We currently have an interesting couch surfer staying with – this time from Germany. He is travelling around the world in 80 days. staying as he goes with different couch surfers. And back home, a group of hip hop artists made a track about him. Funky!
He has a blog here, if you read German and want to check it out: http://www.stern.de/blog/94_extreme-couch-hopper.
We are hearing suspicious rumours of a great debut novel set in Tokyo by Canadian Jocelyn Allen:
Canadian literature (or CanLit, as some insist) has gradually become a genre of its own- one of books that are bleak, desperate, *meaningful*, and above all, dull.
New DIY publisher The Workhorsery aims to do something about that by releasing You and The Pirates, Jocelyne Allens’ superfun debut novel.
The book dares to star you (a snarky prairie-girl expat) in its second-person wackjob tale of terrorists, cats and pirates in modern-day Tokyo. Check it out!
Free chapter (PDF)
We look forward to reading that!
Issue 8 of the Denphone Digest is now available online – check it out here: http://www.denphone.com/denphone-digest-november-2009.
This issue features a really promising Japanese start-up – Inferret – who are doing some really interesting work in the field of natural language recognition for both text and spoken language. And we introduce a great little hotel IP phone made by Japanese manufacturer Nakayo (pictured above). While a lot of people still have a negative image of VoIP (due to cheap calling networks) this phone has top-notch sound quality and is a wonderful device. There is also a howto I wrote explaining how to get twitter feeds to display on Polycom phones (although it will also work on Cisco IP phones with a bit of tinkering).
Also, I should mention that we will be exhibiting at our first tradeshow –
Denphone to exhibit at Call Center/CRM Demo & Conference Tokyo
Denphone is proud to announce that they will be exhibiting at this years Call Center/CRM Demo & Conference Tokyo to be held November 12th and 13th at Sunshine City in Ikebukero.
The Call Center/CRM Demo & Conference Tokyo is Japan’s leading tradeshow for Call Center and CRM solutions with vendors exhibiting a wide range of hardware, software and services for the call center and customer center industries.
Denphone will be focusing their SIP and IAX2 trunking solutions, as well as managed voice services. This is a good chance to meet up with a representative from Denphone to find out how telephony related technology is moving forward and what new solutions there are now available to both reduce your company’s expenditure while increasing employee effectiveness.
Denphone will be giving away 2 IP phones to people who visit their booth – so visit us to be in to win!
The event will be held at Sunshine City Ikebukuro: (http://www.sunshinecity.co.jp/ (Japanese language only).)
For more information (Japanese only) please see http://www.callcenter-japan.com/.
Look forward to seeing you there, and I hope you enjoy Denphone’s magazine.
Chooch pointed this video out last night while she was reading the Flying Spaghetti Monster channel on Mixi.
Now I am not a big Sumo fan, but I thought this was pretty cool!
Just passed 10 years in Japan. It sure has been an interesting experience and I am really glad to have had the chance to spend so much time here in Japan.
Originally I was just planning to come for one year – I did a couple of papers on Asian Politics at university and I came to Japan because I was curious to see what life here was really like. Just studying something at university doesn’t really give one much of an impression of what things are really like on the ground.
I never really experienced culture shock here – I think because I had prepared myself for living in Japan by not preparing myself, so there wasn’t much that I was expecting. Before I came I had an image of the hi-tech Japan – the Japan of Sony and Panasonic mixed up with an image of traditional Japan – the world of samurai and ninja’s and gracious manners. What I found was a country that was both at the same time as being neither. In many ways the people of Japan are a lot like New Zealanders – a little shy at first but strong friends in the end.
Some of the highlights:
Meeting Chooch
Visiting Tokyo’s Islands
Snowboarding in Hokkaido
Using the Seishin-18kippu to travel to Wakayama and Hiroshima
Climbing Japan’s lowest natural mountain
Seeing my students from 10 years ago at their Coming of Age Ceremony
Passing the 2kyu Japanese Language Test
Swimming in Aomori
Little boat rides
Shinjuku at night
and many many more.
Oh and this is the 500th post for Blizzardboy!
Think I might have a beer and enjoy the view of Mt Fuji…
Wishing Chris Knox a speedy recovery.
Sometimes living away from one’s original country, one misses important news. Chris Knox certainly played a big part of my life when I was growing up back in Christchurch. More than anything I love the way he has his own unique style. Playing his casio keyboard on top of an ironing board. Some very wonderful evenings. I remember him at one of the events at Canterbury University thanking the maths club for coming along (well they all had numbers on the back of their jerseys!).
Here is Not Given Lightly. Have always had a soft spot for that song. Reminds of someone who once had dreads.
Get well soon!
Well the snowboarding season in Japan is done and gone for another year, but that means the season in New Zealand will be starting soon.
Found this video of boarding in New Zealand. It will blow your mind!
Wow, over 2 months since my last post. A lot has been happening in the meantime, busy with work, passed the Cisco CCDA exam, had a trip to New Zealand (a week, and really enjoyed it, especially the food) and we have been having lots of people to stay from around the world as part of the couchsurfing program. All good.
Anyway, I saw this video and thought I just had to share it, it is soooo amazingly well done.
Hope you enjoy!
I was intrigued to find this chart on Boing Boing this morning. It shows the respective amounts of space people have Japan, as well as countries such as Russia, Australia, China and Monaco. It is in square feet so divide by 3 to get a very rough square meter estimate.
Quite surprisingly, Japan has a lot of space per person. I guess all the mountainous regions and forest Japan has preserved add up to a bit more room than is imaginable when one is living in a city such as Tokyo.
You can read about how this was put together here: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/30/charts-3.html
