Mobile Handsets

One of the reasons I am in Japan, it is because they are the most advanced country in mobile telephony. Apart from being the first ones in using the latest technology, and a very interesting live lab to check the different technology trends, it is also a very practical society.

One of the things I am quite surprised is the handsets market. First of all, there is not a big difference in the way the handsets look. They all look really similar, independently from the brand and the operator.

Furthermore, you may not be able to know which is your handset’s manufacturer, as they do not normally place their logo on them. For example, I have a Softbank mobile, with a clear Softbank logo on the cover, and with just the following characters: 813SH. That means, it is a Sharp (SE would be Sony-Ericsson, for example). So, the operators dominate the handsets market in a very strong way, and that is one of the reasons Nokia has left Japan for that.

But one of the most useful consequences of this is the charger. Each operator has established certain plug for all the handsets of that company. So, all Softbank’s handsets use the same plug for charging the mobile. Apart from the convenience of that, from the point of view of availability, it is also very convenient from the point of view of the price of the chargers (more simple and higher volumes per model, apart from the lack of need to buy “official” chargers).

An interesting device in this area are these portable chargers. You can buy in any convenient store (everywhere, 24/7) at a very competitive price (less than 1000 yen) this chargers with batteries, or with a certain energy on them. Cool, isn’t it?

Fresh fish

Last weekend we went to a small town in the Izu Peninsula, in the southwest of Tokyo. This is a very populated and visited area in summer, but in winter is kind of empty… with the exception of the fishermen who live there, of course.

Everybody knows that one of the most important dishes in the japanese cuisine is the sushi and the sashimi, both based in raw fresh fish. So, the idea of eating this kind of food in that town sounded like great, and so we did. We went to a restaurant in front of the sea, and ordered some sashimi… That was the most fresh sashimi in my life. Among many other kinds of fishes, there were two shrimps with a stick, which made them have a nice stylized position on the plate. So, I had to remove the stick in order to peel and eat them with my hands (the best way of eating shrimps and relatives)… and suddenly the shrimp started moving!!!

Oh, no! I was about to peel a live shrimp!!! After recovering from the fright, I tried to kill it with the chopsticks, as I did not feel psychologically ready to eat a live shrimp… But I did not succeed, so I asked the waitress (an old japanese woman, wife of one of the town’s fishermen… or at least that is what we think) for some help. So she asked me: “Kiru?” (or something similar). As some japanese words are formed like in English with slight changes, I thought she was offering me to “kill” the poor shrimp… “Good! Perfect! That’s what I need.” Therefore I got quite surprised when I got back the shrimps (two of them) who had been peeled… but they were still alive, with the heads in their place and so on… “Ok”, I thought, “I have to kill it by myself”. So, I tried to cut the head with the chopsticks (I rejected the idea of doing this with the hands after the strange feeling of having a shrimp moving in your hands), but I did not succeed.

At this time, there were already three ladies looking funny at the stupid gaijin fighting with the small shrimp. After a couple of minutes (I was already sweating), I looked at them and asked for a “naifu” (knife), they brought it to me with a questioning face… which became surprised when I used the knife to separate one shrimp’s head and body. They started making me gestures of how I was suppossed to face this: I should hold the (live) shrimp from the (live) head and the tail… and bite the (live) body. After considering following the japanese standard for this, I decided to stick to my plan and cut the other shrimp’s head using the “naifu”. No more risks.

And finally, after around 10 minutes, I could enjoy my fresh shrimps. They were really tasty, I must admit. But I prefer when the food is already dead when it gets to my dish…

Note: I did not even check the japanese words I wrote… so, feel free to correct me. 😉

Note(2): The last sentence reminds me to a quite bad joke which I heard from some relative of mine… “Waiter, sorry but I have two flies in my soup!!!” “You are lucky, Sir, the normal portion is just one”.

Takayama and Shikarawago

Last week, I went with a couple of friends to the northwest. After almost 6 hours of bus trip, we crossed the impressive Japanese Alps (yes, that’s the official name), which were covered by the snow and the clouds…

and arrived to Takayama, a small boring town in a still traditional japanese area, which helped us to feel some relaxation, especially if you compare it with the always noisy Tokyo.

But it was not just nature. We could also visit traditional japanese houses

… very traditional inhabitants, with their big japanese flags in the door of the shops …

… a nice street reminding the Gion quarter in Kyoto (no geisha, though) …

But that was not enough for us, and we decided to go to Shirakawago, a small town in that area, and also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The advantage of going in Winter is the pleasure of seeing all this covered by the snow.