lingqi's Journal: Feburary 19th, 2003

Feburary 19th, 2003 (9:12pm)

It's really late; but there are still quite a few people working. It seems that my phone in the office has gone dead - which, I hope, is not a bad sign.

Beyond that I have developed this horrible sweet tooth for chocolate and ice cream. In Japan they have this excellent macadamia chocolate; both Meiji (æZæ, technically) and Lotte makes it. Both are excellent but the Meiji version is bigger. A box of 15 (very small box) is about 600 kCal; ouch.

One thing after you start eating a lot of snacks is that you'd notice how REALLY nicely designed all of the packagings are. It's not in an aesthetic way, but always very clever functionally. Take the Xylish gums, say - after you use up half the container can be folded to reduce size; The chocolate (Lotte Chrunky) box can be forward - folded or back-folded for display or storage. All very clever.

Okay, talking about snacks is not a good thing, especially when it makes me want to eat some and taking away my preciously little time for sleep. Till tomorrow then.

Hey

[Vengeru]

I stumbled into your journal today by what seems as an accident, and it has been a pretty interesting read so far. I'll be making a trip to Japan some time later this year (that's how uncertain it is, don't even know what month!), so reading stuff by 'gaijins' is always very interesting. Slashdot doesn't appear to have any kind of messaging system so the only way I can contact you is by replying to your journal posts. My ICQ# is in my user profile, here's for hoping you use ICQ!

Re:Hey

[lingqi]

Ack sorry but I don't use ICQ; you should find replies to any of your comments under your user page(s) though - the last two dozen, anyhow.

If you are coming to japan for sightseeing, probably the absolutely most important thing is getting a JR train pass. beyond that some maps (especially train maps - they are downloadable in PDF format on JR website), and a small phrasebook would help. And then, more money than you think you will need. Travel insurance is recommended for "dangerous" things like hiking because the japanese government is cheap and will not flip the bill for helicopters lifting you out.

GSM phones don't work here; so don't count on it. Get a phone card as soon as you can.

lastly I see in your profiles that you like japanese music. There are many places that allows you to "rent" music (kind of like video-rentals), which means that you will have a field day if you bring a laptop and a capable CDROM. most of them are copy-protected though so beware (as far as i know, most with cactus dataguard).