Far From Home

I have always been fascinated about Japan's language. I remembered the first time I heard Japanese from a young couple in a supermarket. Their tone of voice reminded me of a stream collectively flowing ever so smoothly. Embarrassing enough, I actually stood there and listened to their whole conversation. Of course I had absolutely no idea what this couple was talking about, but their tone of voice captivated me.

Ever since then, I wanted to learn Japanese. I managed to enroll myself in a Japanese course at a Jr. College. I must admit; I had a tuff time comprehening this language. My problem was that I speak English fluently and when I translate from Japanese to English, the meaning doesn't make sense. A student in the class told me that I cannot think in terms of English and do not translate word for word. Read the sentence and think how the context is related to that sentence. Advise well spoken.

One year later, I wanted to experience what it would be like to live in Japan. I have searched the Internet and read numerous sites about what to expect as far as living conditions and jobs were concerned. Having an Asian background, the living conditions were not a shock to me; finding a job however is. Further searching on, I stumbled upon a site which talked about working as an ALT in public schools. What better way to learn Japanese than to live in Japan and interact with the people themselves.

With some basic knowledge of the language, I packed my bags, said goodbye to my family and friends, and bought a one way ticket to Japan. My wife was so excited; she didn't have to think twice about the idea considering she is a Japanese national herself.

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Across the street from my house rest a vacant 2-story building that has not been in operation for over 10 years. When I say across the street, I really mean across the street. The distance from my side of the house to the other side is about 50 feet. Why am I writing about this furui (old) building? We were told that a company had purchased this land and will be building an apartment here, hence the newly built temporary gate in the distance. The gate was put up to deter cars from parking in that lot. Myself included..

This building, when it was in operation, used to be a bank. It was owned by Korean investors until the bank went belly-up. Ever since then, it was just an empty lot. Why did it went out of business? Well, let’s see. If I had to guess, I may say that this bank was in a residential area on a side street away from the main street. I can’t image anyone would be able to see this bank hidden inside a small community.

I wished we had a say in this matter whether to build a new building in our area or not, but we don’t. I am not too thrilled about this either. For one, our town-house is practically covered by other surrounding mansions. In turns, this mean we have few hours of sun shining through our house. This new apartment will only decrease the sun’s ray even more.

As if this is not even, our street will be a construction zone. Delivery trucks, construction workers, generators blasting all day long. To make matters worse, our house is in the front-line. I will update the progress as time goes by. It will be interesting to see the before, after, and anything in between progress. You can view more photos at Sce nic From Afar.

July 01, 2010.
A temporary gate has been setup. This marks the beginning of what will be a long phase of constructing a new mansion in front of my house.


July 29, 2010.
They've been at it for the past 2 days making a really deep hole. Any time now, they will either strike oil or strike a Chinaman on the head.


Aug 05, 2010.
Removing the old power panel and placing a temporary power pole.


Aug 19, 2010.
Scaffolds and temporary walls going up. The beginning of a noisy year.

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I do believe Japan has some of the best snacks (okashi) around. Their taste is quite different compared to USA. If you have tried them before, you know what I am talking about. Being a snack junkie myself, I love them all. One of my favorite in particular, is a drink call Ramune. This clear carbonated drink taste like Sprite cola. I think it taste more like bubble gum to be exact. Ramune was not originated from Japan. It derived from America in the form of lemonade drink with the bottle coming from the United Kingdom. Japan than packaged the product like so.

Now it is enjoyed by young kids with a sweet tooth all around. What distinguish this drink from the rest is its glass bottle and a marble inside. The marble is actually the cap. To open the bottle, you would just push down the marble with a plastic tab included with the drink. I was very surprised that not all Japanese knew there was a correct way of drinking it. If you noticed near the top, there are two indentation. Those marks should be pointed to your mouth. Why? If you drink from any other side, the marble will block the opening; thus, not allowing the soda to pass through. Make sense doesn’t it? This new version of the bottle was introduced in 2006, as many people trying for the first time had difficulty drinking it.

Ramune comes in several different favors. Watermelon, Lychee, Wasabi, Apple, and Muscat to name a few. The original favor is call lemon-lime.

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I finally got around to installing Ubuntu server on my spare pc. I am done configuring the essential to have my web server up. Everything seems to be running fine and my test sites are viewable, including ‘Far From Home’ blog. Over all I am happy with the install besides the little hiccups along the way. Coming from a Windows GUI base OS, I was a bit leery about using a Linux base box. The server is 100% cmd text and 0% GUI interface. What that meant for me was learning a new language all over again. I am grateful for the Internet. Finding answers and tutorials were just a click away.

Prior to Ubuntu, my web server was running on my personal computer. It is an intel Core 2 Duo processor. Not the fastest but it is great for my needs and the programs I and using. However, when I installed the web server on my Windows, I had several different clients and applications running in the background. It slowed my pc down quite a bit. I had to get it off or risk the life of my cpu. Since I had an extra mobo/cpu laying around, I figured I would use it.

Running a server doesn’t require a high end processor. In fact, all I needed was a 300Mhz x86 processor, 128MB of RAM, 1GB disk space, a video card (640x480), and a CD Rom. My old P4 had all that and then some. When I got all my preparation done; I was ready to install it. I found this great tutorial on how to install Ubuntu server with added security. The process took about 2 hrs as predicted in the guide. Unfortunately, I had issues that I couldn’t quite figured out until recently.

The server would run fine for a day or two and all of a sudden, it would crash and my cmd prompt would not function anymore. The screen would either froze or it would print out a never ending list of computer language that I could not understanding. A reboot would fix it for a short while, but the problem would come back. The first thought was maybe I had a corrupted copy of the CD. I downloaded another copy and reinstall the server. That wasn’t the case. My second thought was maybe the latest version had bugs on my particular computer. I downloaded a lower version of Ubuntu and begin the install again. Nope.

At this point, I was frustrated. Each of the install takes about 2 hours to install all my applications and uploading my test websites. This was becoming a pain in the butt. I was ready to throw in the towel and install Windows XP in its place. Windows has never failed me before. During the time of installing and reinstalling the server, I was searching for answers as to why my server was acting the way it was. I stumbled on an off topic thread and this poster mentioned about corrupted ram. A flashback purged through my mind at this point. I remembered this computer had an error message before about bad ram when I had Windows XP installed. Whenever I do a ram test, the test would just froze 15 minutes in. That maybe the cause of my problem.

Without even thinking any further, I remove one of the ram chips that I think was bad. Turned on the server and let it run. Two days have passed. No signs of freezing, locking up or random scripts running in the cmd text box. All seems to be running normal at this point. My server is golden.

All this troubleshooting lasted about a week and a half. It was a tiresome experience but ended with a positive result. I will be adding more features to the box as time goes by. Besides Apache, I would like to have a mail server and a VPN. I know it doesn’t look much of a computer, but with my limited space area, I think it serves the purpose just fine.



Edit 01
Every since my server became live, I have been adding applications to serve my needs. It was pure exhaustion; nevertheless, I am thrilled to report my funky server is 95% completed. All is left is to fine tune the applications and beef up the security. Here is what I have added.

Squid+Privoxy+Tor
VPN
Mail Server >>This was a huge challenge.
Dependencies apps

Edit 02
My server was overheating due to the weather being hot and my old dinky cpu fan. I upgraded to this one. Much quieter and cooler now.

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That question can only be answer depending on where you live. If I was asked that question, I would tell them, yes, Japan is quite expensive to live in. Coming from the USA, the prices here are very high. I do believe after awhile of adjusting to a place, I may just adopt to the prices and I would think nothing of it. It is all part of living and it is what it is. I hope.

I’ll let you be the judge. Here are some products I’ve taken at a supermarket. It is fairly easy to convert yen to US dollars. Since the exchange rate fluctuates from day to day, I will teach you how to get an average price. Read the total yen price and drop two digitals to get the US price. So, $1 is equivalent to 100yen. 1,000yen is about $10. 4,500yen is about $45. 10,000yen is about $100. Easy right?

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