Painting for kids

Lucinda heard about a really fun website for kids: JacksonPollock.org

Give it a whirl or a swirl. Press the space bar to erase. Press the mouse-click to change colors.

Lucinda's violin

Lucinda has been taking violin lessons for the past six weeks and she's learned the basic four notes and fundamental hand and arm positions.



It's pretty intense because she's getting a private lesson during what was expected to be a 1-hour group lesson at Nishimachi. And sometimes it's a struggle to convince her to practice, though my friends here assure me that that's a near-universal problem for children who take music lessons.

Lucinda seems (to me, the untrained eye) to be quite good at sight-reading. I think she has a strong visual memory and fine motor skills, which makes sense considering how much she likes folding origami and practicing hiragana.

Next step: learning how to finger the strings to add the other whole notes. We'll have to see if she's willing to continue lessons past this semester.

Sushi for supper

For our Saturday-night date this weekend, Blaine and I went to Sushizen, a sushi restaurant on the 46th floor of the Caretta Shiodome building.

Sushizen is a Tokyo branch (as they say in Japan) of a much-praised restaurant in the city of Sapporo in Hokkaido. It's in Shiodome, a onetime rail freightyard near Ginza and Tokyo Bay that was redeveloped in the past decade as a "city within a city" that now has 13 skyscrapers.

I had lunch at Sushizen a few months ago with my friends Maryam Mohit and Erik Blachford, and I thought Blaine would enjoy it, too. Seriously delicious sushi - even better if you can sit at the counter and watch the chefs. The basic dinner is salad, 10 pieces of sushi, miso soup, and sorbet for 5250 yen (about $50) per person. A more elaborate 12-sushi plate is about $75/person. And there's a $100/person meal, too.

Here's our 10-plate, for two:


Top row, from left: kanpachi (amberjack), maguro (tuna), kohada (gizzard shad, with lovely silvery skin), bakagai (orange clam). Middle row: ama-ebi (sweet raw shrimp), uni (sea urchin roe), kegani (Hokkaido hairy crab), tai (sea bream). Bottom row: awabi (sea snail, I think), unagi (freshwater eel).

Miso soup was served in this silver lacquerware bowl.



And green tea and delightful green-apple sorbet for dessert.

Arno on stage

Arno's school, Willowbrook, held its "spring show" yesterday at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo, and our 4-yr-old son was very proud of his performance.

His class did a short theatrical rendition of the "Little Red Hen." Arno (in the light gray shirt) was one of three narrators and he memorized his lines and grabbed the microphone like a pro. Then he skipped and leaped around the stage to celebrate, well, himself!

It's a dual-language class and they sing two songs in Japanese. The third (and last) song, with hand movements, is one of Arno's favorites. The English lyrics are:

"Love is something that you give away, give away, give away.
Love is something that you give away - and it comes right back to you.
Just like the magic penny, hold on tight and you won't get any!
Lend it, spend it, give it away, and it comes right back to you."

Another cute photo of Blaine and Arno

Riding down to the Azabu Juban shopping street last weekend.

Blaine's latest...

... is a front-page, detailed look of North Korea's "Intractable Hunger Crisis."

After much digging, Blaine found fresh information and firsthand accounts of the DPRK's troubles in feeding its people, including the sad detail that citizens have been instructed to collect their own feces to fertilize farm fields.

Signs of the apocalypse?

The Japanese economy is tanking, and we're seeing fresh signs of trouble in our banker- and expat-friendly neighborhood:

"For Rent" signs in clothing shops.


The pricey "Ice Bar," where customers drank vodka in a freezing room and at a bar made entirely of ice, has gone out of business.


A homeless person on the street.


And grafitti outside a local building.