Commuting

I take the train to and from work these days, and I tend to either a. listen to podcasts or band practice on the ol' iPod, or b. work on the ol' MacBook, or c. (when on the bus) perhaps play a game or watch a DVD. But as I was sitting on the train home last night I noticed that almost everyone else had their cellphones (keitai in Japanese) out and were busily doing something with them, even while walking to their seat! Text messaging, web browsing, or gaming seemed to be the top three, but a number of people were also listening to audio.
So
I whipped out my keitai and snapped a picture of the three folks across the aisle from me. The big guy doesn't seem to happy about it...

Sunday

I woke up this morning at 4. Got up, took some meds and checked my e-mail. I went through some paperwork before changing into my walking clothes. Hiromi came downstairs at 5:30 and said she wouldn't be walking today, but sitting in on the "Morning Meeting" (of the Japan Ethics Society). The meeting is held everyday, and we usually just pop our heads in for a second while on our morning walk, but sometimes she gets dressed-up to sit in and listen. Anyway, after breakfast and fooling around with the little ones, I got dressed-up and went to the "Men's Meeting" seminar with my father & uncle in-law and one of my father-in-law's childhood classmates, a Mr. Yamashita.

The seminar was certainly of interest, four speakers from different backgrounds and societal levels spoke about the power of ethical living. Outside of the seminar (in front of Hamamatsu Station's north exit) we saw a group of monks (komuso-) in traditional tengai (a reed hood shaped like a basket).

Afterwards we returned to Iwata and ate lunch @ Kaniya Ramen where the background music was all instrumental 80s tunes and I heard my first listening of the muzak version of Rock Lobster by the B-52s.

My Japanese name

I was looking for something entirely different (a client's website actually) and I somehow ran across this little gem of a site that generates a Japanese name for you. I assume it's random, didn't have enough time to check, but anyway here it is:

My japanese name is 小松 Komatsu (little pine tree) 一真 Kazuma (one reality).
Take your real japanese name generator! today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.