OU Hotel in Yonago (from Taka's blog)

From Taka's blog...
http://takabanana.blogspot.com/2006/04/ou-hotel-power-switch-and-traffic-info.html

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

OU Hotel "Power Switch" and Traffic Info on GPS:

I forgot to mention - at the OU Hotel in Yonago, you have to place your card key (actually, technically ANY card would work, even your credit card) into a slot at the door to "turn on" things - it turns on the power to your room - so the AC/Heater works, the lights turn on, the electronic toilet turns on, the Internet Modem works, etc. It's probably one of the many ways Japanese people like to (anally) save energy. I learned this the hard way last year when 1. my laptop had died (plugged in) when I was away from the room for a while, 2. my laptop was not connected to the Internet, and 3. during the summer, the room gets REALLY hot when the AC is turned off and you come back after a while. So yeah - just put a random card in there when you go out. I'm sure the energy conservationalists in Japan will like that idea. :-)

And even though it seems like most cars in Japan have GPS's, here's a neat feature I saw on the taxi home yesterday from Haneda airport to the hotel. It also shows real-time traffic maps. Maybe this is a normal feature? I think it got the real-time data through an FM Radio data transmission (I think that's what it said). I suppose if I also lived in Tokyo, I'd want a GPS in my car with all the crazy roads.