Japan Trip 2009
As briefly mentioned in my Japan Travel Preparation Checklist post, I went to Japan with my brother for 2 weeks where we visited Tokyo, Kamakura, Yokohama, Osaka, Nara, Kyoto, and Okayama. Both of us have taken a keen interest in many-things-Japanese throughout our lives. We grew up reading manga, watching anime, and playing Japanese video games, so we’re somewhat semi-otakus.
As for myself, I took several semesters of Japanese classes in the past. I’m a huge fan of Japanese TV shows Iron Chef, TV Champion, and Takeshi’s Castle. I’ve always been impressed with Japanese culture, specially their politeness and sense of collectivism. To me, visiting Japan was a lifelong dream.
My brother and me, near Kaizoji Temple, Kamakura.
What impressed me the most was that their trains were always on time. I was there for 2 weeks and not even once my train was late. That’s amazing compared to our local train operator in Melbourne, Connex, the symbol of incompetence. I can’t remember the last time a Connex train arrived and left on time.
I was also impressed by a number of smart things I saw in Japan, things that made me stop and think “Hmm, we should have that.” Things like foldable wooden rubbish bin, blood donation bus parked near busy stations, maps with orientation to where you’re standing, stackable bicycle parkings.
The top 5 favourite places I visited…
- Jufukuji Temple, Kamakura – the most peaceful place I’ve ever been.
- Korakuen Garden, Okayama – it was very relaxing to walk around the garden.
- Kaiyukan, Osaka – where else would you see 2 whale sharks?
- Meiji Jingu, Tokyo – a nice shrine in a busy city.
- Umeda Sky Building, Osaka – see Osaka at night from 173m high.
And the most memorable experiences?
- Looking at mount Fuji during our Shinkansen ride from Osaka to Tokyo.
I was amazed for several minutes, mount Fuji was majestic. I wondered if someday I could ever return to Japan and climb the mountain to watch the sunrise from up there. - Exploring Kamakura.
I felt very much at peace while walking around Kamakura, a nice little town with many temples. I couldn’t help thinking that it would be a nice place to live a retired life (in reality, I have to stick with Perth though). - Walking from Bentencho Station to Kaiyukan.
It looked quite close on the map but it turned out to be a very long walk. We had to rely on the sun to tell the direction since all signs were in Japanese and the buildings looked similar on each side of the station. It was such a huge relief when we saw the Kaiyukan building from afar.
For more pictures from the trip, check out my Japan Trip 2009 album on Picasa.
Japan In Black & White
Some black & white photos I took during my trip to Japan last month. I used a Lumix DMC-FX50, sometimes I wish I had an SLR camera.
If you want to check out the original images at 1024×768, please visit the photoset page at Flickr.
Offline Wishes At Meiji Jingu
I’ve heard of prayer tablets before (usually found at Shinto shrines in Japan) but it wasn’t until I visited the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo that I noticed the similarity in concept to Wish.
At the the shrine, people bought a wooden tablet and wrote their prayers on it, they then hung the tablet on a wooden plank along with the other tablets. While with Wish site, people submitted their wishes, which would then go to a moderation queue before appearing on the site.
The similarity is mainly on the idea of making a prayer/wish, with a certain degree of anonymity, and it is then available for others to see. What was interesting to me is the way they handled ‘inappropriate’ content. They filtered out most of the ’spams’ by making it a non-free process (most people wouldn’t spend 500 Yen just to spam). They also put a piece of paper with an explanation of how the process works, and that’s where I noticed this sentence “Please write down your prayers, in a faithful spirit of respect and devotion.”
That sentence highlights the main difference between our visitors. The shrine visitors made the prayers mostly with a good intention. While Wish site had to face the evil spammers and angry people on the Internet, besides the real wishers who simply want make a wish. The long walk from the main shrine to the entrance gave me a lot of time to think of how I should improve the way Wish works, the site has stayed too simple for the past 3 years, it’s time for some improvements. Stay tuned!
Some pictures from the shrine…
A couple reading the prayers. This is similar to browsing the wishes at Wish.
A text based prayer with a simple timestamp. We got that at Wish.
Some people like to draw. We got it too, though most picture submissions weren’t original content from the submitter, so this part hasn’t worked well at all.
I didn’t spot this until I returned to Melbourne. Is that kennysia.com on the second tablet from the top? He did go to Japan in April. For the uninitiated, Kenny Sia is Malaysia’s most popular blogger.
Crossing Signs In Japan – The Hat
Dear Lazyweb, why does the man on Japanese crossing signs wear a hat?
QR Code Usage In Japan
Some of my friends must’ve been tired listening to my constant complaining about how slow it is for Australia to adopt QR Code usage. QR Code is what I believe to be the link between print media and the web. And contrary to popular belief, I think print media is not going to die anytime soon.
I spotted the first QR Code in Melbourne in July last year. Telstra has been campaigning the use of QR Code, mostly on their products and ads. There have been few magazines using QR Code to link to some pages on their own sites. I’m predicting that this technology will become much more mainstream in Australia within the next 2-3 years, providing steady adoption of smart phones with QR Code support.
During my trip to Japan few weeks ago, I was amazed to find out that QR Code was used everywhere (not literally _everywhere_ of course). I started taking pictures and videos of those QR Codes to the amusement of the locals, something that’s very common to them was very new to me.
Here’s a nice example. On one morning, I was walking to Ikebukuro Station via the underground pass, and I noticed a new Disney poster on the wall.
Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Stitch. Notice the eyes and noses of each character are still visible within the QR Codes.
And here’s the weird scene I witnessed in the evening…
I saw passers by stopping in front of the poster, scanning the codes using their mobile phones. It was so weird for me, but I’m sure, again, it’s very common to them. At that point, I wondered if I would see a similar scene in Melbourne within the next few years.
And a few more…
McDonald’s placed QR Codes on the soft drink cup, burger wrapper, and paper bag amongst other things.
Snack food packaging.
Building guide.
T-shirt tag.
A poster at a mall. Ever thought that one day you would see a large garble of black and white dots just so you can scan it with your mobile phone?
On a magazine.
Ok, I’ll stop here, you’ve got the idea. The above pictures and video are only a few examples where QR Codes were used as links to web pages, but bear in mind that it can be used for many things other than for storing URLs, like nutritional info of a sandwich.
I’m excited to see more uses of QR Code in Australia. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll see one on a coffee cup at a cafe in Melbourne.