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I found an inchworm
I found an inchworm creeping up the spearmint in my garden yesterday. Last week there was a slug slithering alongnear the thyme. A month ago, a caterpillar grew huge on my basil and parsley. Spiders love the bush basil. I seem to be harboring a nice little ecosystem of plants and bugs. Quite surprising, really…
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Houzuki festival
Who knew buying a plant could be such a festive event? We walked down to the Bunkyo-ku Asagao and Houzuki Festival at Konyaku-Enma shrine to get a Chinese lantern plant (houzuki) and were greeted by a dozen festival staff. They were so friendly and quite surprised when Tod conversed in Japanese. Houzuki are old-fashioned summer…
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Matsuri dressup
8:45 pm. Two girls heading off for an ice cream from the Family Mart after the asagao festival at Denzuin.
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Underground
I’ve been reading Underground by Haruki Murakami. It’s a work of non-fiction about the 1995 Tokyo Sarin Attack. Murakami interviewed people who were vicitms and members of the cult that perpetrated the attack and compiled them into a very compelling read. The attacks occurred well before I came to Japan and I never really learned…
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Focus
Do you ever get so intensely focussed on something that you forget everything else? I can do that if I’m creating just about anything–writing, filming, drawing, photographing. Today I managed to lose the entire day while rebranding a client’s website. I’m about halfway there now…I’ll try to surface here with some interesting Japan tidbits tomorrow.
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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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