Hello from Seoul! I’m in the middle of my vacation and I’m having a wonderful time. The main negative is that being in Asia made me stay up VERY late to catch some of the World Cup games. I began in Tokyo, where PDAs are still not prevalent and, I suspect, never will be. However, in many of the restaurants where we ate (all beyond amazing), the waiters/waitresses used handheld computers to take orders. These were quasi-PDAs and it was fascinating to see. They would touch the screen with the desired items and once the information was entered it was beamed wirelessly to the kitchen. No more pads and pencils! Handheld computers are also used in taxis that accept credit cards. Seeing all of this makes me realize—again—how advanced the USA is yet how behind the times we are.
Tokyo is an awesome city with very friendly people and we hope to return next year. Oh..they also have some of the lightest laptops I’ve ever seen. Ipods are not as prevalent as in the USA, and... the most ubiquitous handheld device besides cellphones?? The Nintendo DS Lite!
I’ll be back later this week with some impressions of Seoul, where I've yet to see anyone using a PDA. Now I just need to stay awake for the World Cup Final (I pick Italy).
Cheers!
