I'm going to Hong Kong tonight. I last visited there six years ago. I'll be back to Japan on Sunday 6th.
Action items in Hong Kong: to get SIM-lock-free iPad2 and, if possible, iPhone4S at Mong Kok; registration of new address and passport number for my account of HSBC; and sightseeing at Stanley, Aberdeen and Lamma Island.
....thanks to Steve.
Although I'm now active in Facebook or Twitter rather than this blog, I want to tell you that I'm still alive.
It was a big headache to me that the page design of this blog's home page had been wrong for a few months. Flickr's thumbnail pictures on the top of the page and the sidebar hadn't been displayed. But today I've restored it! The reason is very simple. I tried to comment out a </div> tag into <!-- /div --> but I forgot to add two hyphens before the greater-than symbol and it looked like <!-- /div>, so it affected the page design after that tag.
I bought Blackberry Curve 9300 in the middle of June for my main mobile phone I'm using on a daily basis, and switched an account from b-mobile into NTT DoCoMo again by the Mobile Number Portability service. The b-mobile SIM card was what I got together with an iPhone 4 Hong Kong version, but the iPhone 4 was not so good for telephone because its voice quality was not satisfactory and the manoeuvre was a little bit complicating. It's just for web browsing, taking pictures and motion videos, playing games and other utilities, not for talking. I think the best device for voice calls is that of Nokia, but Nokia doesn't sell any mobile phones in Japan any longer. Out of the phones available in Japan, Blackberry is for me. That's why I've got Blackberry again.
Another reason why I chose Blackberry again is that it has a real QWERTY keyboard on the device, not displayed on the screen. You can type the keyboard to enter text, and doing this is much easier than touching the virtual keyboard on the screen. So I'm gonna use it for text messaging and email writing besides talking on it. Text messaging will be much more convenient because sending SMS to other carriers will be available next Wednesday.
Although iPhone is not so good for a telephone, it's the best for a camera and a communicator with plenty of applications. I've got a Softbank SIM card too, so I still use iPhone4 used so far on a main basis with the Softbank SIM card inserted in it.
Now I've got three mobile phones carried with me ---- Blackberry Curve 9300, iPhone 4 and a mobile phone my employer tells me to keep. Next I want to have some tablets like iPad or Galaxy Tab ;-)
It's a little bit late, though.
I had used Nokia N82 with Softbank Mobile's SIM card as a main mobile phone so far. I had told my friends the phone number of it. But it had been kind of inconvenient because it had had narrower signal reception areas than the mobiles of NTT DoCoMo so if you had gone underground or deep into a big building you couldn't have had it communicated. More than that, (it's the situation peculiar to Japan, though) you can send SMS only to the mobiles of the same carrier as yours. Most of my friends had NTT DoCoMo mobile phones, so I'd wanted to change the carrier of my handphone into NTT DoCoMo.
NTT DoCoMo had released Samsung's Galaxy S handphones in November and they had been very attracting for me, but they had been in so short supply in those days that I couldn't have got any. I'd given up waiting for one.
At that time, Japan Communications had begun releasing b-mobile's micro SIM cards together with unlocked iPhone4 imported from Hong Kong. JC had been selling the imported iPhone4 to its customers on hire purchase. JC was providing mobile phone service using NTT DoCoMo's network, so if you had a mobile with b-mobile's SIM card installed you could use it in almost the same manner as NTT DoCoMo, including sending and receiving SMS to and from NTT DoCoMo's phones.
That's why I purchased b-mobile's micro SIM card called "b-micro talkingSIM" and iPhone4. Prior to the purchase I had cancelled the contract with Softbank Mobile and had the phone number used in it reassigned to the new micro SIM card so that I could use the same phone number as that I had told to my friends.
The b-mobile SIM card was completely the same as NTT DoCoMo's, but you had to set up b-mobile's original APN, user name and password manually to the iPhone4 to have it activated. Besides, you could set up configuration of tethering, which only JC allowed its customers to use while NTT DoCoMo didn't.
I cut the micro SIM card off the frame, put it on the micro SIM card tray of the iPhone4, inserted the tray into it, plugged it in my MacBook Pro where iTunes was operating, and turned its switch on.
A couple of minutes later the iPhone4 was activated with no problems. Applications were downloaded from iTunes to it, and the sync of other data including contacts and email accounts was successful. Of course, SMS can be sent to friends with NTT DoCoMo mobile phones!
A gadget: it's Q-SIM Dual SIM Card, which allows a normal SIM card together with a micro SIM card to be installed in iPhone4, so that you can use two different SIM cards in one iPhone4. Two SIM card slots are connected with a thin link, one of which accepts a micro SIM card and the other a normal SIM. By sandwiching the micro SIM card plate of it with a micro SIM card and a micro SIM card tray, putting it into iPhone4's micro SIM card slot and folding the rest of the link so that it reaches the back of iPhone4 which is put into a included case, you can use two different carriers in one iPhone4. Auto-switch between the two SIM cards is also available.
The last night of the trip I stayed within Changi Airport because if I had stayed in a hotel room I would've miss the returning plane departing at 7:10 in the morning. Fortunately, Changi Airport opens 24 hours a day and it doesn't close at midnight. Because UA check in counters were closed until 4:30 am, I had to stay in a bench in the departure floor.
However, sleeping on the bench wasn't successful. When I lay on the bench, security guards came to wake up and said, "There's no oversleeping here, sir." I moved to another bench and slept hiding from them, but I couldn't sleep very well, just slept only for an hour, because every time I heard the sound of somebody's footsteps I was afraid that the security officers came to wake me up. Later I saw guests in the coffee shop on the same floor sleeping very well. I should've do it!
At 4 am, I saw UA check-in counter open and began check-in. Although there was automated check-in machines, it became error while processing. I finally was led to a human-operated counter by UA staff and managed to have a boarding pass.
Soon I entered into a departure gate. I was surprised to see that there was just a screening machine for luggage, no security gates nor screening officers. Its security check was very simple. After luggage screening there were immigration counters, where a piece of the disembarkation card I had got at Woodlands Checkpoint was taken away and a departing stamp was stamped on my passport.
While in a restricted area, I went in front of the boarding gate for UA804 to Tokyo and opened my laptop to surf the net, because duty free shops were closed until 6 am so I had nothing else to do. I was disappointed that there was no free WiFi spots even in the boarding gate areas in Changi Airport, unlike other international airports. Priced WiFi operated by StarHub was all in that airport. Even if I tried to pay for the WiFi by my credit card, the authentication of the credit card failed. I found that if I sent an SMS by a Singaporean mobile phone I had an SMS by StarHub with user id and password. I tried to do it and once successful, but ten minutes later the connection became unavailable. That's why I rate Changi Airport very bad in international airports in the world.
At 6 am, the duty free shops began operation, but we had not so much time to shop because the boarding on UA804 was to begin at 6:30 am.
More than that, there were strict security checks at the entry of the boarding gates while there were simpler screening at the departure entrance, so I had no time to take a rest in front of the gate.
Anyway the airplane arrived at Narita at 3:10 pm, just on time. I managed to return to Japan alive :)
I'm going for trip to Singapore and Malaysia until next Thursday because we have the "Silver Week" in Japan, with two national holidays (next Monday and Thursday) and three days of leave. For me this is this year's second trip to foreign countries. As I have 20,000 miles of United Airlines' frequent flyer program, I can get a round-trip ticket from Japan to south Asia. I chose Singapore because Singapore is the country where I enjoyed six years ago and I have looked forward to visiting again. This time, I'm going to visit Johor Bahru and another city of Malaysia because they are close to Singapore and maybe I can have easy access to those cities.
I'll bring unlocked iPhone bought from Hong Kong other than regular cell phones I use on a daily basis, so as to use it at cheaper costs by replacing Softbank's SIM card I always use in Japan with prepaid SIM cards I'll get at destination countries. Skype is installed on the iPhone so that I can receive calls at any time regardless of countries I'll be in, even if a phone number will be frequently changed.
United 803 to Singapore
The plane departed Narita at 1735 and arrived at SIN at 2330. It was earlier than scheduled. Seven hours' flight in the economy seat of United Airlines was kind of tough and I had severe back pain when I got off :(
Arrival Gate
Immigration
Arrival Level
Last night I attended a meeting for alumni of Osaka University, where I graduated, to see the presentation by Ryuji Yamada, President and CEO of NTT DoCoMo, one of Japan's mobile phone operators. Mr. Yamada is also a graduate from Osaka University and was invited to this meeting as a guest speaker.
He talked to us about NTT DoCoMo's current circumstances, innovation plans and future strategies. He said in advance that the revenue from voice communications was decreasing year by year and so far the loss was not completely compensated yet by the revenue from packet communications, so innovations in packet communication was important. He also added that one of the important things right now was to change policies so as to meet the current situation where mobile communication market in Japan was reaching its full maturity. He said that he had launched the "All-DoCoMo Reform Plans", where more than 3000 current problems had been collected from every workplace, ranging from R&D divisions to local shops, and the problems had been dealt with 25 project teams for discussion and improvement. Some of the problems were solved by the plans. One of the solutions is a special assurance plan to dispatch an on-site consultant engineer to the customer who complained of dissatisfied signal reception at home, within 48 hours from the time of this customer's complaint call.
The most impressive point of his presentation was that mobile devices will be tools for personal activity assistance. Since the first era of them, YOU have done something with them, from voice communications to internet access and electronic wallets. In the future, THEY will do something for you. They will proactively help you do something. One of such solutions already in service is the "i-Concier", where text messages such as traffic information, weather information, and local event information, are automatically displayed on mobile phone's screen, according to date, time and phone's location obtained from antennas communicating with the phone.
Media for information distribution is, according to his speech, shifting from text-based message to motion videos. He said that, as smart phones was being more and more popular, video would be the key media used for not only entertainment but tourist information, online shopping, navigation, security and medical assistance.
For such advanced services by smart phones, high network performance is necessary. Mr. Yamada declared that in December 2010 NTT DoCoMo would launch Long Term Evolution, or LTE, a 3.9-generation mobile telephony service, starting with that for the 2GHz band and to extend to that for the 1.5GHz band, and would offer 3G/LTE-dual handsets next year. With LTE terminals, radiowaves can be used approximately 9 times more efficient than current 3G terminals. That is, you can enjoy 9 times smarter services than today's phones.
To prevent NTT DoCoMo's LTE system from making the Galapagos ecosystem, he emphasized that NTT DoCoMo also did international activities more energetically than ever. It founded research and development facilities in Beijing, Europe and the United States, for contribution to standardisation and normalisation in the projects of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, or 3GPP. At the same time, it's investing developing countries' operators like TTSL and TTML in India, in order to help do business with it.
It's greatly welcomed that mobile services will evolve to be more advanced and attractive for users. My hope is, as written in the last entry, to accept any terminal I want to use, as long as it meets the basic standards.
I've bought an iPhone. I ordered it from a broker in Hong Kong who got it at Apple Store Hong Kong, because the iPhone sold in Hong Kong is locked to no particular mobile carriers. In Japan, you can buy an iPhone at a Softbank cell phone shop but they sell only the iPhone locked to Softbank. Softbank does offer international roaming service, but if you go out of Japan and use it with a Softbank SIM card in a foreign country they will charge tremendously high international roaming charges to your bill (It costs as high as hundreds of thousand Yen per day! Crazy!). That's why I've got an unlocked iPhone so that I can freely replace a SIM card into that issued at the country I'm in when I travel abroad.
I ordered to purchase MacBook Pro at Apple Store Japan for my new computer. I've kept a desktop PC running Windows XP for my personal use on a daily basis for almost eight years, but it's being unstable these days due to low memory and hardware troubles occuring from time to time, so I needed a new computer.
Actually, I used to have Powerbook running Mac OS 9 ten years ago. As Windows was being dominant for the business field, it was more convenient to use a Windows PC rather than a Macintosh for sharing data in the office with my house. However, security is now being so big concerns of office workers that most companies don't let workers take data out of the office rooms. I no longer have an opportunity to see or edit at home any documents I use in the office, so I no longer have to use Windows to see them created by Windows PCs at office.
It was also an option to wait for a new PC with Windows 7 to be released this month. But, if you buy a Mac as well as an HP printer at the same time at Apple Store Japan, you have a great deal of discount. That's why I chose Mac this time, because my printer in my room was out of order as well.
I want to use a computer, PC or Mac, with a US keyboard, because it's easier for me to type texts with a keyboard of a US layout. In the past, IBM Japan released ThinkPad laptops with a US keyboard and English version Windows OS installed, but after Lenovo acquired IBM, there's been no such PCs for sale any longer. If you live in Japan and want to have a US-keyboard PC, you'll have to get an imported PC by accessing online or by going to a special PC store at Akihabara selling foreign PCs. However, one of the main problems with using an imported PC is that its wireless capabilities are not available within Japan because of a Japanese law issue. To activate wireless LAN or Bluetooth connections of a PC or a cell phone within Japan, the device must be certified by Japan's national inspection facility. Because most PCs sold outside Japan are not certified, it's forbidden to use the wireless functions of such PCs. (Of course it's possible to use those functions in secret, but you must remember it's ILLEGAL!)
Macintosh these days has an option to be customized so that it has a US keyboard, no matter where you buy it. Plus, Mac OS X has a multilingual option so you can choose any language to display menus or input texts. It's much easier to display English menus and input Japanese text at the same time.
That's why I bought a MacBook Pro.
Although it was said, when I used Powerbook ten years ago, that Macintosh stood for "Machine Always Crashes, If Not, The Operating System Hangs," the new MacBook Pro I'm using now is very stable. Wireless connection is very good. Key strokes are not bad. The only thing I have to keep in mind is to get used to the "Macintosh rules" ---- to click, when you close a window, on its top left red button instead of clicking on the X button on the top right corner; to hit a [command] key and a space bar at the same time to begin Japanese input instead of hitting [Alt]+[`] keys; to select a menu on the top side of the screen windows, not under the title bar of the active window; etc. I'm still embarrassed by those differences because I haven't been in touch with Macintosh for almost ten years, but I'm sure I'll get accustomed with it. Anyway, my computer life is now much more fun!
