Hiroko's Hitokoto

Do you go to "Kaiten Zushi" often? If you want to try a new "on demand" type of sushi, you should know that a new place just opened in Osaka has customer touch screens for ordering. The screens have fishes swimming around on them, and you press a fish to order it in your favorite Maki. The images even include short notes, such as "rich in vitamins," and "good for stomach and head aches." Plus it also includes the biology of tuna and other species. This rather radical advance in sushi ordering has had good reactions from families with kids, who are less likely to get bored. Although you now don't need to search through the rotating plates to find what you want to eat, you do still have to wait for the plate you ordered to show up. In terms of human psychology, this new system reminds me of a Kaiten Zushi I went to in Chiba. There I saw a lot of sushi on the rotating belt, but they were all made of wax, not the real thing. The cook was there, a...

Do you use bus card and other pre-paid cards for transportation? Ten years ago, JR started issuing iO cards. Then Metro cards and bus cards followed. At first I thought it was pretty convenient, but I found a problem. The fact is that these days, you probably don't use your phone cards often, because most of us have a mobile. Well, there was a news item recently that mobile phone users will be able to buy credits on their cell phones, that will act like tickets/cards for your daily transportation needs. Every time you exit a ticket gate, even without showing your phone, the ticket machine will let you through and record the transaction via your cell phone -- which you can just simply leave in your bag. As some of you might have noticed, Japanese are not used to using credit cards, but instead tend to overdepend on cash. Debit cards certainly haven't worked well here, and the preference for chash may be one of the reasons. Maybe the banks should try to add debit card functions t...