{"id":723,"date":"2004-04-18T23:00:10","date_gmt":"2004-04-18T14:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2004-04-18\/723"},"modified":"2004-04-18T23:00:10","modified_gmt":"2004-04-18T14:00:10","slug":"getting-settled-in-japan-lazy-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2004-04-18\/723","title":{"rendered":"Getting Settled in Japan: Lazy Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<style>\np.editorialf  { width:700px }\n.editorial    { color:#AFA  }\n.editorial a  { color:#CFC  }\n<\/style>\n\n\n<div style='padding:5px 40px; background-color:#444; border: solid 1px #666; margin:10px 30px 50px 10px'>\n\n<p>The text of this post was originally written in April, 2004 as part of\nan online diary I kept before I actually started my blog. I'd forgotten\nabout it until I ran across it in February 2008. I inserted it into my blog\nthen, assigning dates appropriate to the content instead of to the time I\nactually added it. Thus, these April 2004 posts show up as my &#8220;first\nposts&#8221; in my <a nocross='1' href='\/blog\/toc\/'\nclass='quiet'>list of posts<\/a>, even though I didn't actually start a blog\nuntil a year later with my first post about <a nocross='1' class='quiet'\nhref='\/blog\/2005-04-01\/1'>buying a car in Japan<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p>There's nothing here of interest to anyone but me; I insert it here so\nthat it's together with my other posts (which are also of little interest\nto anyone but me :-)) <span class='editorial'>Any comments I add while posting this to my blog in February 2008 appear like this.<\/span>\n\n<\/p>\n\n<p>This was originally written just after we moved from California to\nJapan, so our days were dominated by jet lag, and trying to set up our\nlife and newly-acquired apartment. Anthony was 18 months old.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>\n\nAnthony slept until 5:20 &mdash; getting better. <span class='nobr'>It started<\/span> out as <span class='nobr'>a lazy<\/span> day,\nwith Fumie getting up at 7:00 and taking Anthony out for <span class='nobr'>a stroll<\/span> while <span class='nobr'>I\nunintentionally<\/span> collapsed into <span class='nobr'>a restless<\/span> sleep until 11:30. Fumie then\ntook <span class='nobr'>a nap<\/span> while <span class='nobr'>I watched<\/span> Anthony.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nIn the afternoon, <span class='nobr'>I called<\/span> my friend Katsunori Shimada, who lives not all\nthat far away. <span class='nobr'>It turns<\/span> out that there's <span class='nobr'>a Yamada<\/span>-denki (electronics shop)\nstore at the end of the subway line that runs by the apartment (the\n&#8220;Higashiyama&#8221; subway station is about <span class='nobr'>a five<\/span>-minute walk away). So, Anthony\nand <span class='nobr'>I spent<\/span> 260 yen ($2.50) and took the subway 16 minutes to its\neastern-most station. While on the subway, <span class='nobr'>I composed<\/span> <span class='nobr'>a short<\/span> test email to\nFumie, on my phone. While on her walk that morning, during <span class='nobr'>a time<\/span> when\nAnthony was taking <span class='nobr'>a nap,<\/span> she sat on <span class='nobr'>a park<\/span> bench and figured out how to\nset her phone's email address.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nI also took a picture of Anthony and included it with the mail.\nUnfortunately, the phone had no network connectivity in the subway, perhaps\nby design &ndash; they may have jammers installed, since they don't want\npeople using their cell phones on trains and such &ndash; it &#8220;causes\ntrouble&#8221; for others to have people talking. Makes no sense to me, since\nit's no different from talking to the person next to you, except you're\ntaking up only one seat instead of two. Anyway, once we got off the subway\nand up to street level, <span class='nobr'>I sent it<\/span>.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nI also called Shimada-san again, who then came by motorcycle to find me\nlooking at printers in Yamada-denki. While waiting for him, <span class='nobr'>I'd bought<\/span> <span class='nobr'>a\nlarger<\/span> memory card for the phone. <span class='nobr'>It uses a<\/span> &#8220;Mini SD&#8221; memory card, which is\nsmaller than most postage stamps, and only slightly thicker (it's 3\/4&quot; &times;\n7\/8&quot; &times; 1mm thick). <span class='nobr'>I wanted<\/span> to replace the tiny 16-meg card that came with\nthe phone with <span class='nobr'>a slightly<\/span> larger one &mdash; 128 meg. <span class='nobr'>I also got<\/span> <span class='nobr'>a USB<\/span>\nreader, so <span class='nobr'>I could<\/span> download the pictures. here's <span class='nobr'>a sample<\/span> picture, of a <a\nhref=\"\/i\/pic\/2004-04-17_16:48.08__09106.jpg\">beautiful\nflower arrangement<\/a> that Mom sent us for the apartment. Here's another\nof <a\nhref=\"\/i\/pic\/2004-04-17_17:55.26__00010.jpg\">Anthony\n&#8220;driving&#8221; at the mall<\/a> yesterday. <span class='nobr'>One problem<\/span> with the phone is that it\nhas <span class='nobr'>a very<\/span> slow shutter, so any movement in the frame (or shaking by the\nphotographer) is readily apparent. This is probably due the extremely\nsmall lens (about 1\/8&quot; ), which doesn't let much light in. Oh well.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nI looked at printers and computers with <a\nhref=\"\/i\/pic\/2004-04-18_17:35.24__00000.jpg\">Shimada-san<\/a>. <span class='nobr'>He is extremely<\/span> knowledgeable about any and everything which humans have\never endeavored to explore. This includes printers and computers.\nUnfortunately, Anthony is not, and became more and more fussy, so we\ngrabbed some pamphlets and left. Outside the store (in the &#8220;mall&#8221; open\narea, still under the roof), there was <span class='nobr'>a square<\/span> of benches with <span class='nobr'>a small<\/span>\ntree in the middle. There was plenty of room within the square for Anthony\nto play while we talked, and so he did. <span class='nobr'>At one point<\/span>, <span class='nobr'>a young<\/span> (4 years\nold?) girl came running up at full speed, stopping as she slapped her hands\non the bench in front of Anthony. <span class='nobr'>She then ran<\/span> away. Anthony found this\nincredibly amusing, and laughed and laughed when she did it several times. <span class='nobr'>By the fourth<\/span> or so time, he was so beside himself with excited\nanticipation that he was stomping his feet and putting both hands in his\nmouth and doing other kinds of crazy things. <span class='nobr'>It was very<\/span> nice, except the\ngirl's mom was not amused and wanted to get going, so Anthony's new\ngirlfriend disappeared as soon as she appeared.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nAnthony and I took the 6:06 train to the back toward home, but went two\nextra stops to the city-hall stop, which left us <span class='nobr'>a two<\/span>-minute walk to the\nlocal catholic church (where Fumie and <span class='nobr'>I got<\/span> married). <span class='nobr'>We arrived<\/span> just as\nthe 6:30 mass was starting. Anthony was challengingly fussy, but we made\nit through. <span class='nobr'>We walked<\/span> home, stopped by <span class='nobr'>a convenience<\/span> store for some\ngroceries (at which point <span class='nobr'>I noticed<\/span> that Anthony had fallen asleep).\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n<p><i><a href='\/blog\/2004-04-19\/724'>Continued here...<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The text of this post was originally written in April, 2004 as part of an online diary I kept before I actually started my blog. I'd forgotten about it until I ran across it in February 2008. I inserted it into my blog then, assigning dates appropriate to the content instead of to the time I actually added it. Thus, these April 2004 posts show up as my \"first posts\" in my list of posts, even though I didn't actually start a blog until a year later with my first post about buying a car in Japan.<\/p> <p>There's nothing here [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}