Who's says I'm bored...

on average most Americans spend up to 4 hours of television per night, and while that may be the case, I often wonder how many hours we waste/entertain ourselves with the computer.

Sure, there are nights we need to work, rather I'm talking about surfing the web, reading blogs, playing solitaire, reading the news, talking to friends, emails etc.

Usually, my morning is doing just that, reading emails, blogs, news, talking to friends back home via IM, uploading photos, and researching information. It makes sense given the time difference. That being said, the past week, I have been sitting at the computer for about 5 hours each day, researching two things, Japan and a new cell phone.

Japan,I figured I could research what sights we wanted to visit, and find a hotel close to the areas in Kyoto, or close to transportation. After choosing hotels that were moderately priced, and being told that they were sold out, I went online to figure out why. I understand Kyoto is very lovely and very busy, but this seemed rather odd that they only hotels were in the $300USD price range. Yup, Mark and I are travelling in one of the busiest times in Japan. While we thought we were smart leaving China to avoid the holidays, we discovered that we will arriving right at the start of the Golden Week. Well, at least it explains why we couldn't find a hotel. So, now we are on to plan B, booking a hotel in Tokyo (most of the Japanese leave Tokyo and Osaka during the holidays) and taking day trips.

As for cell phones, that's another story. My phone doesn't have the best sound quality, so we decided a new phone was in order. Here in China, since landlines are pretty much non-existent, most people have cell phones, and since China has a vast pool of potential buyers, competition is stiff. It's great that we have vast amount of phones that we can choose from, it's also overwhelming. Last time we purchased phones, we had just arrived in China and was taken to SM, one of the larger malls in Xiamen. The entire floor (which is a few city blocks long) is dedicated to selling phones. Aside from the hordes of people, the phones all started to look alike, so this time, I figured I will research ahead of time. I finally decided on the phone, the Nokia, N82, and hope it's as good as the reviews say as it's getting hard having a one sided conversation.

My plan is to walk in, pay for it, and leave with my new phone. The goal is to have this completed is less than 30 minutes but seeing as we're in China one never knows..I'm optimistic.

Recap of our busy weekend....

This recent weekend was a full one, a busy weekend that consisted of a birthday party, witnessing an offering to Buddha, wandering the markets, and then marching across the island in an attempt to find deodorant.

Yes, a search for deodorant that took us from the local supermarket, Rainbow, to Watson's, a UK chain that resembles a Walgreen's back in the States (Shopper's Drugmart to our Canadian followers), to the French Carrefour - think Walmart, and then finally to actually stop at Walmart. Yes, the Walmart stores that we had vowed never to go into again after our first, and second, foray into them with Rocky when we first moved here. Guess what? They're still super crowded, and as an added bonus - they too do not have deodorant.

Now I guess that's not entirely true, we have been able to find small bottles of Adidas antiperspirant, or bottles of Nivia antiperspirant, but I'm looking for deodorant and not antiperspirant and these are both in ladies scents. Ah the fun....

That's ok, as I slowly approach the end of my current supply I use it a little more sparingly; they don't notice at work, and I try to avoid any activity that would make me sweat. Not easy in a country where the believe there is something wrong with cooling a building below 28C (82F). We leave the country in two weeks for visa reasons, right now our only hope is that the civilized world that we land in has some supply of the ever-elusive deodorant....