Going on a rubbish picnic

This morning we all went to Church in Kibworth, where Rad was preaching, then after Church we went to Wistow, which is nearby, went on a short walk, then had a picnic in a field next to the Garden Centre car park (which was very busy), and the field had sheep poo everywhere.

After we got home I spent the afternoon processing the pics I had taken on the walk.

In the evening I was looking at buying a mobile phone so that I can have a phone number. I was looking at fake iPhones on tradetang. They give a list of frequencies that the phones work on (GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz) on the fake iphone listings, so I wondered whether the phone would be useable in the UK and Japan.

I found this helpful article - GSM Roaming in Japan (and Everywhere Else), which basically says that no, the fake iphone wouldn't work in Japan or South Korea, but should work okay in the UK. For a phone to work okay in Japan and South Korea, I would need one that can use the UMTS protocol, and work on the 2100Mhz band. The real iphone can do this, but not the fake ones. I also saw a video on youtube comparing the real iphone and a fake iphone. The real iphone is obviously superior, however, I don't particularly want an iphone, just I would prefer a decent iphone style phone at a reasonable price.

Another thing to note is that the fake iphones don't support 3G or WiFi, so probably no good for internet browsing, e.g. Fake iphone listing says:

NO GPS
NO WIFI
NOT support 3G Network

But I guess it would be okay for listening to music and watching videos on (and making normal phonecalls).

Doing more searching, I found some phones that weren't listed as using the UMTS protocol, but HSDPA. Looking this up, it seems that this is an improved version of UMTS, and so phones using this protocol, and working on the 2100Mhz band should work in Japan and South Korea.

Next I looked at what the charges would be for using a mobile phone abroad, and reading that article, it seems that it would be very expensive to make or receive calls, unless you buy a local sim card (which would give you a different phone number). So I don't think I really need to try and buy a phone that works abroad, as the main point in having one would be so that people can still contact you while you're away, but if it's so expensive, then there's not much point.

I guess if you're abroad and need to use the phone/be contactable by phone, then it's best to just use the hotel phone, or buy a cheap sim card (and maybe a cheap phone as well) while you're there.

Also in the evening, me and Moccle booked the hotels for a week in Korea (Seoul I think) and a week in Tokyo, then the other week in Japan we'll just book hotels/B&Bs wherever we are when we're there. We also sorted out travel insurance, and got a year's worldwide cover, and ordered some currency, £100 worth of Won and £200 worth of Yen. I expect most of the stuff we'll pay for on credit card when we're there. We used Halifax Travel Exchange to order the money, who say they do 0% commission, and free delivery, however their exchange rate was about 10% in their favour than the real exchange rate.

We checked the Post Office, who also claim to charge 0% commission, but their exchange rate was even worse! We also checked a website Bureau de Change, whose rates were slightly better than Halifax, but the difference wasn't much, so I thought it would be better to go with the Halifax since they're a well known company.

I also need to buy 2 more 1.5TB harddrives, so along with all the other holiday costs (food, trips out, gadgets & souvenirs, and accommodation for the first week in Japan), my increased webhosting costs, and buying a phone, I won't have any money left soon :(

The weather today was sunny in the morning then mainly cloudy in the afternoon (though not overcast). There was a sunset through hazy cloud again, though it didn't look like it was up to much to me. Maybe the cloud was too thick, it did go a bit orangey though.

Food
Breakfast: Choco hoops; cup o' tea.
Lunch: ½ Mature cheddar cheese sandwich; ½ Mature cheddar cheese with salad and Mayonnaise sandwich; satsuma; slice of cherry Madeira cake; Rocky; cup o' tea.
After lunch snack: Choc ice; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Lasagne; potatoes; mixed veg. Pudding was chocolate swiss roll with custard and a bit of flake crumbled on top. Coffee.