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The Postman Rang
On the weekend, I had mailed a little box of goodies to some friends in Australia, where there are strict rules are about what can be admitted into the country. I know not to send seeds, plants, raw foods, wood, and dried grasses so I was careful to avoid those sorts of things. But I…
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Out of my Closet
(Sorry, not that kind of out.) There is no good reason to have as many clothes as I own. Later this year I will be living out of a backpack while I travel for a month and I’m hoping to repeat the backpack era again at the beginning of next year, so the seasonal wardrobe…
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100 kids
Yesterday I participated in an event at the Sullivans School on Yokosuka Naval Base. It was a day of workshops and activities that focussed on multiple intelligences. You won’t be surprised that I was teaching a hoop dance workshop. In my 40 minute sessions, kids learned ten tricks and we strung them together into a…
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The Great Outdoors
I love being outside and the longer I am in nature, the better I feel. Camping on Niijima is one of the highlights of my year. Over the Golden Week holidays we hosted Guru-guru Camp and stayed at Habushiura campsite for 13 days. It was blissful. The weather was as predictably unpredictable as always. There…
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Unrelated thoughts
I keep having ideas for blog posts – topics meaty enough to be more than a tweet or status update on Facebook – but for whatever reason I talk myself out of writing up my thoughts. I’ve fallen out of the habit of blogging, and that’s a shame for me (maybe not such a big…
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Modernist Dining in Bunkyo
Dessert last night blew me away. Pictured above you see a “deconstructed apple crumble” that involved nitrogen-frozen whipped cream with a hot caramel soup poured over cubes of apple, cinnamon cookie crumbs, caramel ice cream and a slice of dried apple. It was such an impressive presentation and my first experience with “molecular gastronomy.” The rest of…
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Equinoctial Thoughts
Today our planet has made another full circle around the sun and our day and night are equal length. It’s a public holiday in Japan. Following the Buddhist tradition, we clean graves and remember the dead today. I have no grave to clean but I honor my father every year on the equinox, the anniversary…
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Making Music, part 1
A couple of weeks ago I started casting around for someone to write me some music. I want an original tune for this year’s World Hoop Day Dance project and so I was telling to my musician friends about it. I never thought this would happen but my ukulele teacher, Huw, suggested that we work together to…
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Up and Down in Tohoku
Sunrise view from the cliffside cabin in Ofunato where we stayed. I spent the past week in Iwate-ken touring schools and doing performances with Guy Totaro, the Smile Ambassador for the Tyler Foundation. We visited 11 schools in 5 days, seeing about 700 kids for play, hoop workshops, and more. It was a very satisfying…
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Skilling Up and Making Connections
Twenty twelve so far has been about engaging new connections and skills. There have been two main threads in the past six weeks. Connection Thread #1: Skating & Hooping Just before the new year, Tod and I went skating at a newly opened skate arena at Tokyo Dome. It was such fun that we made…
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