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It’s 8 am and
It’s 8 am and I am happy to have my new laptop, Ferry, who I purchased in Dover last month. Her umbilical cord (an Ethernet cable) stretches across the bed, down the hall and into the office to give me Internet access. I also have a cold. A miserable summertime one, probably brought on by…
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Prime Minister Koizumi must
Prime Minister Koizumi must be happy. An interview revealed that he always wanted to be a rock star. Well, he is popular enough to be one. His Cabinet’s approval rating is a record-breaking 88%. What I can’t figure out is why. They don’t seem to be doing much of anything differently, though Foreign Minister Tanaka…
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Tod gave me a
Tod gave me a present of books. He often orders books from Powell’s in Portland and he loves their delivery. They come in big, grey postal sacks. There’s no bookstore quite like Powell’s here in Tokyo–not for English books, certainly (the paucity of English books in this city is really depressing), but not for Japanese…
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On the way to
On the way to my 1st grade student’s house, I passed a wonderful French patisserie. The window display of a chouchon (pig) cake caught my eye. It was so cute; I was very tempted to buy it and share it with Katie during her lesson. But it was 3,500 yen and pretty large, so I…
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Because of the recent
Because of the recent heat, Tod’s been busy replacing batteries in the aircon remotes. Yesterday he did the second unit in the dining room. “Come look at this! It bows when you press a button,” he called to me. He failed to mention the novelty of having a cartoon of a uniformed Japanese Office Lady…
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Geez, we eat a
Geez, we eat a lot of salt. I was shocked when I finished up the last of the salt in the bin (we don’t even use shakers anymore) and rummaged around in the cabinet to find some more. There wasn’t any. In the course of three years here, we have consumed two liters of salt.…
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I’m too used to
I’m too used to waiting. It began (as I recall) with a boyfriend in 1986 who was always running late. I learned to bring a book. I started watching people. 15 years later in Tokyo, I still find myself waiting. Yesterday it was an hour’s wait for an out-of-town visitor I had promised to meet…
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Best new web resource
Best new web resource of the day: Google Image Search. Google’s already my favorite search engine (and has been since it was in beta several years back) and now it has an image search, too. While you won’t find high-res artworks (like you do at Corbis or Getty), I’ve already discovered that it’s a treasure…
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It’s summertime and the
It’s summertime and the sewers are stinky. Smelly sewers are one of the hallmarks of summer in Tokyo. I don’t really notice them at any other time of year, but from tsuuyu (the rainy season) until autumn, I catch a noseful of noisome bouquet at almost every corner. Some drains are worse than others. In…
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This morning I’ve been
This morning I’ve been preparing for the judging portion of DigitalEve Japan’s postcard design competition. For the past six weeks, we’ve been advertising our contest (grand prize is 30,000 yen (about $300)) but have received only three entries. The deadline is Saturday June 30th so I’m hoping that we’ll have a last minute flurry of…
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