2 more months!

I've noticed a slight increase in my blog traffic recently so I better pick up the posting pace! :)

I cannot believe we're down to the last 2 months in Tokyo. I have such mixed feelings but not that it's down to just a few more free weekends I feel like there's so much more we won't get to do before we leave. We'll just have to take trips to Asia again is all. With all the guests coming, it comes down to like 2-3 free weekends left. We plan to do one in Kyoto/Nara/Hiroshima/Kobe/Osaka (choosing 2-3 out of those cities). Maybe a trip to Seoul since it's so close. And of course we need 1 more weekend in Tokyo for a farewell bash. Places we probably won't get to so will have to come back for: Vietnam, Cambodia, more of China (and Kenn didn't get to go), and Australia (far but at least it was closer to here than to NY). Of course there is so much more and we did want to snowboard in Hokkaido again.

Such is life, you can't have it all, and the experience has been amazing so can't complain. For now, there's a lot more eating and partying to do in Tokyo.

NYC and back to Tokyo

Despite the awful jet lag I had, my trip to NY was quick but a good one. For some reason I really had bad jet lag this time and waking up at 2 or 3am everyday for a couple hours. 1 week is a short time to get a lot done and see a lot of people especially when I had meetings and training a lot of the week. I have to say being back in NY made me miss it more and I almost didn't want to leave. I had some time to walk around a bit and realized that being away for so long gave me a chance to experience NY through new eyes again. That's really nice and most people should do it if they get the opportunity.

Upgrade to business class and an ambien made the flight back to Tokyo very tolerable. Our friend Jeff who is visiting was supposed to meet me at the airport in Tokyo but he missed his flight. He thought he was leaving out of JFK but his flight was out of Newark! Oh Jeff! He made it on Sunday.

Saturday night Kenn and I went to a birthday dinner for my friend Sarah which proceeded to drinks and Feria and hanging out late at Brandon's place upstairs from us. Sunday night we took Jeff for Sushi then to Akihabara (electronic city) so he could buy a camera. Then a bit of bar hopping. Amazing we had the energy. Monday was a holiday in Japan. Lunch at our favorite oudon place then we took Jeff to Asakusa (had a beer with a good view at the Sapporo building), then around Tokyo station in search for a travel agency so he could plan a few days in Kyoto (saw the cool architecture at the Tokyo Internation Forum there). Then hit up Shibuya and then dinner at the restaurant where they shot the movie Kill Bill. That was a lot of walking!

Jet lag sucks

It's impossible to get enough sleep. So annoying.

My burger last night was great. Eating so much greasy food was rough on the stomach though. Had a great time catching up with everyone.

Craving a bagel now.
Errands today.
Another dinner tonight.

It's so nice to be in NY. I love my apt and I miss NY. I look forward to moving back. On the flip side, I think it's going to be tough getting back to eating american food. It's also going to be tough getting used to things in general - the people, the bars, the lifestyle... Oddly enough NY does seem somehow different to me. I can't really pinpoint why yet....

Some funnies

This blog has Chinglish signs from China. Leading up to the Olympics China is trying to clean up it's poor English translations. They're pretty amusing though, this is one of my favs:



If you google my very common name, you will likely find links to this other Jennifer Ng who also happened to go to Carnegie Mellon for grad school. She also comes up on Facebook so one day I decided to message her for the hell of it. I forgot about that then out of the blue I received this email:



I was so confused, I wondered "How the heck did I send myself a message??" Haha

Btw for those in NY, Kenn sent me this link to a service where you can order food in advance via text message so you don't have to wait in line. Gomobo. Have you seen this or tried this?

So last night was fun, the laptop dj battle was interesting. Not the most exciting thing in the world, as Kenn put it "they're pushing buttons and turning knobs". No clue how the judges were able to judge it. Cool space though. Afterwards we continued the party at good old standby bar Propaganda. They even let Kenn dj. We tried to take pics yesterday using our broken lcd screen camera. Will post if any turned out ok.

Happy Birthday Kenn!

It's Kenn's birthday! (Sept 12)

To celebrate his youth - he truly looks like he's still in his 20s - we are going to the Laptop Battle Tokyo. The digital music age is taking over.

Tomorrow we will go out for post-birthday celebration dinner at Nobu Tokyo. Mmmmmm...

Skyscraper Construction - Shinjuku Skyscrapers Time-lapse

Skyscrapers built in Tokyo's Shinjuku. They say that construction in China is much like this if not happening even faster.

Weekend

Kenn wasn't feeling great Friday, he might have caught a cold or flu on the flight or something so he didn't dj. Saturday he felt a little better so we went to Akihabara to get him some new speakers for his birthday. We also picked up this RIZE soundtrack compilation CD that my friend Jeff's band have their remix released on. Congrats to Jeff on that!


We also saw Harry Potter which was pretty good. I'm not really into the HP movies but this one had more action than some of the past ones. Sunday we went to chill at Yoyogi park. Random dog we took a pic of:

Blog Action Day - October 15th

On October 15th - Blog Action Day, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone's mind. I may not have hundreds of readers but will join in on the cause and encourage you to do the same if you have a blog.

Twitter

So I'm trying out another new 'technology' or internet/interactive/mobile app. I added Twitter updates to the right of my blog. Twitter is this service where people can constantly stay updated on what other people are doing. I don't really get it completely (if you ask me, it's information overload) but it's kind of like me IM'ing you or texting you constantly to tell you what I am doing. So I'll update you on my status as much as possible and you can subscribe or just check this blog site whenever you are curious about what I'm up to.

Typhoon and Technology

Typhoon hit Tokyo last night. It was super windy out and impossible to hold up an umbrella. Kenn arrived late afternoon and we went a couple blocks to have sushi but otherwise stayed in away from the storm. It's Friday morning and the storm has past already. Tonight Kenn is dj'ing at Bar Milwaukee.

You'll notice some new shared links at the right. The one called 'Digital Kids' I thought was interesting. Talks about how his kids (ages 5 and 1 1/2) grow up with today's technology:

* My children believe television is provided by Apple.
* They believe you can pause TV, shift it from room to room, manipulate it.
* They think TV is videogames, google, weather.
* They think music comes in iPods, and that I can go back and play it again.
* Phones are for pockets.
* When Daddy’s away, they can see him, watch him do work, share videos, play games remotely.
* They make movies and photo collages and songs for gifts to their grandparents.
* They aren’t social networkers now, but they could be.

And to put in perspective, in his childhood:
* Television was black and white and infrequent.
* If what was on didn’t appeal, I walked away, or more often, watched blankly until I got my fill.
* Music was vinyl, easily damaged, and very very finite.
If I wanted to be creative, it ended up as a single serving entity. Only my parents or whoever I could reach physically could see it.
* The people in my neighborhood were the people I could meet.
* Everything was handed down, and there was no up.

The world is changing my friends.

Lost in Cyberspace or in Tokyo?

Judging from my recent blog posts, it may appear that I am lost in cyberspace. That seems to be partially true. At the very least I now have a severe addiction to Facebook. I just surpassed the 100 friend mark!

Yea, it's been slow at work lately and I've had a lot of time to read industry news and blogs. Thank goodness for RSS readers. It's saved me so much time sifting through emails and surfing different sites. I wonder how bad email subscription rates have dropped since RSS. What should one have as a limit to RSS feeds? I now have 38.

Ok so back to Tokyo. I haven't been up to much with Kenn gone. Did I mention I watched Ocean's 13 last week? Last night was ladies night at the theater so for 1000 yen ($8.70) I saw Pirates of the Caribbean with Serena. And for just another 600 yen ($5.20) I had a soda and medium popcorn. Quite the bargain! Other than that and a few cooking classes, I've been working, watching TV, surfing the web, and working out. Exciting life in Tokyo, I know. After a year here I don't have much of a desire to go to museums, shrines or sightsee anymore. But during our remaining 3 months here we will have quite a few visitors (Jeff, Peichung/Melissa, and possibly my second cousin and her friend). We want to still visit at least Kyoto, Kobe, Hiroshima, and Osaka.

And there's never a dull moment in Roppongi. This morning on my way to the subway (at 9am!), a guy who I assume had just completed a long night in Roppongi was squatting and puking while holding his cell phone in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other! Gotta love it. Reminds me of another story my coworker told me yesterday. He was on the train home the other night after work and a salaryman was drinking a beer and reading the newspaper. He would take a sip of beer and then put it in his shirt pocket while reading. How great is that?

Thanks Anonymous

To the anonymous commenter(s): unfortunately I don't have IE7 on my work computer... :(

Email and tell me your worldview score. The whole point is that I was curious where other people's worldviews fell...


Now for today's fun task - I'm sure many of you have done these tons of times but I find it interesting how the brain registers the image:

Following these instructions:

1. Relax and focus on the four small dots in the middle of the picture — about one 60 seconds.
2. Then, look at a white wall near you.
3. You will see a circle of light emerge.
4. Blink your eyes a few times and focus on the person who begins to emerge.
5. Who is it?

2 quizzes

I was reading some blogs and came across this quiz:
How addicted to blogging are you?

Apparently I am 72% addicted to blogging.

On Sunday, I went to church with Serena. The pastor's message was about whether or not you believe in the bible and if you have a world view? He mentioned this website where you can take a quiz to determine Your World View.
It's interesting and at the end if shows you projected worldviews of well-know figures like George W. Bush, Osama Bin Laden, The Dalai Lama, and Bill Clinton.

If you have some time, take both quizzes and let me know your scores if you don't mind. If you don't want to post a comment with your personal worldview score, email me directly. I'll let you know mine or I'll post it to the blog if enough people respond.

Happy Labor Day

To those working in the US, enjoy your Labor day off. I'm starting off my work week here in Tokyo. I think I need some days off soon. Glad I'm visiting NY shortly.

To continue fueling my obsession with the internet and Web 2.0, here is some more interesting info:

I thought this was a good explanation of the differences in Web 1.0 and Web 2.0:



Article on Facebook etiquette.

Hey Greg, I keep forgetting to tell you I finally am using Firefox and tab browsing IS way better! :)

Still addicted

Now I'm not only addicted to Facebook but YouTube also. I'm really intrigued by the power and scope of the internet and social networking. I don't think I will be creating a full video blog anytime soon because I realize how unoriginal I would be after watching tons of other vlogs. And I don't have enough time or energy or interest to do all this cool editing and stuff that people do to their videos. It really is an amazing viral application though. I never understood the hype of YouTube before this past week or so. For now, I'll stick to written blogging and only for the purpose of updating friends/family on what I've been up to. Maybe I'll post a few videos here and there for the fun of it. I think it's sometimes nice to see a person in action and hear their voice.

The funny thing about Facebook, social networking sites, and blogging is that they kind of give you this feeling like you're "invading" someone else's life a bit. A bit like stalking or actually more like reading someone's diary. But in reality a person only puts as much detail about themselves online as they want to. I happen to be a very open person. I have all kinds of social networking profiles and disclose all kinds of information about myself but believe me, I know what I put up and I know exactly what I'm writing about (and what I'm not). I also have a common enough name that I don't mind using my real name. But I would never release my address or phone #, that's just stupid. I don't understand why people have their address and phone #s on Facebook. There is no need for that.

Anyway, I leave you with 2 YouTube links. Funny parodies of Facebook:

Facebook Song
Facebook Infomercial Parody

My First Vlog

I couldn't resist trying out a video blog post :)

Had to figure out how to use my web cam to record. It's a bit dark and grainy and the audio doesn't match. We'll see if I decide to add a vlog post every once in awhile...