What better day than OneWebDay to start a blog at last – from technological Tokyo to boot. I must admit I spent most of today offline in the cedar forests around Lake Ashi rather than at the ANA Intercontinental listening to Joichi Ito (CEO of Neoteny, chairman of Creative Commons, etc). But I had packed extra technology podcasts for the long train ride, and I’m already reading more from & about Joi.

I plan to be blogging very soon from Beijing about things like the Internet & politics, local government innovation, and Chinese media culture – but what would a blog be without the occasional tangent or personal impression? After two months interning in Tokyo though, it’s difficult to summarize all the impressions the city has given me. Most are superficial, since the Japanese I learned was limited to survival phrases and words like hanabi (fireworks), kabuki (traditional theater), onsen (hot spring), tonkatsu (pork cutlet), freeters (underemployed youth), matsuri (festival), Makuuchi (top sumo division), jinja (Shinto shrine), and taifuu (typhoon).

As for tangents, here is a quick one: I was puzzled today by a news report saying that the German version of Wikipedia will soon restrict instant edits via review by trusted editors. I am not finding other sources confirming this though…

Voilà, to be continued from Beijing. Happy OneWebDay everyone!