Japanese Me

This one gets a little weird in the telling but I’m going to try anyway. The Japanese word for milk is 牛乳.  The first character means cow.  The second character… well, I’ve only ever seen it in dairy-related words so it probably means milk.  Right? Flash forward to Ken and I watching the news on [...]

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Yet another job you’ll never find me doing–that thing was bouncing around every time someone moved. Shin-kawasaki, Kawasaki.

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So I was trying to figure out why I’ve been waking up so early.  Like ungodly, 5 am early.  I went to the new, “ooo shiny” Wolfram Alpha and remembered something. I live in a country that doesn’t follow daylight savings.

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Yokohama seems to be a mecca for street performers–every weekend you can find guys (I’ve only seen guys) doing their special brand of entertainment.  Some do magic tricks.  Some juggle with fire.  But all seem to pull out a diabolo at some point and do a ridiculously high toss.  I looked on youtube to see [...]

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Last weekend Ken and I spent a great day in Yokohama going to Minato Mirai 21.  While the name literally means “Harbor Future 21″ I think it’s meant to convey something like “Harbor for the 21st Century”.  They have whole bunches of stuff there. (Find bigger, prettier versions of all these pictures on my flickr [...]

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I think it’s funny and interesting that my students (largely fifth and sixth graders) think that I can understand and listen to Japanese but can’t speak a lick of it.  The two skills have no connection in their mind.  I wonder if grasping the relation is a developmental milestone, something they realize when they hit [...]

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Ken and I went to Yokohama today and had a great time visiting Minato Mirai and Chinatown.  At one point we were sitting in an area with loudspeakers and heard an announcement in Japanese reminding everyone to be careful about swine flu.  Then the announcement was read in English. It was nice of them to [...]

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The flowers have fallen and been blown away but the cherry blossoms were gorgeous while they lasted. These trees aren’t too far from my apartment.  Walking under them was like being in a dreamscape.     These pictures may look rosy but it was actually quite cold in the beginning of April.  We wanted to [...]

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Yup, there’s IKEA in Japan.   It’s just like IKEA anywhere else, if slightly pricier.  Don’t believe me?  Just look at the food. I rest my case.

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I managed to cast off another pair of socks today.  Really small needles and really thin yarn equaled a really long, tedious knit.  Worth it, though. Prima Julia [ravelry]. In other news it’s Golden Week, an extremely well-placed series of national holidays.  This year they land so we get five days off in a row–sweet.  [...]

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