I’m in Japan! Crazy! In the Tobu department store in Tokyo, there’s an incredible food section that completely outshines any kind of food fetishism that I have ever seen on the planet. The most expensive, sweet smelling strawberries I’ve ever seen. The most perfect specimens of fruit and vegetables ever. It’s almost disturbing, in a food-eugenics kind of way. More soon.
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Right now I’m in the Apple Store in Osaka, using a Mac for the first time in ages — hallelujah.
A tip: Belkin’s iPod Media Reader is a piece of shit that basically doesn’t work. I bought one so I could transfer my pix from my camera to higher-capacity storage without having to lug a laptop around or burn them to CD in a photo/camera store. But no, it drains the iPod battery to zero in a matter of seconds, whether it was fully charged or not, quitting the process in the uh, process. I don’t think I’ve been as disappointed by a product in my life.
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Public space in Japan is an interesting thing. Of course I’ve only shallowly scratched the surface in the few days I’ve been here, but it’s quite noticeable (to me at least) that Japanese people spend a lot of time standing, rather than sitting, in public. There are very few benches or seats anywhere in public. Where there are places, they’re hard, and often shiny. People respond to this kind of foreclosure in interesting ways. Homeless people tend to create their own “shanty-houses” out of cardboard boxes in the cities I’ve visited, which never really happens in Sydney, where there are (increasingly endangered) types of enclosures that can be more easily made to accomodate human life. And the phenomenon of Japanese teenagers practicising their group dance routines in front of public mirrors or any shiny surface is a sight to behold — too cool for words. Totally unselfconscious.
