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So I arrived in Bangkok, Thailand on Tuesday evening and caught a cab to a place called Shanti Lodge. The place has an awesome vibe and great food. I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Bangkok, and a single room is only 400 baht (about $11.50 USD), except that is for a room with a fan only (which really isn’t too hot at night. There are a couple legitimate Thai Massage places (not the happy ending or dirty kind) around the area. You can get a 2 hour body massage for $10 USD, so I’ve indulged each day I’ve been here. It’s more of a yoga-mixed pressure point massage, but it is very good. I did some walking around the last couple days and checked out some of the markets. Crazy is all I can say. Yield to anything with more metal than you.

My International Drivers Permit arrived in Nagoya a week or so ago and since then have had the opportunity to do a bit of driving (and just in time to remedy my sweet bike’s flat tire). In addition to the steering wheel being on the right side of the car and the cars being on the left side of the road, there are also extremely narrow roads in Japan. A lot of these side streets wouldn’t classify as anything more than a sidewalk in the US and there are, during busy times, a lot of people and bikes crowding certain roads. It’s been a good experience. Other than that it’s been a fun couple of weeks, meeting new people, trying new places and taking in a small bit of what it would be like to live in Japan. We are heading back to Nagoya this afternoon and I’ll be there until Tuesday morning, then I catch a flight to Bangkok and will be in Thailand for a couple weeks then Hong Kong for a week. Then back to Japan, with my newly purchased rail pass, to travel around the country for a couple weeks. It should be an action-packed 5-6 weeks!

So if you have no clue what that title means here is a quick run down: In the United States the iPhone is only available on the AT&T network. But the iPhone works on SIM card technology (which basically means everything about your calling plan and the identity of your cell provider is stored on a little card installed in your phone) so in theory you should be able to pop out the AT&T SIM card and put in, lets say, a T-Mobile SIM card. But it doesn’t work. There is something programmed in the iPhones sold for use on the AT&T network which won’t allow non-AT&T SIM cards to work.

Although nearly since the beginning of the release of the iPhone people have found ways around this block and successfully connected the phone to different carriers such as T-Mobile, but it requires “hacking” and time.

However, on New Years Day, articles were published all across the internet on big sites such as Google News about a fairly simple and somewhat automated process for Jailbreaking (being able to get “under the hood” of the phone) and Unlocking (being able to connect the phone to different carriers) iPhones. The catalyst for these articles being written came from a group of programmers who created, and released on New Years Day, the piece of software which made unlocking the phone very simple.

I’m currently using one of Nori’s old cell phones and a SIM card from SoftBank, a cell provider in Japan. Since I have my iPhone with me, which I’m basically just using as a English-Japanese dictionary, I figured I’d give it a try and perhaps put the iPhone to better use. To make a long story short I got it to work. A lot of people are trying to do the same all around the world and everyone is urging those with success to document what they did, where they are, who their provider is, etc to help others have success and the programmers to fix bugs. So from here to the end of the post is just technical details about what I did, aimed to provide documentation to the community of those working on software bugs, trying to unlock their phones, etc.

iPhone Jailbreak and Unlock: The iPhone is working in Japan on the SoftBank 3G Network

I followed the basic steps posted everywhere on the internet to jailbreak then opted to use Cydia to install the yellowsn0w package for unlocking. After which I tried multiple times trying to get the SoftBank SIM to work. I tried switching Airplane Mode on and off, turning 3G off, restarting the phone and reinstalling the SIM. Nothing seemed to work. It would search for a carrier and then either give a SIM error or say No Service. I gave up for a couple weeks. Over that period of time I’ve toyed around with the iPhone getting my basic use out it if, connecting it to wireless networks and using it to attempt to communicate with the Japanese people. During that time I’ve restarted the phone a few times and turned Airplane mode on and off a few times and have done a couple syncs.

Today I was checking into tethering my laptop to my phone and vice-versa. I enable Bluetooth which turned off Airplane mode. My AT&T SIM was installed. I then got service from Docomo (another provider in Japan). It seems as though they have a partnership with AT&T because right when it connected I received an automated text message from AT&T about international texting rates, warning me that my US text coverage does not apply outside of the country. But the odd thing is I’m almost positive that I tried to get service here with my AT&T SIM a couple weeks ago and got the No Service indicator. So maybe unlocking the phone had something to do with it connecting to Docomo’s network even though the AT&T SIM was installed. But I honestly have no clue.

Anyways, this prompted me to give the SoftBank SIM card another try. I left the phone on, switched SIMs and it connected to SoftBank’s 3G network. For fear that the 3G network was not included in my plan I tried to disable it to be safe, but when I did I received the No Service indicator once again. I turned 3G back on and got service again. To verify, I made a call to my friend in Japan and it worked just fine. If you have any questions about specifics on what I did I’ll do my best to answer them. I hope this helps!

UPDATE: I just added a bunch of photos from when we went caving in New Zealand. I couldn’t get to them until now so they don’t fit in chronologically with the rest of the pictures, but whatever. Enjoy!

So I spent the weekend on my own in Toyokawa, Japan. Nori hadn’t finished installing all his carpet, which gets put in more like tiles, so I finished it for him and cleaned up the apartment. Friday I went to the market to get groceries for the weekend, too bad I bought mostly things that need to be cooked and he doesn’t have a microwave or stove/oven. So I enjoyed dried ramen noodles, fruit and luke warm soup all weekend. Today I was able to find a good deal to travel to Bangkok and Hong Kong so I’ll be leaving here on the 27th.

I honestly can’t remember what all we’ve done since I last posted, so, at least, here are a few things. We took a small road trip to Shizuoka (a couple hours away) to visit Hideo, a friend of Noriyuki’s who I met in the States while they were traveling together. Hideo owns a couple bars and a restaurant so we enjoyed an evening of good food and drinks. The next day we drove around the base of Mount Fuji. I was waiting until we got to one of the larger lakes surrounding Fuji to take pictures, but by then it was cloudy and you couldn’t see much of anything. We are now back in Toyokawa, about an hour away from Nagoya and the location of Noriyuki’s office, and I’ll be staying here through the weekend working on getting cheap flights around Asia.

So a new year begins. Here in Nagoya, Japan New Years Eve was celebrated by going to a temple and bowing for good luck in 2009, and a few drinks at the bar. We celebrated the new year day with lunch at the Takagi’s and dinner at Noriyuki’s in-law’s. New Years here is a bigger, more celebrated holiday than Christmas so it was a long, yet wonderful day.

2008 has brought about a lot of change for many of us, a combination of good and bad, so lets hope that 2009 brings all it’s best. I have a good feeling about it. I’d love to hear what you all have planned for the New Year so feel free to post and share. I’d also like to take a moment to thank everyone who has been following this journey and posting comments, I always enjoy reading them. We are now averaging 108 visitors a day to this site.