Summary of the Japanese Excursion, and a Temporary Departure from this Stupid Web Site
27 March 2007, 2327ZBut first, a quick complaint about software that automatically checks for its own updates. On the surface, this feature is great. I don't have to go to a web site every day to check for an event that happens relatively infrequently. In practice, it sucks, because all of the software I have that does this checks for updates when I've just opened the application. This is the worst time to bother me with a dialog box and tell me I need to go do something. I've opened the application because I'm trying to get work done. Don't bug me until I'm finished. So I propose that auto-update features should notify the user when the application is closing, not when it's just opened.
(The preceding paragraph was brought to you by the auto-update notification given to me by TextWrangler after I opened it to write this post, which has been ignored almost a dozen times now, and I always forget about by the time I'm done working.)
Now: Japan. I started to write a long, detailed account of our trip, but I decided to save that for the photo book we're putting together in iPhoto. Instead I'll just write about some of the highlights here, and you can take a look at my photos on Flickr.
Melissa and I spent two weeks in Japan, mostly in Yokohama. My friend Joannah lives there (in a hotel—long story). We fell in love with Japan almost immediately. You can get anywhere by train, you can travel between cities with amazing speed and convenience on shinkansen (bullet trains), people are overwhelmingly polite, and young people's fashion is deliciously outrageous. On a few occasions I became fed up with a sense that I was constantly being micromanaged by ubiquitous signs, markings, warnings, and directions, but I perceived a measure of genuine caring that I don't see in all the stupid warnings we're bombarded with in the States.
We took a side trip to Nagoya, Hiroshima, and Kyoto. North of Nagoya, we attended Hounen Matsuri, a fertility festival that's also known as a penis festival. I'll let you read the link to find out why. The crowd there was a fairly even mix of people who took the event seriously (mostly families and elder Japanese), and people who were there just to point and laugh (mostly white people).
Hiroshima was informative, powerful, sad, awkward, fulfilling, and life-altering. Every American should see it. If you've had cancer, the room in the museum that explains the effects of radiation on the human body will be an uncomfortably familiar experience.
Kyoto is reportedly chock full of tourist attractions. Melissa and I did our best to explore it thoroughly, but we were completely exhausted after seeing one temple (Kinkaku-ji) and half of a castle (Nijo-jo). We were in Kyoto at the end of our side trip so we were already tired from running around non-stop for three days. Yokohama felt like home afterwards, but the feeling was bittersweet because we knew we'd be returning to the States soon.
Miscellaneous one-liners about our experience:
- I love Japanese convenience stores.
- I wish I could get melon bread at home.
- I'm really annoyed that we don't have bullet trains in the States.
- I ate fugu and did not die.
- Japanese children are insanely cute.
Now for the temporary departure from this stupid web site. I'm tired of this site. I'm tired of putting pressure on myself to update it. I'm especially tired of feeling like I can't be myself here when I have places where I can speak freely. So I'm taking a break. That is all.