Shibuya at Night

OK - here is Shibuya at night again for those who like these pictures. This is the crossing on the west side of Shibuya station. Click on the picture to enlarge it, look carefully at the street, and you can see it is completely crowded with people crossing. This is really one of the coolest things about Tokyo - millions of people day and night in a bright, crazy, but safe setting.

See the Starbucks Coffee on the second level? You can't get away from them. There are two on the block where I live. Come see me though and I'll have a cup of coffee with you maybe here. It looks like a good place to watch the crowd.

I was out looking for a Japanese teapot today but still haven't found just the right one after two years. I got pretty close to buying one today but then I couldn't find cups I liked with it. I think I will be able to find the one I want if I just keep looking a few more months.

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The 37th All Combined Nishiki Goi Show -1-

Remember last year's koi show? Here are a few pictures from this year. They really are amazing fish. There were some very unusual ones this year but I didn't get too many really good pictures. The lighting isn't good for pictures - there is a lot of glare.

Feel free to cast a vote for your favorite fish again if you like.

At the top in this photograph are three Taisho Sanke with a Kohaku at the bottom.

The second photograph shows a very nice Tancho Kohaku with a Koromo. Of the fish on this page the Koromo is probably my favorite.

At the bottom is another Taisho Sanke. This one was huge - over 80 cm long and very impressive.

The 37th All Combined Nishiki Goi Show -2-

The 37th All Combined Nishiki Goi Show -3-

Snow in Tokyo

It is pretty here when it snows. It is an infrequent event - maybe a snow like this once a year. Today's snow was wet and since it was just above freezing not sticking that well.

This view is of the famous Zojoji Temple down from my apartment. You can see the base of Tokyo Tower in the background at right.

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Megan's Purse

This week's picture is Kanako-san showing the purse she made for Megan's Christmas present. Megan is a purse collector and this one is the only one like it in the world. It is made from an embroidered obi (sash to a kimono). I found the obi in a shop that specializes in kimono, and has a number of old ones which is where this one came from.

Kanako-san is a secretary in the office who was trained as a weaver of cloth but is working as a secretary until she makes it in fashion. Anyway, she is a good seamstress too and I saw some purses she had made and asked if she could make one from the obi. She agreed and just finished this one.

I must give myself some credit, but it is pretty clear who has the talent. Also, she is cute and keeps asking about David from the picture in my office. Megan, I hope you enjoy it... Dad

My Boring Life in Japan

OK, no interesting pictures or stories today. Friday I worked late so I wouldn't have to work over the weekend. Saturday was very cold and rainy. I did nothing but the laundry and straighten up the apartment. Oh yeah, I also messed up my iPod library and had to start all over on the song ratings. iPods are cool aren't they? Today was a nice day and I could see Fuji clearly first thing. I went out and bought some coat hangers, gloves, and groceries. It doesn't get much more exciting than that.

But, I've been doing very well on my New Year's Resolutions. Number 1 was to start exercising regularly again and I give my self an A+. Number 2 was to quit being so uptight about everything at work - in other words not to worry about things I can't change. I give myself a B on that so far.

I can't blame anyone but myself for doing nothing this last weekend. Next week is the annual Tokyo Koi Show so I plan to go to that. Hope you are getting out regardless of what the weather is like...

shin nen akemashite omedetou gozaimasu

Today's title means Happy New Years and is what is said when you first meet someone after the day. You say "yoi otoshi wo" before New Years. The New Year is getting a bit old but since I haven't written I thought I should start out with this.

Actually, today is seijin no hi - Coming of Age Day. As I've explained before, this is a day to celebrate young people turning 20. Since David is now 20, we should offer congratulations to him so "omedetou gozaimasu".

Have a great New Year...

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Where is Waldo Today?

Here we are at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Did you know that there are beavers in East Texas? The Texas beavers don't build dens like some other North American beavers - their dens are dug into the side of the creek. But they do have flat tails (I'm not referring to nutria here).

Anyway, they had a special exhibition on Egypt at the museum and they gave us 3D glasses to view it. See the photo behind Yebisu for an idea of how silly this was.

Hope you are enjoying the holidays and yoi otoshi wo (happy New Year). My New Year's card posted below has the same greeting in kanji on the card. The title of that posting is the greeting written in hiragana.

New Years is probably the most important holiday in Japan. At the end of the year, everyone cleans their house good inside and out. Special food is prepared that has a good "shelf life" so that everyone can enjoy the feast but not spend time cooking. New Year's eve is a time to get together with family and friends and maybe watch the holiday specials on TV.

The local temple will ring the bell 108 times to get rid of old sins before midnight. After midnight they will ring it 108 more times to ward them off in the New Year. Lots of people go the temple for food, a little ame-sake, prayer, and a good luck charm.

May you have a healthy, prosperous, and happy year in 2006...

よいおとしを

I'm not the Only One having Trouble

I read an article today in The Japan Times about how outraged (actually I don't see many outraged people here) Japanese have been complaining that the schools are not teaching children kanji and proper use of honorific Japanese. This is a little bit like English speaking parents complaining that their children aren't learning penmanship, spelling, or good manners anymore.

The problem apparently with kanji is that most children can READ it but they have trouble WRITING it on grade level. Apparently their parents aren't much better. The secretaries will look it up on their phones or the word processor before writing sometimes.

There are TV shows now being aired which capitalize on the poor state of affairs. On an episode of "Quiz! Nihongo-O!" only 17 of 30 contestants could produce the kanji for nose which is learned in the third grade. The Japanese word for nose is hana (also means flower but has a different kanji). Here is the kanji for snout:

　鼻

Hmmm....

More on Kanji

Let me address the use of kanji Vs. phonetic alphabets again. Kanji uses a symbol to represent a single idea, object, etc. Phonetic alphabets represent sound only. So let's make some comparisons:

Symbols Required: Phonetic alphabets are the clear winner here if you think less is more. Kanji has around 2000 characters in common use and Chinese even more.

Language Specificity: You might think that phonetic alphabets are the winner here too but not so quick please. While it is possible to write Japanese in the Roman alphabet, you would have no idea what you are reading unless you know Japanese. If you know Kanji, you would also be able to read Chinese to a fair degree also without knowing any Chinese at all.

Ease in Learning: I think this is a no-brainer. Phonetic alphabets are quicker to learn because of the fewer number of symbols.

Speed in Reading: The jury is out on this for me. Intuitively to a Western mind the phonetic alphabet would be quicker to process. This seems wildly counter intuitive to anyone brought up on Kanji. They believe the symbol is processed immediately and can be linked together in a speed reading style. Also, consider this: The Arabic numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) are basically symbols representing the idea of numbers (e.g. one, two, three, four, etc.). Which of the following is easier to process:

• 14,597.6
• Fourteen thousand, five hundred and ninety seven point six

Note also in the above example that with Arabic numbers it is readable in any language while in the second example it makes sense only in English.

I dunno, but I am getting too old to learn a couple of thousand new characters to represent my feeble thoughts...

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You can eat the whole thing...

According to Ikeda san, there are 3 fish where you can eat the internals: the ankou (lantern fish), tara (cod), and the fugu (blow fish). Of course you can't eat the ovaries or the liver of fugu because they are highly poisonous. That ankou is an ugly critter isn't he? Anyway, I have partaken of the internals of all three. The liver of the ankou is the most unusual tasting although certain parts of the cod aren't far behind. Fugu is very mild. Anyway, I just thought you might like to know...

Title Needed for Empress's Husband

Here is an update for those of you who were following the recent royal wedding to a commoner and the lack of a male heir to the throne. Sorry I wasn't able to provide any personal anecdotes on the wedding.

*** FLASH ***

The Japanese government is planning a bill to allow a female on the throne. Part of the bill includes an official title for the reigning empress's husband.

Japan has had eight female monarchs in the past who ruled between the sixth and 18th centuries but they were either unmarried or had been widowed. Accordingly, no title for the husband was required.

Current law which went into effect in 1947 is being revamped because it allows only male heirs who have emperors on their fathers' sides to become emperor. Female Imperial members have to leave the household if they marry commoners.

*** END FLASH ***

The new bill will put a lot of minds at rest I'm sure. This might also allow the husband to quit his current job with the Tokyo municipal government.

Nihongo wa muzukashii desu

Japanese is difficult (the title of today's blog) and is challenging my rusty mind. My grammar is getting better and I can make compound sentences now. I may have told you in the past that all Japanese take English in school but most are not very comfortable speaking it. More and more, I find that my Japanese may be better than the English of the person I am talking to when I am away from the office. I can have trivial conversations with people even.

I have also started trying to pick up some kanji again. One of the interesting things about kanji is that they can mean different things when combined. And some kanji are formed of "radicals" which have base meaning but form new words when combined. Here are some examples:

Separate Kanji

Fire + Mountain = Volcano
Fire + Flower = Fireworks
Study + Alive = Student
Big + Study = University

Radicals in the same Kanji

Woman + Child = Love
Power + Rice Field = Man
Tree + Tree + Tree = Woods

Some of the meanings sharing the same character are also revealing:

Day = Sun
Private = Me

People who read kanji "think" differently than when reading words. When you read kanji you see pictures and then fill in the grammar around it for detail. When you read an alphabetic language you read the detailed grammar and words, then form a picture. At least that is the way I figure it. There are a lot of things about Japanese that are linked to the written language so having some reading skills aids understanding the culture.

I only have about 1900 more kanji characters to go and I will have partially mastered it. At this rate it should only take another 40 years or so...

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A Winter Haiku

The Monkey Carvings at Nikko

はつ　しぐれ
さる　も　こみの　を
ほしげ　なり

In first winter rain
Monkeys look like
they also want coats

Basho

Late Autumn in Tokyo

The Temple from my Balcony

The Steps are a Symbol for Success in Life

"On the front side of Atago jinja (OTOKOZAKA) the steps are long and steep. They are famous for success in life and for the legend of the junioru samura MAGAKI HEIKUROU who dared to ride his horse up the steps and succeeded in delivering a plum gift to his lord. The Shogun praised him as a great rider in Japan. Everybody knows these steps are a symbol for success in life. They are called SHUSSE no ISHIDAN."

The painting is located in the shrine next to where I live. The description is taken from a sign outside the shrine.

Sumo in a Taxi 1

How many sumo can you get in a Volkswagon? I am not sure, but I don't think you can get much more than 3 into a Japanese taxi.

These guys had finished for the day and were heading home. We watched the 3rd day of the tournament in Fukuoka which is on the island of Kyushu in Southern Japan.

I was worried about whether the big guy in front was going to make in in or not.

Sumo in a Taxi 2

Well he finally made it. I hope he got out OK.

Atomic Dome

This is the Atomic Dome in Hiroshima which was just below the the atomic bomb when it went off. I have seen pictures of it many times but it is of course so powerful to see it. You can't help but want to avoid war after being here.

Carp Castle

Here we are at "Carp Castle" in Hiroshima for which the mighty Carp baseball team is named. The castle is in an area that had many fish. It is near a river that along with moats helped form it's defenses. Although I looked, I couldn't see any carp on the day I was there.


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More on Food

Here is an update on unusual things I was able to eat last week:

1. Fugu - Poisonous Blow Fish: The guy I was traveling with to Fukuoka insisted we eat fugu since it is a delicacy in his home town. We had it as sashimi and then in a delicate soup and finally fried as tempura. Quite good - I had never had a full course fugu meal like this.
2. Ebi - Still Wriggling Shrimp: In Korea we had a live shrimp that was quickly peeled, deheaded, and handed to you while it was still wriggling. It's OK but they are better boiled in Zatarain's. The shrimp were a local, rare delicacy that were said to cost $10 each.
3. Geso - Still Wriggling Octopus Legs: We had these in Korea also. I had heard about them in a book on Japan but the Japanese guy I was with knew nothing about them. They are cut off still wriggling and dipped in a sauce. If you are lucky, they will try to stick to the top of your mouth with one of their suction cups. Really. They taste like any other raw octopus to me except for the suction.

The Koreans also encourage you to drink way too much alcohol too. I should have taken pictures.

Wood & Pecker

It must be early November because they are starting to put the Christmas decorations up in Yokohama. I took this picture at the escalator going into the train station today. We don't have Thanksgiving so it really isn't possible to use that as a cue to put up the decorations or start the Christmas advertisements.

Actually, there are very few Christians in Japan (less than 2%) - so why are we decorating at all? Because it is a holiday and a chance to sell merchandise of course!

This brings me to the central theme of today's blog. Japan is a very interesting dichotomy. On the one hand it is very Japanesey (less than 2% foreigners) and very traditional. On the other hand it has assimilated all sorts of things from other cultures including writing (China), words (a huge proportion of English words as well as Chinese), technology, arts, holidays, you name it.

I took the title of today's blog off of a store window I saw as I was walking through Yokohama: "Wood & Pecker" - take a look at the pictures behind Yebisu if you don't believe me. The store was an upscale clothing shop. Now I am guessing that the person that named it had an understanding of English and a sense of humor but with the Japanese you never can tell. English, especially in advertising, is rampant and frequently nonsensical. It is as if words were pulled randomly from a dictionary (but this one has both comic and sexual innuendo that is almost impossible to think is random).

Anyway, the "Wood & Pecker" had a Christmas tree in the window. Then I started noticing Christmas decorations everywhere. I guess I'd better start shopping. By the way, the Chinese zodiac animal for next year is the dog so all sorts of calendars and doo-dads with dogs are starting to show up. Just when I was getting used to the chicken - out with the chicken and in with the dog!

And now for something entirely different. I have to put in a plug for Google Earth. This is the coolest Web Software I have ever used. If you like maps and geography you have to try it. The resolution in some places is astounding. Here is the link: http://earth.google.com/

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Ochazuke

What is it? Ochazuke is green tea over rice with some flavoring such as dried plum, seaweed, or salmon. Personally, I like the plum. For those who like recipes, make Japanese sticky rice and buy a packet of the instant mix. Pour packet over hot rice and add some hot water. Eat. I made this bowl myself. Yummy. I took the picture with my cell phone.

For various reasons I have been thinking about travel lately. It has gotten to be a real hassle. If you travel too much the sense of adventure is lost and it does that.

I was at the airport the other day and saw something I haven't seen in a long time. There was a tearful family saying goodbye to a loved one and clogging up the entrance. Of course you used to see this all the time before travel became so commonplace and they put up the metal detectors and screened people out of the concourse. Now I travel half way around the world like it was a trip to Walmart and leave an email to tell people where I went instead of a note on the counter.

I was reminded of this when I took the first helicopter trip out to the Diana Platform a few years ago. I got up early and drove down to Galveston, way too early for anybody in my family to get up. We had a couple of 100 workers from the fabrication yard who were going out for a one month tour. I was amazed - tearful families and it was 5:30 in the morning. They had never seen their father leave for any time before.

In Qatar we are building a camp for 20,000 workers who will be there for a year at a time. The workers will be coming from India, Pakistan, Phillipines, etc. Many will have never left their home. There will probably be some more tears at the airport.

Momiji Chizu

It is definitely autumn and the weather is really getting nice. This map shows the colors of the maple trees in Japan (red is full color, yellow is turning, you can guess green). It is from the Yahoo! Japan weather site. In the Tokyo area, the weather is in the 50s at night and 70s in the day. There has been rain but since I returned from Qatar it has been sunny and nice.

Too much work and travel leaves me with little to write about. I did learn an interesting thing about the pre-made meals you can buy in the 7-11. Don't buy the ones that come in an aluminum bowl. The bowl is aluminum because you have to heat it up over the stove! This is of course too much cooking so be forewarned.

I was talking to someone in Doha the other day about men cooking for themselves alone. He said he had never heard of "eating over the sink". I wondered where this guy had been all his life? What did he think garbage disposals were made for if not a method of avoiding cleaning dishes?

Anyway, enjoy the autumn. This is one of the nicest times of the year.

Autumn Haiku

It is time for another haiku since the weather is changing. This is another one by Basho.

この　みち　や
ゆく　ひと　なし　に
あき　の　くれ

Along this road
There are no travelers
Night fall in autumn

This time, I encourage my readers to publish their interpretation in the comments section.

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Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday and the secretaries gave me flowers and brought in everything to make maki sushi for lunch. (We ate the cake a little later in the day after the sushi had settled). Gave me flowers - is this a great place or what?

Thanks for the phone calls, cards, and emails. I am thinking of you too....

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Where is Waldo Now?

Here is a hint - look at the sign. I haven't been spending much time in Japan lately. Always on the move.

We had a good time visiting Dave - enjoyed the football game, enjoyed the concert, enjoyed Hollywood, enjoyed Catalina Island, just enjoyed being together.

I am back in Japan and the weather is starting to cool off but is still very nice - shirt sleeves to sweater weather.

Hope you are enjoying things too :-)

Where is Waldo?

OK, it has been pointed out that I haven't been blogging lately. It is true. I have been doing two things - travel (work related) and work (work related). Guess where Waldo was most recently from the picture. I wasn't actually working here, but on my way to Massa. Massa is the town on the coast just below the place where Michelangelo used to get his marble.

Anyway, this blog space is about Japan and I have recently proved something which I had previously though I had disproved: Socks can disappear during clothes washing in Japan - it is not just an American phenomenon or one related to having kids around. I have recently lost about 4 socks after going nearly two years without losing a single one. I don't know if the gremlin followed me here or if they live here and just hadn't noticed me before now. Very strange.

Anyway, I am now trying to figure out if they are eaten by the washer or the dryer. I always assumed the dryer but that was just an assumption. Hopefully I will find something more exciting to write about soon...