Category: Endured

Trials, marathons, or otherwise draining.

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Endured

Tokyo 2009: Getting There

Farewell, Newark

A few jetlag-induced thoughts/observations about getting from New Jersey to Shinigawa.

Ticket counters at Newark International Airport don’t open until around 4:30 AM. As someone who is habitually early to any air travel, it was hard to reconcile that we had gotten up exceedingly early only to have to sit and wait out about an hour until they opened.

Keeping in mind that this was an outbound flight, not an inbound flight – there were no noticeable additional TSA measures or screenings. Getting through security at Newark was trouble free, perhaps even more so than a few flights I’ve taken domestically this year. We’ll see how this goes on the return trip, where we do a quick up-and-down flight from Toronto back to Newark.

We flew Air Canada for both legs of this trip, one from Newark to Vancouver (~6 hours), and then Vancouver to Tokyo (~11 hours). This wasn’t a choice we consciously made (we played Expedia Roulette for booking the trip), but it is one we’ll make in the future. Air Canada’s planes are comfortable, their crews are pleasant, their in-flight entertainment more than acceptable, and their food edible. Hopefully the remaining two flights back will continue to bear this out.

Speaking of in-flight entertainment: really enjoyed *The Informant*. Glad I didn’t have to pay for *A Serious Man*. Rewatching *Inglorious Bastards* reminded me that my Japanese is going to be akin to Brad Pitt’s Italian. And how have I not been watching *Better Off Ted*? Also discovered that someone at Air Canada considers the Fresh Prince a mystery.

Vancouver International

Vancouver International feels more like a mall than an airport, and gave me some of that empty creeping feeling that I got when I flew out of San Diego a few years ago. Way too big for the number of people there at the time.

While flying into Haneda Airport would have been preferable given the proximity to our hotel, most flights come into Narita, about 40km outside of Tokyo. While the process to get through the airport was lengthy, it was happily multi-lingual and pleasant. Japan’s customs office, like everywhere else, has a cartoon mascot dog named Custom-Kun, but I only saw him once.

Waiting For The Bus At Haneda

At the recommendation of practically every guidebook under the sun, we took the Airport Limousine Bus to get to the hotel. 3,000¥ per person sure beats a potential 300,000¥ taxi ride. The bus experience is pleasant and somewhat bi-lingual; only problem was that after being on an airplane for 17 hours, the seats felt a bit cramped.

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Created Endured Puzzled Over

Introducing: Wrong Remy

Like so many others, I have found Twitter a simultaneously fantastic and mind-numbing portion of the internet. For every good thing (extremely rapid notifications for breaking news, lots of good links from friends), there’s an equal and opposite bad thing (inane trending topics, spam bots). While most of these are universally shared, there’s one particular quirk that is not common.

Twitter makes it easy to reference other users – sticking an @ symbol in front of their name is considered a “mention” and most clients will flag this as relevant to the interests of those mentioned. This is theoretically good, but in practice a number of things become clear:

  • With characters at a premium, many people can’t be bothered to type out full user names.
  • Because a lot of people are using cell phones to post to Twitter, the habit of heavy SMS users to shorthand text continues here.
  • Because a lot of people don’t understand how mentions work, they tend to throw @ symbols wherever they feel like, or spaces in the middle of user names.

What this adds up to: if you were on the Twitter train early enough to get what could be called a stem username – one that might be used at the beginning of other user names – you may be subjected to mentions not intended for you.

There are a lot of Remy’s on Twitter, and I get a lot of mentions for them. I’ve taken to answering them on a Tumblr blog devoted specifically to such endeavors.

Sighing frustration + helpful cheerfulness + Twitter anthropology = Wrong Remy. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.

(This is one of two side projects I’ll be introducing this week.)

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Endured

Project Moon Language: Prologue

“Let’s never come here again, because it will never be as much fun.”

While my interest in Japanese culture has existed for nearly as long as I’ve been cognizant of Japan’s existence, I never really considered going there until Lost In Translation was released. I am easily swayed by love letters to cities, treatments that shine warm light on the best and worst parts.

Lost In Translation always struck me as the film most reflective of both how I do travel (bewildered, often eating at the hotel, trying and failing to blend in) and how I would want to travel (see introductory quote). But I am rarely afforded the opportunity to fulfill this wanderlust when out of town; my travels almost always comes with primary motivations like weddings, or conferences, or family gatherings.

The film forces me into a parodox: while it is one of my favorite movies, it is one I cannot bring myself to watch. This is largely out of jealousy – I have been dreaming of going to Japan and wandering the same streets, and never finding a chance to act on it…until now.

At the end of the year, I will be making the trip I’ve been waiting six years for: a visit to Tokyo, and an attempt to cram in as much sightseeing, shopping, eating, and exploring as possible over the week of a major holiday.

First, though, there is the small matter of a language barrier. For despite as many times as I’ve rushed to consume imported media, I know an effective naught of Japanese. Abortive attempts at learning character sets have been made nearly every year, but now I have definite purpose. If I fail to learn Japanese this time, I will find myself in a strange land and being able to communicate only through hand-waving, pantomime, and apologies.

Thus begins a series of posts that I’m dubbing Project Moon Language: my attempts to fight through Rosetta Stone Japanese Levels 1, 2, and 3[1. I’d like to point out that unlike most geeks who use Rosetta Stone, we in fact purchased a legitimate copy through Amazon. This either shows my commitment to taking this seriously, indicates that I am a complete fool, or both.], as well as possible explorations into other methods and cultural oddities[2. Expect a post about mahjong that can only be described as “overkill”.]. As a 29 year old well past the age where learning a new language is natural, this should (if nothing else) be entertainingly frustrating.

The installation is done; the learning begins tomorrow.