Why are hotel rooms designed by people who don't stay in hotels?

I mean, seriously. How hard is it to have a couple (or even just one) power plugs near the desk. They expect you to use your computer because there's an ethernet cable there.

One thing I love about Japanese culture is this focus on specialization. The main idea is that "businesses that focus on many things do nothing well". You don't go into a japanese restaurant and order some tempura, some sushi, some sukiyaki, and some grilled teriyaki chicken. You go to a place that specializes in sushi, or a place that specializes in tempura, or a place that specializes in sukiyaki. We went to a coffee shop where the owner personally flies to south america to inspect the beans himself and negotiate with the farmers directly. I was not able to order regular hot green tea at this coffee shop, as they didn't specialize in it. Are you getting the picture yet?

We went to Akihabara yesterday, which is a mecca for geeks. It is just electronics shops, one right after another. The ones on the main street seem to focus on big name products like cameras or PCs. But if you go off the main street, there are just tiny proprietors who specialize in certain things. One just sold old NES games from 20 years ago. Old sold only old PC components, like 3.5" floppy drives. When was the last time anybody used one of those? But if you need something hard to find, chances are somebody in Akihabara has it.

Another thing about this area is the Maid Bars. This is where the women are dressed up in maid outfits, and each one caters to some sort of specific desire (fetish). The first one we saw was catering to men who like women in glasses. It looked like a Sunglasses hut up front, but with regular prescription glasses. You could pick out the glasses you liked, and then the maid who was serving you would wear them while you were there. Not really my thing, so we kept looking. We ended up going into one that catered to people who like darts called Little PSX. You could sign up to play a game of darts against the waitresses. The list was too long so I didn't play, as we didn't have all night to hang out here (these other guys did, apparently). But it was fun watching, as these geeky guys would get their egos handed to them by these cute girls, who apparently do nothing but play darts all day because they were pros. It was not uncommon for them to nail 1 or 2 bullseyes on every round!

After we finished up there, we headed back to Adrian's neighborhood and had a traditional Japanese dinner, served in 8 courses. There was a steaming box built right into our table, so they just kept bringing food to us and it would cook in there. I got some pictures of some of the courses, but not all of them. It was a great feast. It turns out I like good sake more than I like fine wine. Ordering sake here is like ordering wine in the US... the menus tell you which part of the country the rice came from, as the rice tastes different depending on the climate. I could easily see myself wanting to take sake tasting classes and learning all about it if I ever lived here, which is something I've never wanted to do with wine.

More Pictures Posted.