-
It rarely gets very
It rarely gets very cold here in Tokyo, but I am glad I have a pair of gloves. Yesterday’s high was about 10 (50 F) but the temperature dropped quickly in the evening and the wind was blowing. I’m sure it didn’t dip below freezing but people on the streets last night were bundled up…
-
Christmas: cookies; creativity; and
Christmas: cookies; creativity; and caffeine. I spent my Christmas morning baking an army of gingerbread men and citrus wreaths. They were beautiful and lots of fun to decorate. Each gingerbread person had a distinct personality and the accessories to prove it. My day’s plan was to bake cookies, arrange the gifts shipped from family and…
-
We spent our Christmas
We spent our Christmas Eve getting into the spirit of the season. A visit to the Japan Toy Museum gave us a dose of playthings. They have 8,000 toys on display. Arranged by era and type we saw traditional wooden toys, dozens of post-war tin toys, kitchy 60’s era spaceship and robot toys (with “Mysterious…
-
It’s Christmas Eve, a
It’s Christmas Eve, a big date night here in Japan. Couples have made reservations months in advance for dinner and a room at swank hotels. For the younger set, a Christmas Eve date means Kentucky Fried Chicken & an hour or two at a love hotel. A Ginza Printemps department store survey said that women…
-
At one of the
At one of the busier stations on the line, there was a minor disruption in the carriage I was sitting in. Someone spoke in a loud, sharp tone, a disembodied voice carrying over the general hubbub of the crowded train. A few heads turned, curious to see who it was, but bodies blocked the view…
-
The Lovely building is
The Lovely building is no more. Down on Hauksan Dori, the major thoroughfare near our house, stood a building that made me smile every time I walked by. It had a certain style, a panache that the buildings surrounding it lacked. Seven stories high, it fit in with its neighbors. Except for one feature. Running…
-
Earlier this month, we
Earlier this month, we received three yellow cards from the post office in quick succession, all of them telling us that we had foreign packages to be delivered and asking us for instructions: redeliver? When? Where? When a package arrived the next day and the postman hadn’t taken the redelivery slips I’d filled in, I…
-
My friend Brendan, the
My friend Brendan, the crazy proprietor (he hates it when I call him that) of Pizzakaya , recently finished looking over the entire 361 pages of my book manuscript. (Thank you, Brendan!) Now I’m going over it again, marking in more changes of my own and thinking about his comments. In addition to the expected…
-
What is it with
What is it with foreigners and candy? Yesterday on the train a middle-aged Japanese woman, atypically fat and garishly dressed, sat next to me. My first thought upon seeing her unconventional appearance was “Oh, no, she’s going to try to talk to me.” I was spared that torture, but as she rose to disembark a…
-
Today is a day
Today is a day when I have nothing to say. I spent all of yesterday at my desk completing a project for a client. Tod & I ate leftovers for breakfast and dinner and pretty much sat in the office and typed all day long. I didn’t even make it as far as the mailbox…
Archives