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Flowers, flowers everywhere. Nothing
Flowers, flowers everywhere. Nothing like a birthday celebration to fill the office with the sweet scent of blossoms. Japanese businesses are keen on service. The florist’s delivery man was exceptionally . He handed me the huge bouquet of pink lilies and alstroeameria, wrapped in lavender paper and wrapped with a fuschia ribbon, then he turned…
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It doesn’t matter how
It doesn’t matter how drunken people are here, they still maintain courtesy. We were sitting in a ramen shop waiting for our dinner. A group of three or four boozy businessmen had arrived before us and were enjoying their Nth bottle of beer, telling jokes and laughing loudly. Their big bowls of steaming ramen arrived.…
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Lithe bodies dressed in
Lithe bodies dressed in black vests with glowing neon medalions above black leather hotpants and accessorised with green glowing bracelets and black sunglasses rushed onto the stage and gyrated wildly, stirring the crowd into a frenzy of consumer lust at the Tokyo Game Show 2001. Wow, those X Box girls were hot. It’s a shame…
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It snowed yesterday, cancelling
It snowed yesterday, cancelling our plans for hanami, a cherry blossom viewing party, at Koishikawa Botanical Garden. But the unseasonably chilly weather taught me two new Japanese phrases. “Hana bie” means chilly spring weather (hana is flower and bie is chill), and “botan yuki” describes yesterday’s big-flake spring snow (botan is a peony; yuki means…
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Playing hookey
There’s nothing like getting up early and working until lunchtime then playing hookey for the rest of the afternoon. Seth, Tara and I went to Ginza for lunch at a favorite Indian restaurant then walked through the Sony Building. We gawked at the latest computers and electronic gadgets then went on to sit in Hibiya…
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Electric Work
“Hey, come quick. There’s a man walking on the power lines outside the window,” Tara urged from the office. Sure enough, there he was. He and his companion were dressed in the uniforms of the electric company and were walking along the power lines, inexplicably unbundling the wires that were spiralled together. Tara stuck her…
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Visitors
Friends who used to live here in Tokyo have returned for a visit. Seth & Tara quit their jobs last June and have been travelling the world. They arrived last night from Fiji via Aukland (where Seth had a emergency room sonogram to rule out a possible deep vein thrombosis problem!). Today they are settling…
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Japanese holidays
Japanese lawmakers are angling for more long weekends. This year saw the change of two holidays (Coming of Age Day in January and Health-Sports Day in October) from fixed dates to floating Mondays to create long weekends. This is great for overworked salarymen and a boost for the economy as many people turn these three-day…
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Jet lag nap
I made a serious error last night. After arriving home from Hawaii, I let myself take a nap at about 6 pm, when I felt too tired to keep my eyes open. The nap lasted until 3 am (which is 8 am in Hawaii, the perfect time to get up). Oops. Normally I force myself…
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Limo service
After two weeks of relatively frugal vacationing on Maui, Tod & I treated ourselves to one blow-out night in Waikiki before boarding the plane back to Tokyo. We stayed at a hotel called W. After showering with all the hotel beauty products, we wrapped ourselves up in fluffy hotel robes and ordered what turned out…
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