Arkansas Christmas

It's been relaxing to spend time with family these past few days. These photos were taken within 3 days of each other. Weather in the plain states can change drastically! It's a spectator sport.


Foggy Morning



Warm Weather Rolling



Rainbow Sunset



Do you sudoku?

I've included the last shot to show my Tokyo friends that some Japanese things are often popular in the US. Anime, Puffy Ami Yumi, and the latest: Sudoku. The most popular form is on paper (writing with a pen), but as a gift I got a game where you race against another person... ..for reasons I have yet to understand.

Waikiki, yes I like

what horrible weather

Don't park there. Really.

a view from the convention's Sheraton

.. uh.. witty comment? It's near the Cheesecake factory

Update

A lot of you are probably wondering what the heck is going on. Why am I flying? Why reverse culture shock? Why not too many posts?

Well, I was in the US for a week, for two job interviews. And now, 4 days after getting back to Japan, I'm going to Hawaii for a conference. And luckily for me, I'm through with most of my professional obligations on the first day! I get to relax and learn about Hawaii (not to mention blind people on the beach with my fluorescent white skin) for the next week.

Hopefully there will be internet access.

..oh, man, that's sad. Am I that addicted to email?

Oh, oh yeah, I know: I mean, because I'm sure to get sunburn, so I need some way to kill my time indoors. (Conference?) I mean, in between enriching my brain with scientific talks. (Oh, ok)

back in Japan..for a while

Early AM SFO window view

NRT staff still commuting in

On the train 30 minutes before ETA

..reverse culture shock

Everything's so big here..
Big people, big suitcase, big ceiling, big bus

3 x bigger than my apt

Mutant Fruit

The fruit here is HUGE. Gi-normous! Definitely aesthetic a-peal. (couldn't resist)


Apples the Size of Your Head

OK, the apples aren't THAT big, because I know several of you have heads the size of Sputnik. However, they are mighty big. Just compare the size of the apples to the size of the CD and Swiss army knife in the photo. You can't cut these suckers all the way through with a normal pocket knife. Even Rambo has to cut them half way through and then cut the other side.

..even though they are technically not as big as your head, they are as big as Michael Jackson's head. And the heads used for Michael Jackson's skull abacus. Yes. Zoom in.

Takao-san

OK, so I actually did go to Takao-san this time. Well.. at least, I was near Mt Takao. After lunch, and a rest break, and that chocolate bar, and that apple the size of my head, it was time to go. But at least, I was a lot closer than I was the last time I said I was at Takao-san.


Cedars Sugi O Left

Japanese Maple

Near Takao

Screaming Yellow

I'm bad

Sorry, sorry, and ... sorry! I'm a baaaad person, and I haven't posted anything in a very long time. Don't worry, I'm still here. And very soon I'll have some more photos for you! I'm just trying to sort them all out. (Kind of shocking that, with the higher resolution camera, thus larger photo file size, I regularly take more than a CD's worth of photos in one day)

Anyway, recently found David Chart's Japan Diary. He's a writer from England--strikes me as the type of person who types very fast without spelling mistakes. Yes, friends, for that reason alone, I recommend his site. :P Just kidding, I think he keeps the site to promote his books.

Keep posted, more (from me) very soon!

SUCCESS

Yes, non foaming shaving gel. Whether you need success in the dog eat dog of the Tokyo buisness world, or simply taking a nap in the park, this gel gives you the smell and tingly feeling of shaving cream, but without any bristle-raising foam action. Because you know you're only using this stuff because "you're suppoed to use something when you shave."

No foam?!? What gives?

Takao san Mitake san

EDIT: Got the name wrong! I've corrected it.

Takao Mitake is a mountain, not a person. (Not sure why, but some mountains are "yama" and some are "san". The famous one you might know, Mt. Fuji, is actually Fuji san.) Went hiking and took a lot of pictures! Enjoy!


Cable Car 2 cars use 1 big pulley


Japanese Maples & Mountain Top Temple


Tokyo View?


new Geriatric Punk spotting


What the Waterfall Sees


Fallen


6-legged Spider

PS. What 'cha think of the new look? I changed the template and intend to modify it soon. Hopefully I won't break comments again, this time...

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is being enveloped by Japanese pop culture. "The Nightmare Before Christmas" may be the reason--the movie is much more popular here than in the USA. Dolls, shirts, purses, pencil holders, etc. of Jack Skellington & crew are available 365 days of the year. But there might be another reason, too...

There is a region of Tokyo known for it's spunky fashion and teeming hordes of high school girls: Harajuku. And on any given Sunday, there are the various clans of costume people--normal people who dress up in zany costumes to be special for a little while. For example, a school girl who stops by after a study session, changes into an (expensive) black, gothic-style costume for a few hours, then changes back to normal clothes for the train ride home when it turns dark.


Harajuku Fun

This quirky aspect of Tokyo is a popular thing to write about, and it's even the topic of a Gwen Stefani song. Maybe there's a little part in everyone that's curious about living another life.. and when you combine that with the intense pressure to "be Japanese," in other words be just like everyone else, it makes Harajuku more understandable. It's a chance to escape!

Anyway.. there weren't quite as many people there as I thought there might be--I took this photo yesterday, one day before Halloween--and a Sunday to boot! Maybe dusk is too late, or too early? Is the offical day Saturday? Where's the official Costume Person Tokyo Calendar? And there weren't any Anime people, like I saw one time at the Tokyo Dome.

I'm a clueless foreigner, but I wouldn't be surprised if the "costume community" wants to distance themselves from Halloween, which seems to be becoming a popular kid's holiday. (I saw a few 4 year olds in cute costumes, and maybe I'll see more tonight.) After all, CozuPlay (costume play) is an adult thing. I kind of wish I knew a cozuplay person, to ask them. It's my impression they're 100% normal people, just anime/manga fans with too much free time. (NOTE, I'm making a big distinction here between the "wearing costumes in public" and whatever people do behind closed doors.)

I'm still trying to figure out what's the deal with the guys wearing bandages over their noses. (zoom in, lower right corner, blonde-haired guys wearing white.) Must be an manga comic book character. Anyone know?

---------
PS I don't know how to fix the comment problem. ?? Uh.. so, for security reasons, maybe you should use Firefox instead of IE. (It's better anyway. Until IE 7 is out.)

What looks funky to some...

Recently stumbled upon a problem with my webpage--I switched to peek-a-boo comments and suddenly they disappeared for some people.. My apologies to all of you who can't post or read comments. If you use the popular MS Internet Explorer software, things may look funny. Here are two snapshots of how things might look, and how things should look:


MS Internet Explorer, wrong. Plus, no comments.



Mozilla Firefox

Of course, the quick fix is to say "Install Firefox!!" but that's cheating. It appears to be a problem with my blogger template. I'll try to remedy the situation, using my rudimentary HTML knowledge.. hmmm

Fedora 4 Frustrations

Just spent a day "having fun" with fedora core 4, which for my non-computer-geek readers is linux, an operating system (competitor to Windows) that is useful to me and my computer-geek readers. My work computer is fedora. This is not a computer blog, but I got frustrated before figuring out some useful information. There aren't many English speakers trying to use linux in Japan, but just in case someone else out there needs to use multiple languages on their fedora box, I present the following information for Google to find.

For the rest of you, fear not. Regularly scheduled programming will resume after this brief special service announcement.

Multiple languages on Fedora 4 gnome

All my instructions here are for adding Japanese ja_JP as a secondary language to a English en_US session. Should/might work for other cases, exchanging local codes as needed.

1. At installation, add any languages you could possibly find useful in the near future. For me it was Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, and German.
   • The only information at fedora forums about installing languages post-install is "Gee that's hard--we should work on that. And stuff." If you know a link to (well written) instructions on how to do this post install, please post a comment.
   • Your machine now has the language packages installed, but they are intended to support different locales, in other words the entire menu system of your gnome session.


2. Tell fedora "Yes, I really want to be able to input more than one language" by making a link. Then add the menu button. This information is from fedora's iiimf faq page:
   
   
   • open a terminal, then

     $ mkdir ~/.xinput.d
     $ ln -s /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/iiimf ~/.xinput.d/en_US

   • On the FAQ they say restart X. Don't yet, it's step 3.
   • Add the menu button to switch input languages:
     
     • Right click on your panel
     • Press "add to panel"
     • Select "InputMethod Switcher"
     • Press "Add"
   Even IF you restart X at this point, (for me) no additional languages show up. Clicking Add Language shows a box with no installed languages!! They're installed, just not showing up. Seems like a memory problem.
3. How to make it appear: log in using the desired language. Tips*
   • Before leaving your English session: Memorize how to log out! Remember the exit door icon at Desktop > Log Out
   • Log Out: "Save this Session" to remember your menu edit (maybe not required)
   • Log in: in the lower left corner you can select your language. All languages are listed, even ones you do not have support for.
   • Click "For this session only"
   Japanese GNOME is pretty slick, good katakana practice, and impresses the ladies. ..umm, maybe not. But you should notice [Ja] in the language selector, and English is in there too.
   • Log Out (L) clicking OK (O)
   • Log in: English is your default language, no need to select it
4. Done! Test it with gedit
   • Applications > Accessories > Text Editor
   • In the menu's input box, select Nihongo A, aka 日本語(A)
   • a hiragana [a] should appear below the lower left corner of the gedit window
   • Ctrl+Space to toggle between Nihongo and English modes, as normal
   
   
   • NOTE OpenOffice has a preferences setting for Japanese which should be set before you use it.

-GRUMBLE- Firefox crashed midway through drafting this entry.. Fedora is stable but Firefox seems to have issues on this box. Well, on the plus side, maybe my the instructions above became more streamlined as a result.
-GRUMBLE #2- To any Fedora developers reading (har har), I wish Anaconda was smart enough to realize FTP install settings. I hosed my language settings, and didn't have Disc 4 to fix it. (Full Reinstall) And because my disks required no repartitioning and user files were still there, the first boot settings interface did not initiate. (Full Reinstall) Eventually, it worked. The unofficial fedora FAQ helps make fedora much more useful. Sound card works now--yipee! I just hope Firefox stops crashing--will try an update.

---

UPDATE
(Going to post one more Fedora thing and then I'll get it out of my system.) The packages below should be recommended on fedora FAQ, but they aren't. Assuming you have yum configured as the FAQ recommends,

% su -
% yum install gnome-yum
% rpm -e totem
% yum install totem-xine

"gnome-yum" is a graphical interface for yum, ala synaptic, but is certain to access fedora extras. The totem-xine gives you a movie player that can play MOV files from your digital camera. Also, for those scientists out there using FORTRAN, g77 is no longer included by default, with the appearance of gcc 4. Try "gfortran." If concerned about any possible issues "yum install compat-gcc-32-g77" gives good old g77 under gcc 3.2.

Early fall riverside

Nothing witty or thoughtful to say--was simply a wonderful day! It was hard to take a bad photo. (Though I did manage do that a few times.)

Raisin Sand

"Who wants some sand made out of raisins?" Mom asked.

"I do, I do!!" screamed the children in chorus!


Raisin Sand, (Special Cookies)


In typical Japanese fashion, "Sandwich" has become "Sand". When spoken, it is actually "Sando" but as all Japanese know this to be a flaw in the way English is spoken when converted to their language, they've obviously fixed it.


Raisins and Creamy-Filling

Unfortunately, there was no sand in the cookie. Just plain cake cookies squishing down on slightly sweet creamy filling with raisins around the outside. And they weren't even sandy raisins. Talk about false advertising...

What's shakin'?

Seems like the bigger ones hit at the worst times.


Big Square = Big Earthquake

Recently had the second earthquake large enough to feel in my new apartment. Being in the 9th floor now, it's the highest up I've been. They say the "feel" magnitude here was about 3--in my previous apartment on the 1st floor I felt a level 4 or 4.2.... which was pretty big..

...especially while trying to use the toilet. Well, as luck would have it, fate struck again while I was using the toilet. This time, the sit down variety. But, luckily, this time I was in the final stages of my duty, as opposed to the initial, unstoppable-even-in-an-earthquake moment. I finished, then calmly sat on the floor for 40 seconds until it stopped shaking.

Anyway, end result--I felt the earthquake from the 9th floor just as much as I have in other buildings on a lower floor. So maybe modern construction is worth something. At least, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Helps me sleep at night.

PS, doing some earthquake research, I found this lovely, colorful graphic showing the geologic depth of earthquakes in Japan over the last 10 years. Tokyo is in the region of medium-shallow earthquakes.. ..which ain't so great. Most folks seem to expect a big one to hit in the next 10 years. Oh well.

Tokyo Portrait

To me, this photo typifies Tokyo. Old, new, mashed together, signs in any language, all held together by a spider-web mesh of black wire and the salary man.

(Click to zoom in! Can you spot the hotel name?)

... hmm.. artistic, eh? Feel free to ask questions about details..
 

Feed the monkey

Tokyo is a gadget guy's paradise.. and purgatory at the same time. I'm starting to feel like a junkie. After extensive research and weighing my options, I headed to Bic Camera. (Akihabara is where the other junkies go, but I have discount points at Bic.)


MACRO test

The above photo is via my "extra black" Panasonic Lumix DMC FX9. Looking at it today, I wonder how much electricity has been spent in the world on exactly the same photograph.The portfolio on my phone's battery charger is rather complete: over exposed, macro mode, a romantic candle-light setting, self-portorait-with-charger.. I also took care of the prerequisite 50+ photos of my own leg, and the self-portrait right before bed. ..not realizing at the time that I had no shirt on. Luckily, the camera has an effective "multiple DELETE" mode.

I also bought a screen protector, and the cheapest camera bag thing they had, oh and a Nintendo DS game system with three games (one two 3 has no English version). Why not? I had the points! So what if the games are in Japanese and I can't read the manuals, or the instructions, or the screen? All I need now is a PSP, XBox 360, and a Segway..

Digestive Biscuit

Japanese people have a reputation for eating lots of fish, living a really long time, and having generally small sized bodies. My friends in America and I agree: that sounds pretty healthy. So folks back home are often surprised at the amount of fried food and startchy rice that people eat here. Hamburgers are much more common lunch than sushi for the average Tokyo-ite. How do they do it?

I may have stumbled on the secret:


Milk Chocolate Digestive Biscuits


Mmmm.. Choco-Digestion

No, it's not a biscuit that digests you.. it's a chocolate coated dietary supplement. Literally. One side is dessert, the other side is wholesome fiber goodness. One Japanese friend told me that the key to being skinny, to put it politely, is being productive. In the gastro-intestinal respect. And actually, that makes a lot of sense--the less time the food has in your body to get absorbed, the less energy you'll get from it. (OK, so maybe the timings involved don't really work that way, but let's agree that fiber is good for you.)

But.. as I post this information, I wonder if the idea of Digestive Biscuits came from somewhere else--an imported concept like so many other things in Japan. The word "biscuit" seems British.. Can anyone confirm? Any regular British readers out there?

On your next long distance international route plane crash, please remember to read your "how to hopefully not die next time" information placard. I sure did! And I noticed something very important.

You must use the Force to open the emergency door. See Figure 2. The caption reads as follows:

"Calmly walk to the nearest exit door. 1. Lift the metal handle, then stretch out with your feelings. 2. Size matters not; slide the metal door to the side with your mind. To look extra magical, extend your hand palm down towards the door, as if shooting your Force from there. Finally, dispense trivially with any nearby combat droids before proceeding to step 3."

Of course it's possible I got it all wrong; he could be doing Kung Fu on the door. What's your take?

Blog, what's that?

Turns out I'm the kind of guy who drops everything to write job applications. ... so.. my apologies to those folks who've been waiting patiently for new content! You know who you are!

Expect more photos soon: I got some doozies saved up, waiting in the wings... chocholate coated laxative, anyone? stay tuned!

plane crash

I don't know if I'm feeling lucky or unlucky. How many people can say that they've survived a plane crash? How many people are glad to have their flight canceled?


Let's stand in line

The tip of our plane's wing collided with the tail section of a nearby plane's tail section. The damage caused our flight to be cancelled, so we all sat in line before information trickled down to us about our options. The bulk of us are staying in a hotel tonight and flying out tomorrow morning. *phew*

Muji Desk

Mujirushi, or Muji for short, is a popular place to buy furniture in Japan. It means "no brand" but in fact, it is now it's own brand. (Sort of defeats the purpose, don't you think?) The idea is that they sell things of medium quailty (not too bad) for medium prices (not too expensive), with no stickers or words adverstising the company. And it's all stuff that Japanese people need, like containers, desks, chairs, beds, shelving, etc. measured down to the centimeter, so you can make sure it fits in your teeny, tight space. The colors all match each other and are very urban--greys, white, off white, brown. Got a desk, 40x128x60cm, beech color. Delivery was included for a small fee.

And I must say, I was impressed that the delivery men were on time. They called at 9:15am to say they would be between 11 and 1, and they arrived at 11:30. Yay Tokyo! Are all delivery guys this punctual? I doubt it.


No power driver. Shucks!!

But the best part was when I opened the box for my desk, which was like a shoebox, in two pieces with the top fitting around the sides of the bottom. I was surprised to see a plastic bag flop out on a red piece of tape. The bag for assembly was designed to pull out as you opened the box! Inside the bag were the instructions and a tool pack, which impressed me so much I had to find my camera. The main thing which impressed me was the tray--totally obvious that all pieces were there. Such an improvement over little bags, where there are often too few or too many pieces! Second thing I liked was the screw driver, because as a foreigner in Tokyo I have no tools. Yes, I miss them, but the little L-shaped driver got the job done.

Muji reminds me a lot of Ikea, which is opening near Tokyo next year. Where as Muji has delivery, Ikea has lower prices. It will be interesting to see how Ikea fares in a city where most people don't drive!