http://www.forthecode.org Software Engineering, Japan, Tokyo, and my life. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:13:18 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Short list, I'll add more short lists later. These are the top 4 places that came to my mind when thinking about a trip to Kyoto. Links to pages with more info are provided. 1) a temple over 1000 years old "Kiyomizudera" 2) a famous shrine filmed in Memoirs of a ... http://www.forthecode.org/2010/03/10/4-places-to-visit-in-kyoto/ So today my energy was sapped by a cold. Usually they don't slow me down, and they don't tend to be bothersome like the occasional headache from staring at a computer screen too much. However, this one made me both tired and "blah." Tracing the events of the weekend I'm ... http://www.forthecode.org/2010/03/08/hoppy-and-a-cold/ This picture post Friday only has one picture. After work I met Ayako at the train station, something I do every Monday thru Friday. After meeting up I dragged her to a local restaurant that I wanted to try called Doma Doma. Doma Doma is a Japanese style Applebee's I suppose. ... http://www.forthecode.org/2010/03/05/duck-duck-duck-cow-horse/ Tako! Fresh... well, looks fresh but isn't actually fresh since it has been in the freezer for a couple weeks, so let me start that over... Fresh-looking octopus, raw and soaked in vinegar. Yummy! Here I am cutting the octopus, tasty snack. Strange, octopus "tako" was one of the things ... http://www.forthecode.org/2010/03/03/who-wants-pickled-tako/ This past weekend was our self-emposed deadline for filing taxes here in Japan. By law taxes are to be filed by mid-March so our deadline wasn't at all unreasonable. So on Sunday we went to the tax office, which was quite the experience. In Japan it is common to go to ... http://www.forthecode.org/2010/03/01/taxes-in-japan/ "Just got home from Illinois, lock the front door, oh boy Got to sit down, take a rest on the porch Imagination sets in , pretty soon Im singin' doo, doo, doo lookin' out my backdoor" +5 points to the person that knows the band [flv:/custom/swf/lookingoutmybackdoor.flv 400 300] Yesterday the weather was great, almost 60 degrees ... http://www.forthecode.org/2010/02/26/looking-out-my-backdoor/ There are 3 commercials in that video made by the Japanese cell phone carrier Softbank. Ive seen the 3rd commercial at least a half-dozen times, and each time I see it I cant help but laugh. Is that a real song? If it is - hilarious! By the way, I hyphenated ... http://www.forthecode.org/2010/02/24/pan-ties-jelly-beans-and-cell-phones/ Today was another day at the office. Rather pleasant weather outside and a productive environment inside thanks to headphones that I remembered to bring today. Then again, the office wasn't as loud as it normally tends to be. For lunch I tagged along with a few co-workers and ended ... http://www.forthecode.org/2010/02/22/books-and-lunch/ Although Japan does not celebrate Valentines like the Western world - I still bought my wife a present... although perhaps with a Japanese twist. I bought her a nabe pot and filled it with boxes of chocolate - including a real life Wonka chocolate bar sold here in Japan (Ive never ... http://www.forthecode.org/2010/02/19/nabe-and-valentines/ So last night I met up with a friend that I haven't seen since last summer. He and his wife recently bought a house in Chiba and have been overly busy moving and living between two places. We ended up going to a station on the Yamanote line (it circles ... http://www.forthecode.org/2010/02/17/of-valentines-and-tamachi/