Erek Speed

So, I skipped updating this blog yesterday, because I didn’t really think there was that much to say, thus you get a super special combined report today.

So Sunday I went to Shibuya  and Yoyogi park as planned.  Got to see the famous Hachiko dog, which google will tell you is pretty cool.  As I was strolling through and around the area of center-gai I bought a expensive t-shirt which will segue into my description of how the Japanese monetary system will make me go broke.

The smallest bill in Japan is 1000 yen.  The most common coin is the 100 yen coin.  There are also 500, 50, 10, 5, and 1 (useless) yen coins.  So, in a completely rational sense, you can divide by 100 to get a pretty decent approximation of the value in dollars.  It’s an approximation that serves me well, and also works in my favor, since the actual exchange rate is around 120 yen to a dollar.   There are two problems however”

1.  100 yen coins are about the size of quarters, as are 10 yen coins and it’s obvious that no thought has been put into the sizes of coins at all.  Except that 500 yen coins are the biggest and that’s pretty cool.  However, it also means that even though these things are worth almost a dollar, I spend them like quarters.  Especially, in arcades and vending machines.
2. I tend to use 1000 yen notes as if they were dollar bills.  Now this is not usually the case, but every so often (as was the case with the tshirt) someone will quote me a price in thousands of yen and I’ll be like, “Hey, that’s a good deal.”  Then I’ll be like, wait that’s like 60 dollars.  Just something I have to watch out for.

In anycase, I made it to yoyogi park and saw all the different dressed up people doing their funny dances and stuff.  I guess it’s not as wild as it used to be but it was still okay.

I also went to the Meiji Shrine and saw all of it’s majestic beauty and stuff.  I’m sure I’ll cherish the memories for a time.

After all of that, I was still fairly bored so I went to see Transformers.  I liked it alright.  I guess transformers fans didn’t like it that much, but that’s their problem.   The system was interesting in that I had to choose a seat, and the place was packed.  I thought that it was odd considering the movie had been out for a few weeks.  But I guess it was Sunday, and Tokyo has a shit ton of people.

Today, I went to the Ginza Sony Building, which is a great place to play with sony products.  Later, they hope you will buy their products, etc, etc.  Not bad overall, but probably not as cool as the Toyota building overall.

After that I had some lunch in Ueno Park, and walked a bit until I found a Lawson’s (which is a convenience store) and there decided to make my final stand at buying a ticket to the Ghibli Museum.  This gives me a chance to talk about user interface (UI) and the Loppi ticket system.

The first big problem with the UI is that it’s in Japanese.  I found this to be one of the biggest barriers to using their software.   But on the Lawson’s website they have an english guide for how to do exactly what I wanted to do.  This guide is either old or inaccurate or both, because there were steps (all in Japanese, of course) which were not covered at all by the nice little step to step guide offered on the website.  I was able to get past the credit card offer okay.  But next area featured a box and a keyboard (in japanese).  I knew they wanted my name but not how they wanted it.  I thought I put my name in, but that gave back an error, which I later discovered was due to the lack of a space.  This was odd since there was clearly a space.  Or maybe the error was that there could only be one space, but that would be odd because the first time there was no spaces.  In any case, after repeating the entire process to the name step 3 times, it accepted my name and then brought me to a screen with numbers.  I inputed my phone number, which I hope they wanted, but I don’t really know because I wasn’t listening, and the font (in japanese) was too small to read.  I really don’t think any illiterate person could use the system at all, they might as well not have the helpful little guide they offer, because it is rather useless.  But I purchased tickets and that’s good.

I also made reservations for tours of the Kyoto and Tokyo imperial palaces, which is pretty awesome, since the area is normally off limits.

That’s all for now.