Let me give you a little bit of a background here. Back when I as in University, there was a meeting held, where we decided what direction to take our lexicon in. After many hours of hot debate, a consensus was reached on two new suffixes that could be added to almost any verb, thereby transforming them into a noun. “-xor” would be added to anything to make it good, see “l33t haxor”, or “delicious meatxor” for examples. “-mo” would be added to the end of any word, to signify displeasure, and a certain air of mental retardation, see “lame-mo” or “tard-mo”.
Well, it seems that Japan has once again chosen something from the west to latch on to. Enter the Pasmo! Pasmo, from what I can gather with my limited Japanese, is two things. First, it is a wonderful RFID based rail pass system, that can easily be recharged at any train station. However, unlike its brilliantly marketed cousin Suica, Pasmo not only works at JR stations, but also on the Tokyo Metro, Busses, and most notably to me, the Noda Tobu line and Tsukuba Express! It also appears that Pasmo, and Suica can be friends, but more on this later.
Continue reading ‘I am a Pasmo, and Proud of It’
The idea of a Hanko, or personal stamp, will probably be fairly familiar to anyone who has lived in Japan. Hanko are usually circular, or oval stamps, with the person’s name written in Kanji, and are the equivalent of a signature in western terms, on all sorts of legal documents. When a foreigner comes to Japan, usually one of the first things they have done is have one made up, with their first or last name in katakana. These days, they’re not asked for much, as the signature is making some major inroads, but every now and then, you’ll run into someone or some business that demands a hanko.
