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Collectible plates
I’m going to tell you a secret. Those saccharine little collectible plates you’ve been giving your mom every year on Mother’s Day? They may not be worth much. Last night at Hakunincho Yataimura, a food court featuring really decent Asian cuisine in Okubo, we asked for extra dishes. What did they bring? A dozen “Cherished…
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4 years in Japan
Today is the first day of our 5th year in Japan. In other words, we celebrated our 4th Japan anniversary yesterday. We had dinner at a posh restaurant with a view and I dressed up because it was a good excuse. Dressing up is fun and far too infrequent. I suppose if I were always…
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Healthy drinks
Flavory juices
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Linguistic Deductions
Linguistic Deductions “Remain Heart is a funny name for a restaurant,” I said as we approached this sign at Iidabashi station. “Maybe they meant remain heartful,” Tod suggested. In katakana English, heartful seems to mean ‘loving and caring.’ “Maybe. But why is the picture a brain with a heart in it?” “That’s not a brain.…
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The flow of holidays
After four years, I am converted to the flow of Japanese holidays and seasons. In my imagination, summer is indigo and white, with kingyo, morning glories, glass chimes, cool somen noodles, and mosquito coils in pig-shaped pottery jars. (Check out Hide Itoh’s excellent collection of summer icons at pixture.com) There are two holiday traditions in…
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Meishi of my own
Since we moved in February, I’ve not had any personal meishi (business cards), but while shopping the other day, I found some very interesting translucent stock that will work in my inkjet printer. So today I’m designing some new cards. I forgotten how challenging it is to get a good balance of white space, graphic…
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Yakatabune
Yakatabune! Dining on Tokyo Bay. Floating parties on ships like these are a summer tradition dating back centuries. Poetry readings and courtly music have been replaced by karaoke, but the spirit is the same. It was fun to dress up in yukata.
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Typhoon Chataan
Typhoon Chataan blew through yesterday (so much for too little rain) and by 2:30 this morning, it was extraordinarily windy. We battened down the hatches and went to sleep. This morning the sky is bright and clear except for an appalling haze of pollution around the horizon.
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Mistakes and lessons
“You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You’ll learn a lot today.” Thanks, Slashdot, for posting those words of wisdom and encouragement at the bottom of your page. I’ve been working on some video projects that are simple in concept, but tedious and frustrating in execution. My equipment is just not behaving. Like I…
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It’s stopped raining
It’s stopped raining. Yesterday’s weather was hot and humid–typical Tokyo summer. We’re due to have thundersorms over the next couple of days, but that’s not a typical rainy season all-day drizzle. Looks like tsuuyu is over. If so, that was a very short rainy season. Farmers rely on a long tsuuyu to keep the rice…
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