High Speed Internet plans in Japan and white cranes (Weekend 4)

So last week we lost our internet connection at our apartment. That's why things have been so quiet here on the blog lately. We were using the final days of the previous teachers' internet connection and that plan finally ended last Tuesday at around noon.

That plan was supposedly a 100mbps (download) ADSL plan through Yahoo BB! for around 6500円 (Yen, or ¥6500) per month. That's about $65 USD. But we were only getting download speeds of about 1.5mbps, so we figured it was a bad deal and decided to sign up for cable internet instead.

The "C-able" building here is where I'm at right now typing this blog. They have a free community computer center available with public computers and with LAN wires, which I'm using with my laptop (noto) since typing on Japanese keyboards presents many difficulties and slows me down a lot.

Our "C-able" internet plan should be closer to 26mbps download and costs only 3500円 per month. Based on another teacher's experience, our actual connection speeds should be much higher than what we were getting with Yahoo ADSL. We'll see in about 2 or 3 weeks. [27/04/2009 Update - Internet was installed in the morning without any difficulties, cable guy was friendly even though he spoke very little English. As we had hoped, our actual internet speeds are much, much faster... around 16mbps download!)

So, last week (2 weekends ago) I snapped some photos of our first homemade Udon lunch, and several pictures of some baby cranes that were learning to fly in a copse of trees near one of my classrooms. Here's the link.

I'd post more, but I'm out of time at the computer center. Hope you enjoy these pics. We have a lot more to share, but no time!!!