Under the Grand Intercontinental Hotel here in Seoul is a shopping mall larger than any in the bay area. In that mall I found an Apple Store, called the Apple Experience Center.
Check out the Korean version of Tiger, the newly released Mac OS X 10.4, that was onsale in the store, and installed on all their machines as far as I could tell. My copy of the US version shipped from Amazon yesterday – hopefully it will arrive early next week.
Some great photos from Japan over on rion.nu including the one to the right that I think captures the cameraphone phenomenon perfectly. The cherry blossom shots are great too.
Having just spent a few days in Japan, I was amused to see a posting on the Tokyo Times blog about smoking manners ads (I did not see any of the ads themselves).
Sure, a lot of people smoke in Tokyo, but as with anything the Japanese do they were always polite and considerate about it. I find it really hard to believe from what I saw that they need any kind of education related to manners! In fact, they would make the perfect teachers for the rest of the world in that regard.
The three ads in the posting are fun though. I’ve no idea whether the Japanese version is any clearer than the English translation under it, but in a way I kind of hope not. One of my co-workers from the Japan office did use one of the portable ashtrays advocated in the first ad, and I have to say I think they’re a great idea, although there were plenty of “public” ashtrays around too in case of need (pretty much every office building has one at the door, and there were even some alongside the street trash cans in some places).
The Bonguen-sa Temple is located just behind the Grand Intercontinental Hotel in Seoul (see map). The laterns are up all around the city at the moment as they prepare for Buddah’s 2549th birthday.
I believe that this is Leucospermum catherinae, or the pinwheel protea. The proteas are South African in origin, and are apparently widely used in floral art. This one was also from the Botanical Gardens in San Francisco (it was even the “In Bloom” announcement on their home page for a while).
In my hotel room at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel, Tokyo was this sign. On the bedside lamp. For some reason it just appealed to me 🙂
Hopefully I will have some more photos from Japan, but my schedule here doesn’t leave much time for sightseeing.
Japanese Shiro-fugen flowering cherry tree, or Prunus serrulata. This one, in the Californian area of the San Francisco Botanical Gardens, was in full bloom last Sunday when we were there.
In the Eric Walther Succulent Garden at the San Francisco Botanical Gardens was this little cactus with a single, vibrant purple flower. None of the other plants were in bloom. Notocactus uebelmannianus can have yellow flowers, pink flowers and sometimes these purple ones.
In the Californian region of the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park was a patch of these tiny yellow flowers. They are Limnanthes douglasii, commonly known as meadow foam and are a native to California.
Another shot from the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park last weekend. This is the marmalade bush, or Streptosolen jamesonii. It is the only member of its genus, and is native to central and south American countries like Columbia, Ecuador and Peru.
