This week I was at the Windows Phone 7 Developer Launch event in Detroit, MI.  As someone really enjoys developing in the mobile space Windows Phone 7 has me really excited, more so every time I see it.  The developer experience is just light years ahead of what Apple and Google provide, yes even iOS dev with MonoTouch fails to even touch WP7 dev with Silverlight and .NET.  Microsoft has pulled out all the stops to make the development experience between Silverlight for the Web the same as Silverlight on the phone.

You can say that I am just drinking their Kool-Aid but I seriously invite you to take a look at the phone if you have not done so already.  It really is incredible.  In my opinion, it will be very interesting to see if Microsoft can take a large chunk from Apple and Google.  Much of that will hinge on the acceptance of the Metro design that Microsoft is pushing.  Their idea is to make using the phone like navigating through an airport and/or a mass transit system.  You may never have been there before but because of the signage you can instantly find your way around.  Windows Phone 7 is designed to truly give you information you want at a glance, and the hub design lends itself well to this concept.

The Hub design allows you to group related applications together to provide a tightly knit experience and rather then go screen by screen, the hub gives the impression of grouping through text and pictures scrolling off the visible screen at the same time indicating to the user that there is more content.

I honestly have not been this excited about a Microsoft product in a long time.  I do get excited about their products often, but I am really psyched about the phone.  As I code for Android and iPhone, the developer experience alone is enough to make me want to salivate.  Their ad for the phone is also pretty funny:

I love the part where the kid beans his Dad in the head while they are trying to play catch.

Overall, I really enjoyed the event and learned quite a bit.  I encourage you to take a look at the new Microsoft phones.

Being on the planning committee does have its advantages.  Not only have I had the opportunity to work with some really great people to help plan for Day of .NET here in West Michigan, I have also gotten to see what people in the community are looking at; I gotta say, I like where our community is head from a technical perspective.

Anyway, just moments ago Chris Woodruff gave his final approval of the sessions for the 2010 event.  Here is a list of the people selected to speak

• Dennis Burton
• Michael Eaton
• Sam Nasr
• Jay Harris
• Jeff McWherter
• David Giard
• Jennifer Marsman (MSFT)
• Dan Woolston
• John Hauck
• Mark Miller
• Mike Amundsen
• Steve Mushkat
• Steve Schofield
• Dave Leininger
• Matthew Groves
• Jason Farrell (Me)
• Stephen Cleary
• Jonathon Tower

I am honored to have the chance to speak at the event this year with so many fine speakers, many of whom I have looked up to as I have come up through the ranks here in West Michigan.  All Sessions and their abstracts are available here (http://www.dayofdotnet.org/GrandRapids/Fall2010/Sessions.aspx)

Come check it out October 23 (Saturday), 2010 @ Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI from 830am – 5pm

Apologies for the lack of new content recently, still get re-acclimated to life back in Michigan.  Recently, my good friend Chris Woodruff (http://chriswoodruff.com/) offered me the chance to substitute for him speaking at the .NET User Group in Traverse City Michigan.  I accepted and plan to give my Introduction to Android talk which covers the understanding of Android, the different versions, where its headed, setup of the environment using Eclipse and ADT, and a brief introduction to programming against the OS.

This is the meeting information:

NMC Campus – Beckett Building – Room 215
Start – 6:00pm

Really looking forward to meeting more people from the community.  If you can make it, please attend.

While I was at the WCF Firestarter during the weekend of June 19th, my friend Peter Laudati (http://www.twitter.com/jrzyshr) asked if I would be willing to use my .NET web expertise and help out at the Microsoft Web Camps the following weekend.  And so I caught the 7:49 Ronkonkoma and arrived at the Microsoft Offices in Manhattan at 9:20am.  I was greeted immediately by Jon Galloway and spent the remainder of the day in the Palace conference room assisting people with tutorials and projects, mostly involving MVC.

I always enjoy these sort of experiences because its a chance to engage others in intelligent discussions about technology.  I dont get the raging Apple-fanboys, like my brother, who love their company but dont understand any empirical reasons for why they love it.  We talked about a lot of things, to addressing the debate between Web Forms and MVC to United States mass transit futures.  I also got the chance to help out some really awesome people play with Microsoft’s new technologies and practices.  My only regret, kind of, is that I didnt bring my laptop; though I didnt bring it because I am forced to bring a real keyboard with me, the absence of the ‘O’ key is a real nuisance.

But in the end I had a great time and the projects the teams created were pretty nice, given the time constraints. It also made me realize that at some point I need to do an actual production project in MVC; I clearly understand the theory well enough.  One of my personal projects uses MVC, but I currently have no client projects using it; something I need to rectify.

I had the chance to attend the Microsoft WCF Firestarter event put on by Microsoft in New York City. It was similar in many ways to the SilverLight event I attended a couple weeks back.  We got to hear from MVPs Miguel Castro and Don Demsak and Peter Laudati, a Microsoft lead evangelist for the New York/Jersey area.  Needless to say these are some brilliant people and boy were the session chalked full of useful information.

One of the big reasons for me attending, outside of my love for community events and a deep interest in WCF, is for the current client project I am working on, we are using WCF in conjunction with the Compact Framework, or as I call it – the bastard Framework child from Microsoft.  Ever wonder why Microsoft fell behind in the smart phone race, try to program with CF against modern standards, yeah not fun.  Really hoping CF4 changes all of that since Apple has shown there is now a tremendous desire among general consumers for smart phones, but that discussion is for another day.  I will say that since WM7 will use SilverLight as the basis for interfaces (which is beyond awesome) I can be almost certain that CF will get wsHttpBinding in addition to the current, and only choice, basicHttpBinding, which is the slowest and least feature rich binding.  But more discussions for later dates.

Perhaps the coolest thing that I got to see in action for the first time was the use of transactions over these services and get some ideas for best practices, though I think Miguel might take things a bit too far, but as I say, to each their own as long as it works.  In the end, the stuff that Peter, Miguel, and Don showed  us just totally blew my mind. It was unfortunate that I attended this event partially sick and without an ‘o’ on my keyboard (was especially difficult when they talked about OData).  I really enjoy the topic of OData, in fact my colleague Chris Woodruff, is doing a national tour (or at least along the East Coast and Chicago) giving workshops on using it.  At this point, not sure if I will be able to attend this, though it would be nice to see a familiar face, been a while for me.

Really the coolest thing I took from the entire day was the feature of Transactions and Synchronization that Miguel showed off. The worst news I got is that since CF only support basicHttpBinding, we are not in good share in terms of speed.  We do have performance tests scheduled for this week, but I do like to have a contingency should things go astray.

Anyway, I will likely be back in Manhattan next weekend to help out with the Microsoft Web Camp.  As for now, I need to get some rest to prevent a relapse. I am quite certain my client will kill me if that happens 🙂

Sometimes there are things we do in life that, no matter how great they go, we always want more.  This Japan trip follows this perfectly, and yet in knowing that I still tried my best to have as much fun as I could this final day.  I divided the day into two parts: day and night.  The weather was awful, yet these pictures are still so impressive.

The day started with a trip to the Marunouchi district, which is effectively downtown Tokyo and one of the largest most modern districts in the city.  It is also where the city’s busiest subway line get its name.

Walking around this area gives you an idea of just how big Tokyo station is, even after walking three blocks from the main station that I came up from, I was still over the station’s underground extremities.  And, of course, like most busy rail stations in Japan, unless you know it is there, you would not even notice it.

The real reason for the trip to this district was its proximity to the Chiyoda district, the home of the Emperor.

To say this area is beautiful is an understatement, Japan being Japan you could only imagine how meticulous they are about how they keep the Emperor’s lawn.  According to what I read, this is the most expensive square kilometer of land in the world.  At the height of Japan’s economic growth, this plot of land was worth more then the state of California! Incredible.

Unfortunately, I learned too late that coming to the palace on a Friday (or Monday) is a bad idea because most of the public grounds are closed, so I didnt get to actually enter the compound.  This disappointed me, but I guess I have something to look at, along with Nagano, when I return to Japan.

The next stop was the district of Nihonbashi (listed in tour books as Nihombashi, but as the Japanese dont have an “m” sound, clearly wrong).  This district is very financially centric and even contains the Tokyo Stock Exchange which reports the Neikkei and Topix averages.

This is the first time I have ever been inside a stock exchange as the one in New York is locked down pretty heavily and doesnt allow most people to even get close.

Truthfully, there are a lot of interesting things to see here, even for someone with little to no knowledge of business and economics.  I really liked the Economic History Museum; I got to see how the Japanese economy was affected and changed by the Pacific War.

At this point, I made a decision to head back and save the second part of the trip for night; I wanted to get some shots of Tokyo at night.  Along the way I stopped and saw an old friend: Tokyo Tower.   Strangely, when me and Kamin ascended the Tower 3 years ago, I was more excited and was so impressed with the view.  Now, after the Landmark Tower and TMG (Tokyo Metropolitan Government), I was hardly impressed.  If you asked me today, I would not recommend ascending it, unless you feel like burning money; still I got a few shots that were pretty nice.

I decided to return to the hostel to rest, recharge the camera battery and make more time for my friend Bruna (from Bosnia) to complete her activities; she had promised to walk around Odaiba with me.

Let us just say, the weather did not improve, but I was undeterred.  After resting for a couple of hours I decided to return to the TMG building and see if I could get some good night shots, you be the judge.

When I finally put these in my digital picture frame I hope that the view is shown in a form that is justified because it really is jaw-dropping, even with the rain.

Following this I grabbed a small dinner and met up with Bruna at Shinbashi station, our goal: take the Water Bus across the Bay of Tokyo, walk back across the Rainbow Bridge on foot.  Well, we were not able to find the Water Bus, it seemed to be closed, though we saw ships on the bay.  And Bruna probably saved my life by convincing me to NOT walk across the bridge.  The winds were howling and the rain was starting to come down hard.  So we settled for some shots of the city and the bridge from Odaiba.

All in all it was a very fun time, despite the weather.  We headed back totally exhausted through the maze of subways that is Tokyo’s underground.

One of the things I learned this final day is the value of the 1000yen Metro/Toei pass.  This saved me probably 2000yen in the end and is a must for anyway sightseeing in Tokyo.  The reality is, you will take the subway mostly when you travel around Tokyo, its just more convenient then even the Yamanote.  Buying this pass lets you pass through all the stations for a one time charge of 1000yen, it might be the best bargain in the city, and anyone can buy it at anytime from any subway ticket machine.

So that’s it, tomorrow I am returning to America.  I admit, I was hoping that the volcano eruption in Iceland might cancel my flight for one day.  The only things that I sourly missed from being here was a shot of Tokyo Tower with Sakura and an experience of Tokyo nightlife in Roppangi.  I will have to save these for the third trip.  🙂

Given the crappy weather and the state of my foot I debated going anywhere today.  In the end, I cancelled the trip to Nagano and decided to walk around some parts of Tokyo and re-visit some places I went to when I was here previous.

I started my journey on the West side of Shinjuku in what is known as the Skyscraper District.  It is from here that local government convenes and manages the city, though frankly I cant even imagine governing a city bigger then most of the countries in the world.  As it turns out, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. Its two towers are among he tallest buildings in the city offering an impressive view of the city and surround, for free.  This is in stark contract to Tokyo Tower, which is considered to be overpriced but a nice tourist trap for the locals.

This is seriously the nicest city hall I have ever seen.  And the view was simply breathtaking as you would expect.  Given where it sits, it is surrounding by many large buildings both of residential and commercial nature.

After relaxing at this spot, I headed for my next stop: The Meiji Shrine in Harujuku.

The Meiji shrine was built in 1920 to commemorate the Meiji emperor who took power in the 1863 after the fall of the Shogunate government and the end of the Edo Era.

You really cannot begin to understand how much respect the Japanese have towards their emperor.  Just about every Japanese (old and young) leave or entering was bowing.  It was the Meiji emperor who brought Western culture to Japan and led to its modernization, away from the Xenophobic policies of the Shogunate.  The arrival of Perry in the 1850s unleashed a great divide in Japan, mainly from in the form of other, more developed nations, being a threat to under developed Japan.  This turmoil led to the fall of the Shogunate and the rise of Emperor Meiji.  The Meiji still exists today, though only as a figurehead left in place by the US and its Allies at the end of World War II.  Many believe that by leaving the Emperor, the US was able to help Japan rebuild much faster then otherwise, despite the decision being very unpopular with key allies at the time.

The temple is very beautiful, especially the approach: its a long windy path with long trees that hang over you and give you a sense of serenity.

Once I left, I decided to have lunch at TGI Fridays in Shinigawa.  I went here for the nostalgia (me and Dave visited here when we were studying abroad).  No offense to the Japanese, I like their food, but there is seriously nothing better then an American Cheeseburger. 

One other note, I found this place purely from memory.  I remember the station and its relative position when i was here last time.  After eating I decided to walk around an do some exploring.  Like more things in Japan, Shinigawa has a purpose.  It is the mainly arterial link between Tokyo and the cities to the Southwest.  Shinkansen passes through here on its way to Shin-Yokohama.  Most of the major train lines pass through here, in particular the long distance ones not used for inner city travel.

Yet despite this, from the street, you could never tell this was a train station.  The Japanese are really so good at blending things in that often times you dont even know you are looking at a busy train station, aside from the signage.  It goes with what Dave was telling me when I was in Mito.  The Japanese goal is to make things seamless; for instance, you never immediately realize when you are outside vs inside.  The same is true with their busy train station.

So after this it was time for a bit of nostalgia: Shimbashi and the Yurikamome line.  First Shimbashi is, impressive. Its one of the big business districts in Tokyo, with huge glass buildings stacked high with offices.

The Yurikamome line is a fully automated line which runs without an operator intervention; much like the Airtrain in New York city.  It runs through much of Shimbashi and out into Tokyo bay through the reclaimed islands.

Let me explain this, according to what I was told companies needed to build buildings for transmitting and receiving but the buildings around them in Tokyo were so big and numerous it was interfering.  This being the case, and with no land available, the Japanese made some land in the form of “reclaimed” islands.  You gotta love some of the buildings that were built, very futuristic

Following this it was time to head back to Shinjuku to rest up for the next day.  Unfortunately, I learned that my friend Mami-chan had other plans for tomorrow night, so I would have to figure out something on my own.  Kind of difficult as my budget is dwindling and my rail pass expired today, but I am sure I can figure something out.  Just one more full day here and then back to the states and business as usual.

To answer the question; yes I do plan to return to Japan again.  When I am not sure, I think next I would want to go to Europe, London perhaps.

Yokohama is one of the most famous cities in Japan for a variety of reasons.  Mainly because it is the second biggest city in Japan, a fact which actually surprised me as I thought that was Osaka.  It is also consider to be where Japan began to modernize with the arrival of Matthew Perry from the US in the 1800s.

Today it is one of the cities in Japan used to see foreigners, mainly because it houses the US Naval base at Yokosuke, known as the headquarters for the US Seventh fleet.

Many companies in Japan call Yokohama home, including Nissan (my favorite car company).  This was an unplanned stop that I found looking over the tourist map available in the station.  There is a large showroom of models from Nissan (mostly Japanese models); I love the Nissan Skyline.

Once I left, it was time to start my real tour, which was mostly along the waters edge of the Bay of Yokohama, considered downtown Yokohama.  The buildings here are very impressive.

The large building in this picture is known as the Landmark tower and was completed very recently.  It is the tallest building in Japan (note tallest structure is still Tokyo Tower), though it pales in height to the Empire State Building and formally the WTC.

In addition, it also features the fastest elevator in Japan, which reaches speeds of 710m/min and completes the journey to the 69F in under 40 seconds.  The view from this floor is incomprehensible and really hard to describe.  Tokyo and Yokohama are so big, there is just nothing else like it (except the view from Tokyo Tower).

Its unfortunate that I had to shrink these picture so they would fit here; the pictures do not do the view justice.  You can see for miles and it is nothing but city, and you are far enough away where you can see the downtown of Tokyo in the background, shrouded by the fog, really is spectacular.

Unfortunately, this journey took a major toll on me and my already injured right left.  I could barely walk after coming down; so much so that I decided it was about time to head back.  I decided I could still visit Yokohama Cosmoworld.  I had planned to ride the Vanish coaster and the Ferris Wheel.  However, things dont always work out as many people know and I dont like riding coasters by myself, it just feels pathetic.  After some internal debate I decide to overcome one pathetic thing and take a ride of the giant Ferris wheel, looking to get some more shots of Yokohama.

Following this I headed back to the hotel in Shinjuku, a good hour and a half worth of train riding, though I took special care to make sure I took the Shinkansen to Shinigawa to allow me some relaxation along the way.

Upon returning I discovered that a third blister was forming on my right foot as my body begins to wear out from the insane amount of walking I have been doing.  Still I decided to get some rest so me and David could hit Shibuya.

I had been to Shibuya one other time, that was back when me and Kamin visited during our trip to Tokyo.  It was such an awesome time, and I will never forget it.  However, Shibuya seems to be much more subdued on the weekdays, though we still found a couple of nice places.

For the most part, we just drank and talked about things.  David being from France and not speaking much English we actually communicated heavily using broken Japanese; I still find this amusing.  I will leave you with one final shot of Shibuya before we packed it up and headed back.  At this point I could barely stand my right foot and had a considerable limp.  Hoping for some healing tonight ahead of whatever I decide to do tomorrow.

It appears that the Japanese have the same problem with the weather forecasters that we in the states do; they are rarely right.  In this case I am happy for it.  The weather was gorgeous as I visited Asakusa, Ueno, and Akiba.

Asakusa is a small district located near Ueno in Tokyo’s downtown Taito district.  It is famous for its temples and historic artifacts.  Perhaps the most famous is Sensooji and its variety of gates leading up the temple. The biggest of these is Kaminarimon (thunder gate).  Guraded by the gods Fujin (Wind God) and Raijin (thunder god).  Beyond this gate sat the Nakmise shopping arcade.

I found a couple nice souveneirs touring the street.  Like most of the tourist areas in Japan it was heavily crowded, mainly because you are dealing with Japanese tourists, Westerners, and school groups at such historic sites.  In particular here, live prayer ceremonies were being conducted with a monk on hand.

The structure in this picture is Hoozoomon, which is another gate marking the end of the processional road leading to a Japanese temple.  It is this processional road which comprises the afore mentioned Nakamise shopping arcade.

Unfortunately, the main temple is currently in the process of being restored on the outside, so all we say was the curtain. However, the building was open.

As I walked back into the courtyard area I was greeted by a standard five story pagoda.  This would normally not impress given as many as them I have seen, but remember, I am in one of the worlds largest and most compact metropolises.  The fact that the Japanese are willing to allow this land to remain as it has for centuries gives you an idea of how important their culture and history are to them.

And its not just this one temple either, this is an entire grounds that is just plopped into the middle of this huge metropolis, so occasionally you will get a shot of a temple with a lot of buildings behind it.  I love those sort of shots, because it really gives a sense of the mixture of old and new found not just in Tokyo, but all over Japan.

Following my stop in Asakusa I traveled over to Ueno, which is also located in the Taito district and serves as the main Tokyo station for servicing the northern areas of the island (I traveled through here when I went to Mito).  This being the case the JR Station here is HUGE and features the Hard Rock Cafe that I had the chance to eat at last week.

However, I learned that Ueno is also famous for being the location for the final stand of the Shogunate warriors before the Meiji government came to power.  You see, originally Tokyo was known as Edo and the capital of Japan was set in Kyoto.  After 1400 years (or so) of rule by the Shogunate Japan revolted (if I remember correctly, the revolution was spurred heavily by the arrival of Matthew Perry from the US).  Shogunate warriors in Edo fought to the last and died on this hill (picture).

The hill is a part of Ueno park which is a popular spot for hanami parties (cherry blossom watching).  Unfortunately, sakura only bloom for a short time and so by now much of it has disappeared. I kind of look at it like my trip to Japan, which bloomed beautifully at the start but, like all good things, must come to an end.

Around the park there are many monuments dedicated to the Shogunate era and its people.  This again underlines the value of history to the Japanese.  Though they may have disliked the Shogunate toward the end, they understand and respect that this was a part of their history.

Perhaps most famous of these is a statue of Saigoo Takamori (picture).  He is very famous for leading the Satsuman Rebellion against the Meiji government.  His story is one which may be known to many Americans as it was the basis for The Last Samurai.  But you would never guess it by looking at this picture as it appears to be just a man walking his dog.

I followed this by going to a museum which talked about the way Japanese life has changed throughout the years.  In particular, we talked about how Tokyo changed after the great Kanto earthquake in the 1920s and the destruction of Tokyo following World War II.  It is interesting how, even back then, the Japanese understood the decisions that had to be made to survive on such a small island compared to their population.

Before leaving the park I stopped by the Ueno zoo and got some shots of the animals, some of which are American, like Prarie dogs, but most from China and India.  This zoo does not have a panda as you might expect, but you get told that up front.  It was a nice spot to walk around and relax.

The final stop on my journey was a final trip to Akihabara for shopping.  As I have stated before, Akiba (as its known by the locals) is greek heaven in every sense.  From computers, video games, anime, food, everything a geek wants is here.

The thing is that you have to be very careful with what buy and remember that DVDs tend to be region coded, so know your region before purchasing anything.  For me, its kind of depressing here.  I didnt pack with bringing back large things in mind as I needed to be light and swift given how much movement I was going to see during my trip.  So price is really not an issue for me, its a logistical thing.  Also, I cant really buy things like books because, well, I cant read Japanese well enough to enjoy them.  See, despite being a huge attraction to western tourists, its hard to find English material here so most of the things are going to be relatively useful unless you speak/read Japanese.  But it is still fun to look around.  The Japanese are nuts about technology, more then any ten Americans I know.

My first stop in Akiba was the Tokyo Anime Center.  My desire was to buy a small model of either a Macross VF fighter or a Gundam from the UC Gundam series.  Unfortunately, the models are build with detail in mind and so tend to be large.  And again, I have huge space issues as I prepare to head back so, in the end, I just ended up looking around.

In the end, I ended up purchasing a digital picture frame and after walk up and down a couple stores with nine different levels.  Like I said, the Japanese are nuts about technology and their electronic stores will destroy any store in the US, this is especially true of the stores in Akiba.

At this point, it was clear that I had reaggrevated the two blisters on the right foot and was beginning to develop a limp.  I quickly headed for the Yamanote line and returned back to my hostel in Shinjuku

My friend Megumi, who is currently teaching Japanese in China, introduced me to her friend Maminoto, who lives near Tokyo (it was Mami who introduced me to Mari).  We had decided to check out a resteraunt called “The Lockup”, a prison themed restaurant not far from Shinjuku station.  This is one of those, only in Japan type things.

So yes, I got handcuffed by the hostess and led to a prison cell aka our table.  It was a really good time, they did all sorts of things to try to scare us, though it was really weak.  However, I found out that Japanese girls scare very easily.  At one point, a person dressed as an axe murder popped through the door trying to scare us.  Mami jumped back in terror, I asked him for some more beer.

After this, my limp had become very noticeable and we still had the massive task of trying to find my backpack in the correct coin locker.  I didnt want to take it with me to the restaurant and Japan stations tend to have pay-for coin lockers you can put stuff in.

The other thing to understand is that unlike New York, Tokyo and its transportation do shut down.  I can remember times in New York, if you wanted to catch a train at 4am you could; not in Tokyo.  At around 1130 everything shuts down for the night and there are no more trains.  My theory is this keeps kids from staying out late and has them focus on school, maybe.

However, if you are out having a good time with friends, this can suck major balls.  The answer is, of course, stay in an area with places near you so you can walk as the bars and clubs stay open much later then the trains, this is mysterious to me.  Either way, after some walking, painfully, I managed to catch the second to last train.  Up tomorrow, is Yokohama.  I want to go to Cosmoworld, but I need to find some Dramamine first.

Is it weird to feel so at home in a place that is not your home?  I sort of feel that way about leaving the Oe.  Dont get me wrong, I love America and I love my parents more then anything in the world.  Its just the way the Japanese think and act is so much in line with how I think things should be, and that by incorporating some of these aspects I think America could gain so much.

I had a rather unique experience today; I went to my host brother, Toma’s, entrance ceremony for JuuGaku (Middle school).   In America, you go to school depending on where you live, in Japan its the opposite, you go where you get accepted.  I have seen kids traveling for 2hrs by train so they can go to a good school.  The reason for this is the schools in Japan are very much organized in a caste system, and its very difficult to move between the castes.  Thus, what middle school you go to will influence what high school you go to.  What high school you go to thereby influences what colleges you will get accepted to (and this is a HUGE deal in Japan).  And that college will greatly influence what job you will be able to receive upon graduation.  Basically, in Japan, if you really screw up, recovery is nearly impossible.  Among these steps perhaps the most important is high school.  College in Japan is not very difficult and is viewed more as a reward for students who make it through high school, contrast to America where college is where you really work hard to define your specialty.

The ceremony was really neat and the air was just filled with the respect the students and parents give the teachers.  Being an extremely old middle school the school itself has a cultural heritage that most of the students known and understand.  There are songs and introductions by the teachers.  There is even a part where the principal reminds everyone that the teachers will guide the students in school but the parents are responsible for guiding them at home. Can you imagine hearing that in America? I guarantee at least one parent is one her Blackberry emailing the principal to say how dare he tell me how to raise my son.  And the discipline, its like watching an army drill.  You could not get American High School students to follow instructions this strictly, and these were Japanese elementary students.  And then afterwards, without even being told, every student grabbed their chair and took it with them.  Once the parents left they returned to remove those chairs.  It was so efficient it was scary.  Someone asked me what I thought, and I could only say it was impressed and I can understand why Japan turns out some truly amazing minds.

Following the ceremony, Toma gave me a tour of the school (more or less, we were actually trying to find Asahi and Mama). 

This is a shot of the shoe lockers that you will always find near the front of a Japanese school. Not wearing shoes inside is one the most hallowed traditions in Japan and has caused me a bit of grief.  I recommend if you ever go to Japan bring shoes you can slide on and off easy.

Its hard to mistake the respect the students have for the school and their teachers.  Nowhere do you see a teacher doing any work besides teaching.  A ceremony had just taken place and all the students were working together to clean up and prepare for the rest of the days classes, the ichinensei (first years) would be starting Tuesday.

Unfortunately, Asahi seemed unable to contain himself for the duration of the ceremony and caused a couple disruptions.  I really admire Emiko-Okasama, her level of patience is simply astounding.  Even I was beginning to approach my limit with his antics; I think he is worse then I ever was.

Long story short, we ran late getting out of the ceremony and with Mama needing to go to work it was clear she would be unable to take me to Maibara to catch the Shinkansen to Osaka.

Now if that sounded weird, let me explain.  I have an affinity for the Shinkansen and I wanted to ride it from Osaka to Tokyo, the main route if you will.  Thus my chosen route was Kurasam to Maibara via normal train, Maibara to Osaka via Shinkansen, and finally Osaka to Tokyo via Shinkansen.

As you might guess, it was getting fairly late as we approached Tokyo and I didnt want to take the Yamanote halfway across the city to get to Shinjuku where my hostel was located, and it was raining heavily.  I got off at Shinjuku which is, by all accounts, the primary junction point for many of the cities trains and most of the subways.  I caught the Yamanote here and took it to Shinjuku.  From Shinjuku I was able to, awkwardly, catch the Toei Shinjuku line, and go off at the appropriate exit and made it to my hostel by 1030.  I got the chance to meet some of my bunk mates and, funny enough, since they spoke so very little English (being from France and Switzerland) the common language is Japanese.

Tomorrow I begin my excursions of Tokyo and the surrounding area, including a date with Mami-chan.