Japan has a reputation for being very advanced technologically but we were surprised to discover that, in terms of actual application, it really isn’t. Everyone has the latest cell phones and the tiniest digital cameras but we live in an older building with no high speed internet. It still astonishes me that we had better internet service in the middle of rural Alberta than we have an hour outside one of the biggest cities in the world. On the other hand, I guess we should be happy to have internet at all considering the fact that they’re only just putting cable TV into the building this week.

Perhaps most amazing to us, however, has been the lack of technology at our workplace. MIL has nine small schools spread throughout the northern part of Chiba Prefecture, about an hour east of Tokyo.  Teachers have no access to computers at school and all interoffice communication is done by fax instead of email!  The photocopiers and some of the CD players in our schools must be amongst the oldest on the planet.   I’m sure that there are workplaces in Japan that are much more technologically advanced than ours but from what we’ve heard, MIL is definitely not alone in it’s failure to join the world of modern technology.