Yeah you know what I didn't really think of it, but I could just post the reviews on my site. I guess there's no real reason not to - a dedicated review site isn't necessary to just have reviews, and as for the polls/articles/extra stuff that UWF's site had, you are pretty much already doing all of that at Quaddicted anyway.

Alright, sorry to make everyone wait even longer but this week my time is shot to hell. I'll do it this weekend. 

Sounds awesome! Can't wait to see what you come up with! 

K, will check those. Anything simpler I can get my friend to do (he's rarely on the web AFAIK). 

There is a codec pack called CCCP, should be standard windows fare to install, and then it comes with a simple lightweight media player.

But as Spirit implied... AVI is just a container format which could have any number of different audio/video formats in it. 

any recommendations for places/things not to miss? 

fear the yellow people!!! 

Than, of course! 

When are you heading out there? And where? I'm gonna be there a few weeks during April myself. 

not till sept/oct I think, but not totally sure yet. 

Or is it just for us with a small currency that speculators don't like to seek comfort in when they've made a mess out of the economy? 

not just you. Been looking at the latest published travel guide which has prices listed as $AU 1 = 100 yen, which is almost half price compared to the actual exchange rate atm. 

Yeah it's become more expensive, probably only temporary hopefully.

Nitin, I could spend hours recommending places to go, but I'll just suggest a few quickies:

If you go to Kyoto, don't miss the Fushimi Inari shrine, it's a bit to the south, but definitely worth taking a quick train/bus ride to visit it. (Second best temple in Kyoto being Kiyomizu).

Try spending a night on Miyajima island if you can, during the day you can climb up the island by cable car, see wild monkeys at the top of the mountain, and then get lost walking back down (good hike). It's one of my best memories from my last trip. Staying the night is nice, you can walk around the small village when it gets dark, great atmosphere.

In Tokyo, if you're going with a lady-friend, spending an afternoon+evening in Odaiba is nice, sunset on tokyo can be really great, romantic.

In Osaka, spending an evening in Dotonburi is great (popular street with lots of lights and restaurants).

Don't forget to eat lots of good food!
I could keep going for a while... =) 

Do you need to speak fluent Japanese in Japan, or can you get around with just knowing the English language? 

"Sumimasen."
"Wakarimasen."
"Watashi wa baka desu." 

 

 

Did you ask "Where is the toilet coming to life?" 

... or has my memory gotten a bit fuzzy since high school japanese class? 

Kyoto is awesome, for all of the two days I spent there, and four days in Japan. We went to Kiyomizu-dera and it was awesome, if Bal says Fushimi Inari is better it's probably worth checking out :)

You can get around without speaking any Japanese in Japan, just expect a certain level of confusion (and not knowing quite what you are eating!).

I even blogged about our trip: http://mikeandemmastravels.blogspot.com/2008/11/japan-day-1.html 

thanks, had noth the kyoto things marked.

I have gone through 2/3 of the travel guide and already there's way too much stuff that I ahve marked (including a highly unlikely but would be cool if I could trip to ogasawara-shoto.

have you been to himeji-jo? pics definitely look inspiring. 

thanks for the link, nice pics! 

Yeah Himeji is very nice, best to go there from Kyoto as a one day trip, no need to stay there the night. There's a garden outside the castle that is very nice too, forgot the name, they sell tasty anago there (conger eel sushi, yummy).
It's alot better than the Osaka castle, if you're planning on going to Himeji, Osaka Castle isn't worth the trouble I think.

Ogasawara-shoto looks cool. I'd still like to illegaly get into Gunkanjima sometime, know some people who've done it and they took some friggin awesome photos. 

Since I remade my site recently, my photo gallery is gone, but I still have some Himeji photos on Picasa:
http://picasaweb.google.com/benoit.stordeur/JapanHimeji#
(Also some photos of Dotonburi, which I talked about in my previous post: http://picasaweb.google.com/benoit.stordeur/JapanOsaka# ). 

what's the feeling there? 

Obviously the Egoshooter (yes, that's what FPS are called in Germany) Counter-Strike - where you get extra points if you use a shotgun to kill the stroller pushing grannies - has killed some people. Even though that dude was said to not being "interested in computers or the internet".