Month: April 2007

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My Get Well Kit

Get Well Kit

Click here for the original flickr photo with notes.

I’ve got a bit of energy so I had to do something today. The last two days I’ve been sick in bed. But I have not had a lack of entertainment. Twittering from bed, games, movies, and phone calls are all allowed. Why is being sick as an adult so much more fun than being sick when I was a kid?

Seriously though, I feel like a truck hit me in the head and I’ve got a busy two days ahead so I hope I’m able to head out tomorrow. The strangest things have been coming out of my nose and throat today. But alas, がんばります！　^_^

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Episode 14 – Riding the Tokyo Monorail

Tokyo Monorail

(Photo used with Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 2.0 License – Original)

A few days ago, I had to head down to the Tokyo Regional Immigration bureau. What fun!! However, there was one redeeming result of the trip: I was able to ride the Tokyo Monorail. I’m fairly familiar with most of Tokyo’s transportation systems, but I had never ridden this particular line. It was a great experience. If you visit Tokyo, I recommend you make it a point to ride this line, second to the Shinkansen of course.

What is different about the Tokyo Monorail from other lines is it is completely above ground. Sure, most of the JR lines are as well, but the Monorail soars above neighborhoods and between buildings – a feat that the JR lines do not accomplish. When you ride JR, you see track and rocks as you ride in an area specifically laid out for train travel. When you ride the Tokyo Monorail, you literally fly past buildings and over people as they tend to their daily lives.

I hope you enjoy this short video. I had to use a little different method to put it together since it came primarily off my cell phone.

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Great Photo / Video Piece

I have my iTunes pointed at del.icio.us for crawling of videos with Japan related content. Today something amazingly touching and very creative showed up in my iTunes. Below is a link to a movie of photographs by Stuart Isset.

StuartIsset

©2007 Stuart Isett/www.isett.com (used with permission)

This piece is truly moving, giving a great sense of the intimacy of Japanese life, the highs and the lows, and things one doesn’t see when they take the tourist route.

If you are at least interested in Japan or at the very least, love great photography, please download this and watch it. Also, check out Stuart’s site or his Flickr photos. Over here, I’m learning that finding Japan is also about finding other people’s impressions of Japan. This truly is an inspiration, perhaps for future episodes. Thanks Stuart!

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Episode 13 – Tokyo Calling Crossover

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This episode is the first ever, Finding Japan <=> Tokyo Calling crossover episode. Not really sure what else to call it. I met up with Scott Lockman from Tokyo calling a few weekends back. We spent very little time getting to know each other since we had already known each other through our respective podcasts. However, we did share the common interest in technology, the future of podcasting and more.

This interview occurred in a noisy hotel front coffee shop in Tokyo. If you can stand the background noise, please listen. Enjoy!

Show notes:

  • A brief chat on the creative process and writing every day
  • Formats of podcasts / how Tokyo Calling developed
  • Why do people listen to podcasts?
  • Privacy and the Internet
  • Future of social networking

I’d like to thank Scott for taking time out of his busy day to chat. Hopefully this won’t be the last of such episodes.

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Podcast Archives

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On the last post, people had left some comments which made me dig into the reason why iTunes was not showing all of the episodes. Turns out, WordPress limits the amount of posts per page by default to 10 so Feedburner was only picking up the last 10. Well, no more. I fixed the problem and I think both the Feedburner feed and the iTunes store should have all of the episodes listed after I post the next podcast.

Can’t wait? Then get them all by visiting the page for now. I can’t promise they will be anything of interest, but it does include videos from my first trip to Japan. Cheers!

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Episode 11 – Bike-capades and Yaki-Soba

I should have given the cops some Yaki-imo. Confused?! Well listen in to today’s episode and get acquainted with the Yaki-imo truck vendor, the cops, and my dinner. This episode comes straight from my kitchen while I cook up one of the only dishes I know how to make here in Japan, Yaki-soba. MMmmm. ^_^

Show Notes

  • Making Yaki Soba
  • Busy as sin, so I can’t mail anything right now ^_^
  • More about GTD
  • Buying a bicycle – Mama Chari
  • Getting pulled over by the cops, on a bike
  • Bear with me while my food cooks LOUDLY – it doesn’t quite work well in audio does it?
  • Should I post the TokyoCalling duel interview clips?
  • Helmet’s “Size Matters” in Japan has two bonus tracks
  • Dark side of podcasting
    • Terrance is a patient guy
    • And I start using street lingo while explaining it, what’s with that?
  • Listen to A Year in Japan’s episode on Love Hotels
  • Yaki-imo やきいも Truck Recording – Stone Roasted Potatoes

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Episode 10 – Cell Phone Code Reader

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Ok well, maybe not a full episode, but a short one minute clip I put together before heading out for the night. Earlier today, Alex and I tore up Tokyo by bike. Stopping at Akihabara to get an Ebi-Filet, I began playing with my cell phone’s bar code reader. I was amazed at how fast it read the bar code.

The bar codes (also known as QR codes) are in a square format and contain text information, usually a URL. In this case, McDonald’s publishes all of their nutritional information this way. Want to know how many pounds that Choco-Pie is going to add on? Just whip out your keitai and check it out. Man, I do love Japan! Enjoy!

Upcoming episodes for those who cannot wait to hear, I’ve got some great material coming up: Getting stopped by the cops on bike in Japan, making elephant characters out of hotdogs (video), and my first full week in a Japanese office. Stay tuned.

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Episode 9 – The Lo-Fi Episode

Today’s episode is very much like a one-way telephone conversation. Recording with my cellular phone, I do a quick update and introduce a few subjects very briefly, not getting into too much depth. This is more of an experiment than a proper episode. I hope it meets the approval of your ears in terms of quality. What do you think? Is this quality level too annoying? It’s super convenient for commute-casting. Also, there’s something more natural about recording into a cell phone, so strange. I’m undecided.
Show Notes:

  • Wednesday = hump day?
  • Doing the podcast on my keitai (cell phone)
  • Regular schedule in Japan has started
  • Will do an entire episode on coffee in Japan
  • Will do an entire episode on first week in a Japanese office
  • Keeping in touch with friends (Gmail / Keitai symbiosis)
  • Getting Things Done
  • Will this be a full episode? – Yes.

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Episode 8 – Hanami Video

Juice Box Sake Kids!

(Sorry for the late posting, was on the run to my first day of work this morning!) ^_^

Yes yes, another video episode. I have finally nailed down my video episode creation workflow so this isn’t all that time-consuming to put together anymore. Hopefully I will have time to do more in the future, however with work starting I have a feeling we’ll be getting quite a few more commute-casts in the near future. Anyway, onto the video…

This video contains some various clips of Sakura blossoms I have taken over the past week. Tokyo has had a fairly long (at least from my perspective) cherry blossom viewing season. I believe it peaked early last week, but even this weekend there was some cherry blossoms still out for the viewing. Some of these clips were taken as late as last Friday, when I did the podcast from the park.

As a bonus, I’ve also put in Alex trying a little bit of we dubbed “juice-box sake” (photo above). These are available in almost all convenience stores. I haven’t had any sort of liquid in this type of container since I was a child and I had them put in my lunch box. Drinking sake out of these was quite a weird trip back in time. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video. Cheers!

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