Fishing

On Sunday, we took the kids to a funny restaurant, called Zauo, on the first floor of the Washington Hotel in Nishi-Shinjuku near Shinjuku Station.



At Zauo, customers catch their lunch or supper with a fishing pole and tiny shrimp on a hook. Here's Blaine teeing up our lunch with the children! (Note the little bridge over the fishing tanks.)




With our two saury fish, one half was turned into sashimi...


one half was fried into fillets...


and a whole fish was grilled with salt.



Only in Japan: commercial fishing in a restaurant.

Blaine's latest...

... is his second enterprise story from the Philippines, about the incredible shortage of doctors there because the vast majority leave the Philippines to make more money working as nurses in the US. End result: the proportion of Filipinos dying without medical attention is a stunning 70 percent.

Here's the video he did for the story. He was with the hospital's chief doctor during a power shortage, when he went to see an elderly man who'd died in his bed.

But that's not all! On Friday, Blaine had an unusually revealing interview with a top guy at Japan's central bank.

The banker was surprisingly open about Japan's dependence on the US economy and banking stability, saying, as Blaine put it, that Japan is "captive" to the US economy and had no choice but to do a $60 billion currency swap with the Federal Reserve.

The thrill of the new

We had a busy weekend last week (blog on that is not finished yet), so we had a quiet Saturday and Sunday this time around.

The highlight was a purchase of new obento lunchboxes for both children. Blaine and I took them to Loft, an excellent find-everything-well-designed store in Shibuya.

Here is Lucinda's lunchbox (and fabric lunch sack) and its components.



And Arno's blue one, with a top that locks onto the sides.



I wish more of these well-designed kids' items were available in the US. Each lunchbox costs about $20 and holds enough for a good, but not obesity-inspiring, lunch. Also, these mostly eliminate the need for Ziploc baggies because each lunchbox is airtight, saving space in the landfill. Very Japanese.

Blaine's latest...

And, beyond all of that news, here's Blaine's enterprise story about a rebellion in the Philippines.

I'm glad he didn't get take any chances in his reporting, because some journalists have been abducted there.

Blaine's latest...

Blaine has been extraordinarily busy in the past 10 days. Lots of breaking news and ongoing developments for the WP's East Asia bureau, such as:

The global financial crisis.

The health of Kim Jong-il and N Korean nuclear policy.

The resignation of the Japanese PM.

Walking around

After our Peking-duck dinner on Saturday, Blaine and I wandered around the Roppongi neighborhood for a little while. We spotted a curious display of fish tanks at Roppongi Hills (Roppongi Hiruzu, in japanese).

Funny yellow horned fish.


Rotund designer goldfish.


A modern-art fish.



Then in Roppongi, a neighborhood that is filled with bars and nightclubs that are often described as "foreigner friendly" (and a fave nabe for US military men decades ago), we saw a kimono store and "my" nail salon...



...and at the discount store Don Quixote, a wall of outfits for dogs, including Batman and soccer costumes...


... and my future Halloween costume? (Um, no.)


From designer fish to "cosplay" (costume play) Lolita outfits, this life has an endless variety of things to see.

Saturday night duck

For our Saturday night date this weekend, Blaine and I tried a Chinese restaurant that is 3 minutes from our house - and yet we'd never really noticed it before a few days ago.

It's called Chinese Cafe Eight, and its specialty is Peking Duck - absolutely delicious. Here's our own personal duck (3800 yen, or about $35) being sliced by a chef, and arranged on a plate.



The accoutrements included moo-shu style pancakes, 2 kinds of hoisin sauce, a honey-like sauce, cucumber, fried wonton-ish crackers, and a scallion/leek-like veggie that did not taste onion-y. (We have no idea what it was.)


The menu included some exotic (to us) delights: fried silkworm's larvae, fried scorpion, spicy stewed duck's head, and salty duck cartilage tempura, but we did not partake. The decor was erotic-tavern, with some curious sculptures hanging on the walls and from the ceiling.

Like this:


Yes, that is a giant gold sculpture of a penis, which can be knocked into a massive bell with a vagina-like drawing on it. Not the usual restaurant interior!

We really liked the the fact that there were so few (other) expats there; the restaurant was hidden in plain sight in our expat neighborhood. The final curiosity was the appearance of two women dressed in matching outfits with lots of patent leather, who walked around to the tables with groups of men. They did not want to be photographed for some reason, but I took a few shots anyway.




Turns out they were cigarette girls - representing Marlboro's new "Black Menthol" cigs. Ick! Japan has one of the highest smoking rates in the developed world, especially among women.

Trailing spouse: Philippines edition

Blaine has been in the Philippines for 10 days and 3 stories, so I've had lots of time with the kids! (He's on his way home tonight.)

This weekend on Sunday, I took the kids to what's known in Tokyo as the "Science Museum," or Kagaku Gijutsukan. It's in Kitanomaru Koen (park) near the Imperial Palace.

We took the subway to Kudanshita station to the boundary of the park...


The "Must Love Japan" website tells me that the parkland used to be part of Edo Castle and is now "part of The Imperial Palace Outer Garden." So we walked over a bridge and gazed down at the massive moat that protected the old castle...


...and then walked thru these two massive gates.



We walked through the park and past the Nippon Budokan, a famous architectural structure that was built for the judo competition in the 1960 Olympics. Wikipedia tells me that it's now used for rock concerts, and that the Beatles played their first Japanese concert here in 1966.


Then we came to the museum.


Tickets are cheap, 600 yen/adult and 250 yen/child over 4. On the whole, I'd give the museum a B-, but it did have some cool stuff related to physical science: magnetics, levers and gears, robotics, light and electricity.

Here are some photos of what we did and saw there.







Among the robots was this "secretary," who was sitting in a glass booth. If you said something to her - like, say, "konnichiwa"- she responded with a stream of Japanese that I couldn't understand beyond "my name is..."


The museum also had this small restaurant on the 4th floor, run by two older ladies who dished up soba and udon noodles in cold or hot broth - and corn dogs for the kids.



It wasn't the best day trip we'd ever had, but I would take the kids back there when they're a little older.

Cuteness

Here's Arno today, drinking strawberry milk.

The big news around our house these days: Arno recently decided to put milk into his breakfast cereal. This, after rejecting Japanese milk for an entire year!

RNC Convention

It's Friday at noon in Tokyo - Thursday evening in the US - and I've been watching McCain's speech live on CNN and saw Sarah Palin 24 hrs ago.

Quick analysis:

McCain's speech was really odd. Stilted. Flat. The most genuine part was about his POW experience in Vietnam. Very moving. But he had a lame laundry list of what he would do to "get the country moving again" Pay people for lesser jobs while they go to community college? Vague promises about health care. Not even a solid foreign policy section, other than taking credit for the surge and a too-long bit about the Republic of Georgia, which most Americans don't care about.

As I see it, he's got two problems: First, he's telling us that the GOP screwed up for 8 years - so give us 4 more years! Second, he's trying to change his basic "experience" brand to a "change" brand, sort of like General Motors promoting its hybrid technology after decades of selling SUVs.

(Now the heavy metal song "Barracuda" is playing... does not exactly fit with the tableau of rich white guys at the convention.)

Sarah Palin: A crackerjack speech, even if it was surprisingly bitchy (in a good way, if you like that sort of bitchiness). Maybe she should have put up her fingers like claws to add a "hisssss" or a "meowww"? She must have guts of steel to make that kind of speech - before a national audience for the first time. Impressive. She looked good, too, in a Jackie sort of way. If she doesn't win VP, she can always do hair commercials.

For better or worse for McCain, Palin solidified her hold on the VP spot. If more serious scandals from her past pop up, he'll have to live with his choice.

Sarah Palin

Here's a pungent column about Sarah Palin and John McCain, by the ever-sharp Michael Kinsley.

Origami of the week

Lucinda is back in school - and is making new origami in her daily Japanese class. Today's new fold is a seasonally appropriate cicada.


Every August - not every 17 years, as in the Washington, D.C. area - Tokyo hums with the sounds of cicadas. The body (not the wings) of each bug flexes like a tiny bellows and gives off a noise like a very loud fax machine. In bulk, it's quite a din.

Blaine's latest...

... was in the Sunday, Aug 31 paper, squeezing in some front-page real estate despite a flood of stories about Sarah Palin and Hurricane Gustav. Which is no easy feat.

This cool story - valuable to US cities and transportation agencies - is about an increase in bicycling for commuters "from Berlin to Bogota" (and including Japan). By doing so, they thwart high gas prices, get some exercise and - not kidding - save time on bike lanes that bypass traffic jams.

Blaine also made two videos for this story. This neat video is about a bicycle garage where robot arms grab each commuter's bike and store it underground. It's pretty cool technology, and some nice editing, too.

The second video is from Blaine's trip to Taiwan and a visit to the Giant bicycle company. Take a look.