Let’s preface this video first: The Japan trip lasted for 1 week, which was split between Kyoto and Tokyo. As mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been to Japan a total of 2 times prior to this trip but, in actuality, that was only in Tokyo. This was my first time in Kyoto and had absolutely no idea what to expect from the public transportation there. Tokyo’s public transportation within its different wards left something to be desired (I walked most of the time) but the subway system and Yamanote line made it bearable.

I quickly learned that Kyoto was, in fact, a tourist town with well marked streets and locales that made it easier to navigate than Tokyo. I felt that it was similar to Paris in such a way that all the attractions were scattered around the city. Bus travel was definitely better than Tokyo, in my opinion.

After staying in Kyoto for a good 3 days, we headed off to Tokyo via Shinkansen (aka “Bullet Trian”) and that took about a couple of hours to get to. We met a friend of mine, Junichi, at Shimbashi station and had dinner at a Korean BBQ place somewhere around those parts to kick off our Tokyo stay. Needless to say, it was packed with a ton of “first-times” that it made the trip special for me even though I’ve been to the country multiple times.

The video that you’re about to see was created using iMovie ‘08 on my Macbook Pro, with all the footage being captured by a Panasonic HDC-SD5 camcorder which uses a SD-HC card to store all of its data. I’ll talk more about how that worked out in a later post, but know that there were tons of footage that we’re still sifting through.

I’ve been to Japan 3 times in my life - once when I was 5 during my uncle and aunt’s honeymoon, another time when I graduated from college, and another time in 2008 with my girlfriend.

Now I’m not going to pretend that I know Japanese, because I don’t, but there are certain things when you go to Japan that you shouldn’t assume… like clear liquids in vending machines are automatically water. *Buzz*! Wrong. In fact, there’s a myriad of things it could be.

I learned this during the trip when I graduated from college. I was so thirsty one day that I decided to get water from the vending machine. I picked the drink with the fanciest see-through liquid I can find, not noticing the 0 cal label on the side, and succumbed into buying it. I quickly realized after taking a huge swig of the thing that it wasn’t water at all - it was, in fact, some variant on Gatorade that was so sweet that I had to buy water to wash it down. Yes, I’m not a big fan of Gatorade sadly.

So if you’re dehydrated at a train station in Japan or as soon as you touch down from the plane, look for the word “water” placed on the bottle or can itself. I know that it’s quite an overwhelming feeling being in a foreign country, but this is a difference of looking for that one special word that’s going to make all the difference when you drink it. After all, no one likes it when they have absolutely no idea what they’re eating or drinking!

Bonjour!

Kumusta!

Hello!

If you somehow don’t know those languages, you’ve probably stumbled upon something you might not fully understand or, if you believe that music, movies, books, gadgets, and games have a language of their own… maybe a small bit.

Welcome to my blog! My name’s Alex and I go by EternityInBlack on the Internets. As a few of you know, I work as a web developer during the week and during weekends host a bunch of shows for Games and ME, a podcast network dedicated to all things gaming.

So why is this here if I already have a site where I can talk about games? Shouldn’t Games and ME be the outlet for that kind of crap?

Well I figured that there are things that we set out to do for Games and ME that would just clash with what I personally believe in. My goal with this blog is to provide my readers with reviews from an actual user and not a critic… and the way I figured that would work for you, the reader, is if you think that you agree with me about 99% of what I like and don’t like, chances are you might agree with my thoughts. But I’m not expecting that, which is why our amazing comments system is here and ready for you to post your thoughts on.

Also, I intend to talk about things that I got that AREN’T games like Flip MinoHDs, Blu-ray movies and the like. As you can see, Games and ME just isn’t the right outlet for these sorts of things.

But, you say, how can I figure out what you like? I’ve answered that in my special About section on this site. I describe certain things that I fancy for each of the things I intend to talk about and a handy guide to how I would rate each object. I use a scale of 1-5 stars… no fancy math here.

If you’re not interested in reviews of anything, I’ll have them too. But realize that I’m only one man and, while I’ll try to post as often as I can, I’m not going to try and mimic what other publications are doing already (and better, if I may add).

In closing, I’m going to leave you with a video from one of my favorite geek troubadours, (of which there are only 2 thus far, Geoff Smith and) Jonathan Coulton about… Ikea.

Oh, and Happy New Year to all!