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 on 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.

Japan Travel Preparation Checklist

I just returned from my trip to Japan last week and there were some friends and relatives emailing me various questions about visiting Japan. Rather than answering via email, I think it’s better to share the information here so everyone can benefit. Thanks heaps to my friend Fairy who helped me with some of these info when I was preparing for my own trip.

I traveled to Japan from Melbourne with my brother. We visited Tokyo, Kamakura, Yokohama, Osaka, Nara, Kyoto, and Okayama within 2 weeks. We chose Tokyo and Osaka as our ‘homebases’, i.e. we booked accommodations at those two cities and traveled to the other places by train. We canceled our plans to visit Nikko and Nagoya because the travel time was too long for a day trip.

What do you need to prepare?

1. Flight Ticket
   We bought cheap(er) tickets from Jetstar, the budget airline subsidiary of Qantas. Their planes were rather small, so if you’re tall, you will have neither much leg room nor comfortable head rest. I highly recommend lots of stretching during the 10-hour+ flight and bringing a neck pillow (trust me, you won’t regret it).
   If you’re traveling from Melbourne, a ticket to Tokyo Narita Airport is cheaper than to Osaka Kansai Airport. Though bear in mind that Narita Airport is about an hour away from Tokyo via Keisei Line.
2. Accommodation
   You will need to provide proof of your flight ticket purchase when you book your hotel. We booked ours from International Tourism Center of Japan (ITCJ), I think it’s safer to have a third party record of your bookings. My requirements for the accommodations were (1) not expensive but not shabby, (2) private toilet, and (3) laundry facility. We stayed at Grand House Chang Tee Hotel at Ikebukuro, about 20 minutes away from downtown Tokyo via Yamanote Line, and at Hotel Kinki (Kinki is another name for Kansai, a region in Japan), very near to the heart of Osaka. You can also book for a Ryokan via ITCJ web site if you want to experience staying at a traditional Japanese Inn.
3. Japan Rail Pass
   You will need to provide proof of your flight ticket purchase and accommodation booking when you purchase the Exchange Order for the Pass. Japan Rail Pass is your ticket to use train and bus services operated by the Japan Railways Group which cover 99.9% of your traveling needs as a tourist in Japan. Please note that you can only purchase the Exchange Order from outside of Japan only. The Exchange Order would then be exchanged for the Pass upon arrival at the airport. We purchased ours from H.I.S. Travel (Melbourne office location). Another thing you need to know is that public transport in Japan is expensive and you actually save money by using the Japan Rail Pass.
4. Visa
   Check if you need a visa to enter Japan. Australia is one of the countries which have visa exemption arrangements with Japan, so Australian passport holders don’t need a visa, yay :). My brother had to apply for visa at the Consulate-General of Japan in Melbourne. He got it within a couple of days after submitting the application, about a month prior to the trip.
5. Universal Adapter
   Japan uses 100V electricity voltage while Australia uses 240V, and they also use different socket to Australia (check out world electricity standards). Most of modern gadgets handle 100-240V. I brought my mobile phone, camera, Nintendo DS, and electric shaver chargers during the trip and I could use them in Japan without any problem. And for the socket, I purchased a universal travel adapter online, they’re cheap and useful for your future travels. Don’t bother buying the adapters from Dick Smith (Korjo brand), they’re too expensive, only work for a specific country, and the adapter for Japan doesn’t have the ground for Australian plug.
6. Japanese Yen
   We arrived at Narita Airport after 9pm and all money changers were already closed, and obviously all the banks were also closed once we reached Ikebukuro at 11pm. I managed to get some Japanese Yen in Melbourne before the trip, and brought some Australian Dollars with me which I then exchanged in Tokyo. Surprisingly the exchange rate was better in Australia at that time, I still have no idea why. I also compared the Melbourne CBD’s money changers’ exchange rates, my conclusion: the one at Bourke St (right behind the tram stop) was a rip-off, while the one on Swanston St near Collins St offered the best rate.
   Tip: the Japanese pronounce Yen as ‘en’.
7. Medicine
   Some pharmacies in Japan (don’t get confused over there, when you see a sign that says ‘drug’, that’s the pharmacy) do have English speaking staffs. But I don’t want to get anything lost in translation when it comes to health so I brought some Panadols and Travelans with me.

Frequently Asked Questions:

• Q: Do I need to know Japanese language?
  A: Not really. I reckon anyone could easily travel around Japan knowing just…
  1. Gomen nasai, nihongo wa dekimasen.
     I’m sorry, I can’t speak Japanese.
  2. Sumimasen.
     Excuse me.
  3. Arigato gozaimasu.
     Thank you.

  You can easily find tourists information center or JR offices at the train stations in Tokyo and Osaka where most of the staffs do speak English. While at the restaurants, sign language worked wonder for us, just point to the picture, indicate how many servings, and pay.

• Q: Do I need to bring a Japanese dictionary?
  A: No. Leave it at home.
• Q: How much does food cost?
  A: It depends where you eat. An average meal costs between 500 Yen (at train stations) to 1000 Yen (at the malls). Snacks cost 100-400 Yen.
• Q: Do I need to bring guide books like Lonely Planet Japan?
  A: I brought mine. Even though I found some information about Japan in the book to be quite interesting, I reckoned it’s too thick and heavy, and the maps (the main reason why I purchased the book in the first place) weren’t accurate. I ended up asking for English maps at the tourist information center at each city we visited.

Hope that helps, and if you have any further question, please leave a comment.