We arrived in Japan without books. Within a day or two we were searching for our local library. The closest one we tried was the Tsurumaki Branch in the Shinjuku Library system. While the branch was very cute, and it had a great Japanese children’s section, there were no books in English. The librarian recommended the Chuo Library which was much larger and even had “Children’s Library” in the name. The Chuo Branch was several times bigger, the Japanese Children’s Library was fantastic, but still there were no books in English (although I did pick up a few issues of “Hiragana Times” which is half in English). This seemed rather bizarre to me, that in a country where learning English is mandatory (although very, very few actually speak it) the libraries don’t carry ANY books in English. You’d think Japanese people would want to improve their English skills by reading books in English. Apparently not.

We were told at Chuo Library that all of the English books are kept at the Okubo Library. So off we trotted on our third library excursion. The Okubo Branch did have books in English. However, the selection is not what we were expecting. There are no more than a few dozen books in English. Many, if not most, are popular novels for which I don’t have any interest. There are a few cookbooks (my wife checked out Harumi’s Japanese Cooking), and then there are a few Japanese classics in English. Needless to say I will consume these without any trouble in the next year.

The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima was the first one I checked out. I read it from cover to cover on two, round-trip train trips from Shinjuku to Ebina. This was the fourth Mishima novel I have read.

The ending of this book was a surprise to me. I have come to expect certain things from Mishima, and this one twisted differently than I expected. I won’t give it away here.

As much as, if not more than, his other novels, a reader can really learn a lot about Japanese culture and Japanese thought through Mishima’s words. I suppose one could just enjoy The Sound of Waves as a well told, very descriptive, love story, but there is so much more here than just that.

The details are not only beautifully written and symbolic, but they make it hard to believe the author isn’t actually there, carefully observing every movement. I offer one example from page 119.

“…there were now more houses that were empty during the daytime, doors unlocked, windows open. Bees entered these empty houses freely, flew about in them lonesomely, and were often startled upon running headlong into a mirror.”

In the end, I realized that I would have appreciated the book even more had I read it in the original Japanese. Perhaps it is a good thing that the libraries offer so few choices in English. I won’t be able to finish works of this length in two days if reading in Japanese, but at the same time I won’t be wondering what Meredith Weatherby, the translator, was translating when she writes things like “get-up-and-go.”

Posted on September 8th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: book review, yukio mishima. Comments: 2

Many people think that Japan is a great place to travel to in order to purchase electronic goods. Unfortunately, this isn’t really the case due in large part to the strong Japanese yen. If the yen were ever to trade again at, say, more than 130 to the US$ (compared to the current 93) then yes, Japan may once again be a good place to purchase hi-tech gear. As it is now, you are likely to find lower, sometimes much lower, prices back in your home country.

There are still some reasons why you may want to purchase a camera or similar item in Japan. Perhaps the item you are looking for is only available in Japan, and you can’t wait the extra few months for it to show up in your neighborhood. Or maybe the version sold in your country is made in China rather than Japan. (I once sold a camera second hand, and the only reason the guy paid me as much as he did was because it was Made in Japan. It turns out most of them sold in the USA were Made in China and sometimes had quality problems the Made in Japan versions did not.)

After arriving in Japan I started looking to purchase a Panasonic DMC-TZ7 (ZS3 in the USA). I could purchase it from the US for about $350. I saw it here in Japan for prices ranging from 33,000 yen to 38,000 yen. Amazon Japan had it for 34,480. I figured I would take the plunge and purchase it in Japan if I could find it for under 30,000 yen (i.e., < $320). I planned to take a trip across town to the Mecca of Japanese electronics--Akihabara. Before making that journey, however, I did a little research on the internet and found that going to each store in Akihabara to see the price was horribly inefficient and didn't necessarily provide the best price anyway. Instead you can go to kakaku.com (kakaku means “cost” or “price” in Japanese), enter the item you are looking for, and find out who is offering the best price on your sought-after item. The site also provides maps, store hours, and other useful information.

It turns out that the TZ7 cost several thousand yen more in the shops right around the Akihabara Station. If I walked 10 minutes beyond Akihabara Station I could purchase the camera for under 30,000 yen. I also found out on the above site that I didn’t even have to go to Akihabara. A place much closer to home had the best price. So I went and purchased it there instead.

The place I purchased my TZ7 is called PCとらや, and I wouldn’t even had known it was an electronics dealer from the outside. I slipped inside to see three guys typing away on computers in a little office. Along one wall were shelves of electronic goods. Apparently they do most of their business over the internet. I could have had the camera shipped for under 500 yen to anywhere in Japan.

So if you are in Japan, and can read a little Japanese, shop on the net instead of going to Akihabara and paying more. Of course, if you don’t know what you want, and/or just want to browse, then it doesn’t get any better than Akihabara. Don’t count on saving any money purchasing things there though.

Posted on September 7th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: suggestions, travel related goods. Comments: 2

The other morning we rode the train from Takadanobaba to the Tamachi Station where my kids go to school. While crossing the street to get to Tokyo International School we have the above view of the Tokyo Tower.

The Tokyo Tower is actually higher than the Eiffel Tower it is modeled (copied) from, but it doesn’t seem as tall given the high rise buildings nearby. The Eiffel Tower, by comparison, has virtually no buildings right next to it, and those in the vicinity are usually no more than 3 stories high so it stands out much more.

After dropping the kids off we headed over to a pastry shop adjacent to the Tamachi Station. I had the asparagus, ham, and cheese pastry while my wife had a blueberry roll. The Koala bear pastries were the special of the day at only 80 yen so we grabbed one too. It wasn’t as good as it looked. The others were though.

Posted on September 6th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: food, Tokyo, tokyo tower. Comments: 3

The food at this party was more than I had anticipated. When Maya said it was a barbecue, I was picturing yakitori and yakiniku (shish kabobs). While there were those things, there was also much, much more. The above is one round of more than a dozen, different BBQ sessions. I didn’t count, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me that 30 different things were cooked for this party of about eight kids and six adults. There was salmon, oysters, octopus, squid, beef, chicken (many different parts), pig, shrimp, several other kinds of fish, many different vegetables including corn on the cob, many items I’ve never seen before (nor do I know what they were), and others that I’m probably not remembering. On top of things coming off the grill, there was onigiri, yakisoba, and several other things to choose from.

I think Maya’s mom cooked barely half of what she had purchased and barely half of what she cooked was eaten, even though we were all stuffed. Speaking of moms, I was the only dad there until later in the evening when one of the moms went home and told her husband to join us. He was hesitant to come at first because he didn’t realize I’d be able to speak Japanese. His wife assured him that I was harmless, and we’d be able to communicate in Japanese just fine. Until he arrived, it was rather embarrassing to have five Japanese ladies wait on me. I suppose there are worse fates in life though. 😉

After dinner we had a fireworks show in the street.

This last picture from the party is of my favorite little girl of the evening. She was the little sister of one of Maya’s friends and so darling. She was the only one of the kids–other than Maya–who, from the outset, was not the least bit afraid of us. She introduced herself to my daughter and gave my daughter the lowest (and most respectful) bow I think I have ever seen. She was the first to play with my daughter at the park. She said some of the most polite things I’ve ever heard come out of a Japanese child’s mouth.

During the fireworks she would go around to the adults to ask them if they had any fireworks for her with a cat picture on the side. I gave her all of mine with the cat pictures, and she was most gracious in accepting them. She came back after lighting them off to see if I had any more. I did not, but we chatted about what I did have. Eventually I sold her on lighting off the remaining fireworks I held which had pictures of apples, grapes, and other things. Again, she was so courteous in her acceptance that I wanted to have more to give her just to continue to hear her amazing responses.

The evening ended with Maya, and her two friends who bonded well with my daughter during the evening, walking us part way back to the train station. They disobeyed their moms who told them to only go as far as the first stop light with us. At the second stop light I told them, somewhat jokingly, they had better turn back to go home at that point as I didn’t want their moms mad at me. They did, but it was a tough parting. The girls had gone from complete strangers to near tears at parting in just a few hours, despite no common oral language in which they could communicate.

Posted on September 5th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: fireworks, food, kids, people. Comments: 1

Soon after returning from our last trip to Japan, in April of 2007, I was at a party with the owner of Travel Essentials. At that party I related the story of how a family of complete strangers befriended us at a Japanese baseball game. The Travel Essentials’ owner asked that I write it up for publication in their newsletter. I did, and a version of it appears here. That was probably the first thing I wrote about Japan on the internet, more than a year before this blog began.

My daughter wrote a bit more about the experience on her blog here. During the 2+ year period since then they’ve exchanged a dozen or so emails. A few days after arriving in Japan this time we got a call from Maya, inviting my daughter to her 11th birthday party the following Sunday.

My daughter and I rode the train west for about 25 minutes to a town, still technically in Tokyo, but feeling very different than the central Tokyo we had become used to, called Kodaira (小平 or こだいら).

Like many places in Japan they have their own, custom manhole covers (pictured above). I called Maya from the train station and she road her bike to meet us between the train station and her home. Kodaira was really a change of pace after our first week of crowded streets. Few people were out walking or riding bikes, the sidewalks seemed wider, there were little farms and vineyards–even close to the train station, and cars weren’t constantly roaring past us.

When we got to her house we knew we weren’t in Kansas anymore. The place was huge. Or at least it seemed large compared to every living space we had previously seen inside the confines of central Tokyo. I suppose it was actually quite a bit smaller than our home in Oregon, but after just 10 days in Japan our mental images of living spaces has been drastically altered.

My daughter was clinging to me initially (as I was the translator and possibly the only one there–Japanese or American–who wasn’t nervous), but after introductions we headed to an adjacent park and the kids played ball, tag, and other games. The walls quickly came down, and the kids bonded rapidly even with the language barrier.

The BBQ/party took place in Maya’s driveway. The kids were laughing, eating, and having a great time until Maya asked me to take a picture of them with her camera. I also took the one above with mine. For some reason the two kids closest to me had their laughing, happy faces completely altered the second the camera pointed at them. There was nothing I could do or say to get them to smile with a camera in my hands. The moment I put it down the smiles came back though.

Posted on September 4th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: drainspotting, food, kids, people. Comments: 1