• Mini USB keyboard from Akihabara: $10
  • "Illegal" USB gender changer from Akihabara: $1.50
  • Wi-fi access point from Shinjuku: $20
  • `apt-get update` on my Neo Freerunner in Asakusa: Priceless.

Typos from this point forward should be attributed to my attempts to use a keyboard that is too small for my hands. It’s quite cute though. We found it at a little shop in Akihabara that was filled almost exclusively with keyboards; the rest was mice and other input devices mostly.

The “Akihabara Electric Town” is certainly impressive, though my first impressions were colored by the amount of difficulty that Sarah and I had finding what we thought would be a common item: a wi-fi router. In fact we never did find one we were happy with in Akihabara; they were all too big, too expensive, or both.

(Also, despite searching everywhere, I can’t find any Heisenberg compensators. Not even a display model!)

We were looking for a wi-fi router because although the Tokyo hotels we’ve stayed in provide free in-room Internet access, it’s only by wired Ethernet, not wireless. We only have our phones, and nobody puts wired Ethernet in a phone. I’d have thought that the lower deployment costs of wi-fi would make that the more common choice, but apparently not.

Of course after buying all this stuff, then I had to figure out how to use it. Would you believe a router purchased in Japan comes with instructions printed only in Japanese? So inconsiderate.

We leave Tokyo for Nikko, um, tomorrow I think? So at that point I have even less confidence about finding Internet access. We’ll see whether I can post anything for the next week