Torii Gates and Shrine in old part of Shinagawa

These Torii Gates lead to a small shrine. The old buildings behind it are of a traditional Japanese style and you can see the light construction. But note the satellite dish! Buildings like these are like old barns in the United States. You see fewer and fewer of them and they aren't always well kept.

The Palace Garden

The palace is not too far from my apartment and I can see the grounds from the window where I eat breakfast in the morning. Here is a lantern and pond inside a garden that is open to the public.

Apartment Flower Arrangements

Apartment Flower Arrangements

Hi to all, and I hope genki desu (you are well). This has been a very slow week as far as news here. Nothing but work. So I'll write about the flowers in the front of the apartment building. Flower arrangement is a master art in Japan and I don't profess to know much about it. They keep a flower arrangement at several spots in the building including the entry, the front desk, and the spa / gym / restaurant entrance upstairs.

The pictures on my blog are from the front of the apartment - every week or so I take a picture of the current arrangement. These are from the summer - the arrangement changes with the seasons. I especially like the one at the restaurant because it is so simple - usually just a single stem or even a branch in the winter.

That's it for this week. Take time to smell the flowers.

Advertising Fans

Beer Change

It has been a busy week at work but I haven't done much else. An interesting thing here is that almost all the T-shirt messages are in English. So I entertained myself this week by writing some of them down. Here are some of the more interesting ones along with a short description of the person wearing it:

• Young woman: "Beer Change"
• Teenage girl: "Happy Hunting Products - The Conny Island Product"
• 30's woman: "Rocks Benefit" with a star around it
• Young man: "Cap'n Munch"
• 30's man: "Ride for Tomorrow - Athletic Bull"
• Pretty girl: "I know what you want"
• Middle aged woman: "Everyone imetates me - Always"
• Teenage girl: "Sports Island Fishing Cruises - Ocean Wise"
• Young mother: "Jungle me Jane"
• Pretty woman: "My life is Boring"
• 30's woman: "Bada Boum"
• Young man: "Recon Ensemble Trifecta - Primary Design Function - Color Denial"

The spelling is as it was on the shirt. A lot of them don't make much sense but who cares? I haven't looked in the United States lately but the spelling probably isn't too good there either.

Clothing here for women changes with the seasons as I think I have written to you before. The women all wore boots in the winter and pretty much stopped at the same time. Then there were high heels and then sandals - even high heel sandals. Women still carry umbrellas for protection from the sun. Not everyone, but quite a few. Folding fans are also common. I need to get myself one. They hand out free fans as you walk down the street with advertising on them. In the winter, they hand out free tissue packages with advertising on them.

It is starting to cool down again. So pretty soon it will be boots and tissue season again. Well that is pretty much it. Hope to see many of you while I am home.

Driving Range and Tecate

Today a guy from work who lives in my building and I went to a golf driving range on our bicycles. This driving range had multiple levels and was built in an old baseball stadium. You basically are hitting from where the grandstands used to be into left and center field. Or even over the fence.



You buy a ticket from a machine and then insert it into a ticket taker at the range. It then feeds balls from under the floor automatically onto a tee. You push a button with your foot to make the tee go higher or lower. It remembers where you like it and keeps teeing balls up until you run out of count on your card. You don't even have to bend over to tee the ball up! It's expensive ($30 for 100+ balls) but worth the experience.



Then we decided to find some place different to eat and found a Mexican restaurant in Ginza. It was pretty good although I wouldn't rate it as too authentic in some respects. I had ceviche (it had octopus as well as fish in it), tacos, and buffalo wings. Pretty good. The also had Negro Modelo, Tecate, and Carona.



That's it for this week. Take care.

Corvettes and Earthquakes

Hello to all and I hope you are doing well. Please eat something off the barbeque grill and drink a cold one for me since it is Labor Day Weekend. I celebrated Labor Day by working the weekend and of course today. Let me know how your Labor Day went.

Not too much happened this week except I got tired of walking everywhere so I bought a Chevrolet Corvette! Finally, some decent transportation. Actually, it is a bicycle. If you have visited, you may remember that Japanese people like American things. They sell bicycles here, licensed from General Motors, with the Corvette emblem. Mine is a "Z" and it says 406 HP on it. Actually it is a 21 speed Mountain Bike and pretty cool even if it isn't a car.

The other recent thing is that there was an earthquake last night. It registered Magnitude 7.1 near the south coast of Honshu, Japan. Seven people were injured in Kyoto. It was 3 Magnitude in Tokyo and you could feel it. I was in the apartment and really couldn't tell it because my building is dampened with giant shock absorbers. You can see them by the recycling bin in the center of the building - be sure to get me to show them to you next time you visit. Anyway, I could "hear" the building move and squeak even though I couldn't really feel it because of the dampening.

Here is an interesting website on earthquakes: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/ It shows the recent earthquakes that have occurred and their relative strength.

Japan is designed for earthquakes - probably better than California even. So stay away from the hurricanes in Florida, tornados in the Plains, and earthquakes in California. I'll watch out for the typhoons and earthquakes here.

Shrine Cats

The story of the Maneki Neko (Beckoning Cat) is an interesting one. I got one for Stuart last Christmas and the other week I saw this one and got it for myself. You can find the story at this web site: Maneki Neko. Mine is kind of different. He is chubby and looks kind of feisty. I found him in a store when I was walking the Seven Good Fortune Gods Tour. I don't think I wrote about that. You can find out about that at this web site: Shichifukujin.

Anyway, whenever I saw a neko (cat), real or stone, I sat him down beside it and took a picture. These were all neko I saw at shrines. The Kanji on the bib invites good fortune. He has also been to the top of Fuji-san so I figure this is one lucky cat. He spends most of his time near my front door inviting good fortune.
Frank