Will Miss #537 - lack of sprinklers

You can't tell, but these were in Okubo in Tokyo along Ome Kaido Avenue. Yeah, flowers pretty much look like flowers everywhere.


California, where I'm currently living, is in the grips of a long drought. This is a unique experience for me as I lived in a place that had what appeared to be five seasons. The fifth one was "the rainy season, of which there actually appeared to be a major and a

Read More

Random Memories #68 - Alyson - part 3

This is the 3rd and final part of a short series of my memories of my coworker named Alyson. Here are parts 1 and 2.

During her tenure at the juku, Alyson grew smitten with a 15-year-old boy named Kenji. At the time, she would have been 25 or 26 years old. Both she and this teenager wanted to get something going between them, but she was afraid of statutory rape charges being brought

Read More

Won't Miss #41 - willy nilly food serving (reflection)

I can't say that I have eaten in a lot of restaurants in America, but I have eaten out about once every month and a half for the past two years. In all but one case, everyone at the table was served their food at the same time, and, unsurprisingly, that was at a Japanese place. For a culture in which people do everything together, I'm surprised that nobody cares if everyone gets to eat at the

Read More

Will Miss #40 - people doing their own thing (reflection)

If this guy were in America instead of Akihabara, he wouldn't bother wearing headphones, he'd just blast that music aloud.



At some point within this past week, my husband and I were crossing a street and a guy on a skateboard crossing in the opposite direction was loudly and theatrically singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." After he had passed, my husband asked me if I thought he was

Read More

Random Memories #67 - Alyson part 2

Part 1 of this short series is here.

From the straight arrow junior manager (CJ), Alison moved her attentions to a rock-and-roll student - literally a guy who was musician - who I'll call "Koji" (I don't remember his name). She was always thrilled when she showed up on her schedule for a conversation lesson. We even swapped classes sometimes to give her more face time with him.

Early on in

Read More

Won't Miss #537 - mold

The wall behind my washing machine - it turned nearly black with mold that grew in warmer months and died in colder ones then came back around again the next year.

During my first year in Japan, one of my coworkers told me about how mold seemed to spring up everywhere in his apartment. He told me that a pair of shoes that he left in his genkan (entryway) had even seen a crop of the stuff

Read More

Will Miss #536 - having a laundry hook-up in the apartment

The beige tray on the left (under the water spigot) was the home of my machine for more than two decades. You can see that there are disadvantages - mold developed on the walls behind and in front of it from moisture (both from the machine and the bathing area behind that door). Those trash bags were the things we were tossing out when we were vacating the apartment. It's not garbage so much

Read More

Random Memories #66 - Alyson - part 1

Recently, I've been renewing my interest in chemistry. It was one of a handful of majors that I considered when approaching college and it is one of the few topics which I have not revisited with any intellectual vigor. Fortunately, YouTube and other outlets afford me the chance to "attend" lectures on nearly any subject I may want, at least at the elementary level. A brief search and about

Read More

The March 11, 2011 Quake Remembrance

Yesterday, we received a copy of the Wall Street Journal that included an article on the anniversary of the quake. Of course, it was dated yesterday because Japan is a day ahead of us and they have already observed the third year passing. The article talks about how the mental toll on the areas most strongly affected by the quake continues to this day. I also know from my contact with folks in

Read More

Won't Miss #49 - frozen construction (reflection)

As I mentioned in the original post, my issue with construction which took forever to complete was that areas that I had to walk through were often obstructed by it. In particular, it seemed to take forever for any work being done on stations to be completed. The question as I look back on that situation is, "does it take forever in America, too?" The answer to that is definitely "no". In

Read More

Will Miss #48 - sleep anywhere (reflection)

Shortly after we moved to the Bay Area in the late spring/early summer of 2012, my husband remarked that he thought it was nice that some people felt free to just sack out on a picnic bench somewhere. It wasn't something that we saw often, but, on occasion, people would sleep in public after a hard day or during lunch. This is the uncommon sort of sleeping in public that I see here in the U.S

Read More

Random Memories #65 - Mr. Matsubara

One of the things that used to happen to my husband or me on occasion in Japan was that we'd run across a person who'd stop us on the street and look at us with recognition. This person would then say, "do you remember me?" Sometimes, we would remember this person, but, at least half the time, we would not.


In the long history of my work in Japan, I spoke with hundreds of people face to

Read More

Won't Miss #536 - fear of being arrested

I don't think having your picture taken with the police mascot would have been an arrestable offense, but I wouldn't take any chances.

Early on in our time in Japan, my husband and I knew that the Japanese police could hold you and disallow contact with the outside world entirely if they chose to do so. "You" means "foreigners", of course. This could happen for no reason at all or for

Read More