happylife

Everything into a cell phone

On the next day I came back to Tokyo, I got this cell phone at an electric appliance store in Shinjuku. I think that living in this country without a cell phone means a great loss. Not only the cell phone device itself is great but also a lot of great services we can use with the cell phone are provided for free or a reasonable price. This gadget has a slide-in keyboard, a full color VGA display and a built-in digital camera; it is almost a small computer. What we can do with this device is almost infinite. For example, I can use Google map in my palm. It's really convenient and pleasant to read and scroll a map and search a place or shop nearby. We don't have to carry a heavy and bulky paper map any more. As this cell phone has a full browser in it and we can easily connect to the Internet even from a washroom, a subway station, a restaurant or whatever. It is way more convenient than you expect to be able to use the Internet by just clicking a button on your cell phone. Furthermore, the happiest thing is that we can use all the services within a capped price and we don't have to worry about the telephone bill.

No photos

I almost always carry a digital camera in my bag to take some pictures for this blog, but I found that I had taken few pictures for the past several days since I came back to Tokyo. One reason is that Tokyo is not such a photogenic place like Vancouver and most scenes out there are too familiar for me. The other reason is that I worry about being blamed or sued in the worst case scenario for taking someone's pictures without permission. As you might know, most cell phones in Japan have a built-in digital camera and all of them make a loud shutter sound when taking a picture so that no one can take a spy photo. It's rather hard to take a picture here notwithstanding we have a various selections of great cameras. It is similar to the case of cars in Japan; we have various great cars made in Japan, but we have few empty roads to drive them on. Anyway, I'm now lacking for latest photos for this blog and I'm thinking about using rather old pictures which I took and stocked in Vancouver for a while.

Connected!

Since I came back to Japan a week ago, my daily life had been inconvenient because of no access to the high-speed Internet. It was more than one month ago when I applied for the fastest optical Internet service in Japan and finally the line was opened today. The optical cable is so delicate that the first cable work which was held last week was in failure and I had to wait for a few more days. The optical cable is made of a glass fiber which is thinner than human hair. It is less flexible than usual metal cable and it has to be looped instead of folded. Once it is folded, it can be easily broken and it is very difficult to reconnect it. Anyway, I'm very happy because the new Internet connection is very fast; almost ten times as fast as the high-speed cable service in Vancouver and it is supposed to be more stable than any ADSL or Cable service. I believe I can restart my work and this blog in this ideal Internet environment, but I'm worried how to reject the attractive movie service in the Internet.

The first priority

Now I'm back in Tokyo and what I should do at first is cleaning my rooms. I have two rooms in Tokyo; one is in my parent's home where I'm now sleeping and the other is my office or storage where I am supposed to work. Unfortunately, both of them are ultimately messy because I left them in the worst conditions and flew to Vancouver four years ago. I know I have to clean up them before everything, but it seems to be almost impossible. They are too messy themselves and disposing garbage is strictly limited in my area. It was really easy in Vancouver to throw away things; I could throw any junks into one of the huge garbage boxes in the basement car park. On the other hand in Tokyo, I will be arrested if I did the same thing. We of course have to separate nonburnable and burnable garbages in advance and we put them in the designated place early in the morning of the designated day of the week. Furthermore, we have to pay additional cost to throw a huge garbage including TV set, computer and so on. I feel bad just by thinking about the cleaning job.

Air pollution

I'm now back in Tokyo. Five days have passed since I came back and I'm already getting tired of this dusty and subtropical weather in this city. People say that it is the best season now in Japan, but it's still too hot and humid for me. I worry what is going on because I know the rainy season starts within a couple of months. Japan is now in a long vacation called "Golden Week," and less people and cars are in this city. Nevertheless, I feel that roads are full of cars and people. What I most dislike is the smell of the air in this city. It is even smoky and my face and hands get coated with oily dust after riding a motorcycle for ten minutes. Everything looks hazy and I miss the clear and crispy air in Vancouver a little. If there is good point in this smoky air, ultraviolet rays are blocked naturally to some degree.

Packing

It has been super busy for these past several days. I really realized how moving is a hard job. I'm now writing this article in front of the boarding gate in YVR as I finally finished all the job after a great struggle. Though I had always been taking care not to increase my personal belongings, four years were long enough to allow them to come to more than 10 boxes. I left most of them both in my KIND friend's storage and in my car so that I can restart my happy life in Canada whenever I like. I think it's a big waste to exchange all of them into cash if I have to purchase them some day again. Sure changing living environment sometimes is a good idea, but it is more or less wasteful. I remember a few months ago watching a kind of short movie of dolphin swimming in a blue sea alone. It looked very pleasant with no personal belongings. If I could live without any personal things including clothes, gadgets, books and so on, it can be called an ultimate happy life. I'm thinking about now reducing my personal things or at least I should not increase the amount of them.