Money Matters

You will be dealing with Yens here so it is good practice to have your currency changed to major currency like dollar (in my case, I have to change my pesos to US dollars) so you can easily have those converted to YEN. You can get notes (paper bills) in 10,00o yen, 5000 yen and 1000 yen value. I also saw some 2000 yen bills but those are really rare so if I were you, I would save one for collection. The coins are of 500, 100, 10, 5 and 1 yen value. No cents, so even if you see some cents in your bank, that is negligible.

You can change your money thru banks and some places but these places (near hotels) may charge extra so you might be surprised that the rate may differ from what the newspapers says.

And also, almost all establishments here accept major credit cards (VISA, MASTERCARD, AMEX), so if you have them with you, life should be a breeze.

Sony VAIO FE-53

This is what I am using now. It served me well because I can type Japanese text without any hassle.

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 1.66GHz, 2MB L2 cache, System Bus 667MHz (Intel Centrino Duo Mobile Technology Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 processor)

Chipset: Intel 945GM chipsetMemory: 1GB (512MBx2) DDR2-533 DDR2 SDRAMGraphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950, Video Memory up Up to 224 MB * (Automatic Resize)Screen: 15.4" WXGA "glossy" screen at 1280x800 resolution Color TFT LCD [liquid crystal clear Black (AR) (Pure Color Coat)

External Display Output (when projecting output to projector, or TV or other CRT display): 1,677 million colors (1080,1680 × 1920 × 1050,1600 × 1200,1360 × 768,1280 × 768,1024 × 768,800 × 600 × 1024,1280)
Harddrive: TOSHIBA MK1032GSX 100 GB (5400rpm, 16MB cache, SATA)

Optical drive: 8x Super Multi DVD±RW and DVD-RAM optical drive (PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-K16M)MemoryStick Pro Duo readerExpress Card slot(5in1 multicard reader).PC Card slotWireless: Integrated Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG 802.11a/b/g + BluetoothLAN: Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection Weight: 2.8 kg

PC Card slot : ExpressCard/34 × 1, TypeII × 1
Externals:
• Hi-Speed USB (USB2.0) × 3
• I.LINK (IEEE1394) pin 4 × 1 (S400)
• Network (LAN) × 1 (100BASE-TX/10BASE-T)
• Output external display * 2 * 1 (15-pin mini D-sub top 16.77 million colors, a maximum resolution of 1920 × 1080>) × 1
• * 2 video output (1 S video, 1 Typical Display Output)
• Headphone output (stereo mini jack) × 1
• Microphone input (stereo mini jack) × 1 plug-in phone jack for the modem (LINE) × 1
• DC IN × 1 (power supply)

Wireless Communications:

WiFi: Internal (IEEE802.11a/b/g compliance, WPA2 support, Wi-Fi compatibility)Bluetooth: Equipped (EDR compliant Bluetooth Ver.2.0 +)FeliCa Port: Equipped
Memory Stick Slot: Dedicated Memory Stick Duo * 11 (Memory Stick PRO Duo compatible, high-speed data transfer support, Magic Gate)

Audio Capability: DSD corresponding high-quality sound chip "Sound Reality" (Intel High Definition Audio compliant), integrated stereo speakers, integrated microphone mono

Integrated Camera "Motion Eye":Progressive 1/5.5 type VGA CMOS sensor system, 330,000 total pixels resolution (310,000 pixel effective pixels), 2 group adopted two plastic lens (f = 3.0mm F2.8)

Keyboard/Touchpad



Installing other OS can be a challenge, but if you want to use your computer to some limits, this is a good experience.