Here is a breakdown using the most recent numbers provided by the United Nations of the % difference in the number of women vs men in every region of the globe. The countries shown are the top & bottom most extremes.

Festivals

What can a foreigner say about Japanese festivals? I can barely describe American small town street festivals so any attempt to describe another culture’s take you have only seen once over the course of two days is extremely hard and I barely know where to start.

Similarities & Differences

The one thing I can say is that even though the food is at times extremely different (soba noodles and ginger beer) it is also exactly the same (meat on a stick, cotton candy & snow cones). Even though the clothing is as opposite as you can get (kimonos) it’s limited use clothing for a visual dramatic look that is not worn on a daily basis is very familiar to anyone that has gone to a Texas festival (formal snake skin boots, ten gallon hats, show belt buckles) so the idea is not that strange. The main thing I got from attending the Fuchu area 20 year anniversary, that feeling of comfort & familiarity, is the last thing I expected. Continue reading »

If you ever visit Tokyo no mater what else you want to see or visit you have to spend one morning checking out the fish market on the coast. Get up at 5:30, catch the first train and see the largest (think 3-4 American football fields), cleanest (the smell is actually pleasing) and busiest market you have ever seen. It makes Shinjuku train station look slow and boring.

I was told that they move more seafood in that market then anywhere else in the world and it is a claim that is easily believable. Tuna the size of bathtubs, Octopus the color of blood. Entire tables covered with worms moving so much that you lose your sense of depth looking at it. Sea Urchins the size of Volleyballs. Regardless of your age or gag sensitivity this is something you can’t miss. If I had to see only one thing in all of Tokyo it would be this. Continue reading »

I was born and spent the first 10 years of my life in the Bacliff/Galveston Bay area of Texas and if I was to make an album of my childhood this would be it.

[audio:http://ihudgens.com/images/photo/bacliff.mp3]

#	Title	Artist
1	Blue Bayou	Linda Ronstadt
2	Maggie May	Rod Stewart
3	Forever Young	Rod Stewart
4	Cracklin’ Rosie	Neil Diamond
5	Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)	The Hollies
6	Crazy Love	Poco
7	I Love a Rainy Night	Eddie Rabbitt
8	Lookin’ for Love	Johnny Lee
9	Drivin’ My Life Away	Eddie Rabbitt
10	Lost in Love	Air Supply
11	Bang a Gong (Get It On)	T. Rex
12	Smoky Mountain Rain	Ronnie Milsap
13	Open Arms	Journey
14	Luchenback, Texas	Johnny Russell
15	You and I	Crystal Gayle & Eddie Rabbitt
16	Let Your Love Flow	Bellamy Brothers
17	Jet Airliner	Steve Miller Band
18	Just Remember I Love You	Firefall
19	Kiss on My List	Daryl Hall & John Oates
20	You’re in My Heart	Rod Stewart
21	Lay Down Sally	Eric Clapton
22	Bette Davis Eyes	Kim Carnes
23	You Might Think	The Cars
24	Carry On Wayward Son	Kansas
Bonus Track      Fallen Angles           by Bacliff Punx

As I mentioned in 10min Tokyo(part 2) cell phones are the hot consumer electronics item in Tokyo. It is so much the case that even mentioning that it is as widespread as it is, is very much akin to saying Americans like bottled water. They are everywhere, they are seemingly used more the family television & they make 90% of American cell phones look like they were made by Playskool. The last 10% is pretty much made up of the iPhone and Samsung.

They do more, hold more, light up more, are customizable more and run circles around their American counterparts. Case is point is their ability to interpret 2D Barcode (also know as QR codes).

2D Barcode, I can hear you now going who cares if they can interpret them and what does that even mean? The short answer is:

1. Interpreting 2D Barcodes means they can take their cell phone and take a picture of a 2D Barcode anywhere they might come across one ( and this is everywhere in Tokyo, posters, TV commercials, on the train, on the bus, in a magazine, business cards & yes even fresh produce ) and the Barcode holds the website address (or any data some even contain small video clips) for whatever someone is promoting so that once you take a photo of it the cell phone recognizes it, reads it & loads the website. Until you have seen this in action it can be hard to understand.

2. Even though I think the skill is borderline pointless in America where most everyone surfs on a tower or laptop and our URLs are tailor made to be as short as humanly possible it is very odd to see a technology we either don’t have or haven’t passed up and forgotten. Walking around and slowly realizing and having to figure out the odd reason there are all these 2D Barcodes everywhere is society used by everyone from the most advanced programmer to the simplest grandmother only to realize it is something you have never heard off is both very fun and slightly off putting.

With the ability as I mentioned above to encode data for small video files (or large ones if you overlay a second color image and double the storage, if anyone develops that Patent tomorrow this is prior art and I want some credit ) this might catch on in the States but doubtful since we still do not make use of texting & cellphones the way other nations do.