I said, Effortless Segue!

(just forget about the last paragraph in the previous post, ok?)

Speaking of small, I have seen a glimpse of hell. The walls of the subway stations are covered in tiny tiles, maybe 9" tall by 3" wide. They line the cavernous stairwells and cover the hundreds of metres of hallway and platform. What's so hellish about tiles, you may ask.

Some poor bugger had to grout them all.

There must be at least fifty kilometres of grouting in each station. There are about twenty stations on the Sendai subway line.

There are some larger grout lines which at first led me to speculate that massive sheets of tiles had been prefabricated and then just rolled out and glued into place, held together by some kind of vulcanising agent. However, closer inspection revealed not rubber but actual ceramic cement. It was indeed all done by hand. Centuries of Buddhism paid off as teams of Zen artisans prepared to grout the distance between Auckland and Christchurch.

You might be thinking that the technologically-minded Japanese had some kind of Grouting Robot designed and constructed for the purpose of tiling their subway stations. You may be harbouring notions that Japan is filled with glittering machines of wondrous design and barely-fathomable purpose, making the lives of their masters easy and leisure-filled.

This is not the case. Japanese high technology is retarded.

My Internet connection has to be confirmed every time I wake up my computer. It constantly suffers little glitches because it is PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) rather than DHCP (Doesn't Hack off Customers Persistently). Today, for no reason, it decided that my flatmate and I couldn't both use the Internet. Tomorrow, who knows? Maybe we'll have to build a small shrine on top of our network router.

The largest purveyor of technology in Sendai is a place called Yodobashi Camera. It is a truly monstrous department store, surrounded by tales of adventure in its labyrinthine pathways. It sells all manner of shiny electronic wizardry. Except, of course, for the device I needed to actually make my computer go. Japanese power sockets are two-slot affairs, completely incompatible with our three pins. In the store there was a huge wall of power adaptors. Surely among them was the one I needed? Well, no. A million adapters for Japanese power-users to take with them to other countries; the reverse situation isn't even considered. I had to go to the Apple Store and buy a part, only half of which I actually needed. Yeesh.

Our shower gives us unconditional hot-water affection. Our sink, on the other hand, is like some high-maintenance lover who leads you on and then abruptly gives you the cold shoulder. It's connected to some arcane heating device of dubious pedigree; there's no telling when hot water may be available. Running the tap for a while may or may not have any effect. My solution is to leave it for half and hour; if I'm ever reduced to burning incense in its honour, I'm just gonna tear it off the wall and put in a wood fire instead.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. Technology is applied in interesting ways that wouldn't occur to us in the West. Until next time, imagine this: full-suspension Raleigh 20