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I love the sound
I love the sound of trains. The Marunouchi line, an electric subway, makes a brief above ground appearance near our new apartment. Every few minutes, I hear the muted roar of trains going by. I haven’t yet learned to distinguish their direction, but I will. And I suspect that I’ll be able to tell what…
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Hikkoshimashita. We’ve moved. The
Hikkoshimashita. We’ve moved. The past few days, I’ve been running around wearing a kitchen timer around my neck. It helps me to stay focussed by allowing me to work in 15 minute chunks. It’s pretty astonishing what you can do in 15 minutes. This advice came from FlyLady, woman and a website that’s difficult to…
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The final items to
The final items to dispose of before moving were some small tables and lamps. The stone-topped coffee tables we acquired when we first landed in Japan were a favorite of Tod’s. He really didn’t want to part with them, but the interior plan of the new apartment proved that there’s no room for them. I…
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Today’s pre-moving activities did
Today’s pre-moving activities did not go as smoothly as planned. After delivering our freshly washed curtains to the new apartment and discovering that they weren’t actually very clean after all, we decided to hang them up anyway. The new windows are considerably shorter than the old ones. The curtains trail the ground like a bridal…
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I shouldn’t read the
I shouldn’t read the articles about blogging in the popular press. They make me question whether my blog is worthwhile. Self doubt creeps in when I encounter things like this: “When people begin to think that they are nothing more than a cog in the wheel of society, they look for any way to differentiate…
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Today is wall washing
Today is wall washing and curtain laundering day. I’m making slow progress but progress nonetheless. Bookshelves and nightstands are on their way out the door this afternoon to a women who is furnishing a new apartment. This reveals a shocking number of dustbunnies I’m tired.
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We’ve been measuring the
We’ve been measuring the new apartment. Now we have scale diagrams of all the rooms and of all our furniture. I’m not a very good interior planner but I have great tools. Where are we going to put the piano? Is it better to have the sofa facing the window or the wall? What about…
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True Mongolian food is
True Mongolian food is mainly meat, milik and flour. These ingredients are most accessible to the nomadic tribes of Mongolia. Our dinner at Shilingol, a small restaurant in Sengoku, was mainly lamb and milk products. We started with a salty milk tea and fried bread, then dug into the only vegetable for the meal–shredded potatoes…
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I woke this morning
I woke this morning to the sound of helicopters. President Bush is in town. I imagine he’s staying at the Imperial guest house and coptering from place to place in the city. This morning, he visited Meiji Shrine and later today he meets with the Prime Minister. Later tonight, they are all going out to…
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The Duck! man came
The Duck! man came yesterday to estimate the cost of our move. I had requested an English-speaker since my Japanese is just not up to the challenge of contract details. Hanaki-san was very nice and he and I spoke in a mix of English and Japanese until Tod arrived. Tod’s Japanese is good enough that…
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