Wow, this has been one crazy weekend. My Friday night started out by riding the train from Tamachi station to Shibuya station. I thought the train was crowded when I first got on, but by the train arrived at Shibuya station it had become a sardine can. So, there I was, cowered in the corner, not needing to hold on to anything because “other bodies” were holding me up. In other words, crazy packed…
Once the doors opened, and people started to push their way out, I found an opening and made a mad dash for a night of eating and drinking with my wife and her coworkers. Oh, yeah… I should also mention that I wasn’t the only one making a mad dash for a night on the town. That evening a Typhoon had decided to also head towards Tokyo. So, by the time we left the Google offices, it had started raining, which then turned into a down poor and a somewhat wet evening.
By the time 1AM had rolled around the trains had stopped and we jumped into a cab and headed home to batten down the hatches for the Typhoon onslaught. However, when Saturday morning came, we woke up unwillingly too one of the clearest mornings I had ever seen. Apparently, the Typhoon took a right turn and headed away from Tokyo. Left in its wake, was a crystal clear morning, which then became one of the hottest days in Tokyo so far.
Now having a really nice day on our hands, we got dressed and plastered on the sunscreen. We then headed down to Tsukiji (a really big fish market) for all you can eat Sushi/Sashimi (yes for breakfast) a very tiny restaurant. After eating our fill of some of the freshest raw fish 30 dollars can buy, we then roamed the now almost empty fish market before heading to Asakusa to look at temples. Needless to say, we weren’t the only ones that had that same idea. The temple area was packed. So, after briefly walking around and roaming the streets we headed home for rest.
Sunday morning came… and we were then greeted by a small earthquake. It was only a 4.9, but enough to wake you up faster than a nice cup of strong coffee. :>) But wait… there is more, following the earthquake, came the buckets of rain. Sadly enough today was also the day for my Akihabara trip to buy a TV. Not worry… I still went, and I will post some pictures of the Sony LCD we ended up buying when it gets to my house on Tuesday.
Anyhow… as promised, while in Akihabara I tried to record interesting things that I saw. My first picture is of Akihabara just outside one of the exits at the train station. However, thanks to the rain, much of the craziness was kind of toned down. Normally, there are all types of very interesting people near this exit. I will need to go back and snap a few pictures to share what I have seen in the past.
In the second picture is something is a snapshot of something I found in the basement of a computer store. Basically, it’s Windows Server 2008, which had Hyper-V running with a Fedora virtual machine. For me, I found this interesting because of the place I found it in (a basement, nestled next to a bunch of machines that are used to mix music). Plus… I was on that TAP. So, Hyper-V has a special place in my heart.
My last picture is of a huge Microsoft banner for Vista and Windows Live OneCare. I snapped this primarily because I wanted to show the difference in marketing that is used by Microsoft in Japan. Granted you can’t read the marketing speak… but you should be able to notice something very different about that Vista box on the banner.
Ok… that is it for tonight. Next time I’m in Akihabara I will find more stuff. Today was a little hard because of the rain, and I brought the big Nikon which makes it hard to take very quick pictures. Most stores don’t let you take photos. :
Stay tuned for more of my wacky adventures, cool gadgets, and the hidden world of Microsoft and other interesting security or technology topics that peak my interest. It’s Hidden Microsoft from Japan!
— and yes I will start-up my technical posts again—
