For old times sake...

Just thought I would let you know (and make it public knowledge thanks to my good friend, Google) that I am now officially certified under the Japanese Language Proficiency Test level 2.

You know that test I was talking about in March? That's the one I passed!
What a relief :)

Update!

Hello! This is Matt posting from Narita Airport!

In about 1 hour, my flight will be taking off for Toronto... so sad yet happy.
I'll be home in about 13 hours!

Anyway. Just thought I'd let you all know :)

Matt out.

WOAH! a post...

I guess I should keep you people up to date...

So lets do a quick recap of the July and August
July was uneventful with a few Tokyo trips.
My first weekend in august was a lot of fun because I met a friend in Tokyo, and it was crazy fun.

Two weeks ago my Dad and Sister came from Canada. And even though I never heard the end of it from my sister (Who's bright idea was it to take her to Mt. Fuji? :P), we climbed Mt. Fuji (and saw the sunrise), went to hiroshima (my second time. but it was fun) and toured around Tokyo.
All in all, a good trip! I took lots of pictures of Fuji and uploaded those. I didn't get around to uploading new pictures of miyajima and hiroshima, though. They will come later... And yes, there are more deer ;)

And today was my last day of work... and as I'm typing this, a crazy intense orchestral song is playing in the background, and as I typed the "..." was a really crazy emotional run. crazy..

Anyway, last day of work. My goodbye party is tomorrow, and I head for Tokyo on Sunday.
I fly out to Toronto on Sept the 5th. I expect nothing less than a parade outside of pearson airport for when I get back! hahaha... No I'm serious.

Anyway, I'm going to finish off this post because as I type I'm ripping music CDs and my arms are burning because the laptop is so hot..

See you all soon!

Skype!

After months and months of patiently (or impatiently :P) waiting...

Skype for Mac with Video is finally released! woooooooooooooo
Skype with Video

but for some reason... there is also another 1.5 beta out... that seems to be newer version without video.
"1.5.0.48" versus "1.5.0.47" for the video version...

Weird.

Card get!

Well, it's been a decently long time since my last post...
I'm not sure sure why my interest is waning. I guess its just that I'm a boring person.

Anyway,
1 hour of fighting with word on how to add (apparently (11*2)+(55*5) does not equal 297, according to Microsoft) and 1 hour of figuring out how to print properly later, I now have a bunch of super awesome business cards!

Check it out below!

(The Front/Japanese side)

(The Back/English side)

Sorry, I edited out my address in phone number. if you really want them, e-mail me and ask me!

(Oh, and this is my 110th post! woo)

I'd like a promotion!

Funny story.

The other day at work, an e-mail was sent out company wide regarding promotion exams.
In Japan, before you can be promoted you have to take a test to see if your qualified for a promotion.

Anyway, so the General Manager of my division sends out an e-mail saying (translated) "If you want a promotion, raise your hand".

So I look over at his desk and raise my hand. He looks at me for a minute, and then he and everyone in my group starts laughing.
Then my boss asks if I want to take the test for fun... haha. As if I like taking tests in english.
I could use a raise though!

Good times.

Yunomaru Plateau

Yunomaru Plateau

Last Saturday, I went to the Yunomaru Plateau near Ueda for the Tsutsuji Flower bloom festival!
It was really neat.

I went with a photo group, so naturally I took lots of pictures! Click on the picture on the right to check out all the photos!

Also, we climbed Mt. Yunomaru, and that was fun. It was a lot easier compared to Mt. Misen in hiroshima. haha.

Anyway, enjoy!
Edit: Sorry for the bad english. haha

Woo! Finished!

That's right. Two months later and all my Golden Week photos are finally uploaded (I'm slow).

A quick link to my sets!

All of Golden Week
Hiroshima
Miyajima
Himeji Castle
Kobe
Osaka

Enjoy!

Also, I went to Yunomaru Plateau this weekend, which I'll blog more about tomorrow... because I'm tired now.
Anyway, I'm gonna be uploading this photos soon as well... and I'll blog about the trip later!
Enjoy the photos!

Windows Vista

So I got my hands on Windows Vista yesterday (wooo!) at work.
Downloaded, installed, and resolved all issues within three hours. That's impressive considering th 3Gig file normally takes 4.5 hours to download ;)
Overall, very impressed with the speed, ease, and the beauty of Windows Vista!

And since its the weekend, I decided to install vista on my machine at home! (Not my mac, my pc).
Ripping the DVD (3Gigs) to my mac, converting it to an iso file from a dmg, copying it to my pc over the network, installation, and resolving all issues took 1.5 hours.
Now THAT's impressive. And glass worked right out of the box on my machine :P (It took me a while to find the right driver for my laptop at work).

My impression so far... Amazing. And this coming from a Mac guy who isn't fond of Microsoft!

Even though this is a beta, it still runs looks great. Congratulations on getting it right this time, Microsoft!
I'm looking forward to the final version!
I'll post more (and screenshots) later!

Canadian Dollar vs. Japanese Yen

A little off topic, but the Windows Vista Beta is finally out and I’m totally excited!

So I went onto Microsoft’s website to download the beta, but due to “overwhelming demand” I can’t access the download.

Anyway, so I look at DVD shipment fees. First I look at Japanese fees, and I see that shipping the DVDs to any address in Japan will cost approx. 1180JPY, which is about $11.80 Canadian. I go in my head “not too bad… seems like a fair price”.

And then I look at the Canadian shipping fee… when I see that it costs $7, I think “wow! That’s so expensive… wait a second”.

For some reason or another, I think 1000yen is fair, but when I see numbers in terms of dollars its completely different. I guess this explains why I find it so easy to hand over a 10,000JPY ($100CDN) bill to a convenience store clerk for a 100yen ($1CDN) drink. It’s just so much easier to spend when you see prices in Yen!

In other news, I think I won a stuffed team japan panda from a contest! Wooo.