I haven't posted a lot in January as I spent most of the time on the road, away from my main destop machine. And last week I was in Manila... However I jotted down some notes on my Sony CLIE. I transformed them into texts and here they are!
January 13th:
I am heading for Tokyo today. It's a one-class 747 on the flight I am taking. The first surprise is the width of the seats (or lack thereof): I can barely fit in the one next to the emergency exit. One of the flight attendant saw me sitting tightly there and offered to change seat, luckyly. It seems I have to choose between leg room and hip room.
I am writing this on my Clie as we fly. I loaded Pippy on my Clie, an PalmOS implementation of Python 1.5.2. I wonder if I could adapt PyBlog or bzero to run with Pippy. It would be cool to blog on my Clie and then sync it with Radio. The "conduit" (in PalmOS parlance) could talk to Radio through XML-RPC.
As we approach Haneda airport, I am surprised by the amount of smog floating over Tokyo's harbour. It can clearly be seen on the head cam's screen of the plane.
January 17th:
The white car slows down approaching the side of the street. It stops. A man walks out, approach the vending machine, buy cigarettes, go back to his car, drives away. Nothing to write home about? The car is a huge Bentley and we are in Tokyo's Minato-ku. This isn't surprising here.
January 18th:
I saw a lot of interesting things in Akihabara today:
- HIPPI network cards on a store's shelf!
- USB coffee can heater (about 1600 yens)
- There isn't a lot of stores selling hard drive smaller than 100GB.
-
Wireless USB print server for between 9000 and 12000 Yens. These were quite rare last summer but manufacturers realized there was a market for this kind of product.
- USB 2.0 <-> IRDA converter.
- There's a store where they had on the shelves the whole range of SuperMicro dual Xeon server boards.
- A few boutiques selling shrink-wrap "old software: I saw versions of Corel Draw 3.0 and Windows 286 still in their original wrap.
- A boutique specialized in hardware related to digital video had a very interesting tape deck: the Victor BR-DV3000.
- A boutique specializing in old UNIX workstation and servers. They had old Silicon Graphics, HP's PA-RISC, Sun, IBM's RS/6000. I almost bought a Sun and a Silicon Graphics (20000 yens). It was very tempting.
- There is a lot of affordably priced 8-ports 1000Base-T switch on the market now. I am eyeing either the FPCI or the Buffalo. A colleague on mine recommended me to try before buying because there is a lot of incompatibility among switches and network cards. I'll dig on the 'net and make up my mind later. At around 22000 yens they are much more affordable than most of what I saw on the North American market. From a preliminary perspective, I prefer the FPCI because the ports are at the back of the switch and because the power supply is 100-220V which is handy when one moves often.
I then jumped in the subway and headed towards Shinjuku to see the new Bic Camera and the mega Yodobashi. I wasn't disappointed. The Bic Camera has a lot more than the one we have in Fukuoka and the prices are very good. The Sony DVD+-R/RW is finally affordable too: about 31000 yens at Bic Camera.
The Yodobashi is clearly gigantic. It is on 8 or 9 floors. I didn't finish it, my back was a bit too painful. The area of the individual floors is smaller than what we have in Fukuoka but they are much densely loaded.
January 19th:
I started my day by heading early to the Bic Camera of Yuruchiko. It is big indeed. They ocuppy the old Sogo building. They have a lot of stuff but it doesn't give the same feeling of compactness than the other branch because they actually seem to have enough space to display what they have to. I bought some photo paper for our colour printer (ordered live by my wife through SMS) and a new pair of earphones for my MP3 player. I was surprised to see they have a wine & spirits section and a toys section. They have "Bob the builder"-themed Lego. My nephew would have been happy to see that! They also have a little cafe facing the section where they showcase TVs (how appropriate). Today they were showing the Sony Golf Open in Honolulu.
I then raced toward Harajuku to see the freaks that roam around on Sunday after-noon. In addition to the traditional nurses and goth dolls, I saw for the first time westerner teenagers disguised in pseudo-goth attire and make-up. Not really convincing but it's a good start. They looked quite please to strike a pose for the numerous japanese "tourist" wandering around. As a bonus we had a "concert" by a bunch of shaved-head Hare Krishna. I can't wait to edit the footage I took of them. Whith an appropriate sound track this could be pretty funny.
Being hungry I started to look for a restaurant. I ended up at an Italian one called "To the herbs". It was nice and calm, overlooking the Meiji shrine. I had a pizza that was quite nice. The ambiance was nice and they have painting made on a grid of ceramics tile hanging on the wall. Once I had my stomach well filled I decided to walk down to Omote-sando along Tokyo's "Champs Elyses". This was a bit too crowded but I could take more pictures of colourfull teenagers.
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