Tuesday 22 January 2008

Amman and Tokyo are Synchronized!

Well, at least SNOW wise!

The view is all white from the balcony of my new house. Its amazing..
Now I am feeling what people in Amman are feeling. Sweet.

Saturday 5 January 2008

Forget the Toilets, its SHOWER time!!!

Do you remember my post regarding Toilets? I was really amazed back then from what I saw. Well not anymore!!!

As I mentioned earlier, I am moving to a new house in Misato. A very traditional Japanese house on a 4th floor, giving me a very beautiful view of the scene around. When I checked the bathroom, before renting the house, I was sad I could not find the amazing famous Toilets! But since the location, space, neighborhood are all great, I decided to rent.

Yesterday I spent my first night there. No internet connectivity, nothing to do. Well, lets take a shower, I thought. And that was the beginning of the adventure!

Stepping inside the bathroom I noticed the bath tub is kind of deep and has an electrical device INSIDE (down there where dirty water is supposed to exit)! On the side I noticed a control panel similar -but bigger- to the one of the amazing toilets. I also noticed electrical wires going inside and outside the shower ending in an electrical plug. There are also the gas pipes in a corner.

I plugged in the wire to hear a soft noise from the shower. The control panel went ON. After playing with it for 10min, I discovered the big secret of the amazing shower....

1. There is a button to automatically fill in the tub. Whenever I press that, water starts automatically to a height that I previously adjust. Once the specific height is reached, the water stops.

2. Ofcourse I can control the temperature of water using the same control panel. Deadly hot to freezing cold.

That was amazing. I filled in the tub 75% and dived in. It was a real sauna that I enjoyed so much. Or maybe it was a Japanese Onsen!

The problem was, after spending 1 hour there, water started to get colder. It took me so much time filling in the space and that was dissapointing!!! Well, at least until I found out what that button does! With one press on the panel, the bath tub itself starts to get hotter and hotter. While the electrical device on the button starts to shoot very hot water to adjust the temperature. 3 minutes later, the water is as hot as before, so is the bath tub!

No I was not alone. I had a man's best friend with me in there: Nintedo DS Lite. Spending 3 hours playing the Legend of Zelda, Advanced wars and Winning Eleven.

I for sure know that this is a standard for Jakuzis, maybe nothing even compared to that. But to know that this kind of a bath tub is available in a normal Japanese house, all my friends in the area have the same tub built-in in the house, and for this to be the standard showering corner for Japanese houses, now thats amazing!

Still, the panel had more buttons. Maybe I will discover them next time! :p

Thursday 3 January 2008

Cars are so over-rated..

I have always thought cars as over rated machines. Why wouldnt I when I see the younger generation dreaming about owning a car. The problem is that this dream is usually the only ultimate dream they have in their minds, if achieved then its like they owned the world.

To think of it, let us make a comparison between cars and computers. Cars only main function is to move you and your things from place A to place B, plus it has several other mini-functions. Computers, on another hand, have much more main functions. Eventhough those main functions differ from user to another, but on a worst case scenario it has multiple main ones.

And yet, still having the car has the top priority. I have always thought of that as an obstacle in the way of evolution. I am sure if those gave 50% of their interest in cars to computers, we would have created our own processors long time ago. Or at least our own operating system.

"Ok. So? what does that have anything to do with Japan and living in Tokyo?!"
No. I did not fly away from the theme of my blog. This post also talks about life in Tokyo. How?

Owning a car here is not an ultimate dream. Actually many people here dream of selling their cars and getting rid of them. The public transportation in Tokyo is more than enough to get you around especially if you live near the station. And in the heart of Tokyo, everywhere is near the station! When I go out with my lab here or there, and the professor joins us, he rides the train with us. Can you imagine your professor riding the bus in Amman with you? Hell no. That actually made me look at the professor with respect and appreciation.

I know, I know. How dare I compare between the public transportation between Amman and Tokyo. My point is, eventhough oil is getting more expensive every year, and eventhough complaints about traffic jam is increasing day by day, yet people still dream of owning a car. No, they ONLY dream of owning a car.

As I said above, cars -in my opinion- are so over-rated. They only take you from place A to place B and thats their only main function. I wonder when we - the arabic world - would realize this fact.