Just got back from Japan and...

[krays]

LED: hehe, if you want to find out the rates for rent in Japan, just come down here to Silicon Valley (san jose), it is practically the same.

Food here is EXTREMELY cheap, so no argument there. What I will say is that I find the fruits and fish (obviously) to have quite a lot more variety there. I have never owned a car there, so I couldn't really tell you. But since it is a major metropolition city, Tokyo, that is, the subway system is cheap and efficient enough. Now don't get me started on american public transport hehe.

I'm lucky in that my family owns the place we've got there, so I've been spared having to pay rent. Same for utilities, which is much cheaper here in the states.

 

[Finality]

News flash cell phones in the US are about 2 years behind what the rest of the world has.

Most people abroad already know that the only mobile phone company to trust is Nokia and to some degree Seimens. Not the Motorola StarTac crap that is flooding the US market.

Nice to know Japan has 3rd gen wap devices before the rest of the world even sees them

And yes living in America is cheaper. We also have the fastest net connections

 

[Goi]

Have to admit some of those systems look nice. I liked the Sony ones, they have a nice whole package - nice monitor, case and those speakers look like REAL speakers instead of cheap computer "multimedia" speakers.

 

[GreenGhost]

I have to agree there's no reason the cases with have available are so bad. Ok, it's one of the cheapest parts of the computer, I think most people would pay more for something more convenient and nice-looking. We buy those huge mid-towers just because the design of the compact cases is so bad it's a pain to work inside. We could fit all our stuff in a much smaller case. A snap-on from the back case like the Silicon Graphics O2 would be great.

 

[Macro2]

Where did you see that 800 Mhz Duron? I take it it wasn't overclocked?

mac

 

[Doggiedog]

Another reason why Japan seems to have such cool stuff is that flashy things sell well there.

I'm sure that people in Japan are the only ones in the world that would throw away a perfectly good TV, VCR or computer just because a cooler looking model just came out. The situation with cars there is even worse. People throw away perfectly good 6 year old cars with 60K miles on them because they don't want to pay inspection taxes (shaken).

That explains why everything seems so fresh there. Call me old fashioned but I'd much rather have it the way it is here with less waste, regulation and virtually free telecommunications service.

 

[peemo]

Red Dawn,

I agree completely. I dislike the modern Japanese "Oh look at me, I'm a spaceman" aesthetic.

Give me the beauty of a purely functional design any day:

A real man's computer!

 

[krays]

Mac: I saw the 800mhz Duron in virtually every computer store I visited. I'm sure it wasn't overclocked.

DoggieDog: that's very true. Japanese are very prone to hooking up with the latest and the greatest. It's very exciting to live there for that reason, and also bad for the obvious wasteful reasons. It's funny, because Japanese make fun of the US for the opposite reasons - especially when it comes to being wasteful with food and pollution emitting cars (since the japanese are frightfully aware of the environment).

Peemo: While I like the japanese aesthetic, I admit that I have a monster of a tower too. But one thing that should be noted is that, to the Japanese, space is very important. The size of the country is miniscule compared to the united states and families live in much smaller homes. Therefore, the style in the computers also serves to save space at the same time as preserving function as much as possible.

 

[peemo]

So let's enjoy the wide open spaces here in North America!

Move over Japanese toy PC!

 

[LED]

<< LED: hehe, if you want to find out the rates for rent in Japan, just come down here to Silicon Valley (san jose), it is practically the same. >>



Don't make me laugh! ...I've lived and worked in Japan and like I stated my family's there. COL that's &quot;Cost Of Living&quot; is the highest in the World and although I'm relating to Tokyo it's not cheap where us Miyamoto's are from (Kofu)and that's country.

Enjoy the wide open spaces that the US has to offer

 

[slacker2]

The more unconventional games usually do not see the light of day in the states. Especially the rpgs, since according to Japanese magazines, the US market is more action-oriented rather than story-oriented.

Used to be true in the bad old Super Nintendo/Genesis days, but these days most Playstation RPGs that are at least half-decent usually get translated.

 

[LXi]

True... a lot of them do, but many still dont. Im not specifically talking about RPG here, there are just unbelievably many types of game genre in Japan that never come out nor gets translated.

 

[beat mania]

You know what I love about Japan? They're so up to date. I freaked out when I first saw a tiny store with multiple LCDs as security monitors. Right here, you're most probably gonna find a big bulky bw tv.
Those stylish cell phones are cool too, with net, radio, color lcd, all in a tiny little package. And I love all those computers too. What's funny though, is that their electronics are so up to date, but they're still advertising ISDN connections ...

The sight of those oyaji waiting in line to brower the pr0n magazines is funny too

 

[LXi]

We can concluded that in Japan, everything is more futuristic, but not neccesarily practical. They're advertising ISDN? Hey, we here are still advertising AOL.

 

[krays]

LED: well, I don't know what to say. I know what I've seen from helping out my friend find an apartment in tokyo just 2 weeks ago, and I went apartment searching here in san jose mid last year. My studio here is costing me $975/month and that's considered a steal. 1 bedroom apartments cost +$1,500/month here and 2 bedrooms break the $2,000 mark. Those figures are practically the same as from what I saw there, cept you have to think of it in tatami mats.

Slacker2: Yeah, that's probably true for the PS1 (The original PS, not the PsOne, just in case there is confusion) games. But I am pretty sure that only 5 or 6 games of the released PS2 games will come here and the rest will never see the light of day here in the states.

Beatmania: haha, good point! Despite all this technology, their net conenctions are still mostly limited to dialup. ISDN is gaining popularity as is DSL, but nowhere near how connected the states is. What's cool is that all the public phones have ISDN jacks you can plug your laptop into.

 

[TomY]

krays - you are right, everything is much slower here. I just came back from Hong Kong which is pretty much like Japan I guess and everything is much slower here. I am still shocked that cell phone service is 12 bucks for 2000 minutes a month there and everyone has Nokias newest phone and all the (fake) face plates are being sold on the street everywhere already. Here I am with my stupid Nokia 6160 that is as big as a freakin bus paying like $30 bucks a month for basically nothing.
I miss Hong Kong, I wanna go back but I gotta start school next week. ARGH. Btw, is it just in California or is McDonalds paying the bills with us Americans? EVERY extra value meal in Hong Kong is ~$2US (super sizing is a whole 19 cents more). I am paying like 4 bucks for a Big Mac meal here.

 

[beat mania]

krays: their public phones ARE much better though, even though they're still mostly on dialup. The phone cards are much easier to use (of course, that's prolly just there for gaijin like me, since everyone else seem to have a PHS).