I was checking this article over at Slashdot this morning and wondered if anyone else was excited by the prospect of Google taking over the world a little bit at a time? They already have the best online e-mail in Gmail and Picasa isn’t too shabby as an image hosting service.

I don’t know, some people would say it was worrying but I really like Google services and if the whole world turned into one big Google office then sign me up :D

[EDIT] How could I forget the best search engine around and what Google became famous for? *is killed by Koreans for not mentioning 네이버*

I arrived back this afternoon, about an hour later than expected an I’m just going to blitz through with bullet points :D

Good stuff about being in Nagoya
- discovered RADWIMPS and even purchased オーダーメイド :D
- rediscovered some J-Pop and J-Rock that I hadn’t given a fair chance. Makun even introduced me to some new ones and we did some sharing which was odd for us :)
- I love the way you’re made to feel in Japan as a consumer. The “Irasshaimasen!” when you enter the store is a thing of beauty and I can’t wait to get to Korea and see what it’s like there ^^
- I like Asian girls. Not in a scary way, but I just have more of an interest in them than Western girls and obviously I was exposed to more of them than I am at home ^^”
- Seeing Makun again after a good few months was awesome. It’s one thing talking rubbish over Skype but an entirely different thing in person xD

Now feel free to go and check out the gallery over here :D

Notice to LJ readers
The format of the posts might change over the next few posts while I figure out what was causing my bandwidth to go away :P

The blog is back so let’s just jump straight in with what’s been going on with me since Christmas :D

I suppose I should start with the biggest news of the year so far and that’s me getting a job as an English teacher in Incheon, South Korea. It’s a coastal province on the Western edge of the country next door to Seoul which means that I can nip into the big city for concerts and shopping. I will be working at JungChul Jr. English School which as far as I know is a private cram school. I should be working with 10yr olds which sounds great because I was worried about being horribly mocked by older pupils. At least if these guys mock me I can just ignore them ;D I got my contract through last week and it all looks pretty hot, so I’ll talk more about it once I’m out there at the end of February.

Before all that though, I’m heading over to see a friend in Nagoya, Japan. I’ll be spending 10 days there and I’m hoping to spend most of the time around the local area rather than heading into Tokyo and further afield. He’s mentioned the aquarium and some temples in the area but I think I’m most excited about visiting the JE Store. It’ll be the closest I’ve been to a major fandom of mine and I’m pretty excited ^^ For the most part though I’m just looking forward to spending time with Matt and relaxing a little before the big move. I’m currently on track with the E2 Visa application but it’s just frustrating having to rely on other people [university transcripts, criminal record check] but unfortunately it can’t be helped.

That’s the main news out the way so now I can talk about some less important, but equally awesome stuff. I don’t know how many of you know, but I decided to sell my PS3 before Christmas because I knew I would never be able to take it with me to Korea. It’s been a tough few months not having any games console whatsoever and I’m looking forward to getting to Korea and buying an 80GB model. I blame Penny Arcade podcasts mostly but I have been looking forward to playing Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 despite it’s poor score. Also looking forward to the Dual Shock 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4. Both are have some serious hype surrounding them. It would be wasteful not to take advantage of the large Korean bandwidth with some online gaming…

Lastly, I’d like to mention the Apple Keynote that was aired just recently. I’ll just quickly run through the best bits because I could go on for ages about it. The MacBook Air is my favourite thing purely because it looks stunning and is a really big step forward in the portable market. A lot of people are disappointed that a smaller portable between the iPhone and MacBook Air wasn’t announced but this is an acceptable stop gap. iPod software version 1.1.3 was also released along with a special update which brings in the missing apps such as Mail, Maps and weather. It was £12.99 for the update which originally annoyed me but I bought it anyway because I wanted the Mail app. I do like it and it works well so I’m feeling better about it.

That’s pretty much it for this update so keep checking back. I’ll be updating with pictures and news from Japan next week so stay tuned. I’ll be giving Picasa a go for storing images so we’ll see how that goes.