random things....

In Japan, umbrellas are nearly ubiquitous. In many malls or large stores, there is a dispenser where you can pull out a narrow plastic bag to cover your wet umbrella, so you don't rudely drip water on everything. (Small stores simply have a rack at the entrance where you leave your umbrella) Kind of like a 'c-----' for your umbrella. In one store here in Hitachi, you don't even have to pull off the bag and put it over your umbrella. You just stick in the umbrella. Brilliant. Someone should introduce these to Seattle or Vancouver.

We went bowling the other night. Not only did the large overhead flat screen TVs show our scores, they also showed a close up of the pins as the ball approached and a slow motion replay of your throw (from the pins perspective) before returning to whatever news station was set. And the shoes...!!

Bubbles that don't pop (well, not as easily as soap bubbles anyway...) Some of you may have seen these brought back from various trips to Asia, but my coworkers had never seen them before. So we found them and wasted a few minutes (and probably a few brain cells or something as they smell quite strongly of acetone...) making bubbles.

This is my cellphone. It is 8.4 mm thick. It has a 2.0 megapixel camera/video camera (not stellar, but the 5.0 megapixel one was too expensive - as were the ones with the built in tvs, and the ones that you could charge up with cash and just wave at train stations/vending machines), an mp4 player, an English-Japanese dictionary (not a great one), internet, texting, all the rest, and a crappy battery life. All for a base price of 980 yen per month (+300 yen for unlimited internet). I did have to sign up for a two year contract though, so I guess I'll have to stay at least that long.