Again 1.5 weeks since last entry. What happened since the previous, roughly.
Shopping:
- got table, few chairs, and some other interior decorations (standing lamp, curtains)
- decided to buy cheap Acer 24" TFT display, none in stock
- got it week afterward
- it was broken, dragged it back to store
- got new one, it broke after two days, dragged it back to store
- got frustrated, bought Eizo S2410W-R (= about state-of-the-art as far as 24" displays go)
- went shopping for speakers with 100-240v power (so I can use them back home too). very, very frustrating experience, finally the only model one very friendly salesguy at Yodobashi Camera found for me was "Harman & Kardon Soundsticks 2", which supposedly was 100-240v according to webpage. I was quite frustrated to note that on the box it said '100v japan only model', but when the salesguy opened the box, the power supply was 100-240v. Life IS strange sometimes.
What else:
- Last Friday, 28.4. (day off, first day of the golden week 4 holiday set), was day when EVERYTHING went wrong - starting from breaking both valves on my Cannondale's tubes, going through asphalt jungle bicycle tour, and finally the 2x Acer-swapping noted above
- Last Saturday, went to Sony's Leonardi Da Vinci exhibition (free), quite interesting - also tried to find used camera stores in Ginza, less successfully. Then I shopped some bicycling gear (standing pump, few inner tubes) and went home to repair the tubes on the bicycle. After that, I got bored and actually went to bar called Xanadu in Shibuya(!), mostly to remember the times I went to same bar with some colleagues (hi, Ville! ;>). Although I had interesting discussion with locals, I found it rather dull overall and not to my liking (I guess going to bars alone is not really productive), so after massive 2(!) beers I wandered back home to Shinjuku. Had some noodles in a street stall, quite interesting experience in middle of skyscrapers.
- Last Sunday, did my first longer bicycle trip, which was surprisingly enjoyable; bicycled 42km, maybe 3-4km of it in parks, 5km on little used roads and the rest on basic 4-lane highway with low speed limit (50km/h). After that, went to eat and shop in Harajuku, and actually finally found something to eat. However, forgot to shop due to photography opportunities afforded by the locals, so went shopping only after sundown. Met interesting guy, who had been photographing the people there for 20 years, and after suitable "wow, your camera is nice.." "so is yours.." I got to see bunch of his quite good pictures, and watch him at work. He was quite familiar with the girls he took pictures of. Well after sundown, I wandered to Shibuya (by walking from Harajuku), and shopped for bicycle bag, bicycle carrying bag and some other stuff (GPS mount at least).
Monday and Tuesday I worked, little to speak of except getting the Eizo+speakers on Tuesday evening and finally being happy with my little IT hardware set back home.
Wednesday was my major bicycling exhibition, ironically enough it took for me to get to the place where I started bicycling about 3 hours (bicycle to train station, pack bicycle, 2 hours on train, unpack bicycle) and only about 5 hours to return by bicycle. In the end, the distance travelled was 92.2km with average moving speed of about 25km/h (I had break or two, and of course bunch of traffic lights).
Today was my day of rest - just went to play Go in Nihon Ki-in, and after that went to look for books - Blue Parrot store in Takadanobaba was bit of a disappointment (fiction and science fiction mixed, could not be bothered to go through all of them), but I found some more Hikaru no Go mangas in Book-off near home.
Today's most impolite experience by far was in a random upscale restaurant I went to - the waiter asked how many people, I said one, and the waiter said 'sorry, no one-man tables'. *GNNN*
