A Journey to the Levant
As it happens, I was on a business trip to Fukuoka and Kumamoto on the day before the first earthquake. Had lunch in a restaurant near Kumamoto Castle and enjoyed seeing the many tourists experimenting with local Kyushu delicacies.
Since then, Kumamoto suffered from two main Earthquakes and countless aftershocks, heavy rains and mud avalanches.
My heart goes out to the people of Kumamoto and I wish I could do something to help.
As I was walking with friends around Shinjuku and Kabukicho, saw two photographers taking photos of a girl. Obviously snapped a few photos of them taking photos and here is one of them:
Spent some time last week with a friend from the US and a group of his friends who visited Tokyo.
It was a lot of fun, but it also made me tired.
Thinking more about it and trying to (over)analyse it, I reached the conclusion that my communication style has adjusted to Japanese and Korean style. Though there are no language barriers talking with Americans, conversation flow and subjects are slightly different than what I am used to.
When my American friends were talking about Podcasts/Audible and latest Tech hype, I was like “hmmm… have no idea what you are talking about” . I read books, more interested in latest “Line Taxi” features than what Uber is doing.
When my friends were puzzled with Japanese efficiency, I complained that it is difficult for me to travel to the US.
Cannot imagine what Japanese feel when they chat with American or when they travel the US, but I am sure it is more than what I do.
It feels great being able to chat in Japanese with Izakaya owner, in English with my American friends and gossiping in Hebrew with my friend.
At least 10 times I asked Groupon to STOP sending me emails, but I keep on getting them.
I find this is a very bad business practice to spam and to ignore my requests.
And again, I will ask to stop sending me emails, but this time I will also instruct gmail to direct those directly to the Trash.
Forbes.com tells me that I cannot access their content as I am using an Ad blocker.
I fully understand that Forbes needs the ads to finance their contents, but the fact is I am NOT using an Ad block; I am using a tracking blocker. I don’t mind getting Ads but I do not want Marketing companies track my behaviour. I do not want surf a website and an hour later get an ad for services from the same website or similar.
As I am not planning to allow trackers, it seems I will not be able to access Forbes.com.
I have recently started yet another Hobby which I really enjoy, Leather Craft.
Not too difficult, a lot of space for creativity and the results are amazing.
I now can’t explain to myself why I paid so much money for brand wallets, Leather business cases and Book Cover.
My 1Password extension was just disabled on Chrome which wasted about 20 minutes of my time trying to find the right updated extension and installed it correctly.
First I installed a newer version which required 1Password 4 which i do not own and only then I found the right version.
Is this really for security reasons or just trying to enforce Google webstore rules on the extensions ?
Anyway, it was a pain
Would like to get an advice of a Sommelier when your purchase wine online ?
There is a service for that.
Amazon just launched Amazon Sommelier , a consulting service when buying wine on Amazon.
Very interesting service, but I do not think it can scale. Available 5 hours per day and in Japanese only.
See screenshots below
Was just talking on the phone with an Israeli colleague. Before he hanged he said “Bekef” in Hebrew when it struck me that it is a very different way than Japanese/Korean or other languages I know.
“Bekef” in Hebrew slang means literally “with fun”, while in this context it can mean “with pleasure”, or “my pleasure”.
Now, “My pleasure” seems like the appropriate way to end the call , but how come people in Israel use Slang? The answer is Simple, people in Israel ALWAYS use Slang, in private and business conversations. In a way, it breaks the barriers and makes the conversation friendly.
What we gain? – Friendliness
What we lose ? – Formality
As I am filling an expense report for a recent US trip, I encountered an issue. I exceed the company allowance on the day I traveled east.
It is not because I spend too much or eat extravagantly, but due to the simple fact that I traveled across the international date line. I had a meal in the airport before the flight, then I had two more meals after I arrived.
In Japan time zone, these are expenses on a different day, but as I left Sunday 17:00 and arrived Sunday 9:00AM the automatic expense report consider it the same day.
Now I have to decide if I have the power to explain it to our accountant or just delete some expenses