Newcott Blog

Tokyo is very different from what I expected.  The city is sprawling and teaming with people, but it's not New York big.  There aren't dense city blocks of sky scrapers.  Tokyo is more decentralized, with lots of 12 story buildings and the occasional clump of skyscrapers.  Tokyo's got several mini Times Squares — Shibuya is one of them, with the famous Shibuya Crossing.  Here, traffic stops at the intersection of 4 roads while pedestrians scramble across in different directions like ants.  I read that 5 million people commute into the city each day — most spend about an hour on the extensive subway network of trains.  Traffic is bad, but the city streets sound quiet — very little honking or yelling, or even loud talking.  Smoking in public places is illegal, so people smoke in designated areas.  And, for some reason, EVERYONE smokes in Japan.  Cigarettes are available in vending machines on every block, and they are cheap (2-3 bucks per pack).  Food and hotels are NYC expensive.  A beer in my $300/night hotel costs $15.  People are uber-polite, bowing and genuinely glad to meet strangers.  Finally, yes, 10-floor karaoke clubs are real and Japanese folks love to rent out the rooms and belt out tunes for hours.

I leave for Japan tomorrow… for work.  The downside is I lose a weekend on this end and Bronwen and Silas are here to fend for themselves.  The upside is I get to experience an entirely new culture for a week and do it on the company dime.  I like my Japanese counterparts.  I'll be traveling alone, which is a little daunting.  For example, I'll need to find my way from the Narita airport to the hotel, two hours away by car, in downtown Tokyo.  I will keep this updated with daily experiences (was hoping to have the blog setup to receive camera phone pictures, but I guess not this trip).  I have been warned Karaoke is a very real tradition in Tokyo. 

Bronwen destroyed our 3-month-old, basically brand new Olympus EVOLT E-500 digital SLR camera.  She was walking along Crystal Cove with Silas in the jogger.  She got too close to the water, a wave splashed up, and in one second, soaked the camera.  It never turned on again.  Bronwen tried sending it in for warranty repair, but the salt water was an easy give-away and there was already rust.  The repair company sent us a bill for $300 bones.

Busting things must be in our blood because on Sunday I scraped the side of our car on a column in our garage.  WHAT!  The shiny blue Santa Fe now has a bunch of white scratches on its right side.  The stupidity of breaking things, the hassle of having to fix them, and the outflow of cash to do so really makes me frustrated.

On the upside, I'm reading a good book by Bill Bryson about Australia .  I'm a big fan of his book about the universe. 

My new 37 inch LCD flat panel HDTV is awesome. I set it up on Friday after work. Immediately watched U2 live in Chicago, Shop Girl, and Syriana. The colors are vivid and rich. Haven't noticed any ghosting. You can see a little pixlation around subtitles. Switched from RCA to SVideo from my DVD player to the TV. The higher-res screen exposes the weakness in my recorded shows on TiVo. I'll fix that later this month with an HD DirecTV upgrade. I'd definitely recommend the TV — it's cheap, and is as good as any of the LCDs I saw in the store.

Last week was a nice short work week.  4th of July was a blast.  We lit off fireworks with neighbors, and watched the local insanity of Costa Mesa.  Sounded like a war zone.