I Bought an iPod

Yay, I am now one of those cool people who own an iPod. Soon enough you will see me dancing around, shaded in black with the iPod in my hand dancing to funky music. Actually you won't, I have no plans to ever use the original Apple earbuds included with my iPod. I'll stick with my Panasonic inner ear type earbuds.

I headed over to the local Yodobashi Camera during my lunch break after printing out a page from Amazon. Yodobashi list a iPod classic 80GB at ￥29800 + 5% points but Amazon Japan are selling the same iPod for ￥26697! So I asked the staff to match the price, after a bit of waiting and a few telephone calls they agreed to give me the same price.

Negotiating on price is not something that comes naturally to Japanese people, but I am happy to educate this fantastic country to the idea of not paying retail price. For more expensive items I consider the ticket price the opening offer in a negotiation, not what I am going to pay.



As you see I have bought the black unit, this is to match my existing Panasonic inner ear earbuds. Some people have unkind things to say about the original earbuds, so I figure I might just give them away in a competition. Are you interested?

Pictured just behind is a silicone case & protective screen pack. I am pleased to say that it is "made in Japan" as I always try to buy. Never again will I buy Chinese products. (unless designed by Japanese or American engineers)



The final unit inside it's silicone cover, behind protective screens. Sporting a screen shot of this blog.

I have previously complained about my SO903i and it's restrictive DRM policy, not allowing me to play Foo Fighters or George Michael on it. But I was playing some Foo Fighters as I began this post and right now I am listening to Fast Love by George Michael. So I can feel free to play my music, my way. The SO903i will now become my Jogging music player. Also there are no problems with any of the album art which the SO903i used to have trouble with.

I will do a full review of my iPod classic 80GB in the near future. But so far it seems great.

My only complaint is how the silicone case attracts fluff. But this is a common complaint about silicone cases according to one of my coworkers.

Well, I guess this fulfills Lina's request to let her know if I get one....

2008 Sakura

For me it's the weekend. Working Saturday to Wednesday does have some advantages, being able to go out to parks and public places without being lost in a sea of people.

Today my son and I walked up to the local river, just to get out of the apartment, get some sunshine and stretch our legs. It was a really nice day today and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Sakura had started to bloom.



Up close and personal, using the closeup function on my Olympus SP510UZ.



The trees aren't fully in bloom yet, but they are getting there.



Such a nice and sunny day.

My son was laughing very hard as I held his hand and threw rocks into the river. There's something magical in hearing the laugh of your own children.

On the way home he fell asleep in his pram and I put him down to bed. Later we are going to visit the grandparents.

3.5" HDD player Enclosure-Divx Mp3 DVD-HDMI CH5.1-SD

A couple of weeks ago I ordered a new hard disk player from eBay. I decided to splurge on a unit with a HDMI interface so I could connect it to my Panasonic HD TV.

Paying via PayPal I was able to use money I had earned from ProjectWonderful and selling EntreCard credits. A nice little reward for myself for my blogging efforts. What a waste.

The best part of three weeks after ordering the player and paying, it arrived yesterday. Upon opening the box it was clear that the device was 100% plastic and poorly made. Still with a plethora of supplied cables including a 1M HDMI cable and even a magnetized screwdriver, I was happy with this.

The power cable supplied with the unit didn't suit Japan, but I was able to take a power cable from another device and use it, so that's one step overcome. Next I had to format the drive Fat32. On a Japanese PC running XP, that's not an easy feat as the only option was NTFS. I needed to download a 3rd party program to do this for me. I partitioned the drive as directed and started it up in stand alone video mode.

NO HDISK

Argh!

I have contacted support and received one tip to try, which failed, and I am still waiting upon further advice of what to try next. Needless to say, this is the last time I buy anything that was designed and made in China. I thought I was saving money by not buying a Media Cowboy from Yodobashi Camera, but now I realize I've flushed a whole bunch of money down the toilet.

Still, I guess I have learned another expensive lesson in life.

Lets see if support can reply faster than once a day, or maybe I can ask PayPal to get involved.

Premium Lotteria Cheese Burger

Yesterday when I was killing a bit of time before I met Lina and her family, I decided to pop into Dotour and get a coffee and read a book. But I saw a sign at the Lotteria next door that diverted my attention.

There was a new Premium Cheese Burger at Lotteria, so I dived in to try it. At ￥300 + ￥350 for Coke & Fries it was a little on the expensive side. And when it was in my hand, disappointingly small. But when it was between my teeth, I could taste the value.




High quality cheese with decent beef on a tasty bread roll, it was probably the best ever hamburger I've ever eaten from a chain fast food restaurant. Nothing like the revolting thing I ate at Wendy's once.



See that? That's real cheese, not the usual processed stuff. And totally yummo.

Meeting A Fellow Blogger

Today I met Lina of Urutora No Hi. We met in Ikebukuro and went and had some drinks at Andersen's bread shop. It was so cool to meet someone who I'd been talking with online for so long. I gave them the tea I'd written about earlier and some chocolates I picked up at Sea Paradise.

Next we hopped on the Yamanote line and went to Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara to look at their extensive toy section. Raimie picked up a new Ultraman action figure and then we headed down stairs so I could look at iPods...

After returning to Ikebukuro we parted ways as they were looking a little tired after a difficult over night train journey.

Now I'm home, here's a pic of the Coffee that I was given today.

Can't wait to get into that! Thank you Lina.

More Gift Engrish

Here's some more Engrish from my trip to Yokohama Sea Paradise.



"This is an original fresh choco cake. It became a sweet smell and a good quality tasting by using chocolate. It is politely made spending time and time. Please enjoy delicious of nature."

I'm glad it is a polite cake, I don't like it when cakes are rude.



"This is an original cookies of Yokohama Hakkeijima. It became a sweet smell and good qualitty tasting by using milk cnough, it is politely made spending time and time. Please enjoy dellcous of nature."

It's good to see we have so many good smelling polite cakes on offer.

Or people using the same automatic translation software.....

Two years in Japan

Well, I've been living in Japan now for two years.

It's been two years since I achieved my dream of living in this country and telling everyone to envy me.

In that time I've (in no particular order)
Gotten a good job
Had a baby
Bought a car
Bough and furnished an apartment.

Have I worked to improve my Japanese ability? no.
Have I traveled across this country? no.

I've been too busy with work to build up money for hospital bills & furniture while trying to pay off a car and meet home loan payments. In two months we will be able to retire the car loan, so things will look a little better financially. Plus I am over due for a vacation...

So... Maybe....

Then again, I'd also like to buy an iPod (even though I don't like players with non-user-replaceable batteries)

Gift Engrish

On Friday when we went to Sea Paradise in Yokohama, I found some very funny Japanese Engrish.



How would you like to take your children to the Booze Cafe?



"It is a chocolate cake with sweet flavor. It brings you healing time."
No, it brings a smile to my face when I read this...

Sea Paradise

Today we drove out to Sea Paradise in Yokohama. It turned out to be a three and a half hour drive even though we left home at six am to beat the traffic. The traffic, we did not beat....

But it was worth it! We saw plenty of marine creatures and other animals like Polar bears and penguins.


Though we took heaps of photos, the vast majority turned out terrible due to poor lighting. We were not allowed to use the flash on our cameras.



The highlight of the trip was the sea mammal show featuring Dolphins, Seals and Beluga whale show.



Their voices were really cool!



Here we have a view from the rotating observatory. I took quite a few landscape pictures from up here as we went around.

All in all it was a great day out, but I'd advocate taking public transport instead of driving.

BTW I found some really cool Engrish in the gift shop, this will be posted in coming days.

Doraemon Tombstone

On Sunday I was scheduled to go to a different school to help out in the morning. I was reasonably sure I knew where I was going and so bright and early I did a whole bunch of changing trains to find out that I was completely in the wrong area!

When I got out of the train station I realized that something was wrong. But as I was walking around I spotted this:


A Doraemon Tombstone, very similar to the Godzilla tombstone I found previously.

While the mistake about the trains cost me a lot of ￥yen in wasted train fares and I missed a lesson, so I don't get paid for that and I needed to apologize to my manager for the mistake. It was kind of offset by the fact that I found this cool headstone.

I think this might be the start of a new hobby, apart from looking for funny Engrish I will start to look for other interesting tombstones.

Importing Music into iTunes

Tonight I have begun the slow process of importing all of my classical CD's into iTunes. I am encoding them at 320K and scanning in all the covers myself. It is going to be a slow, laborious task. But also a labor of love.

When I left Australia, I sold off all of my CD's except my classical collection which I inherited from my mother. I couldn't bear to part with them, so I brought them with me.

Now as my tastes in music are beginning to mature, I am becoming more and more interested in exploring this collection while I am on the train. Thus the need to encode them.

I think I might need to move beyond my SO903i and it's restrictive DRM (I can't play any Foo Fighters or George Michael on it, though on my PSP the same files play fine) and get myself an iPod classic. I won't get rid of the phone, but it will be delegated to music player for while jogging.

This also makes me consider the need for my PSP, as I now only use it for video and rarely play games. I can afford to buy the iPod, I can justify it, but I'm still uncertain. Sigh....

Showa Kinen Park

Today I took my son out to Showa Kinen Park near Tachikawa.

I picked up some bread and onigiri before we went in. The sun was shining and we had a great time. Quality Father & Son time today.




Some kids having fun in the field. This field is quite large by Japanese standards, though on Saturdays & Sundays, it gets very busy and crowded.



The entrance to the inner Japanese garden. It was actually quite peaceful and quiet. No crowds to ruin the ambiance today.



A view across the pond. The water was quite still and you can see some turtles catching a little sunshine. Very peaceful.



Here we can see the blue sky and the beginnings of spring.

While today wasn't my first time to visit Showa Kinen, it was the first time that I went with just my son. I felt pretty good about my weak Japanese ability.

Headstones

I know what I want on my grave when I die. I've already decided the music. I've already decided the theme. Now I have found my ideal headstone; GODZILLA!



This quality piece of master craftsmanship is on display at a local stone masons shop. I can just imagine the glee of my grandchildren, great grandchildren as they come to pay their respects to their Pop.



Of course there are many other, more traditional designs.

I've never been one for tradition!

Japanese Summer Beer 2008

It's that time of year again! When the big beer companies begin to release their new beers for the spring / summer drinking season.




The advertising caught me on the train. A picture of a dude eating fried food and drinking beer? My idea of heaven!

I picked up a can tonight on my way home from work, it was quite good for a happoshu type beer.



Usually I am quite fond of Kirin's other happoshu type beers like Nodoguchi and Enjuku. But when I tried Kirin Zero the other day I was appalled. It was like drinking a 50/50 beer/soda water mix. Plenty of carbonation and next to Zero with flavor.

Stay tuned as I review more Low Calorie beers this drinking season!

Pet Cemetery

A couple of days ago Thomas wrote about the loss of his inlaw's loss of their dog in his post titled Pet Cemetery.

It reminded me of my own loss of my wonderful cat Zefram.

I was lucky being able to bury him behind my inlaw's house, but I can imagine how difficult it would be for people who didn't have land to bury their beloved pet.

There is a chronic shortage of land and space in Japan. It's difficult enough to be able to bury a person, let alone a loved pet.

Having a place to go and visit is helpful in the grief process. Often I go to visit Zefram's grave to have some time to remember him and miss him.

New Sakura Tumblers at Starbucks Japan

It's now spring in Japan, it's time for young love, playing in the park, watching the Sakura (Japanese Cherry Blossoms) and the seasonal merchandise!

Saturday morning I noticed the new pink Sakura tumblers at my local Starbucks, along with some patterned mugs, cookies & marshmallows. Today I got some extra photo's to show the detail.

I was impressed with how they match other traditional Sakura themes like the Sakura KitKat packs.

You have to love Japan for seasonal, limited edition merchandise. I'm sure there are people who collect this kind of crap. Me, I'm happy to just photograph it and blog about it.