, the other drawback is, you’ll have a Japanese keyboard pop up as one of your options when you go to do text.  You can arrange the order in which keyboards pop up when you have multiple keyboards installed, so putting the Japanese at the very end is a good way to keep it out of sight if you don’t need it.

STEP ONE
Go to Settings

go to the settings icon

STEP TWO
Go to Keyboards.
Turn on Japanese.
don’t worry, it will keep your previous language.  you can install as many as you like, i think.

add the Japanese 10 key input

STEP THREE
Enable Emoji.

it used to be disabled by default, but i'm not sure about recent versions of iOS. might be pre-enabled these days. anyways, you're a big boy. you can figure it out.

Congratulations! Now you can use emoji just about anywhere… including SMS, e-mail and Facebook.

Here’s a screenshot from the Facebook app for iPhone and I’m updating my status with text and emoji.  To toggle between keyboards, just tap the International button in the bottom lefthand corner (it looks like a globe).  Use this toggle button to get back to your regular language input after you’re finished using emoji.

shock and impress your friends with your emoji arsenal

You can use the emoji in any app that allows for them.  All the native iOS apps, including Messages (SMS), e-mail, etc. allow emoji use.  Here’s an example of emoji used in the Messages app.

your mom

Here’s a list of all the characters that you now have at your disposal.  This is how they display in iOS.  So your iPad and iPhone will look like this.  On Facebook, they will display differently.  I don’t have a list of those.  Sorry.

this image borrowed from inner.geek.nz

If you want more technical background emoji, then please visit this website:
http://inner.geek.nz/archives/2009/02/06/the-truth-about-iphone-emoji/
He’s got the skinny on the inner workings, which I don’t.

Have fun with your emoji!

Sozaiya

One of the perks of writing a blog about life in Japan with an active readership of 1 or 2, is that occasionally I get asked to check out nice restaurants around Tokyo, sample their fare and then review the overall experience.  Happens all the time.

Well, OK. not really all the time.  But it did happen the other day.

I was invited to SOZAIYA in Yaesu (a neighborhood in Nihonbashi).  Sozaiya is an izakaya chain originally from Nagoya.  It’s apparently most famous for its reasonably priced fresh sashimi and, of course, a few Nagoya-style dishes.

While I’m not usually a big fan of chain izakayas, they definitely have their place in this world.  They tend to be cheaper than an equivalent grade private izakaya and the menu tends to stay fixed (so they rarely run out of food and the menu is roughly the same season to season).  I found that Sozaiya is a little bit different in that respect.  The word Sozaiya comes from 素材 (sōzai) which means “fresh raw materials.”  So the concept is more like a mom & pop izakaya than a big chain.  Meats, fish and vegetables are brought in daily and if they run out, they run out.  Your choices of sashimi may be limited by both season and availability (and I’m assuming market price).  According to the staff at the Yaesu shop where I was, the taste/quality may vary from location to location and they insisted – quite adamantly – that their shop was the best in Tokyo.

Everything I sampled was freaking awesome.  I particularly liked the tempura and miso katsu kushi.

So let’s take a look at some of the goodies:

anago tempura

One of my favorites of the whole night was 穴子天ぷら (anago tempura).   This is saltwater eel quickly deep fried in a thin, light crispy batter.  Sozaiya serves it with a special salt that I don’t know the name of it, but it was really delicious.  While anago is not a food limited to Nagoya, the city has many famous dishes that feature it.

Another delicious dish was the えび醤油ソテー (ebi shōyu sotē), baby shrimp sautéed in soy sauce.  Don’t be put off by the feet and antennæ, they’re crunchy, delicious and go well with beer!

ebi shoyu sautee (shrimp sauteed in soy sauce)

tofu & yuba

Then it was time to get healthy, so they brought me a dish which I can’t remember the name of, but I can tell you what it was.  The sauce was made from shredded seaweed and you can see the homemade tōfu on the top sliced into 3 chunks.  On the right hand side, you can see yuba.  Yuba is a byproduct of tōfu.  Small bits of tōfu rise to the top of the water and settle on top and make a film (skin).  That film is scraped off and saved in sheets that are rolled up for storage.  Yuba can be eat raw, as here, where it’s called 湯葉刺 (yubasashi), or used as an ingredient in other dishes.  It’s yummy and super good for you.

asahi super dry

As Sozaiya is an izakaya, you have to drink alcohol.  I mean, it’s in the name izakaya!   (居酒屋 = being + alcohol + shop).  As you may know, I take issue with the way in which draft beer is usually poured in Japan, but at Sozaiya I was served a cold, frosty beer without excessive head.  Proper!!

tai & shiso tempura

The tempura was so yummy that I had to try some more, so they brought out this lovely little gem.  It is Tai with shiso tempura.  Tai is red snapper, and shiso is… well… shiso.  激ウマ！！

croquet

Drinking beer makes yours truly crave fried food.  Had to try the potato croquets…  yummy!!

miso katsu kushi - YUM!!!

In Nagoya, there is a famous dish called Miso Katsu.  It’s like ton katsu, but smothered in miso paste.  Well, Sozaiya has a version of this served on a stick (called 串 kushi).  It’s crunchy and porky and miso-y and all around delicious.  I coulda nibbled on these all night long!

pineapple sherbert

For dessert, I was given this beautiful pineapple sherbert.  It was served inside a real pineapple and had little chunks of real pineapple inside the ice cream as well.  Highly recommend this!!

The Korean Style Seaweed salad, which I don’t have pictured here, was also absolutely delicious.  At first I thought the Korean seaweed was too salty, but I quickly got used to the taste.

Basically, everything was really delicious.  I was a bit skeptical at first, it being a chain and all, but actually, nothing that I tasted was “average” or worse.  It was all ranging from “really good” to “excellent.”  The service was really genki, too, which made for a good experience all together.

At the end of the meal, they even hooked me up with some 20% off coupons and told me that the menu switches over to all new items for the Fall starting next week, so I’ll definitely be taking advantage of that!

Who says writing a blog that no one reads doesn’t have its perks? lol

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

Here’s the address of the shop I visited:
〒103-0027 東京都中央区日本橋2-3-21八重洲ｾﾝﾄﾗﾙﾋﾞﾙＢ１Ｆ

Here’s the webpage of the shop I visited:
http://www.kisoji.co.jp/sozaiya/navi/shop_detail.asp?ShopNo=715

Here’s the main website for the company (to find one near you):
http://www.kisoji.co.jp/sozaiya/

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

awwwwwwww yeah!
μαrκy sταr( -_-)凸