Family aside today ranks as one of the best I have ever experienced. It would be no use writing what happened because in many ways it was hardly spectacular but the people I was with, where we went, how we got on and other stuff that was from in me and what I wanted all added up to a day I could not have anticipated or ever imagined.
It was beyond wonderful.
Have some ginger:
Was yesterday. Got the tube with Naoko and Noel there. Did I mention I met Noel for the first time the day before? Top bloke. The Community Centre venue was good (they drive on the proper side of the road here which makes crossing them so much easier and safer) and I found a drinks machine that sold small hot tins of coffee. I worked my way along them and eventually found the black coffee/no milk/no sugar one. There are dozens of these machines all over the place, it’s very odd. Anyway, except Noel’s which Naoko translated the rest were – quite naturally – in japanese. So I wandered around more than listened which explains the coffee. I had not intended to speak here but Naoko had asked me so I did 5 minutes of who I am, how I came to work for Automattic and that of 8500 plugins we have only 117 turn up if you search for ‘japanese’ so please write more so japanese users can also have more choice and make more of their blogs.
After the event we all headed off to a venue around the corner for a buffet meal and drinks. I wasn’t hungry and after 2 bottles of a fanta equivalent it was starting to feel odd being the only person in a room of 50+ who could only speak english. I said my farewells to Naoko, Ned and Noel all of who are off to Tokyo today for some other event and got some vague directions (go out, turn left, keep walking) to the river from where I could find my way.
A long long time later where I have to admit the “seeing something unintended and new” turned into “where the hell am I?” while plodding through the rain I eventually found my way back. As lost as I was though I did notice new stuff which just doesn’t happen at home. It was the longest I have been out just walking and while it was a little tedious to get lost and be soaked in the rain it was still part of what I wanted, it was still being here and experiencing.
Oh – at Wordcamp one of the companies with their presentation outside was doing it on a PS3. I expressed some concern over the misuse of this so they quit that and let me play a level of Flower for those around. Very good of them :)
Stuff today is first get some money from a machine, second to meet Yasu and see what parts of Fukuoka he thinks are the coolest and lastly to get back with lots of time to pack ready for a 4am start back home and sleep.
Wandering back through the rain in the darkened city is always tricky because places look so different at night, navigation becomes more difficult. I am really deep down tired so I had to give my journey my fullest concentration and at some point an old lady overtook me. She wasn’t running, she wasn’t on wheels but she fairly sailed past me. It had to have been at that moment I realised just how slow I must have been walking and while coming to terms with the humilation I promptly headed down a whole new road. Big road too. Long. It was after I passed two huge and incredibly well lit garages that I realised what that woman had done. Despite her efforts though I made it back in one rain-sodden piece.
The internet at the office can be quick, dead slow or dead. Most of the time it’s the middle one it seems. So with that as the excuse… :) Went to find somewhere to play pachinko with Ned this morning. Apparently games can be had for 1 yen/ball but all we found were 4 yen/ball. 1 yen = 0.00734745 GBP according to xe.com but I don’t know what the arcades were like because you’d need a good one to be comfortable playing in I suppose. So we passed on that. I needed to buy the girls something and off to do that we went. It’s not very touristy around here – which is a good thing – so that was a failed project. Back to the office and shortly after we went to Fukuoka City Hall for lunch. Big cafeteria space and for the number of people there it was – like the traffic – much quieter than the same number of people in the UK. I went to 3 small dishes of food so I got more tastes to eat and while I have no idea what some of it was every part was eaten and tasted great. The cake was excellent – sponge cake with green tea icing. I could eat a whole lot more of that. Back to the office we went.
I sort of had plans for Sunday and Canal City had been suggested as a place for possible buying I need to do. Naoko found me the places to go so I headed out into the ever increasing rain. The place isn’t so far away and I got there to see a really large group of girls queuing to get into an area that had been set aside. A HMV (the record co.) guy was there with a stack of CD’s, couple of poster’s with the group on and a guy up front with the mic doing what I can only assume was a warm-up for this band. And again the girls were pretty quiet. All this reserved behaviour is odd. Nice though. Anyway, nothing in the stores so I gave up and came back.
We had planned to eat at a yatai again tonight but once back and in front of the laptop tiredness really did kick in. Not just eyes wanting to close but whole body wanting to sleep. Ned, Naoko and Noel were in some meeting with others – I have no clue who or why – so I sent a message and said goodbye to Yasu (he’s a java programmer at nulab and had suggested the spicy noodles the other day) at the office. He is off at the weekend and will not be at Wordcamp but asked if I would like to head out on Sunday with him – and I absolutely agreed. He asked where I wanted to go and I said he could choose so midday Sunday we are meeting outside the office and off to new places I shall head. That will be really excellent.
There is a brand of chocolate bar here that is wrapped in foil and then where we would have paper they use a card box. What is amusing about that is the fact the box has instructions on how to open it. Why would you put that on? Surely you have to credit the customer? Not like they’ll buy some chocolate in a container they cannot get into is it :) But maybe it’s a law too …. who knows. One of those things that I find amusing but if they were in the UK they would find more reason to laugh.
Wordcamp tomorrow. I have my 5 minutes planned.
I think I said sleep could wait. It can’t. An early night tonight should mean I can enjoy the next 2 days more and that really is more important. It’s friday, it’s 20:37 and I’m heading to do the ‘sleep soundly and wake up feeling refreshed and full of beans’ thing.
Starbucks in Leicester the staff have always been polite. There may be a touch of work-weary there at times but polite is always there. London they were good. The Starbucks in San Francisco I don’t remember. In New York it was straightforward. It wasn’t rude, more like “You want coffee I’ll give it you – so what do you want”. That’s okay, not like I went in there for anything but coffee. But here in Fukuoka? Welcoming, anticipated my need for a translation (in the UK chances are they would wait for the language barrier to be hit first) and she was friendly, great eye contact, smiling – everything any Starbucks boss could have wanted. Great way to start the day.
I took the straightest route today and was first at the nulabs office. Not a problem – headed downstairs and out to the bridge to watch everything pass by. The traffic is so quiet, it really is surprising. Cars in our village can make more noise than here. Ned and I went down to the shop later and he bought me this bun-like thing with cream or similar in it. Very nice, a little like a choux bun. The shop down there and as others have cigarette promotions. Not just behind a till but posters in windows, packs in the aisles with free lighters. There seem to be a fair number of smokers around and I suppose the tobacco companies are quite happy that UK-like laws do not come into force here.
Lunchtime I was taken to a place that did spicy noodles. There was a scale of 1-20 which was heat. Cool to extremely hot. 5 was where I went with and indeed it was spicy. So with chopsticks – a pack of forks had been bought for me if I needed them but they stayed in the packet – I was eating the noodles, egg, pork, green veg first dipping it into the sauce. By the end of the meal I was doing pretty well with the noodles and chopsticks and approving noises were made which was nice.
Matt T had sent the files over this morning so I forwarded them to Ishibashi in the office and only a couple of hours later they arrived. That meant I had to have something to put them in which could also hold those I would be given. Ned kindly took my to a store that did those. It is (1) very strange to have business cards still and (2) even stranger to see my face on them. I’m sure everyone says it’s a bad photo of them but mine really is. Last time I saw a photo of myself I was still at ~100kg and the weight loss is quite visible. Not like I can change it now.
Tonight there was a meeting of developers to talk about translations and maybe some other talk came in – difficult to judge just from some drawing/writing on the whiteboard. Everyone introduced themself and then Takayuki Miyoshi led the talk for most of the evening. After the more formal discussion drinks and food were bought and much informal chatting went on. I met almost everyone, exchanged many business cards and while language was a problem we still managed to talk about various things both to do with WordPress and not. Noel had arrived so we met for the first time. Met Yuki and I really like the gallery she created with WP. It would obviously have been so much better to be able to talk more freely but that’s that way it is.
Not sure what time we left, maybe 11pm or just after – and it was only a couple of minutes away from the hotel. Tomorrow I check what I am saying at WordCamp, go buy some stuff for the ladies at home and continue to walk around this city still amazed I am here. I want to stay until I am bored – then I go to Hokkaido and stay there until I am bored. Then Kobe, Tokyo, Kyoto … I would be here for a very long time. It’s going to be happy on Monday because I go back home to my family but also sad because there is so much more to experience here.
And Final Fantasy I and II were released for the iDevice today so I have those ready for the plane home.
Safe Browsing
Diagnostic page for example.com
What is the current listing status for example.com?
This site is not currently listed as suspicious.
What happened when Google visited this site?
Google has not visited this site within the past 90 days.
Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?
Over the past 90 days, example.com did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites.
Has this site hosted malware?
No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days.
So Google has not visited the site for 90 days but has decided that the site has not acted as an intermediary and has not hosted malicious software. But that site DOES host malware – I just checked. It’s a nasty site I will not link to but trust me, the above result is what Google says. If you skim that page – as people do – Google say it’s safe. The very first line says it’s safe. So maybe people go there and get their sites and computers infected with crap because Google say it’s safe. If they think they are important – and we all know they do – then they should take stuff like this seriously and give a proper answer. They make billions of dollars and can’t get something as basic as this right.
Took me well over twice the time it should have done to get from the hotel to nulabs, I managed to miss the Starbucks, missed what the map says is an Apple Store but we have those at home so no loss. What we don’t have is the colorful signage, or so many cars that move so quietly. No revved engines or horns here. The cyclists glide through the pedestrians, no bells, no shouting. Dont Walk signs are obeyed absolutely. The weather today has been warm too.
I went to the Kego Shrine followed by Kego Park There are two main roads up to the river and then to nulabs and this side has the parks. Ned had pointed out to me yesterday that there were two statues of lions outside the shrine yesterday. One has it’s mouth closed, the other open. I will ask why tomorrow. (I could wikipedia it but that would just create questions anyway). Just across the next block or so was the larger Tenjin Central Park. I got some of that park on video simply because there was some J-pop music being piped there or so it seemed. There was nothing special to mark the parks as uniquely japanese that I could see but parks are there to be an oasis of calm amidst the hustle and bustle of a city – yet this city is so peaceful that the transition into and out of the park was marked not by noise or crowds at all.
One thing I noticed more today was the signage. I need to deliberately take more pictures of all the signs that have little monster/pokemon/dinosaur style mascots. It’s all so colorful and friendly, a stark contrast to the signage we have back in the UK which is dull, very dull.
Popped into a shop to get some chilled green tea drink and a coffee flavoured caffeine drink. Did so to practice saying arigato gozai masu. It’s getting easier to say it without feeling self conscious about it. Lunch I stuck to a coffee milkshake from Mos Burger while everyone else ate properly.
Late afternoon and evening I got to talk more with others in the company with our varying efforts at trying to communicate with the assistance of the translate tool at Excite. We got on pretty well though I have to say they were doing more translating than I was. It was all very informal though with everyone just chatting, no ceremoney or hierarchy visible and it could just have easily been a bunch from Automattic chatting drinking and having a laugh. Very enjoyable.
I found my way back to the hotel without getting to new places accidentally bar one corner right near the hotel.
Fukuoka is fantastic. It really is. If it were possible I would go home only when I got bored and I cannot see that happening.
7am and I’m sitting in a japanese hotel room bed using photoshop elements to crop a photo of me for a business card.
I can see myself bungee jumping one day, I could picture myself doing many things but on a list of a thousand things the above sentence just wouldn’t figure. Wonderfully bizarre.
And now to head out through the parks to nulabs. The map I have shows Starbucks locations so I shall be in perfect condition by the time I arrive.
I thought I had a good idea of how to get back to the nulabs office from the hotel and had this shopping mall not looked so good I might have proved I knew. Wandered into one which turned out to be pretty long and the street I found myself on also looked interesting as did the next and at every corner I found myself somewhere new. In the UK I’d have said ‘lost’ but here it didn’t matter. In fact it was better than going directly there. Had I passed even one Starbucks I could have kept up the exploration for longer. As luck would have it I passed the nulabs building and was spotted by Hashimoto which saved me calling for assistance. If by some extreme chance I feel the homesick need to be in a pub I can head just up the street to the Hakata Harp – an Irish bar.
Work and work chat was done but the good stuff … was introduced to some MAXIM green tea you buy ready in a cup. Very very nice. Went for lunch to a sushi place and the food was good. Squid was a little chewy and there was a savoury milk/fish oil thing which didn’t get completed eaten. Not because of what it was made of, just that it didn’t really taste of anything, Then we went (or I was taken but we still all went) to a shrine. Amazing.
Had to clean my hands with running water in one place then come in and buy an Oracle ticket. Mine was ‘Lucky’ and had sayings inside. Then this was tied to a string with many others wrapped around a frame. (There are pictures). The temple part of the shrine had 3 bells on great pieces of rope. Someone would clean their hands, thrown some money into this large slatted box then bow, bow again, ring the bell and I think bow again. This happened a few times while we were there. The temple also had an elderly lady and man go through and what I assume was a type of priest began a ritual. Naoko thought it may have been for a sick relative of their’s but it wasn’t clear.
Canal City was right next door. Multi-storey building with the cool shops, lots of places to eat. One or two restaurants had plastic replicas of the sushi and other foods they served right outside. Might sound gaudy but it looked great. There was an arcade at the top which had everything arcades in the UK should have. Lots of games, gambling machines, grabber machines. Lots of lights, all the right noises and a couple of the machines just wouldn’t be seen here, looked made just for the local market. There was a pogo game. Stand on a pogo stick type thing and when it says go you start pogoing this bunny around a track. Very amusing to watch and it looked really tiring. Do that twice a day and that’s all the exercise you’d need. Didn’t play on anything myself – too busy looking and taking it all in. And there was an arcade some floors below which you played for sweets. One machine where you had to drop some sweets onto a moving platform which would then push things off the front? In the UK it’s usually 10ps. And they even had a grabber for ice-cream. A tub of haagen daz no less.
Back to the office for more work type stuff and I was discussing some of what I do a slot appeared for me to present at Wordcamp. Not a whole big slot thankfully, probably a “This is how I got involved with WP, this is what I have done/do” and then something about submitting a plugin. I’ll be figuring out the details tomorrow.
Back when we first got company business cards I was sent a box of however many, 100, maybe 200. I think I used one. I just don’t move in the right circles for business cards so when this came up a while ago for new ones I passed – why have an expense for something that would look nice, be able to say I have but never use? And where am I? Somewhere that a business card is a vital piece of etiquette and I’ve got none. Matt T. will be sending some files tomorrow which means I can get some printed before Wordcamp. If you read my twitter stuff you’ll know I said I was the only person in the company without my face or a face as their gravatar. I like that but I did wonder whether a face should be on a business card. It’s an area I know nothing about. Anyway these will be with extra cool because they will be Japanese :)
Tonight we went to another multi-storey building and each floor was a separate restaurant. We were on the 8th. The food was all raw and on wooden skewers. On the table was a shallow bowl of a thickened milk coloured liquid, a shallow bowl of what looked like fine breadcrumbs and an inset deep fat fryer. So choose the food, dip it, roll it, fry it. All sized to be about 2 minutes to cook. It was a buffet so get what you want and bring to the table. Because it was a table for 4 the fryer was long and had 4 compartments so no mixups could happen. Others for 2 people had a single split I think. Lots of local people eating there and that is always a good sign. They also had several varieties of little cakes which I think is a good sign and they tasted great.
After that Naoko and Hashimoto brought me back to the hotel. Well, they brought me back to the end of the road. After they had gone I saw a shop open so bought some pocky and that chilled green tea. I did the ‘Arigato Gozaimasu’ thanks too which impressed me as I got the same back. Means Thank you very much. So exit shop, look around and promptly head off somewhere new again. A few streets later I realised that it was actually quite late and managed to find my way back here. This place looks so very different during the day. But it all looks great.
Photos and video so far and for the rest of the week will be here: http://markr.smugmug.com/Automattic Descriptions will be added more slowly. Picture quality and composition matters not really so expect little in that regard and you’ll be fine.
I get a better ping at home but at 7x the overall speed who cares about pings? (except when gaming of course)
Polite, quiet, clean, unrushed, friendly, safe are just some of the words so far.
By the time I had left the airport on the coach to Haneka I was impressed by the level of politeness from not just the staff – who were the embodiment of all things polite – but every Japanese person I interacted with in any way. There is “polite because I am paid to be” and “polite because this is how it should be” and that latter is the case here. The small bows from people not just when they are dealing with me (dealing sounds such a harsh word. I mean buying a drink in a shop to the hotel receptionist) are strange but not oddly so. It’s strange to be treated nicely. (That sounds like people usually throw bricks at me and have a ready supply of barge poles.) You know those people that stop you in the street to try and get you to sign up for a credit card? Saw one who walked up to a guy some 10ft in front. Lots of small bows and the tone of voice appeared to be more “I think you will like this / find it helpful” rather than the tone we get back home. Made me wonder how much was cultural, how much was commission-led and therefore how much was a little over the top. But we’d still never see that in the UK.
My home city I would call lived in, not clean. London and New York I’d call dirty, San Francisco was tidy. But here it’s clean. No litter, nothing I saw yesterday was lying around in a state of disrepair. Overall it felt clean but not obsessively so.
Coming to the hotel in the taxi and walking around last night it struck me as quiet traffic. No horns, revving of engines. Just more than your average number of bikes and lots of cars quietly getting to where they were going. I realised that as we were walking back through the city last night the traffic was there but our conversation could still be had.
It feels right so far. It meets what I expected, exceeds some aspects and a couple of others I didn’t see coming. For instance at an airport check-in you look along the line of ladies staffing the desks and see different shapes and sizes and hair etc. Not here, all very uniform with the ladies in height, hair colour. And it’s odd walking and knowing that it is you who sticks out as the stranger in a strange land. This is not bad or feels intimidating and it something I really should have appreciated because if I’m surrounded by japanese people I must be in Japan :)