The Wayfarer Blog

Well, I made it back to Tokyo, but I need to change my internet provider. The good news is that it will be much faster, and for less money. But the bad news is that it might take about three weeks to get it installed. So I will obviously not be able to post as much as I would like.

Right now, I am at an internet cafe. I will try to post at least a couple times a week, but things will probably continue to be slow for the next couple weeks.

I have tons of Chinese pics to post, as soon as I can. I need to run for now.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I got busy, then had some internet issues before I left, so I didn’t have time to update the blog and let you know I would be in China. Right now, I am in Beijing. (More on that later.)

I have taken a lot of pictures, so check back for that. I’ll be back in Japan in a couple days.

Today, I went to a school I had never been to before, but I didn’t have to. To make a long story short, I was supposed to go to the school yesterday and today, but the schedule was changed. The person at my company who handles scheduling said he had emailed me yesterday, but I didn’t get the email. That has happened before, so I’m not sure what happened. But I wasn’t upset. It was such a nice day, I enjoyed taking some pictures on the way back.

On the way to the school, I took a cab. I had checked the school’s website the night before, and seen a map, but I wasn’t too confident. I didn’t know how long the bus would take, so I just took a cab. When I got to the school, they were surprised to see me. So, I just laughed it off. I took the scenic route home. I got to see an area of Tokyo I never go to. i don’t know if I had ever been there before. Who knows if I will ever go there again.

And the best part is, I had my camera with me.

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Wow. A week’s gone by, and I haven’t really had anything exciting to report. Well, “no news is good news,” I guess. I have been busy with a lot of (boring) stuff; final exams at my high school, preparing the syllabus for next year’s classes at my college, etc. I haven’t really been out taking pictures, either.

The truth is, I have been a bit introspective, and I haven’t really had any inspiration to write. But I am doing fine and all that…I just haven’t really had anything to say. And when you don’t have anything to say, you should just be quiet, right?

But I did come across something interesting when I was looking at my bookmarks in del.icio.us this morning.

100 Photographs that Change the World by LIFE

The pictures are great, and each one has a bit of a story, so go ahead. Check it out. These pictures are classic. Unforgettable. We grew up with them. Take a trip down memory lane, and enjoy, while you are waiting for me to get my act together and do something worth writing about.

Interesting BusinessWeek article about how Google is racing to catch up to the mobile phone market in Japan.

Japan: Google’s Real-Life Lab:

Japan’s handset-toting masses, it seems, have a lot to teach the Net giant. The country has become a vast lab for Google as it tries to refine mobile search technology. That’s because Japan’s 100 million cell-phone users represent the most diverse—and discriminating—pool of mobile subscribers on the planet. While Google also does plenty of testing elsewhere, the Japanese are often more critical because they are as likely to tap into the Net with a high-tech phone as a PC and can do so at speeds rivaling fixed-line broadband. And because Japanese carriers have offered such services for years, plenty of Web sites are formatted for cell phones.

Cell phones in the US are getting better all the time, but Japan is still years ahead. Fingerprint and face recognition systems, video talk, and the ubiquitous barcodes that you can scan on advertisements and posters to go directly to the appropriate website…Japanese cell phones are pretty amazing. Then again, most people don’t seem to really use all those advanced features. In fact, cell phones here seem less like phones, and more like mobile email tools. On trains, it is considered rude to talk on the phone, so very few people do. Most people just use their phones to mail each other, while they swim through the throngs of people at the station, trying to locate each other.

Or just to pass the time on the train.

There seems to be a lot of buzz about Obama in Japan. I have heard that a lot of people in China like him, too. I don’t know who I’m voting for yet. I haven’t been good about following election news recently, to be honest. I need to spend more time looking at the candidates…

I am off to bed, but I thought I would post a few pictures I took at Kourakuen Station and Tokyo Dome today. I will finish giving them descriptions and rename them later. The first few are from Kourakuen Station, after I got off the train. They have beautiful murals along the walls. Here is a small sample. Enjoy!

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Came across a link to a humorous post in my feedreader, by a couple teaching English in China. They analyze a set of alphabetical blocks, used to teach English vocabulary. Predictably, hilarity ensues.

Is that a panda? NO! it’s a bear cat! Someday, your Chinese friend might ask if you want to see his wecker. Don’t slap him! He just wants to know if you want to see his new VW Bug. And if they offer you a peacock sandwich, relax. It’s just turkey.

Chumble Spuzz! » peer-see:

One of the things that is so amazing about teaching English as a foreign language is that it forces you to rethink components of English you take for granted and experience the language in a completely new way.

Um, isn’t that what a teacher is supposed to do?

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Yes, that’s right. I wrote “Oink, Oink,” and not “Happy Valentine’s Day.” I feel like a bit of a pig. And not because of what I ate, but because of what I said. It was the “perfect” ending to a “perfectly odd” day.

Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t really a bad day. Sure, a lot of annoying things happened, but what’s new, right? By the time I got to my evening company class, I was in a pretty good mood. I have two back-to-back classes, and I’ve been teaching most of the same students for years, so I can get away with a bit of joking. But tonight, I put my foot in my mouth…

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I wish I had an exciting story, but, I guess it’s true: “No news is good news.”

I took my little Canon Ixy800IS again for the first time in a long time, but I only took a few pics. One good thing is that I have been enjoying reading some Japanese literature, both in books and online. I used to read translations. It’s great to be able to read them in Japanese now. I won’t lie, though, I sometimes need to use my dictionary, and I often need to read things more than once to get the full meaning.

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