Hello kitty fingerprinting at Narita

I couldn't take a picture, sadly, because we were in a full-on security zone, but when we were at passport control in Tokyo, they fingerprinted us and took our pictures. They didn't used to do this. I suppose it's the "in-thing" for countries to do these days.

What made it fun was the happy Hello Kitty quality of the machinery. A girlish voice gave instructions in Japanese, animated graphics showed how to press down your thumbs, and a drawing of a mountain with friendly words of welcome appeared with music if you did your task properly. When you didn't (and I didn't -- over and over), you got angry noises and flashing red lights.

\t : iPhone->you