I should be boarding my flight to Hong Kong at this moment to begin my trip around China. I will visit Beijing, Xi’an, Shanghai and Hong Kong, and I hope not to freeze too much. It is the first time I am not at home at all in Christmas and I have a strange feeling. I hope going to a country where Christmas means nothing, will help me in not feeling homesick during this time.
Why China? I want to visit it before it changes… I have the impression it is already changing a lot, and with a economy growing at an annual 10% rythm, it is likely that even the Chinese will face problems in recognizing their own country. So, I want to see that change. Now, and in some years…
I will try to write from time to time… Or maybe I just rely on a notebook.
Or almost… These pictures were taken from one of the highest buildings in the city, the Mori Tower in Roppongi, around the sunset time. You can see the city under the sunlight and with all the lights on during the night. You can also see Mount Fuji far far away.
What you probably cannot see is the end of the city, can you?
Japan is the best place to be a dog… In fact, it is probably a better place to be if you are a dog, than a human being. 🙂 All dogs here are very spoiled, and people treat them as they were children. This, I know, it is very common in many other places, but here you find more of that. Here are some examples:
The store with clothes for dogs (one of them):
The dogs ready for the snow, and with the same clothes, so they do not become jealous.
And, of course, nappies for the dogs…
And, in previous posts, we also talked about the costumes for dogs.
Izakaya is the typical Japanese bar. There you can eat and drink, as in any other bar in the world. For some reason, it looks like some students’ (and not that students) flats, where a collection of empty bottles of different spirituous drinks matches the Living Room as good as a nice picture (or even better).
Of course, the star drink of this kind of places is “sake”, the japanese rice wine, which is served both hot and cold. Let’s drink a toast together: Kampai!
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?