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The Kyoto skyline in the evening, as viewed from my balcony. The sunsets in Japan were beautiful, and towards the end of my stay I started taking pictures of just sunsets and nothing but. Even in the middle of the afternoon, there I was, taking pictures of sunsets.
Shijo street, near the huge department store / mall Takashimaya. Is it a department store or a mall? And what's the difference, anyway? This bothered me considerably, and Fuyuko and I had numerous discussions about this most perplexing question.
Look at all those uniformed cashiers lined up in a row behind the counter. The bottom floor of the Takashimaya mall is a "food floor" with bakeries, produce, fresh and prepared meats, and lots of other edible stuff. I was just intrigued by the number of almost identical looking cashiers behind this particular counter...
This was my phone in Japan, a light, tiny, pre-paid inexpensive cellular phone Fuyuko bought for me. I left it on "vibrate" mode all the time (because I had no idea of how to go about switching the ring to any other mode, not that I would have wanted to anyway), which it indicated with an icon of a cute smiley face with eyes closed. My phone here in the USA just says "Silent"... why no cute icons? In fact, icons aside, cell phone technology in Japan seems years ahead of that here. Fuyuko's phone is just as small and light as this, has a vivid color display with animated cartoon characters hopping around, and the ringtones are not "monophonous" (only one note playing at a time) or "monovolumate" (each note has a constant loudness). I.e., when her phone rings it sounds a whole lot more like music than beeping. That was last year's model... Why is the rest of the world so far behind the times?
We went shopping for computer parts in Osaka -- Fuyuko, a few of her friends and I. Osaka is near Kyoto, but there are districts with one computer store after another, as far as the eye can see. Many stores sell used parts at bargain prices, and you certainly can't beat the selection anywhere (outside of Japan, that is).
As I was saying, about the selection... you want a new PC case? This display rack was on the street outside of one store, and there are plenty more designs than these. You might also want to show off your designer motherboard (another story) with a transparent case.
See, they lured us inside with those cases outside the store. Actually, I doubt this is the same store as the one in the photo above, since they seem to feature used parts here (see them wrapped up in the pink anti-static wrappers).
This flyer was posted on a telephone pole. Wow, looks like we have some good deals here. But they made a lot of typos. Somy? Shorp? Misubishi? Hey, what's going on here? Wait a second, I don't think this is an ad for computer parts anymore... "Pitachi"?...
Nakasho is thirsty, so he's buying a drink. He could have tea, or maybe he might want tea. The machine also has tea, so he could have that. Or, if he's feeling daring, he might try tea for a change. At least tea is better for you than Coke(tm)(r). They have plenty of that, too, but not in this vending machine, which nonetheless has tea made by the Coca Cola company. Which is, if I may say so, some of the worst stuff I've ever tasted. A few of the teas were great, but I could never figure out from the bottle which one I was getting.
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