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Doctor Q in Japan

Doctor Q said:
Here's the story of our countdown calendar.
{...}
Ever since then, once a month she has changed the digits to count down the months. Was that a great way to build excitement or what? :D
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Sounds like a great incentive to me :) Now, when you get back (and evaluate the damage to the savings account) you can do the same thing for each of your successive trips.
 
Japanese food in California.

Dr. Q,
You are lucky living in California. As you know I lived in California for 10 years. One thing I miss are the good Japanese Sushi bars to be found there. I suppose Houston is nice, but the Japanese and Chinese restaurants can't compare to California.
 
OCOTILLO said:
Dr. Q,
You are lucky living in California. As you know I lived in California for 10 years. One thing I miss are the good Japanese Sushi bars to be found there. I suppose Houston is nice, but the Japanese and Chinese restaurants can't compare to California.
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Try living in Alabama. Ugh, there's no really good Japanese place here; everything's fried this and fried that. There are a few places that try, but most of the time they end up catering to the lowest common demoninator. Stir fry anyone? :(
 
You're going to have a great time in Japan Doctor Q. I've lived there, and I miss it. I lived on Kyushu, and actually never travelled off of Kyushu, so I can't give any specific recommendations for cities you're visiting. You won't have a problem finding places to transfer your pictures to CD (or prints). They're everywhere, even in small towns.

I didn't have a computer when I lived in Japan, but with a little looking I was able to find public access computers at community centers. They were always Windows machines, but even with my inability to read Kanji, I never had trouble using them. Just find the IE icon and you're set to go. If you can, try to post updates to this thread while you're there!

My favorite Japanese food is Fukuoka ramen, the best ramen in Japan. I also recommend yakiniku, yakisoba and Japanese curry (ka-re). I can't find any good Japanese food around here, and I especially miss the ramen.
 
I have one of these flash drives:

DiskGO!-USB-Flash-Drive.gif


I think it's 512MB. If I threw it in my backpack, what might I use it for? I hadn't thought about bringing it, but it weighs nothing so there's no harm in taking it along, if there's any reason to do so. But I have yet to think of such a reason.

I reformatted it on my Mac when I first got it. If I take it, should I reformat it from a PC because computers I encounter (other than in Apple Stores) will likely be PCs?
 
I'll keep asking questions in case anybody knows.

If I'm at a small station like the Kamo station outside Kyoto, can I make a train transfer in 1 minute flat? The train schedule tells me that there is a connection I can take, but the arriving train is scheduled to arrive one minute before the departing train. Should I assume I need longer (like 10 minutes) to find the right platform or would the trains in fact be right across the platform from each other?

Come to think of it, trains don't arrive on the exact second of a given minute, so if the training scheduled to arrive at 11:00 actually arrives at 11:00 and 59 seconds, that would give me one second to switch trains, which is clearly hopeless. Is that right?

Related question: In a big station, such as Kyoto station, how much time between train arrival/departure should I leave to make sure I can transfer from one train line to another?

I found a photo taken at Kamo station:

33854881.2004sep15070.jpg
 
Doctor Q said:
I'll keep asking questions in case anybody knows.

If I'm at a small station like the Kamo station outside Kyoto, can I make a train transfer in 1 minute flat? The train schedule tells me that there is a connection I can take, but the arriving train is scheduled to arrive one minute before the departing train. Should I assume I need longer (like 10 minutes) to find the right platform or would the trains in fact be right across the platform from each other?

Come to think of it, trains don't arrive on the exact second of a given minute, so if the training scheduled to arrive at 11:00 actually arrives at 11:00 and 59 seconds, that would give me one second to switch trains, which is clearly hopeless. Is that right?

Related question: In a big station, such as Kyoto station, how much time between train arrival/departure should I leave to make sure I can transfer from one train line to another?

I found a photo taken at Kamo station:

33854881.2004sep15070.jpg
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From a buddy of mine...

Even with an efficient train system, such as Japan, a one minute transfer if possible, but not recommended. If there's another train 10 minutes away, I would take that one.

And in a station such as Kyoto, it all depends on which lines you are transferring to. Sometimes you may just cross the platform. More likely, you will need to go down a set of stairs, watch a bit, then go up a different set of stairs to reach your platform. As an example, I had to transfer from the Narita Express to the Shinkansen in Tokyo Station. It took roughly 15-20 minutes to navigate the station. Oh, that's another thing, if you haven't been to the station before, you may be slowed at looking at the different signs to find the correct platform.
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krimson said:
From a buddy of mine...
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Yeah, i minute is pretty tight, but doable in small 2-4 track stations. Usually they position these trains to be right acroos from each other, so when one pulls up, all the passengers need to do is walk about 20 feet and they're in the next train. I have seen the second train wait a minute for a late first train, so if you have your bags ready to go, and you're sure about the connecting train, go for it. But if not, hit the vending machine and take a break. You'll definately want to consider the just how much wait time is involved, though.
 
Counterfit said:
Just found this tonight. I think it should interest you quite a bit doc ;)
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Thanks! One podcast covers the Apple Store, but the Conveyor Belt Sushi one was most interesting. His poor kids were starving while he was busy making his podcast about how the restaurant worked!
 
I haven't mentioned this before, but it's so ironic I thought some of you might get a kick out of it.

Earlier this year, I received an invitation to join a group of Los Angeles computer professionals as a delegate on a professional and cultural exchange trip to... China! And guess when!? For two weeks starting this weekend, overlapping my vacation trip to Japan!

Needless to say, I chose the vacation with Mrs. Q, but it's a mighty big coincidence that the only invitation I've ever gotten to Asia was for the same time as the first trip there that I ever planned on my own.

I'll be sure to wave at them across the Sea of Japan (aka the East Sea) while I'm on my trip.
 
A message to those who have nothing better to do...

I expect, but can't guarantee, that I will be at the Apple Store Shibuya on Tuesday November 8, wearing my trademark Q hat, sometime during the last hour they are open that night.
 
This is my sign-off from the forums. I will still check Private Messages, but I'm otherwise logging off MacRumors and getting out of my computer chair.

Assuming I can figure out how. I've never attempted either of those activities before! :eek:

Thanks again to everyone who gave me help planning my trip. I've adjusted our schedule and added some new destinations based on the advice I got here, and you can all come over to my house when I'm home to view my 32,768 photos on the big screen TV I'll buy in Akihabara and bring home in my backpack.

Dewa, nochi hodo. Ki o tsukete.

Doctor Q
 
Doctor Q said:
Earlier this year, I received an invitation to join a group of Los Angeles computer professionals as a delegate on a professional and cultural exchange trip to... China! And guess when!? For two weeks starting this weekend, overlapping my vacation trip to Japan!
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Hope you have (had) a great trip. It's interesting, I was talking with a guy in our running club last week who was looking for people to do this exact same type of trip, only to Japan. It must be a fairly common thing.
 
Bon Voyage Doctor Q, may you and the Mrs. Q have a happy and safe trip to Japan this day. All of our thoughts are with you.
 
sushi said:
He will be updating it soon.

Q and Q'ette are doing well and heading back to the US tomorrow.

Sushi
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Woohoo, I'm excited to see pictures of the trip once he has some time to settle back in and update some things. I trust it was a good trip. I won't be going anywhere for some time, so I have to live through others....and I want a visual vacation now! ;)

Your return is eagerly awaited Doctor Q! :D
 
Hello again, everyone. I'm back in the USA!

Mrs. Q and I had an absolutely fantastic time in Japan. I still can't believe it went so well. Our plans were ambitious, with 15 cities in 27 days and many many sites we wanted to see in each city, but we somehow managed to do almost all of it, and ended up visiting 16 cities instead of 15!

The food was wonderful, the sites were always interesting and sometimes amazing, everyone we met was friendly and helpful, my primitive attempts at speaking Japanese were tolerably good enough, we managed to get on the right trains most of the time (the exceptions leading to further adventures), we made new friends, and we visited three Apple Stores as planned. The incredibly tiny "business hotel" rooms were amusing, and quite a contrast to the ryokan we stayed at in Takayama.

I knew our relatives back home would be bored if we came home with 1500 photos and made them sit through a slideshow of them all. So, instead, we took only 1498 photos and we'll make our relatives sit through a slideshow of them all. :) Once I have them loaded, rotated, cropped, resized, etc., I will post some of the best here in the forums too.

The tips I got from friends, relatives, neighbors, coworkers, and forum members were all useful and all of our (over)planning paid off. For example, we saw less-prepared tourists struggling with large suitcases on the innumerable staircases in train stations while we managed just fine with our smaller cases, even though it also meant traveling without a computer. Having planned all the transportation ahead of time on the Internet let us get around easily even when signs were only in Japanese. And we tried almost all of the food and drinks people recommended to us.

I highly recommend Japan as a travel destination to anyone who gets a chance to go there. I can't imagine having a better time on a vacation than we had on this one.

In addition to posting some photos, I'll post some stories and observations for those who are interested. But first, by my calculation, I have 90,497 forum posts to read to catch up with everything at MacRumors. And I have to get accustomed to using a Mac again. Other than in the Apple Stores and one Kinko's, the only computers we got to use were PCs (with Japanese Windows) in hotels. That adjustment was harder than dealing with jet lag!
 
Doctor Q said:
Hello again, everyone. I'm back in the USA!
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Welcome back. You have been missed, possibly in more ways than one...

Doctor Q said:
Mrs. Q and I had an absolutely fantastic time in Japan.
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I'm glad that you had a great time. I'm now more jealous than ever. Would love to go to Japan.

Doctor Q said:
...the only computers we got to use were PCs (with Japanese Windows)...
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:eek:
 
Welcome back - so glad to hear you had such a wonderful experience. Given how excited you were, it would have been a shame if things hadn't turned out well. Can't wait to see the pictures!
 
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