•
As frequent readers know, I went to Tokyo recently. Being completely unfamiliar with Tokyo and Japan as a whole I decided to check out a couple of guidebooks on the town. I checked out the usual big names for guidebooks: Rough Guide, Time Out, Fodors, Lonely Planet as well as a handful of others. In the end I settled on Time Out: Tokyo, Rough Guide Tokyo and a new guide that comes out later this month: Lonely Planet Tokyo Encounter. After less then a day in the city I closed Rough Guide Tokyo and ended up returning it which left me with Time Out: Tokyo and Lonely Planet Tokyo Encounter.
Now, before I say anything about either guidebook let me talk about Tokyo as a city: It is huge, it has no street names and only a couple of real tourist sites or identifiable landmarks. With (at my count) at least 4 different sets of trains (including the subway and monorail) owned by the government and various private companies it is not exactly the easiest city to get around.
Though coming from a city with a pretty complete and, supposedly, confusing subway system, I found navigating the Tokyo subways not nearly as difficult as you would think. Finding things on the street was a different story.
Read more »
•
Do you ever find yourself with a bunch of time on your hands, wishing you had something to do or something good to read? Checking your email on a regular basis, hoping for a well scribed note that gives you joy to read? Well, now there is a solution to these problems, well sort of…
DailyLit is a website inspired by serialized novels, the aim is to give you the time to catch-up on some of the classics you may have missed or have been meaning to get around to. Offering over 400 titles that are in the public domain, DailyLit breaks each one down into sections readable in about 5 minutes of time. ce you set up your account you can choose how often you get installments and at what time. Find yourself with a few extra minutes on your hand? Well, you can request the next installment immediately.
Books are easy to sort through and arranged by title, by author and even by category. So, what are you waiting for? Now is your chance to read War and Peace, broken down into 675 easy to read emails.
•
A friend just introduced me to Good Reads, a website for those of us who still read books and have lives off-line. Basically it is yet another social networking site, but this one is based off of your reading interests. Invite your friends and compare books you have read and books you have in common. See which of your friends like the types of book you like to read and which are into the newest economics books that just hit the shelves.
Though it takes a bit of time to set up, and you can spend hours going through books you have read and trying to remember and rate them all, once you get it all set up it is a neat way to track what you and your friends are reading and keep in touch with them and even trade books with them.
I just signed up and am working on getting my books listed (I actually have been keeping track of all the books I read this year so it might take me some time to list all of them). As I have just discovered the site I can’t fully comment on it, but it looks like it has a lot going on, you can even offer books up to trade or sell and create a book shelf of books you are planning on reading. Seems pretty interesting and looks like it is worth checking out.
•
I’m amazed to even be awake following last night’s bachelor party festivities for my friend Rob, an international man of mystery and sometime writer here at AM. The evening was a surprisingly classy affair given our trip to [redacted] and especially given the possibility that party planner [redacted] might have gotten his wish with a [redacted] while [redacted], another in our party, attempted to secure a freeby from an Israeli [redacted] after discovering she knew his cousin.
Read more »
•
Apparently it has become a food day around here, which works out just fine by me as I love to cook, eat and look at pictures of food. And on that last note, Time Magazine currently has a good Photo Essay called “What Makes Us Eat More” and a great Photo Essay up called “What the World Eats.”
Read more »
