Tokyo trip wrap up.

Now that I'm back home, my thoughts on Tokyo.

My boy Ben came and met Tim and I on Friday night after work. He's expat living in Yokohama teaching english. He was our tour guide Saturday and Sunday. Saturday we hit up Akihabara, which is THE place for electronics (components and gear) as well as all sorts of anime toys, DVDs, outfits (eek), etc. Some very cool stuff. I could easily have spent all the money there, and still not been satisfied. As it was we didn't buy anything since we were being sorta tight with our money, in case we needed it.

Ben showed us all around the area, which was very cool.

Sunday was Shibuya, Harajuku, and Shinjuku (twice). We got to see crazy Japanese kids dressed as lil' bo'peep, some sort of vampires and I guess a famous j-Rock band. In any case, as Ben called 'em, "freaks" lived up to the name.

I realized that the lack of wireless internet was due to the seemingly 100% penetration of mobile phones, each of which has the internet. I only saw about two or three (in the entire trip) laptops, so wifi simply isn't needed. Sucks to be me.

The only downside of the trip was the complete lack of connected-ness. Even in Italy hotels had Wifi or hard wired internet for free. The hotel internet wasn't really expensive, but spending the money on internet wasn't a priority, though in the end we had enough. But even when the laptop isn't connected, I'm used to my phone having some sort of connection, even GPRS, or GSM. Something. It was completely useless in Japan, which really sucked. Tri band, I now know, isn't sufficient if I'm going to continue to travel. Quad all the way, good to know.

Over all, it's a very cool place to visit, you can (at least in many places) get by with English, and pointing at pictures. Most chain type joints have an english menu on the other side of the japanese one (ie Micky Dees, and such).

Another thing, don't fly with the Dominican Republic girls volleyball team. Their coach's are rude seat kickers, who have to bitch slap the touch screen controls, rather than lightly TOUCH them. Weak sauce!

Oh, and American Airlines, you really need to work on your "new" multimedia on demand system. It's not on demand if for every movie (only one even remotely recent release) and TV show, you have "wait another 30 minutes for the next running", or "Watch the one that started 9 minutes ago" options. WEAK SAUCE!! Send an spy over to fly internationally with Delta, they have it right. Each seat's system should operate like a PVR. Get it?