The One MP3 Player

I am sometimes mocked for my technological preferences, namely the companies I choose to purchase various technology from.

While price and performance are primary considerations, there are times when similar products warrant an illogical deciding factor to dictate where cash should be splashed.

In this case, I'm referring to manufacturers.

A few people have a disproportionately advertised (we often hear of how good they are, despite low uptake in several key markets) love of Apple, and the inferior and overpriced products they peddle to ill-informed customers.  Unfortunately, Apple customers are the most vocal, so the fact that half of their ipods explode within six months due to faulty batteries, or they cease functioning for no apparent reason after two years, forcing the owners to purchase the latest model, rarely gets many technology column inches.

The reason I bring this up right now?  My own dad has been through dozens of Iphones, Ipods, I-these and those, through misuse and abuse, and through no fault of his own.  Yet I have recently dropped an MP3 player in a rain soaked road, where it was literally being washed away by the torrents - as cars and lorries were barreling overhead, and upon picking it up, water gushed forth as if it were a minuscule watering can.

An Apple product would have given up many years ago, owing to battery malfunction or outmoded interfaces.  My plucky little Sony Walkman Personal Media Player (/end plug) carried on trucking though, through thirty foot falls and weather that forced its' owner off, before it decided to quit, and now this devastating blow that would destroy all but the most hardy little media devices.

This little guy still works, still holds the five years of pictures I've taken, and still wants to eschew the sounds that beat all others.

I salute you, little media player; for you are a fantastically built, superbly crafted, one in a million device.

So English Language Maps in Japan Then...

Ok so today I had to rely on these godforsaken English language tourist maps, twice.  I got lost exactly three times.

As I've noted before the maps here are designed by small children with decidedly blunt crayons, bent on making pretty pictures rather than informative guides.  It is roughly 400 metres from my hostel to the train station with exactly five intersections between me and the station.  The map shows three.  This is how I got lost the first time.  Upon reaching the station (after a lengthy circular detour) I found that I had gone to the wrong one, because the name was mislabelled.  This is crazy, the only reason I knew it was misspelt in English was because the kanji (hieroglyphs used by the Chinese and Japanese) did not match up!  This is insanity.  In case you were wondering, some areas are called north and south xxxx, and the station I wanted was north, but I was directed to the south.

So I then headed to the correct station, only to be thwarted by another Japanese map making anomaly.  The map does not have a set scale.  At this point most logical minds would just explode.  This seriously does not compute.  A road that is five miles long can, and is, the exact same length as a road that is fifty metres long.  Come on now, the joker who designed this map is probably the same guy that designed the millenium bridge.

So I got lost again while walking along this infinitely long road.  Yokohama is the primary port town in Japan, and I was heading towards the ocean all the time thinking, by a logical process, looking at how far I travelled before, my feet, probably even up to my waist, should be wet by now.

At this point I feel I must stop and say, yes I have exclusively used tourist maps.  This is because road maps provide useful things like road names, but on a scale that could easily include Korea, China and Japan, with some of America on one A4 page.  The tourist maps don't provide road names, and then only some landmarks that the comedy map maker has deemed worthy of inclusion.  This means great swathes of the map will have nothing in them, including the roads, their names, their relative sizes/lengths or even the area, (called -cho) and some areas will have such useful things as, supermarkets that are no longer supermarkets, and apparently haven't been for five years or more, and 'sights of interest,' including fountains... that are on top of sixty storey skyscrapers that no one can see unless they happen to be on the 60th floor...

So I eventually found the venue, I met my friend, I enjoyed the day, and I promptly got lost on the way back to the hostel.

I managed to walk three full train stops past my intended destination, into an area the map thankfully did not cover (formally known as the, 'here be dragons' zone) and ended up getting the train back.  Whew, what an amazing day!

This is the first time crappy maps have really annoyed me, normally getting lost is fun and part of the adventure, I've found some really nice places while being 'lost.'  However, when I'm thirty minutes late meeting someone it really grates, and it's not fair on the person waiting, so it makes me stressed and annoyed, and probably reflects in my demeanour, at least until I calm down again.  Therefore the top tip, while in Japan, when you're going to meet someone is this, a trip that should take ten minutes will take an hour, and if you're just ambling around, chuck the map in the bin, write the name of your street and hostel down somewhere and just ask the people.  They're really rather helpful.

So I updated my ueno day 1 post, it's not finished yet but I have some downtime planned tomorrow, I'll do it then.  I might be able to get day 2 done as well.

Update:  Ueno park day 1 is finished!  Sorry for the delay...

So This is a Filler Post!

On tomorrow's post, we'll see how Sam visited harujuku in search of more zany costumes, and more crazy tokyoites.

We'll also hear his thought on the latest technology, from cameras and mobile phones to toilet seats!

In this bumper post, we'll see pictures from a day trip to Ueno park, filled with monuments and museums; along with mime-artists,  bagpipe players and an amazing diablo expert!

All this and more on tomorrows blog, stay tuned!

(I'm also going to try and figure out a way of uploading video onto this site, possibly via a youtube:link system, because, frankly, a lot of the things I've seen are better viewed in motion.  The taiko drummers for example, and the diablo artist from today are bettwe viewed in motion, even if the quality is poor.  The more I think about it, the more I think I should have splurged on a good camera, these experiences are one-offs and the opportunity to capture them with good quality has passed!  Oh no!  I guess this gives me a good reason to do this trip again at some stage, bonus!)