Thoughts on Tokyo – Part II – how technology made it more fun

I am going on 24 hours with little sleep trying to stay up to hopefully get back on track. So this might not be the most lucid post I have ever made. Forgive me if that’s the case. I just finished uploading all the photos and I will share a few along the way.

I got the Blackberry Storm the Friday before I left for Tokyo (don’t hate me iPhone zealots – I love the iPhone too it was all about the carrier) and it worked like a dream. I used it all the time (and the data plan was really reasonable for the week except for phone calls which I did not make). I almost felt like a Japanese person since they are CONSTANTLY using their phone. In fact the Japanese don’t use computers at home nearly to the degree that we do here in the States. The 3G network is outstanding and really fast. Surfing the web was easy and it appeared simple to switch from phone mode to web.

One morning I realized I misplaced my subway map and was on my own as my buddy had to go to work. I went to Google and downloaded a Tokyo subway map and could increase the size so I could see where I wanted to go and also could move around within the map. It was comforting to always be able to be in touch. I also could easily monitor what was going on at the office (without responding as being 13 hours ahead is not all that convenient for real time work e-mailing or conversations. I posted a few tweets, a few Facebook updates all from the handheld. And it also has a 3.2 mega-pixel camera which takes pretty good photos – and videos.

So even though I am totally fried right now I am in a pretty good way coming back to work tomorrow without the deluge of stuff to sift through since I already have seen much of it and responded to whatever was important.

The Storm is a little bulky and the younger Japanese set that is continually on the phone have to have great eyes as their phones are really small and reading Kanji looks like a chore even if you know what it means!

But the main thing here is that Smart phones like the Storm, iPhone and the yet to be released Palm-Pre (I actually really wanted one of those but could not wait) have changed the game and I am wondering when and how the tiny net books I saw in Japan will meld with the Smart Phones? I guess you could say it’s happening as we speak. Or text. Or email…