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Tag: japan

Life: Shopping For Phone

November 27, 2004
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I popped into Leicester City Centre today to do some shopping. There’s 5 DVDs I want (price of £30 each – that’s practically triple the selling price of the new Harry Potter DVD) and I know HMV has a number of stores that stock them. So I pop into HMV and ask if they could order them from one of those stores – they can’t and I have to order them order the internet.
What’s the point of having a HMV store in Leicester, UK and a HMV store in Tokyo, Japan if you can’t order from one or another 🙁

Then I tried to buy a mobile phone. The only catch – I need it to work in Japan as well as the UK. Japan has it’s own cell/mobile phone system which is not used anywhere else in the world. Would like a phone similiar to my existing Nokia 6210 (slimish, not too big and not too small, WAP and infrared). I asked 4 stores their recommendations for these simple requirements: results were from the “Can’t help go away” to downright deceptive to “very sorry sir, can’t help but..” to “This should do”.

Continue ReadingLife: Shopping For Phone

Holiday: Books to buy

May 9, 2004
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I’m thinking of taking a holiday sometime in August or September and it’s just deciding which books to buy… I’ll leave you to guess where I’m going (hopefully) by the book list: any comments on the choice of books or areas to visit would be appreciated 😉

Lonely Planet Tokyo (Travel Guide) – Chris Rowthorn – £6.99 [Order from Amazon.co.uk]
Lonely Planet Japan (Travel Guides) – Chris Taylor, John Ashbourne (Editor), Andrew Bender (Editor), David Atkinson (Editor) – £11.89 [Order from Amazon.co.uk]/
Lonely Planet : Japanese Phrasebook – Kevin Chambers, Wesley Palmer, Yoshi Abe (Editor) – £4.50 [Order from Amazon.co.uk]
The Rough Guide to Tokyo (Miniguides S.) – Jan Dodd, Simon Richmond – £5.59 [Order from Amazon.co.uk]
Japan: The Rough Guide (Rough Guides) – Simon Richmond, Jan Dodd – £10.49 [Order from Amazon.co.uk]

Fun: Show Me, Show You, Kikkomannnnn!

January 22, 2003
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[Kikkoman Advert]Thanks to Scott over at the Gamer’s Nook (who found it via Trish), I’ve watched the English subtitled version of Kikkoman: Show Me, Show You umpteen times – the music, combined the the Japanese audio kinda sticks in your head, and after the 4th time it’s difficult to stop singing “Show Me, Show You, Kikkoman, Kikkoman”. Of course, if you know Japanese – you can watch the original presentation.

But what about the little critters you see in the movie? Well, to answer that question you’ll have to watch the Banana And Shrimp Show Time flash movie (Japanese original version) from the same site.

Believe me, the movie about the foolish monsters is even more confusing than that singing, dancing, fighting soy sauce bottle! Now, if I can just learn Japanese I can read the story behind Kikkoman.

Game: All Look The Same?

December 16, 2002
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[All Look The Same]I’m aware of a long standing “joke” that all Chinese, Japanese and Korean people look the same. But how alike are they really?

Well, know you can find out thanks to All Look Same (and just try not to say that in an Chinese or Japanese fake accent: especially when an entry on the page starts with “Gleetings” – sorry, “Greetings”). Just pop over there and then entry the All Look Same Competition (you only need to give a username/identifier, age, country and gender: don’t bother with your email address) and you’ll be able to “guess the race” of 18 people.

I only got 3 right.