Tokyo

I've reached the point where I have so many things to write about, but do not enough patience to sit down and write. On this trip, I have two states of being: I'm either near-unconscious at night due to jet lag, or I'm perpetually wired from just being exposed to so many new sights. I walk around with my mouth open, trying to absorb my surroundings and not get too much in the way of the Japanese. Food is incredibly good, especially the meat. We've had Tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlets that taste like nothing you can get in most American Japanese restaurants), Japanese BBQ, Ramen (eating at the Ramen house was one of the best ways to see how the Japanese eat and socialize). On Friday, we visited the NTT DoCoMo showroom (also known as "Magic Club D") at NTT DoCoMo headquarters. See this site to read more about the showroom and watch a video tour similar to the one we went on. There, we saw the latest mobile phone and wireless technolgies -- including video conferencing-enabled mobile phones, networked vending machines using Cmode and paperless magazines. On a I-should-probably-keep-this-thought-to-myself note: We watched a video about what communication technologies DoCoMo will be innovating in the year 2010. The plot of the film was that a group of friends in the year 2010 are gathering together to open a time capsule they sealed 30 years prior -- in the 1980s. We follow each of the friends as they get their notification that it's time to meet (via shirt sleeve phone, windshield phone, etc...). It just so happens that the main character in this video happened to be in a wheelchair. When I saw his wheelchair, I thought about the almost-always accurate rule that you won't see a dog in a movie unless it's going to get hurt or killed. The same often goes for people in wheelchairs. And since most of the time wheelchairs don't appear in films unless it's pivotal to the plot, I figured that DoCoMo was going to get him walking again. Instead, he turned out to be a soccer coach (a fulfillment of his capsule prediction) -- something that I don't think DoCoMo had any part in aiding. Later that day, Minami-san and Hirata-san patiently guided us on a tour of Akihabara, Tokyo's consumer electronics hub. I have never seen so many mobile phones, computers and cameras in one place at one time. In Akihabara, we also bought some Japanese comics and capsules from vending machines. And, most importantly, in a store in Akihabara I was reintroduced to Domo-kun (which I originally saw here long ago). Later that night, we attended the Movable Type users meeting, which I'll write about in more detail on the Six Log. To sum it up here, it was amazing. Yesterday, we went on a bus tour of Tokyo. Only seven other people were on the tour so it was incredibly personal and very un-tourlike. We saw the basic tour points: Tokyo Tower, Imperial Palace Plaza, Japanese Garden and Tea Ceremony, Sumida River cruise, Asakusa Kannon Temple and Nakamise Shopping Street. Along the way, we had a great Japanese BBQ lunch within the gardens where the Tea Ceremony was held. During lunch, we were all social and making conversation with our fellow tourists -- we actually forced ourselves to be social since our isolation from the rest of the group was starting to seem very anti-social. More to come.