Day 59 : Lawyers

This is a picture of my Lawyer, Iganaki San and his assistant Gabrielle. Only in Japan will lawyers make a house call. Whe then decided after they visited to go to the city hall and get all my Japanese Bueraucracy taken care of. Got our Hankos (Offical Seals) certified, prepared our miarrage documents as well. God Bless the Japanese Work Ethic

Day 58 : Curved Escalators

Cool Mall out in Amera Mura, I really like the curved escalators in this building. Amazing Yakiniku (BBQ) place on the top floor. Kinda sucked for Holly however since she is now a vegitarian and this was the worst place to go out to dinner with a vegitarian, but there was a large group so majority rules.

Day 57 : River Crossing

This is one of the many rivers you have to cross to get into Osaka, this is a veiw from the train from Kyoto to Osaka

Day 56 : Osakako Station

This is the crosswalk that leads right to our front door from the subway station

Day 55 : Lights

Cool Lamposts in Amera Mura, Osaka.

Day 54 : Gearing Up

I have started to notice these posters all over the place. It seems strange that the Japanese people dont believe they have a military, they remind me its a "Self-Defence Force." However it seems that recent events in North Korea and many other international events are making the nessecity of the military being strengthened and rebuilt. I believe that Japan has every right to do what it wishes with its millitary regardless of past history. I dont think that past history is any way to decide who can and cant have a millitary. Japan is a sovreign nation and should be allowed to do what ever it wants with its own governmental policy. The US isnt told that it cant have a strong millitary based on its past historical aggression, so why should Japan?

Day 53 : Ugly Duckling

Today I saw what has to be one of the ugliest cars in existence, I don't know who makes this model and whats the specs but its really a shame that this is made and successfully sold to people. On the while Japanese cars are very well built and designed, but sometimes one or two seem to slip by. It seems to be designed to be a Hatchback which then wouldn't be so bad, but they added a little trunk on the back and its just ruins the whole car, so bad is teh trunk that everything else gets brought down with it.

Day 52 : Patterns

This is the pattern the tiles make in the subway stations around Osaka, I thought it would make a cool picture, once I get a proper Camera the quality of these pics will be much better, right now I am using a camera that is on my phone.

Day 51 : Road to Prosperity

This is a picture of the road I have to walk down to get to and from the subway station and the office. Mostly commercial properties and its quite amazing how there is no space at all wasted in the area, every square inch is being used for something productive and for something that is contributing to the GDP. Its this level of efficiency that has made Japan the 2nd largest economy in the and GDP of Osaka itself is larger than all of Canada.

Day 50 : Clock

This is the clocks they have at Subways stations, I have a fascination with clocks and watches and I really like the simplicity and elegance of this timepiece. This is quite common to many clocks in public places, plain and monochromatic. However for me what sticks out and makes this really nice is the Font and the Hands, they are designed with the same width and dimensions and they fit well together. Most people don't give clocks a second look, but it you look carefully and examine them there are many different features and subtleties that make on timepiece more appealing aesthetically than another.

Day 49 : Thoughts

I have always wondered what it would be like to hear peoples thoughts. I know this sound very much like that stupid Mel Gibson movie, but I don't think it would be like that at all. I think it would be absolutely fascinating to know the thoughts of people as they are just sitting around waiting on stuff. Like these two in the subway

Day 48 : Mondays

Back to the office today, nothing much interesting happened today, usual workday of meetings, report, paperwork and Excel.

Day 47 : Shipping and CO2

I saw a news story recently about a "New" technique being tried out for shipping, basically it was German company that designed a huge kite that was moored to a container ship and the kite used wind power to move the ship across the Atlantic. Now I don't think I was the only one who thought, wait a minute isn't this what we did for centuries?? We have already tired out using the wind as a source of energy and there was a reason we decided to abandon it in favor of something better namely fuel to be used as a propellant. I think that if we want to become more environmentally friendly we need to be a bit more creative than trying out something our ancestors did and gave up on. maybe a Solar Powered ship, or even better how about a Hydrogen powered ship that had the facilities on board to convert sea water to Hydrogen fuel.

I am one of the few people in the world that hasn't completely bought into the whole "Global Warming is caused by Man" theory, and I know its not popular to be on this side of the argument but I don't think that we humans are capable of changing such a huge ecosystem with production f a gas that that is a minuscule amount in the air composition. The fact that a volcanoes and the oceans put out more CO2 than we could every do should be considered. In addition the earth climate is always changing and we have had nothing to do with it. There is a really documentary out there that I think deserves to be shown and hyped up as much as Al Gores documentary, and its called The Great Global Warming Swindle.

I urge you to look at it with an open mind and then at least you should have heard the other side of the argument, which isn't comprised up of Oil Companies and Ignorants. There are many scientists and notable minds that are in the same boat as me and don't believe that we are the cause of climate change.

Day 46 : Armour

This is on my list of major purchases for the year, I am planning it out and I think I will get in the spring when I move to a new apartment. These are authentic Samurai armour and they come with a carrying case which also turns into a display mount so you can set it up anywhere. I also have to make it out to Seki, in Gifu prefecture (home of Kitana manufacturing for centuries) and get my Sword commissioned, however this is long process of paperwork, but once I get that all done it takes about 3 months for the blacksmith to design and make the sword, all using traditional techniques.

I am starting a collection of weapons of war from different time periods and cultures and I think that a Samurai Outfit and authentic sword will make a huge contribution to the collection which at this point has a Roman Knife, and a Yemeni Khanjar. The Roman Knife is ancient and it needs a bit of work to make it look presentable, but its an authentic piece of history. Many thanks to Patryk for smuggling it out of Europe and getting it to me in Canada, along with all the Roman Coins he found. In terms of academia I know its wrong to posses ancient artifacts as they should be in a museum or with some other such institution. However I want to start my own collection and there is no other way to have a collection other than to start acquiring items.

Day 45 : Ridding the Rails

I always find that soon as I get on the subway I start to get sleepy, I have no idea why. It happens at any time of the day too. Very strange link I have made in my brain with riding the Subway and falling asleep. I dont think I am the only one though as I often see other people passed out on the train and then they magically get up right before their stop.

Day 44 : Valentines Day

Today is Valentines Day, so me and Holly went to the Aquarium that is just down the street from our apartment, looks like this was a popular choice with the couples of Osaka. It was quite busy, however it was still possible to sit and watch the variety of marine life htey had there. The Aquarium here in Osaka is the largest in Asia and the highlight is one huge tank that is several stories tall that people circle around and through from the top of the Aquarium to the bottom. In the tank they had all kinds of marine life, but the biggest was the Whale Shark and the Giant Manta Ray.

I found the Jellyfish section to be the best, its strange how such things can exist as they dont seem to be made up of anything other than water. I know humans are mostly water, but we do have a brain and other organs, these just seem to be nothing but a jelly substance. Very Bizarre and very cool at the same time. Would love to have a Jellyfish Aquarium in the home someday, Im sure its reall hard to setup and maintain though.

A good Karl Pilkington Quote comes to mind

"Why not just turn the other 3% of a Jellyfish into water and make it more usefull"

Day 43 : Blade Runner

This is a picture from the Dotonbori area of Osaka, its a very commercial district with lots of restaurants and shops. This area is what is imagined by many to be quintessentially Japan. Lots of bright lights and neon signs. The one that is most recognizable is the Glico Running Man, and has become somewhat of a Osaka Landmark where people often now give directions based on the location on the Ad. This wall of Signs is parallel to one of the major canals that runs through Osaka.

Day 43 : Cool Facade

Was downtown today for a meeting and along the way I noticed this building. I love the design they have installed on the Facade of the building, the trade off is of course those offices don't have access to natural light.

Day 42 : What are these?

I see these things in all the subway stations sticking out of the roof, blink in various different colors and I have yet to figure out what these are broadcasting or picking up, I was thinking cellphone signals as there is reception underground but then its doesn't seem like these small devices could handle the data transfer, and also there is a frowning upon here when people use their phones on the trains. People find it very rude when people are talking on their phones around other people, so on the train its quiet with everyone on their phones, but emailing and texting each other. Which is in stark contrast to 3rd world countries where is an act to take pride in when talking on your phone in public. In Mexico its gone nuts with the Nextels where everyone around you hears the whole conversations all the time. I cant Stand the Nextel system at all, it's good in some cases but its ridiculous when try to have a proper conversation on it.

Day 41 : Mexican Memories

Had a great night last night over at Ivan and Eriks apartment. There was great Mexican food, and great times. Haven't laughed that hard in a long time. It reminded me a lot of our parties back in Canada where we all got together and cooked great food and ate and drank all night with The Gipsy Kings and other great music in the background. Seemed like that was a weekly ritual in Canada over at University Ave, or what became known as "The Mexican Ghetto", because for all the fun and great times that where had there, the house was an homage to a Crackhouse, yesterdays festivities where in a much much nicer place. The picture is one of Ivan playing guitar to Control Machete and eating a Quesadilla at the same time. Our attempts to play the board game Cranium failed miserably as well.

Day 40 : Snow!!!!

Woke up today to find that it was snowing here in Osaka. It the first real snow of the year here, and its bringing back all sorts of shitty memories of digging my car out of snow banks. Freezing all the time. I just mentioned how warm winter was here and then the next day this happens. This is the view from our apartment of the Monorail tracks

Day 39 : Winter Weather

Its now the dead of winter here in Osaka and its beautiful. After the Icy Hell of St John's this is like Club Med. The locals however are just as cold as we were in Canada. all huddled up and wrapped in layers of clothing. Its not just the locals however its pretty much everyone I met except for Canadians who like me are hanging out in t-shirts and jeans. At night it hits about a low of +6, and the day is around +12. This makes me think about how crazy Canadians are for living in those conditions as it is absolutely disgusting weather there in the winter.

Day 38 : Apartments

This is a pic from the front of my apartment during sunset. Its amazing how little space is wasted here. We are on an artificial island and there is no space wasted at all, there is even a apartment building being constructed between the building we are in and the neighbor. The space it will occupy is about the size of a 6 car parking lot.

Day 37: I've Won!!!

After about 6 months in Japan I have finally won my battle against one of the Japanese Corporate Giants. SoftBank is the 2nd largest phone operator here in Japan, they bought out Vodafone operations here in Japan and are growing steadily and are posting great profits. I have a curse of being stuck in situations with phone companies, back in Boarding School there was a huge mess with Bell Canada that involved me and my close group of friends being accused of fraud by Bell Canada to the tune of over $10,000 between us. Long Story. That was settled out of court and then the next one was with Rogers over a $400 bill, which was eventually settled. Then for the whole time I used Rogers there was a continuous flow of problems and arguments over bills with them some I won some they won. I HATE ROGERS BTW.

The last one I had to deal with was when Rogers first introduced TV on their phones. I got the system for free as an introduction offer, used it a little bit, but then the Novelty wore off and never used it. Whoever Rogers being the incompetent idiots they are after one day of having my new phone shut down my line stating I had to pay $500 after one day of use, after hours and hours of arguing it got nowhere and I needed the phone so I paid it and then decided I would fight them later. Next day same thing, I try to call and the computer recording states

"Your call has been forwarded to Rogers so that we may speak to you about your Account, please hold......"


I get on the phone with another idiot, and they say yeah you owe us $700 and then we can reconnect your account, and casual as nothing it out of the ordinary, she says :

"Can we go ahead and charge the same credit card as your last payment?"

I tell her hang on , are you nuts, what the hell is going on , yesterday I paid $500, today I paid $700, what tomorrow? $900?

They tell me that the charges are for the Data I am using on the phone, basically connecting to the internet. I told her I didnt connect to the internet and I didnt use up any data. She says well it says here you did. I realized that it wasnt going anywhere so I decide to use logic on the idiot. I ask how much is the charge per KB, and she tells me how much it is, so I quickly do a calculation in my head and the $500 and $700 charges if used for Data would mean that I had downloaded and upload about 2GB worth of Data on the phone. I tell her this and she doesnt flinch and says "I guess you did"

I then ask her if she knows how much data 2 GB are, and she says she isnt good with computers, so I tell her that its a fucking huge amount, and I also mention that my phone only has 512 MB of capacity to store info, so there was no physical way that the phone could store that much data.
Again the idiot states :

"Well the records show you did DL that much Data"

Realizing that this isnt going anywhere, I ask to speak to a supervisor and of course Rogers policy doesn't allow this. So I tell her everything again, and nothing gets through. So I hang up on her in a fit of rage. After an hour or so I calm down and I think about it again and I decide I am going to call Rogers back but not going to speak to the idiots are account receivable, but rather a fellow human being who understands the concepts of Data and Storage, AKA a Geek. I call up rogers but this time I head to Tech support. After waiting for the customary 30 mins on hold listening to Rogers propaganda, I get on the line with a technician, I explain the situation to him in the words he understands:

"Dude, look up my account and see the data section, it shows I downloaded 2GB in the past two days over a GPRS network, and am getting charged for it and my line has been cut."

He instantly sees that something is off, as he mentions, your phone can only hold 512MB, something isn't right, please hold. As he puts me on hold it I think about the incompetence of Rogers and then it dawns on me. The data was for the TV that I was watching via streaming, and the idiots over at Rogers hadn't figured out how to distinguish the TV data from other data. Soon as he comes back I mention this, and he says he agrees, he then tells me how they implemented this system and they didn't really know how to handle it. He then connects me to a supervisor who apologizes and says that they will reconnect my line, as for the $500 I paid before, he says that he cant refund it but will credit my account.

SO a few years later and a few more battles with Rogers I am in Japan and haven't got my internet hooked up at home, however I do have my sweet new Softbank phone which has Data capabilities, and in the sales persons broken English was told I have an unlimited data plan. So I hook up the phone to my laptop via USB and do some configurations and voila I am online using my phone as a modem. things going good, downloading torrents at 500KB/s.

Later next day get a call from softbank, they don't speak English, and I ask them to call back with an English operator. About an hour later I get the call and its a polite operator stating that I have racked up a bill of 300,000 Yen, which is about $3000. I ask how, she tells me by using the phone data connection. I explain to her I was told I have the unlimited plan, she agrees but states that it doesn't cover this type of connection, and I have to pay by the end of the month. I tell her NO, you said unlimited and I wasn't told that this wasn't allowed, supervisor pleas, she connects me through, go through the same conversation and they were so polite about it but stated I had to pay, I signed a contract and I had to pay. I told that I cant read Japanese and therefore the whole contract and also the staff at the store didnt explain this loophole to me. This goes on and on for an hour and I tell them ok ill get in touch with them soon.

After a few days I get some Japanese legal advice and am told that the contract is void as I dont understand Japanese and the contract was not understood by me, so the law is on my side. I call up softbank and tell them this and they still wont budge, then I mentioned I got a lawyer and if need be I will go to court as I know that I am right and they are wrong. They then change their stance and start offering me discounts and I dont budge.

So now 5 months later I still wont budge, but now Softbank has finally given up and said that they will remove all charges and I am off the hook. According ot everyone I talked to this is very rare for a large Japanese company to deal with as most Japanese would apologize and just pay up , never get a lawyer involved. But me being used to getting shit from Phone companies I decided that this was enough, no more shit from them. Funny thing is now when you get a new Softbank phone and you are a Gaijin, they stress over and over that its not included and also get you sign an English contract stating that you understand that the charges are different. So my little fight has resulted in a shift in Policy that is friendly to the customer, and now you dont get sucked in to all these hidden charges and scams that phone companies are notorious for pulling.

Day 36 : Thanks for Smoking

I think Japan is the last "Developed" Country that is left in which you can pretty much smoke wherever you want. And the few places you aren't allowed to smoke, people just don't care and smoke away, I am totally for Smokers rights, however there are some places that its just not polite to do so, such as in an elevator, which I have seen happen many times. Here there isn't really a smoking witch hunt like in North America, so you often see people smoking right next to no smoking signs. In Japan it seems that the laws are based on politeness rather than rights, I think its is perceived to be impolite to ask smokers to not smoke and then the places where people don't I think its because its considered rude to smoke there. Sounds like a good system to me

Day 35 : Big Wheel

The last picture I got of the Giant Ferris Wheel as it is called didn't come out so great, so when I was out today I got close up to it and got a proper shot of it. I really don't get the lure of a Ferris Wheel, to me certain things that people here in Japan love make no sense at all, Ferris Wheels, Pachinko, Karaoke are main ones I can think of now

Day 34 : Spaghetti Roads

This is a picture of the highways that intersect with the road and bridges at the entrance to the island on which we live. Its quite amazing how many different roads and highways meet at this one point, this picture doesn't show nearly all of the many roads and connections here, as the area is massive, Its quite a sight at night time to see all the cars and other vehicles all moving around this maze and mixed in there is a monorail track as well. All the roads are lit up on the edges and on the line dividers, its looks just like something out of Project Gotham Racing

Day 33 : Chongqing Spicy Hotpot

Went out for dinner with friend for some Chongqing Spicy Hotpot tonight. It has been a while since I ate this meal and I finally found a place here in Osaka that has it. how it works is you have a boiling pot of two sauces on your table that is heated up all night, what you do is put in whatever your eating and cook it right at your table, everything can be cooked in this, we had Shrimp, Beef, Chicken, Vegetables, Tofu, and many other things. The good thing about this restaurant was that is was all you can eat. We were there for a couple of hours and ate like royalty. The Red side is the Spicy sauce and the white is the creamy sauce, this is great way to spend a nice dinner with friends and family as its a long dinner that is very social in its nature as you cook the food and eat it all together at the table.

Day 32 : Ad Space

Its quite remarkable that here in Japan they can find a place to put ads up, They seem to be on every conceivable surface. The law regarding advertising locations are quite lax so its not surprising to see them everywhere, but what is surprising to see is that there is still space left for ads. We are taking advantage of this lack of advertising space, however it seems once we get that medium used up there wont be any more traditional places left for billboards and other static medium for advertising. Hence the drive for new and improved place and methods in this industry.