Archive for Travel category
Heading to Redmond
I’ve been invited out to Microsoft HQ for a couple of days (October 22-23) which should be very interesting – more details on the what, why and how at a later date.
I will also be spending an extra day and a half in Seattle, perhaps taking in some of the sights of and maybe meeting up with a couple of on-line contacts for the first time.
Flights & hotel booked, now where I did put my passport…
The event was a Software Design Review for Microsoft’s ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions including MVC. Twenty-four of us gave our thoughts, feelings and opinions to the teams on how we believe we would or could utilise various aspects.
[)amien
Things I learnt in Japan
Airports
- Commercial airlines take the fun out of flying. Airports are often overcrowded and always have so much ‘dead-time’ waiting for check-in, security, boarding, take-off, baggage claim, customs…
- Heathrow is horrific and I’m glad Guernsey doesn’t fly there any more.
- When UK customs say one piece of hand-luggage per person they mean it. Handbag and laptops are a piece and taking liquid or gels is still a pain.
- It takes around 1h 20mins to transfer between Heathrow and Gatwick by coach.
- Seoul’s airport is impressive even under construction – shame about the one-hour delays on the runway.
- Korean Air’s fleet delivers interactive individual LCD screens with seat-to-seat gaming or ancient dodgy CRT projectors depending on the luck of the draw.
Trains
- The JR Rail Pass offers massive savings for those wishing to get around. As well as Shinkansen bullet-trains between major cities you can take slower trains between towns and JR lines inside cities.
- Show your JR Pass and ticket at gates instead of putting your ticket in the machine. Otherwise be prepared for a polite yet firm official to tap you on the shoulder.
- JR Pass doesn’t let you get on the Nozomi Shinkansen. The quickest you can ride is the Hikori which is the same speed but has more frequent stops often.
Subway
- Tokyo subway is quite easy to navigate despite the sheer size and number of people thanks to near-complete Romaji maps.
- Kyoto subway is a bit of a mess thanks to multiple operators and no unified map.
- Fukuoka’s subway is fast, clean and easy to navigate… it is also new.
- Buy a credit ticket that will be deducted per trip. It saves a whole lot of time messing around with machines and costs and lets you get on the last few trains when the ticket machines have closed.
Technology
- All Internet cafes should consist of cubicles you can sleep in with TV, workstation, bean-bag, unlimited soft drinks and a free comic library like Gera Gera.
- Mobile phones are everywhere with people texting and gaming in the street, on trains etc.
- Mobile phone system is UTMS/3G so a GSM-only phone won’t work. You’ll also need to make sure your operator has a roaming partner in Japan because you can’t buy pay-as-you-go SIM’s in Japan unless you’re a resident.
People
- Japanese people are incredibly polite and helpful whether it’s a stranger sharing her umbrella at a road junction, somebody helping you pick up the contents of your bag sprawled across the floor or somebody from a shop coming outside to help you get your map the right way up and point you in the right direction.
- Tiny Police stations (boxes) scatter Tokyo and are equipped with maps to help lost people – addresses are hard to find without one. Check the web-site for where you’re going and you’ll probably find a printable map.
- Emotion is all about the eyes and not the mouth in Japan. It’s not just anime but even emoticons are eyes-only. A sad mouthed-face here is tearful eyes!
Food
- The street-tent Japanese eateries are a great place to meet people as locals of all ages and foriegners get chatting.
- Cheese, milk and chocolate are not common. Kit-Kat and Snickers are about the only recognisable brand chocolate bars.
- Eggs turn up in many many dishes. Boiled and dropped into soups, or cooked and laid upon practically anything or sometimes raw over rice dishes.
- Food is beautifully prepared, even supermarket sandwiches and lunch-boxes. Crusts are too ugly for their sandwiches.
[)amien
Update from Japan
Will only be a short one as I’m pretty tired from all the walking and travelling around.
Got into Fukuoka and spent a few days exploring and a few evenings being entertained by Jo who also gave me some pointers on Japanese culture etc. I also subjected his friend Hitori ? to my incredibly poor attempts at Karaoke although my rendition of Franz Ferdinand’s Take Me Home almost veered onto the side of not quite making ears bleed.
We ate the fabled delicacy Ramen – noodles in a meat soup – and visited a cool local bar as well as trying out a DVD of some Japanese comedy set in a hotel that was rather good – plenty of set-up and bringing the various elements together for the final wrap up.
After a few days I took a train down to Nagasaki which was hit by the second atomic bomb during World War II just a few days after Hiroshima. Went to the monuments and peace garden there – it’s a stark reminder of too much power too little responsibility.
Then decided to head all the way up to Tokyo on the Shrinkansen bullet train and have spent a few days in a haze of neon.
I’ve visited shrines, temples, gardens, parks, stores, markets but far too many subway stations and their rather long connection walks (about 0.5km much of the time).
I feel like I’ve walked to the ends of the earth between that and all the walking around parks, shops, streets etc.
I also visited a geek paradise known as GoraGora – you get a small cubicle with a sliding closing door, padded floor, bean-bag, pillow, PC with net access and games pre-installed, TV, lamp and somewhere to put your shoes. Nearby is the free soda machine, showers and comic library (Japanese only – doh!). You can also have food delivered to your cubicle – all for the price of 980 JPY for 3 hours (about £5 GBP or $9 USD).
Hit the Sony Building which Jo’s generally-good TimeOut guide to Tokyo claims has a whole floor of PlayStation gear and games. It no longer has any such thing and indeed I couldn’t find a single PlayStation 3 in the building although I did see a Wii and the associated bits in a store but it should be out in the UK by now.
Tomorrow I’ll be taking another fast train down to Kyoto for a couple of days to get some more Japanese gardens and wild-life done. I think I’ve reached my shopping and bright lights limit – apparently Tokyo is one of the two biggest cities in the world depending on how you measure it (tied with Mexico City).
Everybody I’ve met is incredibly nice and polite – I’ve had Japanese people running out of their stores/hotels to help me when I spend more than a few minutes outside staring at my map and a kind lady in Nagasaki held her umbrella above my head for me. Which reminds me – I’ve left my newly purchased umbrella in the last hotel.
[)amien
Going to Japan
I’ve wanted to visit Japan for quite some time but the opportunity never seemed to present itself. When my friend Matt wrote to me about his trip there and posted some great pictures of Japan at his photo blog I was more tempted than ever.
With my project reaching a milestone this week it seems like the perfect time to take a well deserved holiday. Clarissa can’t get the time off and isn’t too interested in Japan so I’m holidaying solo again (first time since Vancouver/BC in 2004).
The good news, for me at least, is that Matt’s brother Jo is living and working in Fukuoka and so hopefully he’ll help me find my feet for a day or two when I get there. We might even check out the ski/board conditions and head up there so I’m packing my ski-trousers – I’ll be wearing my jacket during the day as it’s quite cold this time of year.
There are so many things to see and do that I’m going to grab a £120 7-day Japan Rail pass which I have to purchase before I enter the country as it’s not available to Japanese residents.
Matt also helpfully pointed me at Japan-Guide which has lots of information but tomorrow I’ll head into town and pickup something I can put in my pocket. I’m not sure what net access I’ll have out there – my Tytn smart-phone will work apparently but C&W Guernsey have no roaming partners!
I can’t wait!
[)amien
Back in mostly one piece
I’m back home again after our whirlwind of activities in Southampton.
The indoor carting was quite cool fun although as usual the carts felt too slow and the indoor surface meant sliding on every corner regardless of slowing down so no attempt at fine tuning those race lines to the edge of your tyres. Well, maybe there was, but I wasn’t slowing down enough to find it.
Clay pigeon shooting was fantastic. It’s the first time in my life I’ve fire a real gun and this was a double-barrelled Baretta shotgun. I did pretty well and came third in our group behind a friend who used to play for Guernsey and another friends father who’d done it a long time ago. I even beat the whole team on one set that involved overhead clay pigeons although the debris did manage to fall down and hit my in the small of the back.
The comedy club was quite good although there was a fair amount of heckling at the start from a small group. The compère went to great lengths to try and shut them up with a variety of put downs but in the end had to have them removed. The New Zealand guy was pretty fast ‘n humorous but then pick on some guy who’s girl went and sat next to another guy to the point where the woman ended up walking out and the guy stood up and told him to get on with his act and stop picking on them before running out after his girlfriend.
Oops.
Our table was absolutely covered in bottles of beer us having ordered ice buckets of 5 bottles of beers each – not actually that much all considered but it did look a LOT and put it in some kind of perspective.
The second guy on was much slower and less in your face being a bit of a stoner with a crazy shirt.
At this point my headache from earlier in the evening kicked into overdrive and having made my apologies to the groom-to-be I ambled back to the hotel along the streets of Southampton. My brain had helpfully made some sort of semi-concious route and I found myself back at our Ibis by 10pm.
There the headache took full force and the fact our Window wouldn’t close properly became a problem with my headache and the noise outside. My room-mate Glyn was quite patient with my as a ran a wet towel and placed it on my head. The Ibis guy, who was possibly Dutch but definitely weird came up and failed to fix our Window with his miniature set of tools.
Thankfully I found my sponge earplugs in my pockets from that days shooting and plugged them into my ears for a reasonable nights sleep.
Sunday was paintball day and we set off on a McDonald’s breakfast (we tried to find other places serving hot food but were running out of time).
I managed quite well not getting shot until about the 4th game where I got a hand-splat to my glove. The enemy team were cheating a bit at this point and we had to start getting marshals to go over and point out to them that yes, they were covered in paint and should report to the dead zone.
I eventually got shot on my head which although hurt like crazy for a few seconds soon went down and hasn’t left a bump.
Unfortunately in the last game, a free-for-all, some European girl decided to shoot my bottom from quite close range as I ran through the undergrowth and so I took a big bruise. I always seem to get one at paintball but I thought I’d managed to avoid it until then.
All in all a very good weekend and apart from antlers and pink hair the stag got off quite lightly especially compared to my brother-in-law’s one in Prague.
Tired now, good-night!
[)amien