Japanese Wedding!

How is a japanese wedding? I had the chance to experience it last week. But only partially... In Japan during the "wedding period" the bride and groom do various things together.

In Europe we have the "Wedding Day" because everything is done in about One Day: Ceremony, Signature, Lunch, Party and Pictures.

In Japan I call it "Wedding Period" because the process is a little different. The picture you see above is during the so called "2nd Party". But let's go in order...

First, the couple goes (alone, just the two of them) to the City Hall to bring their documents and sign that they want to be married. That's it. They are now married. No friends, no family, no witnesses. Just the two of them and the City Hall officials. 2 Minutes and it's done.

Then, after that, the couple will take some pictures togheter at the studio or on location, like the following one, in traditional White wedding Kimono.

After taking pictures, they will go home. The Ceremony will be held another day. The wedding ceremony has two options: Shinto at the shrine, or Western style at the church. The majority of the couples I think they go for the Western Style wedding. They are not Christian, but they go to a wedding Chapel. I don't even know if it's a real Chapel or just a replica... There are invited family members and members of the "1st Party".

At the first party, guests are expected to pay either 30,000 or 50,000 yen ($300 or $500). $100 is too little money, $200 is an even number so cannot be used because doubling it would become $400 that contains '4' that is pronounced similar as "death" (4 is pronounced "Shin" and death is pronounced "Shinu"). Therefore the ones left are $300 or $500. Of course you could go for the next odd one which is $700...but would be maybe too pricey.

After the ceremony, the member of the first party, will have lunch or dinner with the newlyweds. After that they'll go home or participate to the second party.

At the second party are all other friends not in the first category. At this party (that I've attended) I paid around $80 to participate. People is not expected to give gifts. The $80 is to pay for the refreshments and the Party Hall. Nice place, but the whole thing lasted about 2 hours, so is kind of a short party...we entered around 6.30 and at 9.00 PM everyone went home.

I was curious about the price for the whole thing, because in japan, people buy a "Wedding Package" that includes everything. From the first pictures, to the ceremony and parties. This is because they probably don't want to bother to book everything separately with the risk that something goes wrong.

So, enquiring a little bit among my friends, they said should be around 4,000,000 yen ($40,000). Mostly because of the place they have chosen (see picture above). In the end, they will get about half of it from gifts received...but still, quite an investment!

Welcome iPad!

Yesterday, January 27th, Apple finally launched their iPad. I say finally, because rumors started already more than a year and a half ago. Around november 2009 it was clear that the iPad would be launched around January 2010, but no final information was available.

I must say that the size, design, performance and prize are amazing. Really thin, like a 10 inches iphone and starting at a price of $499, the same price as a modern Netbook but with full resolution screen.

The truth? I'm quite disappointed. Why? First of all, it's running a locked down system, same as the iPhone and iPod, which means you can only run applications purchased from the apple store. You don't have access to the base system.

Second, it doesn't have a built-in Webcam. It means no video conference.

On the other hand, having around an Internet Pad which can last over 10 hours of continuos use and over 30 days of standby, could be handy, when you don't want to go to your computer to check few web pages.

I think there is still a chance for other companies willing to launch their own Pad computer to be succesfull, but their product will need to at least match the iPad specification and design. It will not be an easy task because usually the Windows Operating is really slow and cannot give you a smooth feeling. Moreover Apple, for this device, developed their own Processor (CPU).

One last thing is worth mentioning. There will be some applications to prepare presentations (like powerpoint, but the apple version) that will make it really easy to work with, especially on the go. Unfortunately, the software - called iWorks - is only available for Apple Computers. So once prepared, cannot be transfered and run on a Windows PC.

As for myself, at this moment, i'm still happy with my iPod and Kindle device for my ebooks. I think I will pass on this one, but still worth trying :) but who knows..i might change my mind later ;)

Discover Gobo!

This is Gobo. I love it! Gobo is not some kind of Bamboo... is actually a Root. It grows underground. What do you do with Gobo? Actually...you eat it ;)

First, you clean it from the dirt...

then you slice it with a potato peeler...

Afterwards cooked with some sesame oil, soya and hot chili... and you get the final result...

It is really delicious and it taste a mid way between a potato and bamboo. It is also added to miso soup to make more tasty ... bon appetit! :)

Tech News: Apple Tablet

For January 27th (US time), Apple announced a big conference. It is expected that they will announce their secret tablet that they have been developing for the past 5 years.

I've been following rumors going around during the past 3 months and i will try to summarize a little bit what is going on and why I thought worth talking about it.

Please note, that even though i Think Apple had good ideas, i'm not an Apple Fanatic. I only appreciate good Design, Build quality and New technologies. Apparently fit seems only few companies still have an R&D (Research and Development) department. Most of the computer manufacturer out there, wait to see what comes on the market and copy successful ideas.

The Tablet concept is not new, and past attempts to sell tablet PCs by various vendors, so far, miserably failed. Just few units were sold.

What kind of things, from heard rumors, can we expect to come to life with the new Tablet? Apparently, what was rumored is that "You will be surprise on new ways to interact with the tablet", "the tablet will have facial recognition to recognize who is using it", Apple acquired a while back a company called "Fingerworks" that found new ways to use hands and fingers for gestures, recognizing not only fingers, but even your palm, and many other features.

What I found interesting is the name. People monitoring the internet, found out that Apple acquired a domain name under a third company name which was called "iSlate". After the rumor came out, amazingly, every other computer manufacturer like HP or Microsoft, started calling their tablet "Slate Tablets" during their presentations at the beginning of January. This might force Apple to change their product name...

You can read more about the upcoming tablet here.

What is sure, is that it will bring some new interesting features and we will see in 2010 many of this kind of tablets come on the market from different manufacturers.

So, stay tuned and while waiting for the 27th of january, I found a video (fake of course) but that shows how the tablet could look like and how you could interact with it...

Happy Me...

A question I get most of the time is "Are you happy in Japan?". Actually, yes, I'm happy. I'm happy as a student, I'm happy I can see new things and is a good experience. The next question I get is "Do you plan to live there when you finish your study?". This is another thing. It's not easy to live in japan and a lot of japanese manage to get "thru the day" which means they have just enough to live. And this "just enough" is because many of them have double work.

I still think that working and living condition in Switzerland is still better. Therefore, when my study will be complete (around the second half of 2010) I plan to go back...

The above picture was drawn on the white board by my Classmate Yaya. To answer the question if i'm happy in japan...well, from the drawing I got a pretty big smile...isn't ? ;)

Warm Patches...

That is cold in Japan and houses are not warm, you already know it. What I just discovered is that around "Cold Houses" there is a big business! At first I thought that not having a heater at home was just because of the installation cost. Now I found out that a lot of people live out of it.

How? Well, check the image above. It's a pouch you can fix on your hand. In the Pouch you can put a Warmer bag (like the one I've showed you few posts back, that stays warm for as long as 24 hours). In drug stores you find a lot of those. And surprisingly, prices are not high. For instance a pack of adesive warm patches (10 sheets) cost around 300 Yen ($3).

For the one above, in the following picture, they explain how to use it...

... they wrote "Work, during Study or in your room, wherever". Can you imagine yourself typing on your computer with warm patches sticking on your hands?... I still believe a nice heater is still the best ;)

Japanese Marriage Proposal

This is a nice video found on Youtube by some independent producers. It's the story of Fumiko that asks a guy she likes for a date.

The Guy say's he wants to concentrate on Baseball. At the end, She says "I will cook for you miso soup every morning!".

This sentence is used by a girl to say, that she would like him to marry her. In fact, preparing the Miso Soup every morning for him, means she will prepare breakfast for him every morning once married.

I found this video quite cute :) I hope you enjoy it, too!