Well, I finally got my laptop and a cell phone, so I feel like I'm re-connected to the world. You don't realize how reliant you get on things like laptops, blackberries and cell phones until you don't have any of them.
I've got some pictures I want to post from the flight over, but I'm having some technical difficulties related to getting them off the camera. But here are a few observations after two days here...
1 - Whatever happened to Zima? If you're asking "what's Zima? go here. Apparently it is the preferred drink of kimono-wearing women in TGI Fridays in the Roppongi area of Tokyo. Yes, TGI Fridays is a bit of a give-up on my part for dinner last night, but I was hungry and it had an English menu. While I was sitting there, a very elegant woman dressed in the traditional kimono came in and enjoyed a Zima and a cigarette at the bar. An interesting contrast.
2 - Japanese keyboards are going to take some getting used to. Please pardon my typos if I don't correct them. By the time I get used to them, I won't be able to type on a US keyboard anymore.
3 - It's hot and humid here. That's not much of a revelation, but the interesting part is that the buildings here attempt to conserve electricity by not turning the air conditioning down as far as would be the case in the US. In exchange, business attire is relaxed in the summer. But my experience so far is that the buildings never quite get comfortable. As a result, your clothes kind of stick to you all day.
4 - If you take a Wal-Mart, shrink it by about 60% but only remove about 30% of the individual items and then cram them into a footprint the size of a small convenience store and then give it six levels, what do you get? Don Quijote. I was told that they have everything, and they literally do - food, liquor, shelving, furniture, electronics, towels... anything you could find at a Wal-Mart or Target and some stuff you couldn't. We're going to be spending some money at this place.
5 - Tai-san asked in the comments if I had used any Nihongo (Japanese) yet. The answer is yes, but I've been mainly interacting with people who are willing to speak English. I need to stop relying on this or I'm never going to get any better at it. Also, people keep assuming that I don't know any Japanese at all which is a bit frustrating.
I have one more observation, but it's worthy of a separate post...
jrs
Thursday, August 21, 2008
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2 comments:
Japanese people don't sweat as much as we do, so they don't necessarily have the same problem with clothes sticking.
I would be interested in seeing pictures of John in a short sleeve shirt and tie, as I expect many of the Japanese people are attired this time of year.js
Ha ha...Zima!
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