Slackademic

It has been a busy week. Foolishly I have been doing two modules of my OU course at once (hey, they were 'short courses' and looked easy!) and the two main pieces of coursework were both due in on midday Thursday. This meant that, thanks to having to work and earn a living, they had to be in by Wednesday night. After a weekend and every evening I got them in. They could have been better, but hey, in the end I was just happy to submit them. I don't think it matters how old I get - when it comes to academic coursework I will always leave it until the last minute. When I'm sat there typing drivel in the small hours it brings back memories of undergrad days... all of us sat in the computer science labs, hacking away all night for a 10am deadline. Happy days! We always got it done though, and that makes you feel a bit invincible.

Anyway, the course has taken all of my free time for ages, but I did manage to get into London on Thursday to record the Girl Geek Dinner. More about that here on my 'tech' blog.

I've just been in the cinema to see The Painted Veil, based on the Somerset Maugham novel, at the Little Theatre. It was really good... slightly sad, but then aren't all the best dramas? I can't think of a bad film with Edward Norton in it, and this doesn't disappoint. Check it out.

New Job

On Monday I started a new job. It's still programming - I haven't decided to become a stuntman or something - but it's in quite a different area. No more telco stuff for me, at least for a while, as I'm now in the exciting world of Internet startups and fun things. I'm also programming on a Mac so I don't have to suffer Windows on a regular basis again. Huzzah! I've now got a shiny quad-core Mac Pro under my desk, which is pretty darn nippy.

So all is good on the work front. The weather has also been exceptional recently of course, so that has been nice. My new job is a bit further from home (about 45 minutes walk rather than 30) so I've decided to cycle in. Since there is nowhere to put a bike in my new office I decided to get a folding one. Not only can this be left under my desk and out of the way, but I can sling it into the back of the car for weekends away and so on. After looking at various makes and models I went for a Dahon Speed TR. This was a tough choice as I really wanted to buy a British bike (support local industry and all that), but although the Brompton folds much smaller it just doesn't have the gear range I need for Bath. The new bike arrived quickly and I've been cycling into work fine on it. The smaller wheels make it look slightly girly I suppose, but that's something I have to live with if I want the folding! The rolling resistance of smaller wheels also make it slightly harder to move - I feel that on the hill on the way home! Good exercise though, I suppose.

I bought a PS3 - much nicer to look at than the XBox 360, and nicer firmware too. It also doesn't sound like a aeroplane taking off! I've just got 'Resistance' for it at the moment, but there are some more games on my list from ScreenSelect, so I'll get those at some point. The rental system works really well for games actually as I don't have to shell-out 50 quid for something I lose interest in pretty quickly. If only they carried Wii games they would be perfect. Anyway, if you want to 'friend' me then my handle is 'DominicUK'.

One final thing that I've been appreciating is the new Nine Inch Nails album, Year Zero. It's really good, but you don't have to take my word for it since you can listen to it on the NIN web site. The CD itself is pretty funky as it is heat sensitive. When you put it in the CD player it's black, but when it comes out it's white (with 'hidden' text). Cool! It goes black again when it cools down. It's a nice touch, and it makes me happier that I still buy CDs rather than downloading dodgy copies like skanky cheapskate pirates.

Crowded House

Last night we went to the first Crowded House gig for years at the Thekla in Bristol. It was really very good. They played some stuff of their new album that is being released in June, but there were enough old favourites there to keep everyone more than happy, and they played for 2.5 hours so it was a good long set. The tickets sold out pretty quickly and the 15 quid original price went up to about 400 quid on eBay, which was a bit mad.

Crowded House are one of those bands that are a bit like the Beautiful South - I know I like them but I don't realise how many songs I know until I'm at a gig! I guess I've got three Crowded House albums and I listen to them reasonably often, so that might explain it. It was a pleasant surprise to find myself able to sing along to most of the tracks though. The band themselves seemed to enjoy it although there were some rough edges, but that isn't completely surprising seeing as it has been so long since they've played together in public, and this is a new line-up. Anyway, top stuff - catch them on their new tour if you can...

Back

Well I got back from Tokyo in one piece, despite a slightly unnerving landing at Heathrow where we pulled away sharply after almost touching down - it turned out that an Emirates 'plane was rather unexpectedly on the runway we wanted to land on. What fun. Still, once more around London and we landed 15 minutes later.

My final week in Tokyo wasn't bad. On Thursday evening we went to a sushi place in the big shopping centre by Kawasaki station and shared big sashimi and sushi platters. The sashimi was very fresh - the fish was caught and prepared in front of us, and most of it was still quite intact when it arrived on the plate. That wasn't a problem, but a few minutes after we started eating it started to move around in a rather energetic way. I'm pretty sure that they were post-mortem twitches, but it was vaguely unsettling (and went on for about 20 minutes!). Still, it sure was fresh fish!

My plane on the way back was fairly empty so I had a chance to stretch-out a bit for the 12 hours. I also caught 'The Departed' which was pretty good, as well as another couple of films that I was clearly too tired to remember. I remember them being good though. After the efficiency of Tokyo's Narita airport I was expecting the worst from Heathrow, but my baggage was out quickly and the trip back to Bath was really painless. Mind you, travel makes you appreciate things more - I don't think any airport baggage handling can be quite as inefficient as San Francisco when we flew there from Vegas. That involved more than half an hour of waiting by the conveyor belt and was pretty painful. Airports eh? You would have thought that they could have got them right by now...

It Is Considered Disgusting To Blow Your Nose In Public

I had a weekend of poking around slightly less cultural sights. On Saturday I went and had a poke around Akihabara to see the shops etc. It certainly has a good range of electronics and manga porn. Being unable to appreciate Manga porn I stuck to the electronics shops though. There are some great gadgets and the Japanese seem to have a large number of options for really lightweight laptops which I liked the look of, but they're not cheap. I also looked at buying a camera since they are a bit cheaper here, but the Japan-only warranty didn't sound like a good idea, plus the possible duty to pay if I keep hold of the box. VAT in Japan is only 5% so even being a tourist doesn't save you much money.

Akihabara is of course teeming with thousands of people looking for a bargain. They also have large numbers of women hanging around outside the station in strange French maid outfits handing out stuff. Not sure what they're advertising, but the Japanese don't bat an eyelid at such things. Most odd. Other than that, and the strange placing of sex shops between computer shops, it's all quite tame really. For shopping it's great as you don't get pushy salesmen grabbing you as soon as you stop to look at something. They do stand around and shout stuff, but it's to no-one in particular.

After Akihabara I had a quick kip before heading out to Roppongi, an area known for its nightlife. I went there early evening as I wanted to just have a look around before it got too crowded. There's certainly lots to do though, even at that time of day - a lot of the bars seem to optimistically open all day. I went for a drink in some 'British pub' to check out the local take on what British pubs are like, and from all of the St Patricks Day flags it felt a bit more Irish than British, but never mind! I then had a drink at the Gaspanic Cafe, which was empty, then a burger at the New Zealand Centre (oddly), which promised many NZ beers but only had one. After that I headed to Geronimo's which was highly recommended in my Lonely Planet. There I met a bunch of expats and went for a Chinese with them, which was all highly random and entertaining, but I was back in time for the last train home!

On Sunday I went for a drink and a bite to eat with someone from CouchSurfing not far from Roppongi again. We chatted and watched the water from the pier and had a most pleasant evening. I caught the last train back to the hotel and arrived there to find all of the electricity off. The hotel had decided to rewire something, so I had an entertaining time preparing for bed and generally getting around the hotel. It's easy to forget how much you depend on electricity. It's not so bad at home, but believe me, it has its uses when you're staying on the 22nd floor of a hotel!

Woo - another weekend!

Made it through another week of working in Japan and negotiating the transport system! Actually, until today it wasn't too bad - we've been heading out of Ikebukuro away from town so the metro is really quiet. However, my colleague from the UK left today and I started on a week of a new journey to an office in Kawasaki. This new route on the train (rather than the Metro) takes me right around Tokyo so I've now experienced crowded trains! To be honest they're not that bad though - they go every few minutes, so if the current one is a bit of a crush you can just wait for the next one. This doesn't seem to occur to the locals though who are clearly in a rush to get everywhere, and they happily cram on until the train is about to burst. Madness. Mind you, they give me odd looks while I just stand aside to let them on.

The train I get takes me on the Yamanote line, and I don't know if this is unique, but all of the stations have their own little tune when you arrive. It's quite cute and I guess pretty useful when you get to know your tune, but some of the choices are a bit odd. One of them plays the tune from Goodfellas (or some other gangster film - I can't remember which)... you know, the guitar-y
Italian sounding one. Anyway, the trains are pretty smart and there are screens showing where
you are going, where you are, and so on. Also, Japanese railway stations seem to be much less
confusing than their Metro stations! All of the lines are clearly marked along with their
destinations, unlike places like our previous local Metro station Negatacho, where you know that there's a connection to the Ginza line, but the signs don't tell you that
you have to head for the Yurakucho line, walk all the way along the platform and up stairs
the other end, and then along corridors for another 10 minutes. They're huge.

The Japanese themselves are almost model users of public transport. Most people (bar the odd rebellious teenager) queue for the trains on the handy painted lines on the platform, wait for people to get off when the train arrives, and then get on (although they never stop doing this, of course!). People tend to either sleep or stare at their feet, but if you do make eye contact they seem friendly. I have to say though, the women seem to be much chirpier. I'm not deluded enough to think this is because they all fancy me... rather, there seems to be a bit of a macho thing with the men where they're not allowed to have facial expressions or something. The women, in comparison, giggle away at pretty much anything. The difference is quite noticeable... much more so than the UK. I can't begin to guess why this is. Perhaps it has something to do with a lot of the men openly reading porno comics on the way to work? It's an odd thing to see men in suits doing at 8 in the morning. You can't tell what most people are reading though since they tend to put their books into little covers so you can't see the title. Perhaps they're all reading porn?! Can't see why they would want to cover the book otherwise, but then there are many bits of Japanese culture that I haven't got to grips with yet.

Anyway, work went ok today and I'm now trying to plan what to do this weekend. It might be
my last weekend in Japan for a while, so I have to make it count!

First Weekend in Tokyo

It's Sunday evening here now, almost a whole week since I arrived. Since my last post I've mostly been working. Days here are long and it doesn't leave much time for anything else, but we've been eating well! Food and drink is possibly more expensive here than anywhere else. It doesn't help that we get back from work too late to eat in most of the restaurants, so we have to resort to the bar at the top of the hotel (where a couple of beers and some fried chicken each is 60 quid - urgh).

Anyway, on Saturday we had a chance to see some sights. We went to the temple at Senso-Ji as we'd heard it was one of the best, and indeed it was. There are many tourist-tat shops that line the street (Nakamise-dori) between Asakusa Metro station and the temple compound and are interesting to poke about in. The temple itself is interesting but we were unlucky that when we visited there was some restoration going on, but there was still plenty to see.

After the temple we decided to take the Sumida-Gawa river cruise to see the city from a different aspect. Unfortunately the boat was completely enclosed with no deck to walk about on, so it was hard to see much! What we did see was mostly bridges and skyscrapers, so it was a lot less interesting than something like a cruise on the Thames. I wouldn't recommend it unless you manage to get an open boat anyway.

The boat took us to a commercial district near the Tokyo Tower. Everything was closed and nobody was around - it was a bit bizarre really. There was a McDonalds in the bottom of one of the office buildings where we reluctantly bought lunch before heading into whatever bit of Tokyo we were in, in an attempt to find a Metro station to get home. We walked under a monorail, which is an excitingly futuristic thing to have, and we saw a bullet train too. Very Japanese! Eventually we randomly found Mita station and got the metro back to the hotel.

On Sunday we had to move hotels. We're now in the Crowne Plaza Metropolitan, and I have another decent view from my room. The hotel is in a much busier area than the Akasaka Prince, so it looks like there will be more to do. We're right by Ikebukuro station which, like many Japanese stations, is absolutely massive. Still, it's a bit closer to the office so we'll shave half an hour off each leg of the commute from tomorrow.

In the afternoon we went to the Meiji-Jingu shrine. To get there you have to walk through an interesting bit of Japanese culture - Cos-play-zoku, or the 'costume play gang'. These are teenagers who dress up in goth and punk dress and then hang around every weekend, while tourists come and pose with them for photos. It's very bizarre. We had to walk though them to get to the shrine so it was an interesting diversion, although I didn't take any photos as it felt a bit 'wrong' to take photos of scantily-clad 14 year olds. Anyway, the shrine itself is in a massive (by Tokyo standards) site full of trees and 'countryside', which is very pleasant. I think I saw more tourists there than anywhere else in Tokyo. Most days you don't see any Westerners, but the shrine was crawling with them. It was an impressive site, and we saw a couple of traditional Japanese weddings taking place. It must have been a bit weird for the people getting married as they had loads of tourists taking photos, but I suppose they wouldn't have done it there if they had minded. Odd though.

After the shrine we went back to the area of the hotel and poked around BIC Camera, which is a bit like Richer Sounds. I don't think things are really that much cheaper in Japan though so I haven't succumbed to any impulse purchases yet. From BIC it was a short stroll back to the hotel where we had a rather nice meal. Hurrah! Bizarrely, an English sixth form college and a ballet company are staying at the hotel at the moment, so there's an interesting mix of people. It's a lively hotel so I'm happier about staying two weeks here than I would have been in the Akasaka Prince...