This is a little street view of a quite area in Machiya, Tokyo (町屋), a new hangout of mine and a great hidden gem in the big city.
So how goes life in your end of the pond? As you may have noticed, I've been on a bit of a hiatus lately - work an personal life stuff plus a few long trips made posting basically impossible - but I'm back now.
So what is happening in Japan? First of all we have the election coming up.
Yay. So we can all sit back and watch the ruling LDP ride on a wave of apathy back into power. Despite Abenomics' basic failure it looks like him and his wacky bunch will ride through without a bump. Why call an early election? It's simple: do it now before people realize what's really happening so the LDP can stretch out their control over a fresh new term. His economic policies and pump priming have boosted stocks and made some rich richer, but now everyone is paying more as prices go up, and also because they decided to hit us with a sales tax increase (in order to pay for their handouts to big business and ag). So it's a win win if you're... hmmm... in the LDP? Or if you're the head of a conglomerate or a big time investor. Otherwise? Not so much.
But despite the obviousness of what's going on, and the wreck that most people feel coming as real wages for them aren't increasing while prices are, the obliviousness of the other parties makes the LDP look like they're the only choice, by default. Sigh.
OK, on to other things. For me life is going well. I won't dwell on personal issues here, but I've been busy and doing good stuff at work, and my personal life is going pretty good at the same time. It's looking to be a nice winter holiday this year, and (Yes!) I will also be able to hop over to Hong Kong for a week or so.
Also, as I mentioned in the title, I picked up a new iPhone (Booyah!). I'd been struggling to keep sane trying to cling to my LG Optimus G in the last month of my contract, but when I found a gold iPhone 6 Plus for sale in the size I wanted, and found that it would actually make my contract cheaper (because I'd been paying the full rate for my old phone) I had to get it.
I'll make a post specifically about the phone situation in Japan these days with advice on what to get and what to avoid, but for now I'll just say this: the iPhone 6+ is a beast. It works really fast, takes awesome pictures (the pic above was taken with my iPhone) for a phone, with it being even usable at night to a certain extent, and the battery is fabulous. It's also nice to not have any bloatware occupying my precious phone (and eating my battery, the biggest problem I had with my old phone). So anyone wanting to get a new smartphone in Japan would be hard pressed to find a better option. I'll write about that more in the next few days, though, so come back for a full report.
OK, this post is getting long, so I'll end it here. Just remember, though, that I still do exist. And Japan still will too (hopefully), after the next election.
So stay warm, enjoy the coming winter, and come back for more here soon.
PS I would like to thank all my loyal readers who kept coming while I was away. I did look at my stats from time to time and it's nice to see that Six Days in Chiba still has something of use for people to read and look at, even while I'm gone.
No comments:
Post a Comment