Monday, June 11, 2007

 

Japan Trip Summary

Sorry I was hoping to blog every night but I couldn't because of two reasons. I felt tired at the end of every day and two of the hotels we stayed at had wired internet access. There was only one LAN port and we had to play Musical Chairs or Chair.
The hotels we stayed at which had the one LAN port issue were in Osaka: Osaka Namba Washington Hotel Plaza and Kyoto: Ikoi-No-Ie. Next time I would like to come prepared with this product from D-Link or a similar one. It allows me to share that one LAN port with multiple computers using wireless signals instead of using more ethernet cables or in other words using a hub/switch. But enough of this tech talk ...

I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in Kyoto because my friend Jeffrey showed us around. I look forward to showing Jeffrey around if he comes to Singapore within the next month or wherever I am.

About purchases... on our very very very last shopping opportunity in Narita Airport I saw one electronics shop sell the Canon IXY 810 IS which is the upgrade model for my previous generation Canon Digital IXUS 800 IS. The model names and numbers are confusing. In Japan it's called IXY. In Asia and Europe it's called IXUS. In America it's called Powershot Digital Elph. The numbers are also nuts. In Asia and Europe it's 950 IS. In America it's 850 IS. Back to shop, they were selling it for 44,700 YEN tax free price if I remember. I was thinking that might be expensive and then I quickly blurted out to my wife that I should have went to Yodabashi. Right when I said that I noticed a sales staff standing at the edge of the store checking us out. Ugh... should have kept my mouth shut or spoke softly.

I bought a bunch of Nintendo GBA and DS games. And also one GB game.
For GB
- Super Mario Land (980 YEN)

For GBA
- Legend of Zelda (JP version, paid too much 1480 YEN)
- Kid Icarus (JP version)
- Mappy (JP version)

For DS
- Game and Watch collection (paid too much 3280 YEN)
- Jump Ultimate Stars (29XX YEN)
- Ace Attorney II (JP version, with English tracks, 2680 YEN)
- Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 (燃えろ!熱血リズム魂 押忍!闘え!応援団2) (obviously JP version, paid handsomely for a new game 4170 YEN)

My wife was hoping to get a Canon S5 IS, but it didn't come out in time while we were in Japan. Expected release date is mid June. Also when we met Jeffrey, he educated her about camera sensor sizes and their relation with noise, night shots and photo-taking. She's now convinced to move up to SLR's because of their larger sensors.

Sights
Seibu Lions baseball game versus Yakult Swallows
I was hoping they would win a game, but I had seen some of their games on TV in hotels and they weren't doing good. So I was expecting a loss, which unfortunately did happen. At the end of the game I was very excited to spend money on a cap and jersey. I only bought a cap. They didn't have the nice blue jersey that almost every fan wore. On another note, on our last day, we went shopping around Ueno. The place felt like the Bugis street shopping in Singapore but of course larger. There was a sports shop there but again no jersey but they had some nice wool Lions caps. The one I bought at the stadium was polyester and didn't have the already curved bill.

Ghibli Museum
As an anime fan I thoroughly enjoyed this visit. I also enjoyed the process of getting there starting with the tickets. Upon searching, I found two well informed pages here and here that described everything. Initially I was planning on securing the tickets through JTB in Singapore, but one agency I called said I would also need to book airfares and hotels with them plus they would charge another 1000 YEN as handling fee. Two things: we had already booked our own airfares and hotels; for the agency to charge us another 1000 YEN when the tickets are 1000 YEN already was ludicrous. We ended up risking it and going for the LOPPI kiosk option at LAWSON convenience stores. Luckily for us the staff at LAWSON helped us out with using LOPPI. I don't recall which store but we went to one in Tokyo somewhat near our Star Hotel in Ikebukuro.

More to come later, need to clean up and head out for food...

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