(Photo used with Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 2.0 License - Original)

A few days ago, I had to head down to the Tokyo Regional Immigration bureau. What fun!! However, there was one redeeming result of the trip: I was able to ride the Tokyo Monorail. I’m fairly familiar with most of Tokyo’s transportation systems, but I had never ridden this particular line. It was a great experience. If you visit Tokyo, I recommend you make it a point to ride this line, second to the Shinkansen of course.

What is different about the Tokyo Monorail from other lines is it is completely above ground. Sure, most of the JR lines are as well, but the Monorail soars above neighborhoods and between buildings - a feat that the JR lines do not accomplish. When you ride JR, you see track and rocks as you ride in an area specifically laid out for train travel. When you ride the Tokyo Monorail, you literally fly past buildings and over people as they tend to their daily lives.

I hope you enjoy this short video. I had to use a little different method to put it together since it came primarily off my cell phone.

 Podcast Video [5:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

On the last post, people had left some comments which made me dig into the reason why iTunes was not showing all of the episodes. Turns out, Wordpress limits the amount of posts per page by default to 10 so Feedburner was only picking up the last 10. Well, no more. I fixed the problem and I think both the Feedburner feed and the iTunes store should have all of the episodes listed after I post the next podcast.

Can’t wait? Then get them all by visiting the page for now. I can’t promise they will be anything of interest, but it does include videos from my first trip to Japan. Cheers!

It has been nearly 20 days in Japan and I’m finally, finally feeling settled in. Today I took care of another major hurdle in the chain of bureaucratic events that must occur if you are moving to Japan - the dreaded, yet much needed bank account.

On my way over to Ginza, to find one of the very few Citibank banks in the city, I met up with Scott Lockman from Tokyo Calling. If you are interested in Japan and haven’t visited his blog or podcast, please do. Scott is a great guy and every bit as articulate as I thought he might be after listening to his podcasts. We did a short interview with two mics and I captured some audio from my limited setup as well. We chatted about what its like to be in Japan, the future of podcasting, the point of Twitter, and the dangers of giving too much information out in your podcast. Look for some of that in a future episode.

After a nice chat and some coffee, I headed over to Ginza, walking through the emperor’s palace a different way this time. I stopped to take a few photos with my new phone and played with my GPS and moving map functions while I sat under the sakura trees. I really had no particular time I needed to be at the bank so I took my time heading on over there.

Working with Citibank in Japan was a breeze. They spoke English very well, and when they found out I spoke a little Japanese, they were delighted and began telling me about all the places I needed to go - Sumo wrestling in Sumida-ku (where I live), Kamakura, and more. Just more to add to the list. I am going to create a big list and hopefully I can visit these places on the weekend. The account took very little time to set up once I had my alien card. However, depositing what remaining cash I had took nearly a 1/2 hour at the teller.

It’s so bizarre, some things are so convenient in Japan while others take a very long time and are very procedural. I waited the typical 10 minutes for a free teller, I brought my slip and money up. She took and and told me to take a seat. Fifteen minutes later I returned for my receipt. I’m still trying to figure out why I takes 15 minutes to count money and deposit it. I guess perhaps, they want to be sure it was put in the safe or something. I’ll never know because I don’t think the cop sitting there would have let me see what was going on behind the scenes.

I then took my time home and did my monthly ritual of going through my finances. Banking online makes living a dual life in American and Japan very convenient. In that regard, thank you Citibank. I have some free time tonight so I am off to study a little more grammar. I will post another episode soon this week, please continue to leave comments and suggestions as always. Take care.

I’m constantly posting from the past it seems. This weekend was busy with hanami activities (and subsequent recovery). I will be posting some video and audio from that as well. However, as promised, here is the Meiji-jingu video from last week.

I shot most of this footage from that day. Meiji-jingu is my favorite place to visit when I need some peace and quiet. Right in the heart of Yoyogi park, it never ceases to have a calming and quieting effect on me. Enjoy!

Alternative video link (Google Video)

 Episode 5 - Meiji-jingu Video [2:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Quick update. I’m currently sitting at Newark Airport in New Jersey (god I hate Jersey), waiting for my flight. About a half day left and I will be in Japan. Plane is behind me. Thanks Fred for the T-Mobile hook up. I’ll get you back.

I’ve got some exciting news to share with everyone soon, but I will post it when I get a bit more of a chance to write. Now I’m being paged … gotta run.

Original Photo from Flickr Member Oimax (url)

It is now just 14-days until I step on a Continental flight to Japan.

I’ve been getting some administrivia done this morning. It looks like the foreigner ID card issue shouldn’t be too bad. In getting my location bearings a little more straightened out, I found a great website for the ward of Shinagawa. Shinagawa contains the area of Oimachi where I will be looking to live. The site for Shinagawa contains some great information for foreigners, broken down by section.

Amusingly enough, one of the many things that I am apprehensive about is getting yelled at by some old cute Japanese land-lady because I didn’t sort my trash the right way. Now, I can successfully avoid that. Yay! ^_^ Also, there was some great information about the foreigner ID card registration process.

Since the foreign resident registration card takes a few days to produce, you will be asked to return to pick it up.

This doesn’t sound too bad. If I can get this all done before getting a bank account, it should make the apartment process much much easier. We’ll have to see if my experiences in Japan are any easier than those of my counterparts in Europe and South America.

It’s been an incredibly long day of work, chores, and getting organizational things done. But before I turn in, I just wanted to give a shout out to the people at Japan Travel Bureau who just saved me over $1,000 on my flight to Japan.

I bought through Northwest earlier this year and spent a ton. On the advice of my good friend Alex, I checked out JTB and they were so much cheaper that I will be calling Northwest tomorrow to cancel my existing ticket (even though I will loose about $100).

If you are ever flying to Japan, give JTB a call. I am now their official cheerleader.

This morning, I somewhat mozied on out of bed like I usually do on Sunday mornings. But man, I would have bolted out if I had know that one of my favorite podcasts just made its comeback last week. Terrance over at the Kobe Beef Show podcast has started it up again for the new year. His site has a new design but the cowbell is still there in the intro. (I was beginning to worry when he did his check sequence on episode 55 before the intro song). It’s like getting back on a bike again, you remember how much fun it is and then it all comes back to you like it was yesterday.

Terrance has not only a unique outlook on Japanese like, but also an interested approach to the language. T-Bone and Terrance will teach you the Japanese that no book will teach you and keep you straight with the Japanese street slang. Terrance is also a kind soul, hosting both me and a friend when we visited Kobe for some sweet Kobe beef followed up by unnumbered rounds of sake at a bar that I will never find again.

If you are learning Japanese and interested in fleshing out your vocabulary or just like listening to a cool cat get his groove on, get on over to the Kobe Beef Show podcast now kids. 聞くよ！

It’s taken me a while to post anything from my recent trip to Europe, but I hope the wait was worth it. I apologize whole-heartedly but blame KLM completely for throwing me off a day. I think the day delay coming back from Europe threw off my entire schedule - the downfall of being organized is that any kinks make you a helpless quivering blob of inactivity. But alas, I digress.

My first impressions of Amsterdam where a bit unnerving. Just the rawness of the city can be a little unsettling. Being an American in Europe doesn’t put me completely at ease given recent events in the world. In addition, Europe in general seems to have a lack of explicit safety precautions. The trams and bikes will run you over if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is your own responsibility as a human to keep yourself alive. If you get crushed, your fault. I somewhat like that. Europe seems to enact a sort of species selection this way - evolution in action.

New Years Eve in Dam Square was incredible. (see video). I’ve experienced the human cattle herding of New York City’s Times Square event and, unlike this event, Amsterdam is completely different. Dam Square is blocked off from traffic and pedestrian traffic is completely unrestricted. You can drink, shoot off fireworks, or just generally cruise around the entire area. People are shooting off fireworks nearly constantly for the 24 preceeding hours up to the countdown. At the countdown, this amount nearly quadruples into explosions of light directly above your head.

After checking out most of the museums, taking a canal tour, and eating way more than I should have we finished our touring of the city after nearly 6 complete days. Though I think that such an extended period of time in this city is a bit overkill, I enjoyed every minute of it and had a great time. Photos are available here.

Bottom line: Amsterdam for the New Year, highly recommended. Enjoy the brief video.

 Amsterdam in 2007 [0:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Christmas has been incredible. All of the gifts have been given and unwrapped. Now, I am off Europe with my girlfriend and a few friends to bring in the new year. Upon my return I have a long drive back to South Carolina and a Japanese quiz waiting for me.

Enjoy the new year celebrations everyone. Happy New Year!