JStuff Feature: A Little Tech

So for the second JStuff feature, I’ll be showing off some of the technology I’ve acquired while I’ve been in Japan. Some of it is pretty basic, and some aren’t. Though I haven’t even started to scrape the surface of Japan’s tech culture, I think some of the things I’ve gotten so far are pretty sweet. Sometimes I think maybe I should just start buying stuff here and selling it in the states for profit…

Exactly what it looks like. That is a portable spoon.

Why in the world would I feature a portable spoon? I featured it because I support this idea, that we should take cutlery anywhere so that we can be ready to eat a meal at any time. Long be the day from me that I am offered food but no means to eat it. I can only imagine the agony such a situation would cause. So, I bought myself a handy portable spoon, that is probably only meant to feed babies or asians, I guess, because it’s just so damn small. I guess I can just eat 1/4 a bite at a time.

A wireless keyboard and mouse combo I got while here in Japan

So here’s a wireless keyboard and mouse combo I got here in japan. Why is this up here? It cost me around $48. And that’s including the exchange rate. I though that was a good price for stuff that works, and though I don’t know what in the world Buffalo, or whether their company is any good, I know that it works (mostly because I’m typing on it right now, and haven’t had any problems with it so far). Hurray for manufacturers in China!

A watch I bought for myself while in Japan. Very stylish.

So here’s a watch I bought for myself while I was in Japan. The watch is awesome, and it works very well, and I get a lot of compliments on it. A European friend of mine actually helped me pick it out (I was going for an all green one).

SIDE NOTE – Everything in Japan is EXPENSIVE. OK, maybe just Tokyo. But it is EXPENSIVE. This watch was 30+ dollars, and that was “cheap”. A friend of mine has a funky looking analog watch that he paid over $100 for. And he thought that was a deal. Beware, Japan is an expensive place…

And another thing that makes absolutely no sense here: Rice is expensive. 5kg sells for about $20. Maybe I’m mistaken, but I’m pretty damn sure in America, $20 could buy you one of those bags they throw off planes into refugee areas in Africa. You would think that rice would be cheap in a country where everyone eats it. Go figure. Oh and before someone tries to explain economics to me, about supply and demand, please remember that the supply of rice is NOT small. Theres no way demand would push the price up that much for no good reason. But I digress.

A Japanese Cell Phone. 100MB storage included, able to send emails from the phone without internet plans.... This thing is amazing, and this is the cheapest prepaid one.

OK, possibly the biggest part of this tech feature is the cell phone I got in Japan. As may be expected, Japanese cell phones are definitely a cut above America’s. First of all, they can send emails, and receive emails, from a picked email address, for no charge (as in, no internet “subscription” or extra fee). I bought a prepaid, so my phone is pretty basic, but if I had paid about $40 more for my phone, I would have gotten a phone that could watch streaming TV anywhere, also for free. FREE. AT&T would calculate how much TV you’ve watched, and charge you handsomely, but here, it’s FREE. Though, Japanese TV is probably the biggest downfall of the entire society, though it is entertaining at times. But maybe I’ll say more on that later.

So, back to the cellphone. Another feature that I thought was really amazing, but others might already have (especially in Europe) is the ability to send things over infrared. These phones almost all come with infrared ports, and you can send things like contact data over infrared to someone who is holding their phone close. This, I thought was really convenient, since the only way to add people (other than bluetooth) in America was manually. I guess America just skipped infrared and went straight to bluetooth.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for this little feature. Though I’m broke-ish right now, I’m sure once I’ve stated working, I’ll be fully prepared to buy up all this country’s technology. A friend of mine is also thinking of building a desktop for super cheap while he’s here…. Maybe I’ll do the same.

Shinjuku!

So, I headed out to Shinjuku today in search of about 5 things that I need to make my stay in Japan a little more comfortable.

A rough list:
1)Train Commuter Pass
2)Cell Phone
3)Watch
4)Wireless Keyboard and Mouse

These were listed in order of importance… somewhat.

Though number 4 isn’t very necessary, I’m using it to type right now, so it was a great buy… I’m not really a fan of laptop track pads and keyboards, so it’s a win for me.

First, I got my commuter pass, which is a monthly pass that basically makes it free for me to go to and from school for around a month. Though it’s convenient, it was expensive, and I found that out when I forked over the $70 it took to purchase. Not a fun purchase, but necessary to save money down the line. A plus of getting the commuter pass is that it gives me free access to the stops that I travel through on my way to school, which includes Shinjuku. So, for a month, I have free access to Shinjuku by train. That’s a pretty big deal.

As for the cell phone, I wasn’t quite as successful. Turns out there as been a large influx of exchange students, and the phones were replenished today (prepaid phones), and they’d already been all scooped up by the time my group got there. Though one person did get a phone, I learned of a cheaper phone that I could buy, and I’m just going to wait for that to come out. Since I have free access to Shinjuku now, I can check anytime.

I got a fancy new watch (well, not very fancy, I essentially went for the cheapest watch I could find), so that worked out well, and I finally know what time it is, constantly. Which is good, and bad. Good, because now I can coordinate meeting up with people. Bad, because now I am constantly aware of how much time I waste.

As far as the keyboard and mouse, I essentially got it for any coding/gaming I do while I’m here (oh, another tidbit about me, my major is computer science and I love technology, and making helpful programs, so I do it in my spare time), because of afore-mentioned dislikes.

All in all, a pretty productive day, compared to yesterday when it did nothing but rained, and I got a whole lot of nothing done (a whole, whole lot — though I did hang out and meet some other exchange students).

Picture time! (And look forward to a JStuff feature with all the cool stuff I’ve run/bought so far… they’re kind of piling up, but I’ll post a bunch at the same time).

This shot is of a building that I saw on the way... I've always thought it was pretty interesting, and this time I had a camera on me, so I took some shots (this was the best one). I don't know if I'm qualified to make comments on the Japanese as a whole yet, but it sure seems like they like to decorate things.

A simple shot of the hustle and bustle of the local train station.

All this machine does, 24/7 is advertize the new Pokemon game that's coming out. I feel like theres a small town somewhere with no power, and this machine is the reason.

A small shop, on the way to the train station

For some reason, there was some sort of food/item display in the middle of a station I was transferring at. I couldn't tell if it was a stand, or a store that was near it decided to extend itself into the public domain.

After arriving at Shinjuku, this is one of the first shots I took. A little under-impressive, but definitely interesting, as a shot of the city.

Another shot of Shinjuku I took after walking for a bit.

The Shinjuku Lion.... The first beer hall I've ever seen.

A store that a friend of mine wanted to go into to get some clothing items, this shop was an ultra chic shinjuku-like shop.... Pretty much as expected.

Another store for women in Shinjuku. There seemed to be a lot of them.

I guess this picture encapsulates how Japanese pop-culture portrays foreigners. Definitely not accurate, in my case.

Definietly not your mother's Jelly Beans. I want to know who in the world thought of this, and just how many hard substances they were abusing. And believe it or not, that box should contain a cell phone.

Note- Softbank is a phone carrier in Japan, one of the Big 3 (Softbank, Docomo, AU).

I don't know if I have already become used to seeing weird things in Japan, but this picture didn't warrant a JWeird feature, because I knew what it was. Though who, when, where, and why are still possibly unanswerable.

And of course, let us not forget about the Gundam in Odaiba (I still think it’s only a matter of time until the Japanese government decides to let the world know that it does indeed move and fire ballistic missiles).

Gundam feature on dannychoo.com

I’m not affiliated with dannychoo in any way and I don’t even surf his blog. Google is what lead me to the beautiful picture you see there… Maybe I’ll have one of my own one day.