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Your Guide to Design and Pop Culture in Tokyo

Jul 11, 2008

iPhone for Foreigners

Japan Probe has posted some disturbing news regarding the newly launched iPhone 3G in Japan. According to the terms on the Sofbank website: “If you have less than 15 months left on your visa, you wont be able to make a contract, but they’ll sell the phone to you without a plan forï¿¥80.000.”

What??? That’s absolutely ridiculous, and would mean that I can’t get one. Yes, my current 3-year visa expires next summer, as which point I will renew, like I’ve been doing for the past 8 years I’ve lived here. So this means you can only get a new phone when you’ve just renewed a visa?

Of course I can’t check for myself to see if they are really enforcing this rule, since I’ll only be back in Japan at the end of the month, but if this is true, then I am not going to be a happy camper.

UPDATE: Someone posted the following comment in the thread:

I just gave them a call, mainly with the intention of complaining. The woman, Kuro-san, told me that in lieu of the passport and registration card I could show my Japanese health insurance card and any valid credit card. This would be sufficient for the required ID to get a two year contract, regardless of actual visa information.

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PauseTalk

PauseTalk is a regular series of events that take place at Cafe Pause on the first Monday of every month, with a start time of 20:00. The idea is to create a forum where Tokyo-based creatives can get together and discuss their own projects, as well as cultural currents of the city. The next edition happens June 4.

We hereby define a new term, that of the magaziner, described as a person who exerts an unhealthy amount of love for all things magazine. The Magaziner is a site that mostly focuses on the intersection between magazines and the digital frontier, and what it means for the medium. This does not preclude the inclusion of a healthy amount of print love.

Codex is a weekly music podcast hosted by Jean Snow, recorded in Tokyo. Playlists for all episodes are posted on the site, and you can subscribe to RSS feeds of posts and episodes.

Jean Snow is a contributor to Arcade Mania, your guide to the arcade gaming scene in Japan (Amazon US/Amazon Japan). He also provided assistance on Tokyolife: Art and Design, a guide to Tokyo's cultural output of the past few years, covering the works of over 80 influential creatives.
He will be contributing to the upcoming fifth editions of The Rough Guide to Tokyo and The Rough Guide to Japan, due for release in 2011.
PechaKucha

Jean Snow is Executive Director of the PechaKucha organization. He also helps run the PechaKucha Night in Tokyo -- please get in touch if you are interested in presenting at a future event. For a more intimate salon-like discussion group, join him at his monthly PauseTalk event.

A longtime resident of Tokyo, he lives and breathes design, pop culture, and gaming, sustained by an unhealthy addiction to magazines and frequent visits to his favorites cafes. He has reported on these obsessions for various online/offline publications, including the following: Time, Inside (Australian Design Review), Gizmodo, Gridskipper, Kotaku, 1UP, Tokyo Q, Superfuture, OK Fred, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, I.D. (International Design), Metropolis, Azure, MoCo Loco, Kateigaho International Edition, Wired's Game|Life, PingMag, CNNGo, Phaidon, and The Japan Times.

You can subscribe to an RSS feed of this site, and also follow him on Twitter and Facebook, or get in touch by email.

 

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The "Jean Snow" logo is written using the free Kirimomi Swash typeface. The "M31" logo is by Ian Lynam, and is part of a series of 31 unique designs. The site's design is based on the Grid Focus WordPress theme by Derek Punsalan.

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