Video

It's late, and I picked up a cold on the plane ride home from Japan, but here are the videos anyway. Enjoy...

Nicole's journal

Nicole has her own journal with much more articulate and interesting entries about the Japan trip than mine. Mine's all pictures and poo-eating primate talk. Hers is much more interesting. Go check it out...

We're Back!

Back in America! Hooray!

We got back this morning, came home and slept for a few hours, and then got busy unpacking this afternoon. I have to work tomorrow, so I need to get to bed, but I've got pictures online. Videos coming soon.

Here ya go: http://technojunkie.org/berniec/galleries/japan-june2004

Typhoon; departure.

Yesterday a Typhoon passed through Tokyo, and by this morning it was completely gone. Nicole wanted to experience the water and wind and ventured out on her own. I, on the other hand, stayed in the hotel where it was plenty dry. The typhoon managed to shut down bullet train service near Osaka (due to a roof from a hotel being blown onto the power lines). And, on the news, they showed footage of some very dumb people walking on a jetty in the middle of the 15 foot waves crashing into the shore, and then getting swept into the sea. Nicole caught in the translation that two of them didn't survive. Ah, natural selection. Even for all of its education systems, even Japan has some dumbasses.

Tomorrow we take a plane from Narita back to Seattle. For those not accustomed to travel around the world, we leave at 3:20pm from here and will get into Seattle at 8:05am on the same day. We lost a day getting here. Tokyo is 17 hours ahead of Seattle.

I've really enjoyed the trip to Tokyo, but I'm ready to go home. I love travelling, but I also really miss the states. It'll be nice to be in a familiar and less crowded place. I'll miss the people-watching here in Tokyo. If there's anything to do here, it's people-watch.

Today Nicole and I walked up to Sunshine 60, the tallest building in Japan (at 60 stories) and had a good peak of the Tokyo skyline. We followed that up with a trip to the aquarium in the same building. An easy day... but we had to go out and by another bag for all of the gifts we're bringing back with us.

I anticipate pictures will be uploaded probably late on Wednesday. Videos might take a little longer.

Only a few more days left. :-(

Highlights of Japan, so far (we still have a few days left):

- Akihabara at dusk
- Mos Burger
- Shinjuku station at morning rush hour
- Bullet Train ride to Hiroshima and Kyoto
- Watching two Americans getting mobbed by Japanese schoolgirls in Kyoto (complete with schoolgirls yelling in unison when they said goodbye)
- Schoolchildren saying hello to us (sounded more like "Harro") in Hiroshima, only to have their shyness show through when I responded
- Tears in Hiroshima at the sight of the A-bomb dome
- Old woman praying for our happiness when she saw our sadness.
- Nicole overhearing drunk people on the Yamanote line train saying "they shouldn't allow foreigners on JR trains." This is funny considering how polite Japanese are when sober. I read somewhere that alcohol is used in Japanese society as a way to remove politeness. I really do feel like an alien here, in some situations. I'm used to being stared at, but everybody here looks at us.

I'm going to miss Japan. No matter how expensive it is, how crowded it is, or how different we are.

And, here's a picture of the trip so far. From Akihabara. More coming soon.

Hello From Tokyo!

Hello from the Apple Store in Ginza! It's currently 14:30 here on Tuesday afternoon (+17 hour time difference from Seattle). So far, we've just been dipping our toes into Tokyo. We're staying in Ikebukuro, and took the subway here (20 minute ride, by the way, which is very quick for the distance) to the store to get some free Internet before heading out again into the city.

It's quite warm and humid here - 80 degrees or so.

The flight wasn't bad. Long, but what else is new? We browsed Bic Camera (a large electronics chain here) in Ikebukuro today and got a good look at some of the cool electronic goodies Tokyo has. We're planning on a trip to Akihibara to browse there probably in a couple days.

Tomorrow - who knows. I'm going to at least make a trip to Tokyo station so we can figure out how to get to the bullet train platforms for a trip we booked to Hiroshima and Kyoto on Thursday.

All in all, the trip is going really well. And yes, everything is really expensive here - I paid $50 for breakfast buffet at the hotel today. A 500ml bottle of Coca Cola at AM/PM is about $1.20, so as long as we stay away from the hotel we'll be fine.

I'm taking pics as we go. I picked up a PowerShot A80 for the trip, and it's been doing a great job so far. The camcorder's not getting used as much, but I think I'll take it out for the trip to Hiroshima and Kyoto.

Who knows when I'll be on the net again. The trip here is quick so it might be in a couple days.

See ya...

Just a few minutes and the airport van will be here to get us. Off to Japan we go. No guarantees on Internet access - not like I want to spend my entire trip surfing the Internet :-)

Crap.

http://daveahlman.com/daveinjapan/toilet/toilet.htm

I had to practice my flat foot squat tonight. Didn't do too bad, but I have to be keenly aware of balance or else I'll topple like a poorly built outhouse. Needless to say, there will be NO dilly-dallying in the squat toilets. The flat foot squat is painful right now.

5 days...

The date is fast approaching, and I'm just trying to get all of my ducks in a row before we fly out of here. I spent a good chunk of Sunday figuring out bullet train timetables so we can go to Hiroshima and Kyoto. I haven't even looked at the Tokyo subway system yet. That's going to be a challenge. I've been finalizing my list of stuff that needs to be packed. I'll start packing on Saturday. The flight leaves Sunday at 2:35pm.

I'm pretty nervous and excited right now. I haven't had much time to learn any of the language, but I've been doing a fair bit of reading/documentary watching on the culture. I wouldn't consider myself a "Japanophile" by any stretch of the imagination, but I have an appreciation for the culture now that I wouldn't have had before my "research." Seeing it in person should be quite enlightening.

Good news on the TiVo front - yesterday I got the upgrade hard drive from 9thtee.com (who gets their drives from PTVupgrade.com). The drive installed beautifully, and booted perfectly the first time. It's obvious they're using some fancy customized TiVo image, as they've got their logo added to the startup screen, and they have far more channel logos than the stock TiVo software ever did. Not to mention that their setup for TiVoWeb/telnet/ftpd is incredibly easy. I had TiVoWeb up and running in 5 minutes. I remember spending several hours with the old drive, yanking it out of the TiVo, plugging it into a PC, copying over telnetd and tivoftpd, manually hacking rc.sysinit to get them to start, then praying I didn't screw anything up. Which is funny, because I once accidently forgot to make rc.sysinit executable. Well, there went my fully booting TiVo. And again out comes the drive to be fixed via that PC. Sigh.

Hats off to PTVupgrade.com's NetReady TiVo drives. Super easy installation, good documentation, and quick procedure. And 24 hours after installation, no TiVo freezes. Wooo!

The fixed TiVo's now fulfilling Nicole's TV habit. And now there'll be less Spongebob and Beavis & Butthead on the living room TiVo :-D

11 days...

11 days until Nicole and I fly to Japan. I'm excited, but extremely nervous about going over there. I've been reading up on Japanese culture the last few months. Even still, I know I'm nowhere near being prepared, but it'll be an interesting trip. Pictures and video will be available soon after we return.

The ol' TiVo died, or is in the process of dying. I went out and got a 40-hour Series 2 unit (and USB-ethernet adapter), and ordered a replacement boot drive for the old one. The new TiVo's a lot smaller, a bit quicker, but overall doesn't offer much that the old one did. A trial of TiVo's Home Media Option got activated today on the new unit and so far I'm a bit underwhelmed. The only feature in it that I really want is remote scheduling, but I don't think it's worth $99 just for that feature.

With TiVoWeb on the old Series 1 I had remote scheduling. Ok, so it wasn't easy to setup, but I had it, and it worked, and it was free. The music and photo sharing features of HMO are useful, but the music feature leaves me wishing for more: AAC support (ok, I understand if protected AACs can't be supported, but most of my library is in unprotected AAC format), album art support, and better MP3 playback. I occasionally got a slight skip or stutter on the beginning of some MP3 tracks I played. Most of the time it worked fine.

In all, I don't think HMO is worth $99 considering you then have to spend another $25-30 or so for a USB network adapter. I would pay $20 for remote scheduling, though.

Update, 6/9:
Tivo made the Home Media Option a full feature today.