It's Snowing on New Year's Eve in Tokyo

Well, the family is gone and they made it home safely. The weather was great while they were here but it has turned colder since. The view here is from my balcony down onto the temple gate below.

I went into work onthe 29th and 30th. The 29th is the "official" last day of work and then there is the week long New Year's holiday which is one of most looked forward to in Japan. On the last day, Chiyoda holds an office party.

Everyone has a drink and there are snacks. Afterwards, it seems to be tradition to go to a karaoke bar at Chiyoda. I went and we had a good time. Since I had not had quite as much to drink as some of the others it was a little bit hard to get me to sing but I finally relented. For those who must know, I sang Hank Williams "Jambalaya" and the old blues song "Stormy Monday". These songs are simple, don't have any vocal range, and nobody there knew if I was singing it right anyway.

My friends from work were a little more lively. They sang Western and Japanese songs in about equal number and I was surprised at how good some of them were. The girls usually danced while they sang and if they did duets they were pretty much dancing in unison - it must have been memorized from the video. Anyway, it was good fun.

Today I have been doing the housework and just relaxing.

Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu - Have a happy New Year!

The Beer Museum at Yebisu Gardens

Megan: What kind of beer was that you were drinking? And David....

A Japanese Maple at the University of Tokyo

It has been a very warm year in Japan and this maple is just turning colors. Tokyo University is well known and has a kind of European look to it. It is located near Ueno on the North side of the city. They sell beer in the University student center just like at Baylor and we were fortunate enough to find T-shirts - thank goodness...

The Year of the Rooster

This is Megan and David at Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. In the Chinese zodiac, 2005 will be the year of the rooster. Because a lot of Japanese culture originated in China, the zodiac is observed here as well. The takoyaki (cooked octopus in a dough ball) sure were good...

Theater in Kyoto

Kyoto is of course known for its cultural arts, crafts, and food. It is the cultural center of Japan and you can still see many things that have been unchanged for centuries. (hint to one member of the family for the future: Indian food is not considered a traditional Kyoto specialty)

Dave and the Shinkansen

This is the shinkansen (bullet train) that we took back from Kyoto. The train has a top speed of close to 300 km/hr (180 mph) yet is very smooth and very quiet. The seats are spacious and it is very efficient. But tickets are a little bit pricey. The train was full the Saturday that we went to Kyoto.

Pagoda in Kyoto

We had a very nice trip to Kyoto and of course visited a number of temples and went shopping. This was my first time to Kyoto and it wasn't quite like I expected. Kyoto is an interesting mix of old and new Japan but appears more European to me in some respects. The river through the city, the greater space than Tokyo, and the avenues make it seem so.

Meg Graduates from Baylor!

Here she is, by the statue, a full fledged graduate with a job and everything. Lots of family and friends were there and we had a great time. When Megan started at Baylor I told her I expected to be back in four years to take her picture at the statue. She made it in three and a half! Congratulationas Megan....

More Atago Lobby Flowers

For those of you who liked the collage of flowers from the Atago Lobby, here are some more. Also, here is another T-Shirt saying (this time from a sweatshirt) worn by a young mother with a child:

Amusement Wagon Style
Little Fairy
Since 2001

If you know what this means, please send me a line. Mata ato de...

The Tent...

This tent was in the lobby of the hotel where I was staying in Doha and I talked Zaharah (contracts advisor) into taking a picture with me. Aren't the colors pretty? There is a better one with me and the belly dancer but I am waiting to see how much trouble I get into with this one first before posting it. If I really wanted to get in trouble there is the one of me with two girls in yukata (kimono) at the Chiyoda festival in Japan.

Hello from the Villa

Aunt Pauline wanted me to post a picture of me so here I am in Doha. Note the clever use of the universal Japanese "hi - it's me" picture pose. As always, click on the picture to enlarge it.

Eid Mubarak from Doha

Doha was nice and I got to see a bit more than the last time I was there. Ramadan and then Eid came while I was there. The weather was nice - in the upper 80's (around 30 degrees C) and it rained. There was even hail in the Northern part of the country which is very rare.

While I was there I:

• went to the Souk (market)
• went to a show that had a belly dancer and an Arabic woman singer
  
• ate a feast in an Eid celebration tent that had a whirling dervish dancer
  
• worked out and went swimming once
• went to the mall
• ate brunch at the Ritz Carlton and listened to Jazz
• ate Mexican food and everything different that was Arabic I could find
  
• worked every day

Eid mubarak...

Happy Halloween

It has been another busy week for me as I'm sure it was for you. Today I was riding my bike around and saw these characters outside a rock concert in Central Tokyo. They look like they are dressed for Halloween but this is normal Sunday attire for them. You can see similarly dressed kids over at Harajuku on Sunday - remind me to take you there on Sunday when you visit. Megan asked that I post a picture of my bike so I have done that too. By the way, if you ever want me take a picture of something just let me know. It could be my apartment, or the train I ride in, or anything. Sometimes I struggle a bit for something to write about.

The weather is cooler now - cold if it is rainy. No earthquakes to speak of this week. Today was perfect sweater weather. Next week I am going to fly to Doha for a few weeks. I'll write from there too. Until then....

My Bike

Corvette Z06 - They don't come any hotter than this...

Dai Hon Zan Sojiji

In back of the temple

Dai Hon Zan Sojiji is a training temple for Zen Buddhist priests in Tsurumi where I work. The temple is visible from the train station up on the hill and and dates from around 1300. There are a lot of other buildings here as well.

Nezu Shrine

This last week or so has been bad for natural disasters in Japan. If you check the news sources you will find that there was a bad earthquake yesterday (I felt two of them in my apartment and could see the curtains sway a bit) and a typhoon a while back. There were a number of deaths and really it has been bad. As I think I've said before, my apartment and the place I work are designed for earthquakes. The trains are designed to shut down if an earthquake is detected but it still can be bad. When the typhoon went through it shut the trains down and I got stuck (ate dinner at the rail station) until it passed through.



Today I went for a walk in an old area of Tokyo near Ueno. There are a lot of old buildings and stores from a 100 years ago or more (must have seen an earthquake and a typhoon or two). Fortunately there was a festival going on at the Nezu shrine. Nezu shrine is about 1,900 years old and this was the first time I had seen it. The women in the picture are participating in some way. I don't know what the festival was about but there were loads of people. One interesting thing about it was that they were having a kind of neighborhood garage sale beside it. The same sort of stuff you would see in the United States - baby clothes and things outgrown. And there were lots of tents set up as usual where they were selling food and drink.



There were a number of art museums in the area and I also walked through the University of Tokyo campus. The University of Tokyo looks very European, and of course has a very good reputation. That's about it for this week.

USC Vs. ASU Football Game

Here are Megan and David at the USC football stadium during halftime. USC beat ASU 45 to 7.

USC Thornton Symphony in Concert

The orchestra, about ready to play. That is David playing the dark colored bass just to the left of the curtain on the right side of the stage. It was a very nice performance. The program was:

• Overture to La gazza ladra: Gioacchino Rossini
• Pavane: Gabriel Faure
• My Bells: Bill Evans
• Blackbird: John Lennon and Paul McCartney
• Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, op. 47: Dimitri Shastokovich
  

The Shelly Berg Trio played Jazz with the orchestra on Pavane, My Bells, and Blackbird. Of the pieces, I liked the Rossini Overture and Blackbird the best.

This last week I went back to Houston and then out to Los Angeles. It was great to see so many family members - and I didn't go into work one day!

Robot Flagman

I have seen this fellow around Tokyo before but this is the first time I've taken his picture. Here he is in Hamamatsucho waving cars away from danger with his right arm (there is a flashlight wand in it) while pointing the way with his left. There is another workman watching him and standing ready in case he fails in his duties. So far, he seems pretty reliable as far as I can tell.

There have been over 20 Typhoons this year and another one is rolling in tonight. So tomorrow will be messy.

See you soon.

Kabuki Scene at Edo-Tokyo Museum

Today I went to the Edo-Tokyo Museum which is very nice. It is in Ryogoku where the Sumo matches and training stables are. It is very much worth a visit if you like museums. It covers the period from the beginning of the Shogunate when Tokyo was called Edo right up through World War II. It includes displays and artifacts on everyday life, art, and major historical events. There are full sized replica buildings in it and lots of interesting things - including the civil engineering features that made a city of 1 million people possible 400 years ago.

Lone Star Beer

Photo displayed in the Beer Museum at Yebisu Garden. They know good beer and good people here when they see them.

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