Japan? Cell phones? What?

So I'm leaving for Japan on Friday, and I'll need a cell phone once I get there. There are two main companies that I'm considering: SoftBank and NTT DoCoMo

DoCoMo offers a myriad of delicious cell phones. I have pictures of a few of them below... almost all of them have credit card, SMS, long and short email, and television capabilities, so there's no use in going into specifics... since they're all pretty sick when compared to my shitty Motorola Razor.
















































The other option would be SoftBank... which has equally crazy phones. The big difference is probably the price. And since my time in Japan is only 8 weeks long.. the prepaid phone appears to be a great option. NTT DoCoMo hasn't offered this service for about two years... but the only indication of this is on the Japanese page:

「ぷりコール」については、2005年3月31日をもちまして新規お申込み受付を終了させていただきました。

As of March 31st, 2005, we no longer accept applications for the "Pre-call" programs.

There is no indication of this on the English part of the site... even though more English speakers would use this service... but whatever.

Anyway, here are the two phones I could get:


This one here sports Voice Call, S! Mail, Long Mail, Long Email, Sky Mail, Email, Sky Melody, and Data Communication... I don't know what these are... but they sound happy and fun!





While this one has QVGA LCD, miniSD™ Memory Card, QR Code Reader, and IrDA/Simple Mode. I have no idea what these functions are either... but they sound technological and sexy.





So this begs the question: Fun or Sexy? Flip phone or no flip? Sky Melody and Data Communication or QVGA LCD and miniSD Memory Card?

I guess I'll just figure it out when I get there...

為什縻那縻大啊！？

Not even sure if that makes any sense in Chinese, but that's what i'm going through right now!

Whew, I just got back from a very very intense experience. So my mother just had a reunion with all of her college friends. Me, 12 chinese women around 50 years old... and food. It was pretty freakin intense, mainly because they were all forcing me to keep on eating, and though I love to eat, there's really only so far my small, 130-pound body can do. Also--oh you'll love this--they were all trying to set me up with their daughters. Ridiculous! "Do you have girlfriend??" "You'd like to meet my daughter?? She very smart. Study biochemistry!" Yeah, that's what I'm looking for. Biochem major... girl... oh man. One woman mentioned that her son also went to Columbia, and was studying at the film school. I was so tempted to ask if she could set me up with him. I mean, film majors are pretty hot.

Also, for some reason, I got extremely nervous and antsy the entire time. For no good reason. I had to calm myself down in the middle of the meal by going outside and breathing slowly. I'm not sure what that was about. My mom said all the people yelling in Chinese--which I don't speak--probably caused me a bit of anxiety and I had a mild attack. It's probably no big deal.

But on a better note, I did have a very entertaining day. I bought a Chinese text book, and am going to try to place myself into second semester Chinese--exciting! I love learning languages, so this should be fun. I'm hearing so much of it, so some must be sticking, right?

That's all for now really. I'll let you know how the past few days have been a little later. I'm 真tired, as they say.

-Dave

PS 煜穎 <-- This is my Chinese name (Yu-ying). I was thinking about using these kanji for when I go to Japan... Good idea? bad idea? I'm not sure how to pronounce it in Japanese--I think its イクエイ or something, which is not too attractive sounding... so I was thinking of just calling myself ユイン, though it doesn't sound very Japanese... Suggestions?