RFID noodle ordering in Tokyo – drop your ‘ticket’ on the sensor zone on the table, and the waiter knows where to come to drop your food. Japan is just so thoughtful about these things it makes me want to pack my stuff and move there.
I am feeling a little over-indulgent with my travel of late, with not so much a ‘Carbon Footprint’, as treading my big, muddy carbon boots across the carpet and into the living room. Indeed, checking my Dopplr record, I have clocked up 3200 kg of CO2 since June. Ouch. Cute as a button Anyway, I…
Local girl imitating the cat statues that pepper the island – it is said that they protect the island, but mainly they look crazy and cool, scattered as they are across the roof tops and other unlikely places. I took advantage of the long weekend last week to jump on an airplane for the Japan…
Kyoto map – one of several we wore out on our trip round in the humidity! It’s been almost a week since I got back from Kyoto. I think Mum & Dad should have finished their amazing hiking expedition through the Japanese Alps, but in the meantime I have sorted out the photos from our…
Just sitting in the departure lounge for NW69 back to Taipei,after a superb long weekend in Kyoto with the folks. Although I have been there before, it’s nice to fill in a few blanks and see some things from a different angle. Presently, tapping away on my iPod’s wifi, writing a few e-mails and chatting…
Off to Japan for a long weekend to meet up with my folks who are walking in the Japanese Alps for a couple of weeks – how jealous am I?! They elected to not come to Taiwan this time, but I did not have to have my arm twisted too hard to meet them in…
QR codes are big in Japan – you’ll see them everywhere, from posters, to concert tickets and even the stamp for your passports. As a kind of 2D barcode, they are doing the thing that RFID tags were supposed to a few years ago, albeit in a rather lower tech form. Just point your QR…
Some pics, for you, loyal reader… Commuting to work – these guys looked super cool as they cruised around, and seemed confused as to why I would find it strange or funny – is this the future of electric transport? Meiji Shrine – wetter than last time! Cool trains I love the Tokyo Taxis –…
Well, here I am on the design roller coaster, sipping Kirin and staring out of my immaculately clean 30th floor window at the improbably Parisian Tokyo tower, and thinking things are rather nice. Kan pai! View out to the rather camp Tokyo Tower Some station, squeezed between the buildings The story of a British Industrial…
I came away feeling like Japan is an immediately accessible place, and yet one that is completely impenetrable. If the society has a simple, immediately recognisable silhouette, then its culture is an intricate texture of patterns and forms. One of my mini personal projects was to look harder at these surfaces and textures. Just to…