The Adventures of Aaron-san (in Japan)

June 30 - Bosses are away

Well, the one I needed was anyway (and tomorrow as well). I took this opportunity to do whatever I could on the latest printer guide, but I couldn't get too far because Hiranuma has the conversion scripts on her computer and are password protected. Well, I couldn't do much, so I brushed up on all my Kana since tomorrow is my Japanese lesson. Oh, now that I have learned to send money from here, it would figure that the day after I send it, the value of the yen gets stronger the next day after a week and a half of decline. Now, if I could only ask to send mail, I would be set. I know the rates now and the address I am supposed to write (and the phone number I fake all the time), so hopefully I can be a regular shipping company sometime soon. Wow, only two more days until the Koreans leave the plant. It seems that they are heading to plants in Korea for some reason or another (it can't be money, we have tons of that). The section will seem so empty... I am still thinking about work reports, or more that I should write one before my English degrades to the point of being non-understandable. I have to speak very simple English for anyone to understand me, so I naturally talk in broken english. Ah, Ian's idea of writing about how you can identify where you are by the train jingles at the station. There are some real good ones. Perhaps I can take some time off (use my vacation) later to go around and record the various station's jingles with my Minidisc player/recorder. It would be original, all right.

June 29 - Surprise the Online Developers

Wow, something I wrote (in Javascript even) impressed some of the developers here. It seems that they were convinced you could not make a search engine for our Japanese manuals using the same code that you would write for a one-bit language (i.e. English), but mine seemed to work under all their tests, and they proceeded to fly around all the offices trying to get a "search" option added now that we know it works. We got a whole shipment of Pentium II laptops (Gateway) to play with. I fear to think what they cost, but they are pretty impressive. I was told that the reason we upgraded all the laptops was that, and I quote, "the Pentium MMXs we were using were just too slow". Okay, if they say so. I am not complaining. Well, it was (once again) nice and hot for the trip to Karate. The small group of us that are still classed as "beginners" worked on our Kato (a series of steps we have to perform so we can get our blue belt). The next test (free of course) is in September, but it is still quite difficult to do all these moves correctly (balance, speed, etc.) Miwa-san couldn't make it though, as her wisdom teeth were really bothering her. Oh, before I get more email about this, let me explain something. Some are concerned that I should try to make friends in Hirooka outside of EPSON. Nice idea, but the problems is that EPSON IS Hirooka. The majority of the the town's population lives there because they work at EPSON. Hirooka is not big at all. It is like the St. George of Japan. We have EPSON, the JOY 401, the train station, some convenience shops, and that is it. That is why I go to Matsumoto whenever I can (or somewhere else outside the city). So you see, just about everyone I meet WILL be from EPSON in this town.

June 28 - A cooler Tokyo: part 3

Okay, I woke up at a reasonable time, but Anthony is one of these guys you have to hit to wake up (like my old roommate who could sleep through a fire drill). Naya and Miwa went shopping on their own to get more clothes, so Andy, Naya's brother and I went around Tokyo to buy more stuff. I got a wallet (Japanese money is too big for a Canadian wallet, a huge poster map of Japan, and THE street map guide to everywhere in Japan, and also some CD singles of bands I saw on TV once which sounded all right (they are cheap). We all went met later at a Mexican restaurant for lunch (everything was great but the soft taco shells, which tasted little better than a chunk of flour). We then stopped off at a liquor store where we saw some guy buy 170000 yen worth of liquor (must be one heck of a party), and we got Naya's father some bottles of scotch whiskey (and C.C. club) for having us over for the weekend. We then headed home with our stuff where I put away most of my stuff and fell asleep. I think I went through a few man-yen but hey, everything is much more expensive in Japan than at home, like the 800yen glass of coke, the 2000 yen small, thin single pizza with cheese and corn, the 4000 yen T-shirts (regularly), 3000 pitcher of beer, 3500 yen CDs, etc. Oh yes, I tried to get a J-phone this weekend, but not only do they need your Alien registration card (which has my address on it), but an envelope or package with my address on it, guarantor's signature, name stamp, and another piece of photo ID, and this is to buy a phone! Oh well, maybe I can get one in Matsumoto sometime.

June 27 - Tokyo part 2

Figures, the day I come here to visit, the temperature breaks a local record. How hot? Okay, Naya and Miwa went to get their hair done, and Miwa also had to go to a dentist (wisdom teeth pain), so Naya's brother drove Anthony and I around for a while until we would all head to Akihabara together. Okay, we were on the road, and perhaps the congestion of traffic contributed to this, as did the congestion of the rest of the city, but at 10AM, the thermometer in Naya's van was reading 48 degrees Celcius outside. Good god we almost died from the heat. I guess the good news is that we were told it doesn't always get this hot. I saw a lot of interesting buildings, and got a real neat watch at one of the local stores (nothing wrong with mine, but I couldn't pass this chance to get a cheap funky watch. We went to Wendy's for lunch (we don't have that in Hirooka), and then went back to Naya's house to wait for her and Miwa. I think it was around 2 or so when they got home, but Naya's sister kept me amused with their piano. I am surprised I can still play a lot of the tunes I used to when I had the chance to practise regularly. A little rusty perhaps, but I can still play them at least. After Naya and Miwa got home, we heading to the local subway and then train stations catching trains to Akihabara where Naya said we would meet up with some of her friends. Wow, Akihabara is every tech-lovers dream paradise. It is like the whole district is one big electronics expo. I saw J-Phones (cell phones) for 1 yen (and you pay 2000 yen a month plus calls made at the local 7-11), and portable TVs for 5000 yen (half of what they are in Hirooka. I picked up some cheap T-shirts while I was there, and got handed lots of pamphlets and papers about what great sales were going on that hour. If it weren't so hot, I probably would have noticed more of the deals, but what I did see made we want to come here for almost any electonic good. Some things like VCRs and other really "common" good I could probably get in Hirooka or Matsumoto at little more expensive, but definitely more convenient to take home (hah, lug a VCR from Tokyo, that will be the day). We all saw many things including the EPSON square building (we didn't tell them we were all EPSON employees), and a rather "Japanese" Windows 98 display involving a large line of young women dressed "provocatively" with Windows 98 umbrellas which had the English phrase "make us happy" on them, but as I said, this is typical Japanese advertising. We all went to an indian restaurant for dinner and after exploring a little more, we went to a local video store where Miwa picked out a Japanese movie called "Love Letter". We went back to Naya's house to watch it. From what I can understand with my limited Japanese (at least I could almost carry a conversation with Naya's friends in Akihabara), the movie was about a woman who was sick for the whole movie with a headcold sending letters to some guy she knew in high school, and he makes glassware in some snowy part of Japan and two strange people are looking for one or the other of them, but always seem to miss them, so they find a big man who later turns out to be the woman's father to carry another woman through the forest to a hospital where they both laugh really loud and remember when the first woman got paper bags thrown on her head while riding her bicycle. The man getting these love letters then dies, but writes more letters to the first woman who then yells at a mountain "ogenki desu ka!?" (are you feeling well?), and that was the end of the movie.

June 26 - Tokyo part 1

Okay, so I had to go to work for the first part of the day, but apart from doing some research, I really didn't do any real intensive work (like the whole Spain deal). One of the other gaijin here, Mike (?) was complaining that his benko (box lunch) is the same every day. After Kurt asked him who packs his lunch, he replied "I do", so the whole conversation started falling apart at that point. Hmm, oh yes, Jaquie (yes, that is the right spelling) left for New York today for her vacation. Everyone here jokes about it, as she is from Australia and has never been to America before, and thinks New York is just a big, friendly city (obviously she hasn't been watching the news). Oh well, after work, I threw a bunch of stuff into a bag and waited for Naya to come and pick me up from Hirooka. There would be four of us in her "Big Daddy" van: Me, Naya, Miwa, and Anthony Chun-Li. We finally got to Tokyo around 9:30 or so after leaving at 7, so we made pretty good time. Okay, here is what I now know. The Narita/Tokyo International Airport shouldn't have the work Tokyo in it (my opinion) because it is two hours from Tokyo! Shinjuku is just one of the many parts of Tokyo, so now everything makes sense. So if I ever want to go again, it is a 2 hour drive or 3 hour train ride (because of the way the local trains run in conjunction with the express trains). We went to Naya's house after driving through street no wider than a sidewalk (I have pictures to prove it) where two lanes of traffic try to get through, and met her family. They all live in a traditional Japanese style house complete with tatami floor in the guest room, and one of the biggest TVs I have seen in a long time. Her father was very interested in Canada and asked a few questions before showing us all his extensive knowledge about wines, of which he has two cellars full not including the cabinets in the kitchen. We headed out to one of the "clubs" Naya knew for a while (quite expensive, 2500 yen gets you admittance and two drinks, but the place is no bigger than the bathroom where I live, and the dance floor is the size of my room. After coming home later, we all slept at Naya's house.

June 25 - The end of Spain

Finally, after days and days of debugging, Spain is fixed. Now I have to worry about Italy, which is having other problems. Oh well, looks like I have to install another operating system again (update: I did). Okay, so now I have Win95 in English, Japanese, Spanish, and Italian. I can also see French and German versions going on soon. I guess I have the international computer after all. Well, I have found one thing that beats the heat here; very strong winds. I don't understand why the wind is so strong here, but it just is. I suppose it is better than hot weather with no wind. A busy day at Karate. I worked on a bunch of maneuvers while moving my legs (I guess it is easier to do than explain). Quite tiring actually. Finally, after stumbling home, I had a quick shower and played on the PS for a while. Hmm... Parasite Eve is really addictive (a cross between Alone in the Dark and Final Fantasy VII) game. Too bad it is not in America that I know of despite the fact it was made by Squaresoft America. Oh well... even with the limited number of games I have, I seemed to pick ones that last a long time. Good on the wallet, I suppose.

June 24 - Spain part 3

Finally. I figured out the problem (with a lot of help from Hiranuma-san). When we modified our program to handle multi-language support, the special codes some of the characters outputted started with a "\", which is a reserved character in Perl, and was screwing up the search and compare routines. I should have been able to find that out earlier, though I suppose it would help if Sakomoto-san had actually documented his program instead of having me do it. There is still one small problem, but we are convinced it is a Framemaker problem on their end (they are making their manuals incorrectly). Went to the JOY 401 and discovered the mysterious 3rd floor. I don't believe I actually found it. I had to go up the stairs, then go to the other end of the building and go up another set of stairs to get to the third floor, but I found a video rental store and CD store. Wow, I will have to remember this place when I can speak enough Japanese to ask for a membership. Oh, there is an arcade here too, but like all of the arcades I have seen, they are just too expensive for me to use (good thing I have the Playstation). Games start at 100yen a pop and go up to 1000yen for Daytona USA. Fortunately, the video rentals are only 250yen a night, so that is pretty comparable to back home. Some people would freak if I told them there was so many tapes of anime here it took me almost 25 minutes to browse all the titles, but I will tell them later... I can only imagine what stores look like in Tokyo, but I will find that out this weekend.

June 23 - Spain part 2

Been analyzing these files from Spain. There is still a problem despite all of their problems, so I spent the whole day trying to find it, but to no avail. I blame this multi-language support option. I also heard from them that they have to have their manuals converted by July 3rd, and if I can't solve the problem, Epson Hirooka would have to manually convert the files... not a good way to make a good impression here. Ah well, despite all that, the evening was relaxing. I had Andy come up and translate some of my FF7 dialog that I was having difficulty with, and we went to Lawson's convenience store to get some food for later on. Did some more laundry and played around with the VCR. There was not much to do today, but then again everything (almost) is closed on Tuesdays.

June 22 - A lesson in Spanish

Today was one of those quick days; it went by too fast to remember much. Hmm... I think I will split up this web page by month pretty soon, as it is starting to get large. I will probably start that sometime around July. Oh well, anyway, those people in Spain are still complaining, so I had them send me their conversion directories. Wouldn't you know it, they haven't been reading the instructions (surprise). Also, one of their files is out of date, and we sent them an update, but apparantely, they never did. Just to be on the safe side, I partitioned my drive (again) and put on the Spanish version of Win95 using PartitionMagic and System Commander (These are two great programs. I was able to partition my drive on the fly without losing any data, and setup different file systems all in one shot, and a menu is automatically created to let me select which partition to boot off of). I will have to check it out more tomorrow, but at least it is set up (I think). After work I was able to get some more laundry done before Karate. Well, I was told that my Gi would be in by Thursday, so I won't have to stand out so much. A busy lesson, but I can usually follow along. At least the sensei is able to recognize me now as a student and not as a visitor.

June 21 - Waterfalls and Sports Cars

Once Ian woke up around 10, we went to take a look at one of the Waterfalls around here. I got some good shots of it, though the hike needed to get there was pretty demanding (20 minutes on foot going very steeply up or down depending on which way you were heading). That took up most of the morning, and the other group of people we had with us that had to wait until this morning to go rafting (there wasn't enough room for all of us), so we also had to get some food for the BBQ we wanted to have. After finding a suitable supermarket, we picked up lots of meat (though hideously expensive (A slightly smaller than a normal "Canadian sized" steak ran us in excess of 2800 yen ($28)). We also picked up some chips, pop and fruit, and headed back to the rafting place where they had a BBQ area for us with all the utensils. After a long BBQ with an interesting Japanese touch (I will have to make a separate page on how to make real Japanese dishes), we gathered our stuff and headed home. This was the best part, because on the way home, we were passed by not one, but two Ferraris (the first one red, the second was yellow). Ian was going 110mph (the speed most people were driving), and these cars were just screaming past us. Fortunately, I got a picture of the yellow Ferrari passing us. Once we hit Matsumoto, Ian stopped at a "Mos Burger" outlet for us to eat at for the night. After that, we all went home and slept.

June 20 - Minakami

Ian picked myself, Ash, and Peter up around 9, and we headed towards Minakami, which was 3 hours away to the northeast from where we were. It was very sunny and very hot all the way there, I am still not used to waking up to 30 degree weather before 9. Well, it WAS nice and sunny until just before we got to Minakami, where it started to rain. Oh yes, tolls for taking the hiways and tunnels are outrageously expensive, which is why they push you for carpooling and public transportation I guess. Taking the main hiway cost 5000 yen ($50 Can.), tunnel passes were $10 Can. (we went through 5 mountains to leave Nagano prefecture, though we only had to pay twice). We met up with the others around noon and went to the rafting place shortly after. We paid our ichi-man (10000 yen) for the day, and got our wetsuits, helmets, lifejackets, etc. and headed towards the river. We were given lots of safety instructions (like what to do when the raft turns over), and then rafted around the practice area for a while before heading down the course. Luckily, I was riding with Keith (of which I learned that not only is he married to my Japanese teacher here, but that he is a scuba diver and rafter as well), so I was sure nothing would go horribly wrong. The water was pretty nice, but everyone here thought it was icy cold. I guess they are used to warmer water??? The course was long, but it didn't seem that way. There was some great scenery of mountains and trees and rock formations, but I couldn't bring my camera on the raft, so I was out of luck. It was a whole lot of fun, and everyone had a great time up until when we left around 4:30-5PM or so. After that, we headed to one of the many onsens to relax (hot springs). And after that, we headed to a quaint little place to eat, where I had some interesting food, of which I couldn't identify it, but it tasted okay. I know one of the dishes was chicken fried rice, though. After that, we went to a typical Japanese pub to watch the rest of the Japan-Croatia soccer match (World Cup game, you know). I am still not used to the fact that soccer is absolutely huge over here (kind of like how some people view hockey back home). Well, Japan lost 1-0, and the weirdest part was that Japan was celebrating afterwards (what, that they didn't get slaughtered?) I wish I knew what everyone was saying, but at least I know enough to survive on if I absolutely had to. After that, we checked in to a small hotel (3000 yen a night (incredibly cheap)), and slept till morning.

June 19 - Those people in Spain...

Ah yes, a full day of dealing with the Epson plant in Spain. It is now painfully obvious that while they seem to know how to turn their computers on, I don't think they know anything about the applications (i.e. Framemaker) that they need to know (it is what all the plants are using for the printed manuals). So, not to get too technical, I have to make some big modifications to the Framemaker to HTML conversion program to take into account the new "tags" they added which don't do anything different from the existing tags. The script was practically unmanagable before, and now it looks positively ugly. Someday I will have to rewrite it, but that could take quite a while. Oh well, after all that was taken care of, I got to go home and pack for the weekend. I will bring san-man-en (30000 yen) to cover any and all possible expenses this weekend. Only in Japan is $300 not a lot of money. I got the VCR working and managed to tape some of Channel 1 for a few hours while I packed. I got some cartoon about a blue cat (doraemon?), Crayon Shinchan, some music videos, and tons of commercials (the best part). It is funny that the rock stars that appear to want to come off as "rebels" are so polite in TV interviews and concerts, always speaking in the polite form of Japanese and dressing in formal attire.

June 18

I wonder if I could get any more work? I am still swamped with little tasks that Tanaka-san wants done and while a lot of them are getting done, some of them are a real pain to try and do. We had our weekly department meeting this morning. I couldn't understand any of it (as usual), but it was a nice hour break away from my terminal. Finally, after work, I quickly did two loads of laundry because I had Karate, and because the laundry room closes at 10 (around the time I get back). I also cleaned up my room at little (I don't have much time for these things. It makes you wonder how some of these people can work 15-16 hours a day every day and still love coming to work day after day despite having so many things to do back home. I am not quite that bad, but I am usually kept around 9-9.5 hours a day. Went to Karate a little later on and had a good time. I am able to write my address in Kanji (almost). Well, good enough that they know what I am trying to say. I am still in the beginners section (I don't get trained by the master himself), but that is fine with me, as I don't know all that much yet. There was a new guy there, and it is somewhat comforting to know I know more than him (by a little), but I still get intimidated by these 8 and 9 year old black belts. Oh well, afterwards I finished cleaning up my room, and played around on the Playstation for a little while before heading to bed.

June 17 - VCRs, basketball and the environment

Okay, we had a big environmental meeting today for the whole company (all of us working in the Hirooka plant (a few thousand)) to tell us that EPSON wants to be ISO 14001 compliant. Basically, that means that we would be environmentally friendly in our regular processes. I guess all that ink is hard to dispose of... Quite a long day with a lot of programming, but we had an interesting treat today. After work, all of the divisions in EPSON had a basketball free-throw shoot out. I forget why we did it, but we just threw balls around for a while and got refreshments afterwards (nothing like cold coffee with milk in a drink box). After that wonderful festival (and realizing once more how much taller I am than most of the people in the plant), I went home and relaxed for a bit. I finally realized why my reception (while not bad) was not as great as someone on the second floor. It seems my antenna connectors (very strange design) were connected to a broken box (some contacts were missing), so I went to the Joy 401 (it is open until 8), and got some new shiny connectors, and now everything looks much better (not perfect, but definitely much better). Next, I tried to set up my VCR again. After around 3 hours of fiddling, I figured it out (sort of), and I think I can now tape some of these programs correctly (also in English if available). I have to admit, the VCR has a much better sound system built in than my TV (my VCR is dolby surround). You can really hear the difference when hooked up.

June 16

More construction at the south end of the plant/campus today. I don't know what they are building now, but they certainly have enough money to do so. Jaquie (one of the other gaijin here), set up a white water rafting trip for all of us other gaijin (and any employees who would like to come). It is being held at Minakami (which is outside Nagano prefecture) and I am being given a ride with some other people on Saturday. Best of all, after the rafting trip, we are having a BBQ with REAL MEAT, not fish pate. And the whole trip is covered (mostly) by EPSON. I will bring a few sen yen (thousand yen) to cover any other expenses, but it looks like fun. Did a lot of debugging code today. I really dislike the fact that Sakomoto-san (the guy I replaced) didn't document any of his code, and some of it is over 100K per file. How am I supposed to follow that? Played with my new VCR today. I don't have a manual (that's okay, I couldn't read it anyway), so I have to just hit all the buttons until I figure out which does what. I still need to set up my VCR to pick up the same channels my TV can pick up (it was set for Chris-san's area, which can only pick up 3 channels, but lucky for me, I get 6 channels), but it works real well other than that. I am trying to catch some of those commercials they show here that they can't show in Canada (American celebrities advertising Japanese-only products like Scotty Pippin advertising the Kameo car).

June 15

Well, it didn't rain today, so that is one good thing that happened today. Checked out the exchange rate between the Canadian dollar and the Japanese yen. The rate is still going pretty well for me, but thank goodness I don't have to convert to US dollars. Because of the falling of the value of the yen against the US dollar last week (all week), the rate went from 130 yen per $ to 145 yen per $. I should send some money back home while the rate is still tolerable. The last thing I want is to have the Japanese economy to crash and my money to be worthless before I send it back home. On the bright side, you would never know there is a recession here by living here. Everybody is living normally as far as I can tell. I just have to keep an eye on the value of my money. Ah, Karate was tonight. It was a real busy workout, but a good one, and I think all of the black belts still see me as an endless source of amusement. One of them came to me after the lesson and "analyzed" my abilities. After a brief translation, I was basically told that I have more than enough raw power, and I could possibly hurt any of the black belts...if they all weren't 5 times faster than me and able to stop anything I could do (and retaliate before I knew what hit me). Don't worry, they didn't actually hit me, they just stopped short of hitting me to demonstrate a point (that agility is more import than any amount of brute force).

June 14 - Still raining

Yup, it is still raining. No wonder there is so much of an irrigation system set up. If it weren't for that, Hirooka would float away to Hokkaido. Went to Shiojiri today, just to look around. Everyone is either taking a shower, or washing their laundry, so I will have to wait to do those today. I don't know if I will ever get used to the "open" style washrooms and shower rooms, but that is another story. Found some neat stuff (i.e. T-shirts with misspelled English and/or awkward English, but at 3000 yen a shirt, I didn't fork over the money to get it. No matter where I go, clothes and food are hideously expensive. Well, I did pick up a pack of sliced ham. True, it is smaller than those commercial-brand pre-packaged brands, and cost around $7 Can, but I had to have some meat before I completely shrivel up (I don't like the fish pate we use here, and I am not even going to consider Sushimi). After a long day, I went home, and watched TV and played on the Playstation for a while. Fortunately, the rain stopped around 10 or so.

June 13 - VCR day

Okay, so I guess it is also dehumidifier day as well, but I can't have that much fun watching it collecting water. Jim-san brought these things over from his friend's place (Chris). Chris is leaving Japan soon, and has to get rid of his stuff he doesn't want to take with him, so I got them at bargain basement prices, and they both work. The VCR even has the bi-lingual feature where if a program is being shown bilingual, I can hear it in Japanese or English (or if it is one of those strange Asian movies, Japanese and Chinese). Went to the Wave (music store) in Minami-Matsumoto (south Matsumoto), and got some VCR tapes, and some of the latest CDs again at bargain prices. Funny how they are comparible to North American bands (i.e. Two-Mix-->Aqua, Glay-->Smashing Pumpkins, etc). Oh, and it is still raining here today. I guess monsoon season really has begun. While I was up there, I hopped up to the main part of Matsumoto and checked out the used CD store (mostly Playstation), where there was a big hoo-haw over some new game that came out, and one of the people who created the music for the game was there to Autograph (?) the inside leaflet of the case if you bought it there on this day. Well, it was only 2800 yen, so I figured what the heck. Wow, a signed game, and it is really neat too (oh, it is called Tail Concerto). Whenever you bump into something or fall down on something, the controller shakes and rattles a bit (that is cool). Correction: The game was not new (well, really new), it just happened that one of the creators had been arranged to come in that day to promote more sales.

June 12 - Why am I so tired?

I think I have discovered an amazing new weather pattern. Lots of rain AND over 30 degrees (the rain was hot). Maybe that is why I am so tired today, or maybe because I had trouble sleeping the night before because it was so hot. Oh well, I still managed to get through the day reasonably well. Found a bug in Microsoft Explorer 4 regarding multiple windows and controlling events between them, which means that is one less task I have to figure out. Today was cleanup day (as is every Friday). Did a quick sweep of the office, Jim-san almost tripped over a garbage can, nothing special. Did some grocery shopping after work at the Joy 401. Saw some very interesting TVs, but I already have one, so I don't need another. Besides, I don't have hyaku-man-en to spend on a flat LCD TV (about $10000 Can.) I think tomorrow I will have to get a kettle, because I still have quite a bit of tea I can't really heat up.

June 11

Ahh, another relaxing day. There was not much for me to do around the office today, so I worked with the design team to plan new designs for the on-line EPSON documentation. I had to proofread some Engrish, and that is always fun, but I think I will need English lessons at the end of the year, because I always have to simplify everything I say if I want anyone to understand what I say when I don't say it in Japanese. Oh yes, and I planned on joining my friend in going to Karate again tonight, though on Monday they gave me a form to fill out if I wanted to continue to come. I had some help filling it out, though I find it strange that you have to have a guarantor sign and stamp everything just to join a club. Fortunately, I was assigned one here in the plant for just such an occasion. Well, after a quick dinner of ramen, I headed to the elementary school where they practice. I was lucky, for tonight Moramotu-san was there. He is an 8th den black belt, ranked 7th in Japan, and came in 4th in the last tournament, and he looks like Mr. Miyagi. I paid my annual membership fee ($10), and joined in. Lots of fun, and since practically everyone I knew from the dorm was there, it was like we all went on a field trip. Well, not everyone could make it. Ash refuses to go (he is of African American descent) because he is not treated the same way as everyone else (he is mocked, looked at with scorn (i.e. the "when is he going home" look), and generally not viewed favourably in Japanese society). Note that this is not Karate, this just happens wherever he goes. Remember that he is the same one who went to Tokyo his first weekend here and was almost arrested because he looked like a description of someone else that had recently committed a crime. Oh well, I guess I should be fortunate for not being treated that way. People still stare at me, but at least they are not going out of their way to try and throw me out of the country.

June 10 - A Business Trip to Nagano City

Had to wake up nice and early today to meet Ian-san in front of the res. We all headed down to Hirooka station to catch the 8:49 train to Shiojiri where we would catch the 9:01 express to Nagano City (paid for by the company of course). We made both trains, but Ian stopped off at Shiojiri to grab some breakfast, and we almost missed the second train. One thing to note here is that the trains (at least in my area), are precise to the second. If a train leaves at 9:01, it is leaving at 9:01, no exceptions. If you are late by even a minute, too bad. They are not going to wait for you. The conductors synchronize their schedule with the clocks at each station to know when to stop, open and close the doors, and leave. Ash, one of the other co-ops, has missed several trains by relying on the fact that the train "should" be there when he makes it there a little late. Anyway, the express took about an hour to reach Nagano city, and we got off at the considerably modern-looking train station. Ian pointed out that during the olympics, there were posters and signs all over the place, but now they are just empty walls. Many elements of the olympics still remain though, like the official Nagano olympic manhole covers (I got a picture of that). The station was still huge compared to any other station I have seen, and a lot cleaner, too. We headed to the immigration office around 10 or so, and the paperwork took about 2 hours to finish, and we were the only ones there at the time. We then went to "The" temple in Nagano city (I forget how to pronounce it, but it begins with a D, and that is the same temple shown on TV during the olympics where everyone prayed for snow). The gardens were huge in addition to the overwhelming size of the temple. It is absolutely huge. We all got a tour of the inside, which included a walk through a dark hallway where we searched for a "key" somewhere along the hall. It is supposed to represent man's struggle through the darkness to find hope or something like that. If you find the key, good fortune is supposed to be brought to you. Well, I found the key (on the right wall near the floor), so I guess I should expect good fortune. We finally stopped for lunch at a quaint little place just outside the temple (where they are still trying to sell olympic souveniers), and we had some much needed lunch. Some women saw us and gave us some pastry treats simply because her son was studying in America (one of those things that would never happen back home). We roamed the city with Ian for a while after that, and Ian showed us Pachinko. Basically, you put your money into a pinball-like machine that is vertical, and you can just walk away, because you have already given away your money to watch ball bearings fly around inside the table. True, you can win money there, but the time and money needed is just not worth it. After catching the super azusa to Matsumoto and then a local train to Hirooka, it was around 5PM so I signed in to let EPSON know I was back (and to avoid losing a day's pay), and went home. Oh, and an interesting fact I learned was that while the Toronto TTC boasts 2 million customers a year, I find it funny that Shinjuku train station handles 6 million customers a day. Thought you'd like to know.

June 9

Not a terribly exciting day today, except that it is still hot. I got to fix Hiraunma-san's Perl scripts today, but the strange thing was it really wasn't broken at all. She just created a test case which contained an error we would never get naturally. Pity it took half a day to figure that out. Oh well. Looks like I get to go to Nagano City tomorrow to finish off my VISA stuff. Since I came to Japan under the status of "cultural activities", I am not supposed to work here, however, I filled out a form which says that I am training the office in the use of the computers (which is not true, but I have to put down something, and that is what Hirasawa-san said to put down. Hopefully there is no problem. I am going with two other co-ops and Ian-san, a Waterloo guy who came to Japan for a one-year co-op term, but ended up just staying here (It has been three years now). So, I don't have to come to work tomorrow, as most of the day will be gone taking care of paperwork, and Ian was told to take us around the city for a while. Pretty good. Also, I don't know if it is because I am eating less or walking everywhere, or both, but according to my latest weighing, I have lost 18 pounds since I came here. Strange, I don't feel any different. Don't worry, mom, I am still eating enough, but just the smell of some of the food here makes me physically ill.

June 8 - Italy in a day

My, people were sure glad to welcome me to work today. It seems that the conversion tool they have used here for quite some time (which converts the printer manuals files to HTML files) doesn't handle characters with accents, umlauts, tildes, etc. and some guy in Epson Italy so kindly pointed this out to us. Well, Epson Hirooka sent out CDs with the conversion tool on it yesterday via Airmail, and we had to update the files and email them to the various plants we sent CDs to by the end of today in order to get to them before their CDs arrive. Fine, except I am the only one who knows Perl (okay, well enough to be able to modify it), so after digging up every possible character someone can type (assuming they are ASCII compliant), and learning that Framemaker (what we use to write the manuals) outputs special characters with a different ASCII value than the standard ones, I spent all day figuring out which codes translate to which characters and then finally updating all of the Perl scripts, documenting how to install them, and send them out to all the countries we shipped CDs to (most of the big ones in Europe). Phew, after work, I hung around with a few of the guys in the res, and followed them all to Hirooka elementary school where they practice Karate. It was fun to watch them, and one of the black belts there gave me a free lesson. Pretty tiring, but fun.

June 7 - Another CD stash

After a good sleep, the weather decided to become hot and sunny again (it hit 30 today I think). Good thing I have my fan. I head to the Joy 401 where I saw Andy. We decided to go to Minami-matsumoto (south Matsumoto) where he told me there were some real sweet spots for deals. Andy showed me another used CD store where I picked up a few CDs (okay, actually a whole armful, but at 400-500 yen a CD, I could afford to do that. I mostly picked up some J-pop CDs which I have heard were good (and they were). I also picked up some blank Minidics for around 160 yen a piece. We went in some small shops where I picked up some more Manga (there, I have finished my "AA, Megama-sama" collection). Afterwards, we picked up some McD's food (Bigu Maku) and headed back to Hirooka where I did my laundry (well some of it anyway (three machines for 2 floors of people)). I organized my room a little (these boxes are hard to store, but I might need them when I need to ship some of this stuff back. Hmm, I find it interesting that I can read more of the Japanese in my Playstation games (though still not a lot (if it is in Kanji, I can't read it)).

June 6 - Tasty pastry and ice cream too

Finally, a nice warm (not boiling) day. I waited in the Epson parking lot like I said I would, when a huge black van pulled up. It seemed like the only people available to go other than myself were Naya-san and Miwa-san. First Naya drove us to a great little pastry shop in Murai where they serve some very tasty, though very exotic, pastry treats. I had Naya order a few things for me and ate some of them during the day (cappucino paste in a bun was interesting). Also, while we were there, Miwa-san pointed me to the ice cream section. They didn't have many flavours, and they were pretty strange (melon? tomato? green tea? spinach???) so I had the ogura flavour. It was basically vanilla with some strange chunks of some nut inside. Oh well, we got to Matsumoto and parked in one of the only non-full lots at that time, and walked to Parco (one of the big malls in Matsumoto). After an hour or so of looking at very expensive items, Naya-san walked us all to a little Italian place she knew. The food was very good (though the cheese tasted funny), and was decently priced (I think I am used to a $10 meal charge). We all then walked to Matsumoto castle and paid for a grand tour. We got to see the hundreds of huge and colorful fish (sakana wa kiji desu) swimming the moat around the castle. We saw the gardens, which have to be kept in perfect condition, and several displays inside the castle showing weapons and armour of the time, and the introduction of firearms to battle. We got to see the Matsumoto museum there as well, which had even more displays of strange things from that era, and also displays of the wildlife in Nagano prefecture that exist today. Afterwards we all went to a coffee shop (kohi-ya) and had a break. It started to get late and the weather looked like it was going to rain, so we started to head home. We hit a bakery shop where I got some bread and dinner rolls, and then got home just as it started to rain. I widdled away the last hours of the day on the Playstation I have (hey, I paid for it).

June 5 - Shinchan forever

Joy, some people are having problems with their Javascript on their web pages, so they just put a paper note in with the CD saying don't do that (clicking on the navigation button twice causes the errors. Fortunately, this is just a promotional CD. However, for the final master, they are having me fix it, and all of the text is in Japanese. The code is still the same, but I can't quite figure out what the error messages say. I worked with it a bit, but I just couldn't concentrate today enough to do much with it (it was so hot here today). After work I went home and cleaned up the room a bit, and made sure I caught this week's episode of Crayon Shinchan. Hmm, I hope Jim is just about finished with his VCR. I would like to tape some of this stuff. Afterwords I made plans to go with whoever was able (I would see tomorrow) to go to Matsumoto and shop around.

June 4 - Just like back home

What an exciting day (I don't know if I'm being sarcastic or not). I copied 77 CDs today on the deluxe stand alone CD copier. Copying them wasn't so bad, though I also had to print and apply labels to both the CDs and the cases, wrap them in bubble wrap, and take them to another office where they are shipping them to other Epson plants tomorrow. Here is an interesting piece of news: It seems that once my modifications to the Perl scripts are implemented in the new printers being released next month, I may be travelling to other Epson plants with Hirasawa-san to explain them (note I said May, not Will). The previous co-op, Sakomoto-san, went to Korea and Taiwan, and another co-op last year went to the U.S. (no news on Canada, though). That might be nice, though living in Japan is strange enough for now. Oh yes, I actually made a successful phone call to someone here (local). I was told to call her to get info. about this weekend (a group of us are planning to go out again), and she (Naya) is also the one driving a few of us to Tokyo on the 26th. My, phone numbers are strange here. Never before have I seen phone numbers beginning with a 0 (oh, and 911 is 119 here in Hirooka (no joke, it really is backwards)).

June 3 - I am not an Alien

Well, according to the Japanese Ministry of Justice, I am. I went to Shiojiri today to pick up my Alien Registration card (I didn't get the chance yesterday) with the assistance of Jim-san. After that delightful trip through the rain, we went to the photo shop for Jim (I forget what he needed the pictures for), and then rode the JR back to Hirooka. While we were at it, I set up a bank account at the 82nd bank (the 82nd bank is the result of a merger between the 37th and the 45th, oddly enough). Wow, My bank book has a nice shiny embroidering of the Nagano Olympic games, and I got a free gift for opening up an account (bar of soap). My bank card will be shipped to me in a week. I can only imagine what it will have on it. Oh, and I tried this coffee called "Coffiene". I don't think I have ever had coffee that strong... that was cold and in a can.

June 2 - Happy Birthday to me

Yes, another birthday came by. Funny, not too much happened today. Well, everything is closed on Tuesdays, so there really was nothing much to do after work. Oh yes, I got to do what I do best today... copy CDs. I was using the Win NT box here when I found Easy CD Pro 95 loaded on in. It may have been all in Japanese, but the pictures and options were all the same, and I also get to play with stand-alone burners when I am done making master CDs on the NT system. Those stand alone copiers sure are fast. It has 1 source and 3 destination CDs, and they all burn at 24X. It takes about a minute to do 3 CDs. I wish I had one of these back home... Ah well, I can't complain. At least I get to play with the cool colour laser printers here. Well, I don't think anything I have ever seen prints quite as nice as these, though I could never afford one anyway. After work I played around with my Minidisc recorder and learned how to get a much better sound out of the unit by learning how to adjust the recording levels, and by learning that the Line In (optical) can use a standard 1/8th inch jack. It is smart enough to distinguish what type of cable you are using and adjusts the recording properties automatically. Now that is cool! I finally got some "almost" CD quality out of my unit without getting an expensive CD player with a digital out and a digital cable. Psst, here is something I learned as well, the CDROM drives in home PCs have a digital out on the back of the drive. I would love to use this back home... Oh yes, and to finish off, I can actually play some of these role playing games on my PC now that I can read the Kana and now some Kanji. I still have a lot to learn, but it is a start, anyway.

June 1 - Hot days and more

I think I am starting to earn a reputation around here. They weren't expecting me to finish my work as fast as I did, so they are now throwing reams of ideas and suggestions to me about how to make their web page and perl scripts better. Not bad, though if I keep this up, I'll be in over hy head in work (though I guess that is the typical Japanese way). Strangely enough, I was helping some people in the office with their French of all things. I don't remember too much other than some key phrases and the pronounciation rules, but they really seemed to like it (their pronounciation is just awful). I had my first Japanese lesson today. Well, actually it was more of a placement test than anything. My reading and writing of the Kana is great, and my pronounciation is good, but I have got to learn grammatical rules and build a bigger vocabulary (mine is not all that big...well...not enough to carry on a conversation anyway). Oh well, I picked up some dinner from the store here in the plant after work and went home. I discovered something else about my Minidisc player. It seems that the Serial Copy protection system only comes into play when you try to make a copy of a minidisc that was itself copied using a digital connection. No problem for me, except I don't have a CD player with a digital output of my own. Oh well, I am getting together with a bunch of people on June 26 or so and going to Tokyo. I can probably get a good deal in Akihabara (in Tokyo). I think my next pay check will be in by then, too.