Jessica in Seattle

Fond memories

2010-10-05T22:11:00.003-07:00

We've been back in the US for three whole months, and I completely let the blog slide. It was difficult to look back at our lovely three years in Japan at the same time when I and our whole family had to face front and live in the present. It's also hard to know what to write about life in the US without the novelty and cultural differences that I found in Tokyo on a daily basis.

(I'll just add here, briefly, that if you ever have the chance to be an expat, do it. It's a fantastic way to live for months or years - whatever you can manage.)

But heck, why not try to write about life today? I'll do my best, but might throw in some photos (like the one of our family at the Great Wall) that I never managed to publish on the blog before this.

And to get things started, I'll quote Arno, who tonight became very teary about missing his friends in Tokyo -- especially his best friend Marcel -- and his school, Willowbrook, where he spent three delightful years.

Arno was completely comfortable and confident at Willowbrook; it was an ideal situation for him. All of the teachers knew him and Arno knew, with absolute certainty, that he would be greeted with smiles every day. That feeling of specialness is harder to find in a public-school kindergarten with 26 other students, no matter how skilled the teacher.

So tonight, thinking about his friends in Tokyo, he pulled out his Willowbrook yearbooks and scanned the photographs and cried a bit. And then he said, "I have fond memories of Willowbrook." (Seriously, the kid is about to turn 6 and used the word "fond.") As we all do of Tokyo and our many adventures and friends there.

Seattle view of the world

2010-06-30T08:18:00.005-07:00

Here's the living-room view from the corporate apt where we'll stay for a week until we can move back to our house. A pretty cool - and cloudy - view of the Space Needle and (on the right) the Frank Gehry-designed Experience Music Project museum owned by billionaire Paul Allen.

A smooth first morning here. In past years, the children have awakened at 4 a.m. after Tokyo flights, but Lucinda is still asleep at 8:30am after 10 1/2 hours, and Arno and Blaine are napping after waking up earlier. Today we'll arrange some basics, buy cell phones and groceries, go to Ikea and Target. Later this week, we'll test-drive a Prius after 3 carless years.

Last full day

2010-06-27T19:54:00.004-07:00

Well, it's come down to the final 36 hours in Tokyo. Blogger tells me that I've previously written 500 posts (!!) on Jessica in Tokyo, and this is #501.

Great news is that the foggy image on my camera's LED screen mysteriously cleared while I took last photos of our pyramid house in Nishi-Azabu. Unfortunate news is that we packed the USB thingy that I need to download the shots into my computer -- so no pix today.

As always, some novelties to contemplate. Instead of lugging 4 enormous suitcases to our hotel tonite and then to the airport, we hired the Yamato "Black Cat" delivery service to takkyubin our bags directly to Narita Airport. Black Cat (or Kuroneko in Japanese) trucks are ubiquitous in Japan, and friends routinely use it to ship skis and bags directly to resorts in Hokkaido ahead of time -- that is, no schlepping skis, etc., on the shinkansen! Anyway, it's fantastic for us. For $80, we can pick up our bags at Narita's Terminal 1 two hours before our flight.

With a few hours to go, we're taking a family ice cream break at Cold Stone Creamery in Roppongi Hills.

Packing up

2010-06-25T13:24:00.004-07:00

The movers have finished 1 of 3 days packing and our house is more than half empty. Dining table and chairs, books, most big furniture and all of my clothes and shoes are gone. Today: children's rooms, rugs, odds and ends.

But there's always something new to learn: the US doesn't allow us to "import" foods unless we personally carry them in -- which means we have to leave jars of Bonne Maman strawberry jam and Costco peanut butter that I bought in Japan and several boxes of American cereal (our only direct Tokyo import, from Expat Express) or fill a suitcase. Kinda weird. I mean, these are US products, so why can't I return with them?

The moving process in Japan is different than in the US. Because Tokyo has small streets, the company fills a series of smaller trucks outside our house and empties them elsewhere into a shipping container. Also, the workers take off/put on their slip-on shoes in the entry hall every time they walk thru the front door, which is quite a trick when they're also carrying a piano or a dresser! When we moved in, they did this in heavy rain, an added degree of difficulty.

And during scheduled rests, a few workers take cat naps in the shade of our garage. In Tokyo, people grab sleep wherever they can: commuters on trains and buses, taxi drivers on their reclined seats by the side of the road, customers sitting at Starbucks tables and, it seems, workers on flat packing boxes on top of concrete.

Groceries

2010-06-21T18:19:00.002-07:00

7 days to go until our departure, and I'm cleaning and throwing stuff away like crazy. What's in our pantry? Flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda... chocolate chips!

So we've just made a last batch of cookies in our lame French oven -- perfect timing for Arno's sayonara playdate this afternoon.

Blaine's travels

2010-06-20T07:22:00.005-07:00

As Blaine finishes a 34-year career in newspaper journalism for the WashPost and NYT, I want to mark the occasion with a list of the countries stamped into his passports.

He was a foreign correspondent in Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia for the WashPost, made some trips for the NYT, and has taken a few vacations here and there.

So, the list:

USA (including stories from all 50 states and Guam)
Canada
UK
France
Italy
Portugal
Germany
Denmark
Ireland
Norway
Sweden
Switzerland
Austria
Poland
Hungary
Russia
Bulgaria
Romania
Czechoslovakia (before the split)
Yugoslavia (before the split)
Serbia
Croatia
Bosnia
Slovenia
Macedonia
Montenegro
Kosovo
Albania
Greece
Turkey
Iraq
Azerbajan
Ethiopia
Eritrea
Somalia
Kenya
Uganda
Rwanda
Tanzania
Burundi
Congo
Zambia
Sudan
Mozambique
Mauritius
Zimbabwe
Botswana
South Africa
Angola
Ghana
Liberia
Nigeria
Ivory Coast
Jamaica
Bahamas
Bermuda
Philippines
Indonesia
Singapore
Japan
North Korea
South Korea
China
Taiwan
Thailand
Australia
Burma

67 countries! Wow.

Back to the U.S.

2010-06-17T19:37:00.003-07:00

It's official: we're leaving Tokyo and moving back to Seattle on June 29. We've had a terrific 3 years here -- an excellent family adventure, with great friends, schools and restaurants! -- and it's time to return to "normal" life with a car, backyard and wild salmon on the bbq.

Next projects: Blaine is leaving The Washington Post and will write his third book, "Escape from Camp 14," about a young man who was born in the North Korean gulag and escaped when he was in his early 20s. I'll start looking for work. And Lucinda and Arno will join the ranks at the Seattle public schools.

I've been lax about posting on this blog in recent months, after (1) my computer broke, (2) my camera broke, and (3) as I've been more focused on trying to get a job that would keep us in Japan. (Despite best efforts -- and a lot of support and help from friends -- my job prospects here did not pan out.)

I'll try to post some photos, at least, of some of the sights we've seen in Asia that didn't see daylight yet. Thanks for reading my blog!

Everyday Japan

2010-06-12T22:20:00.003-07:00

On my way back from the grocery store this afternoon, as I chugged up the hill on my 24-gear bicycle with 4 liters of milk, boxes of blueberries and strawberries, and 1/8 of a watermelon, a young Japanese woman effortlessly passed me on her old one-speed bicycle.

Her left hand, which guided the handlebars, grasped a plastic iced frappuccino cup from Starbucks. She was looking at her right hand, where she scrolled and typed on her iPhone.

Tourists in Beijing

2010-05-22T18:14:00.005-07:00

We're on a 5-day family tourist trip to Beijing!

Staying at the Grand Hyatt with a very reasonable rate from Expedia. Seeing the highlights. Last 36 hrs: hutong neighborhood and houses, dim sum, Peking Duck, stuffed pandas supplied by hotel.

Today, Great Wall. Last night, amazing acrobat show. Next few days: Tiananmen, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven and maybe a few other things.

Photos to come. But it's v exciting for all of us to be here.

Wordle

2010-05-13T00:24:00.006-07:00

Lucinda just introduced me to this neat website, Wordle at wordle.net.

You copy or input large blocks of text to create a "word cloud" that ranks how often the word is used in the story.

We created a Wordle using the text from Romeo and Juliet, and this is what it looks like.

Mother-daughter walk

2010-05-06T06:01:00.012-07:00

On a school-vacation day last Friday, Lucinda and I went for a stroll from Sendagi to Nezu, two shitamachi (old neighborhoods) near Ueno Park. The nabes Yanaka, Nezu and Sendagi, known together as "Yanesen," have narrow streets with traditional shops and houses. Early May is also the perfect time to see the blaze of azaleas at Nezu Shrine.

I edited a story about shitamachi for the Japanese arts/culture magazine Kateigaho International Edition, which has a wonderful map in the current issue (cover below) to mark shops and restaurants that preserve the culture of "old Edo," as Tokyo was known from the 1600s to late 1800s.

Some snaps of our day, starting with Sendagi's famous paper store, Isetatsu, where you find samurai prints from the Edo period.

This senbei shop sells large, square rice crackers (modern senbei are round)...

...coated with green tea, sugar or soy sauce. Individual crackers are 60 yen (66 cents) and this package was 780 yen ($8.50).

Geta (wooden sandals) in a shop window:

Storefront selling candied imo, or sweet potatoes. The noren curtain (it's orange for this shop but more often navy or black) is displayed when a restaurant is open for business.

This shop, with buckets, cutting boards, and benches, had an intense menthol-like scent from the Japanese cedar or sugi.

We ate lunch on the grounds of Nezu Shrine, which was hosting a festival for thousands of seasonal visitors. Large torii gate at the entrance...

...leads to long path of tiny torii gates inside...

... which leads to the blazing hillside of azaleas (also shown in 1st foto of this post).

It's a short walk from the shrine to Nezu station, and along the way, we stopped at a tiny candy store (also mentioned in Kateigaho) that makes long rolls of ame (hard candies) with traditional Edo-style faces inside.

The rolls are sliced into discs, like these, that half-melt in your mouth. This package of 8 was 210 yen ($2.50) which I thought was a bargain for Edo craftsmanship. Not sure how this is done, but pretty cool-looking, neh?

Trailing spouse: Philippines and Thailand edition

2010-04-26T22:52:00.004-07:00

Blaine has 2 months left as the Post's Tokyo bureau chief but he can't slack off! He's been in the Philippines for 9 days and was scheduled to return tonight, but has now been sent on to Thailand to cover the govt unrest there.

Alas, we were looking forward to his return tonight and to family activities during the upcoming "Golden Week" holiday in Japan. Come home soon, Blaine!

Blaine's latest...

2010-04-26T22:48:00.004-07:00

... is another great story about the Philippines at election time.

This country generates so many sad stories: it exports its workers (including many women to Tokyo as domestic "helpers," whose children stay in the Philippines) and fails to make progress on social improvements and infrastructure. Here's the top:

In Philippines, pre-vote largess doesn't translate into post-vote progress

By Blaine Harden
Tuesday, April 27, 2010

MANILA -- It's election season in the Philippines, and the short-term forecast is for manna from heaven.

For voters who live in Baseco, a slum built on garbage beside Manila Bay, it's hard to keep track of all the incoming goodies. Roads have been paved. Playgrounds have been built. A maternity clinic is under construction. One candidate bankrolled a beauty contest. Another sent in doctors bearing free antibiotics. Demolition of squatters' huts has been halted. Free food is expected on May 10, election day.

"It is like a fiesta," said Ray Campanera, senior councilor in the local government here. "Life is a little bit happier."

Yet for the residents of Baseco, as for the poor who account for a third of the 92 million people in the Philippines, pre-election good times are almost always followed by post-election betrayal.

Politicians who win election in this former U.S. colony have one of the worst records in Southeast Asia for stiffing the poor, coddling the rich and indulging themselves, according to a mountain of data and a chorus of economists....

Blaine's latest...

2010-04-23T06:36:00.005-07:00

... is an excellent read from the Philippines about the corpse of Ferdinand Marcos!

Here's the top:
Late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos makes cameo in busy campaign season

By Blaine Harden
Thursday, April 22, 2010

BATAC, PHILIPPINES -- The waxy-looking corpse of Ferdinand Marcos, dead almost 21 years and chilling in a refrigerated glass coffin here in his home town, has joined the Philippine political circus.

In the chaotic run-up to national elections May 10, about 85,000 candidates are clamoring after 17,000 positions, from town council member to president. Political violence has claimed at least 80 lives, including 57 in one incident. And families that have long called the shots in the Philippines are angling for advantage.

That's why the body of the former president is putting in a publicity-grabbing campaign cameo, with the careful contrivance of his widow, Imelda. The former first lady -- who became infamous for her many fancy shoes and whose first name became a synonym for greed -- is 80 and is once again running for political office, along with her son, her daughter and a sizable gaggle of lesser Marcos kin...

Progress

2010-04-21T05:04:00.007-07:00

A red-letter day in the Tokyo American Club swimming pool, as Arno bravely pushed off from the wall this afternoon and swam about 5 feet to me! A first, after months of swim lessons last year and 2 lessons this spring. Then he swam across the lap lane about 40 times. Very exciting!

Lucinda, meanwhile, says TAC's Mini-Mudsharks swim team is "likable" - much more likable, in fact, than expected because I signed her up without asking. She has 3 smooth, relatively efficient strokes so far (butterfly is TK) and likes swimming on the clock. L has so far not enjoyed games with hard-to-identify rules and strategy (like soccer), but she seems to enjoy the self-directed, self-control of swimming - and maybe running? We'll see what develops.

Lucinda types: "I LOVE SWIMMING ALOT!"

Wow!

2010-04-11T05:37:00.000-07:00

Fashion disaster or triumph? A human sakura (cherry blossom) in Shinjuku Gyoen station, April 2010.

Spring flowers

2010-04-09T06:17:00.000-07:00

I already wrote about sakura (cherry blossom) fashion. Now here are some snaps from our annual picnics (hanami) under the cherries.

Last weekend, the peak of the flower experience, we went to Shinjuku Gyoen, a huge, well-kept park near Shinjuku station, with many families from Arno's school, Willowbrook. Crowds lined up outside the gates to get in.

Blaine took this gorgeous shot that expresses the pure hanami experience of picnicking beneath the boughs.

Arno took charge of my camera and delivered this self-portrait...

... and a shot of his parents. I am drinking a can of hot green tea purchased from a vending machine.

Lucinda and Arno

The finale to this year's hanami was in Kinuta Koen (Kinuta Park) in Sendagaya-ku, Tokyo, at the Willowbrook spring picnic. Amazing trees!

An elegantly dressed older lady brought out to gaze at the blossoms.

And Arno's Take/Takenoko (Bamboo/Bamboo shoots) class this year.

Happy spring!

Our Pippi

2010-04-07T01:44:00.002-07:00

Lucinda as Pippi Longstocking for Nishimachi Int'l School's annual Book Parade, held today.

Blaine's latest...

2010-03-28T16:11:00.003-07:00

... is a "Letter from Japan" about the men who use hammers to pound out the aluminum noses of shinkansen, the Japanese bullet trains. Lovely writing!

Headline: "A hammer -- yes, that low-tech tool -- helps mold noses of Japan's bullet trains"

Colors of Sakura

2010-03-28T06:33:00.010-07:00

The cherry blossoms (sakura) are here again - and so, too, is the fashion season when women, men and children accessorize in shades of pink and raspberry, a cheerful sight after the coldest months. I noticed this a few years ago but it took a while to play Bill Cunningham and collect enough decent photos to show it properly. (It's harder than it looks to take pix of people who are walking and talking in crowds.)

Last Monday, a national holiday, Ginza's streets were pedestrian catwalks.

This incredibly slender woman (who would have been a perfect photo for Blaine's story about thin Japanese women) had a Vuitton bag and pashmina.

Spring shoes:

Wrapped chopsticks at the famous Kyukyodo paper store:

Older man:

Young girl:

A classic pose: cellphone messaging

A few more, to prove the point:

And finally, a flash of pink on an ice-cream vending machine.

Blaine's latest...

2010-03-22T05:48:00.003-07:00

... is a front-page story about the US military's redeployment to Guam, a US territory - and how bringing 79,000 people (mainly Marines and their families) to the island could severely damage the environment and sewer and water systems.

Among the highlights:

"Many families have members serving in the armed forces; among the 50 states and four territories, this island regularly ranks first in recruiting success. Guam's killed-in-action rate is about four times as high as on the mainland...

Led by the Marines, American forces liberated the island in 1944, and people here say they still feel a debt to the United States. To repay it, they proudly call their island the "tip of the spear" for projecting U.S. military power in the Far East...

"We don't mind being the tip of spear, but we don't want to get the shaft," said Simon A. Sanchez II, chairman of Guam's commission on public utilities.

Living in the present

2010-03-10T02:16:00.003-08:00

"Mom, what's a typewriter?" - Arno, born in 2004, asked tonight.

Blaine's latest...

2010-03-05T16:21:00.003-08:00

are two stories about women and social pressures in Japan and South Korea.

This story looks at why Japanese women are so thin - and they are incredibly thin. While American women have gained weight - obesity has risen from 17 percent to 35 percent since 1980, Japanese women (other than those over age 70) have actually lost weight over the past 25 years.

If you go into most clothing stores here, even Banana Republic in expat-friendly Roppongi Hills, there aren't many items over a size 6 and size 0 is very common. (This, and the fact that almost everything is sized for shorter people, saves me heaps of time and money.) In the US, many women gain weight during pregnancy and never lose it, but several Japanese moms at Arno's or Lucinda's school have had babies and bounce back below 100 lbs within a few months.

But many women take thinness to scary levels; it's anecdotal, of course, but I've seen many more anorexic women here than I ever did in NYC.

Blaine's second story (which actually ran first) is about the difficulties of being a working mother in South Korea. One woman, a marketing executive with a 6-yr-old son, took out full-page newspaper advertisements to declare "I Am a Bad Woman" because she is sick of being criticized by her husband, son and mother-in-law for continuing to work.

The story includes this astonishing statistic: "South Korean law allows a full year of subsidized parental leave, but intense peer pressure at work means that working mothers usually take little time off, according to government surveys. Only about 35,000 parents in this country of 49 million people (my italics) took advantage of child-care leave subsidies last year."

It's fascinating to compare lifestyles in Japan and other countries we visit to the American way of life; every country has its own specific pathologies. In Japan, it's incredibly difficult for Japanese women to have full-time, high-powered jobs and also have children - in part because Japan's immigration laws don't allow them to hire lower-cost immigrants for childcare. (Expats with certain work visas can, by contrast, hire immigrants as nannies.) The Japanese also smoke much more than Americans do.

But it's impossible not to live here and not recognize that the U.S. has serious food issues. It's not just about obesity rates, but (I think) because the food industry creates and Americans accept a high-volume array of processed foods that have too much salt, sugar, fat and calories. In Japan, food is seasonal, served in much smaller but still filling portions and lacks the American corn-syrupy sweetness, even in chocolate. Arno recently took a small bite of a Milky Way that was leftover from Halloween, declared it was too sweet, didn't eat the rest.

Year of the Tiger

2010-02-26T04:02:00.001-08:00

Lucinda, Arno and I went to Yokohama's Chinatown last weekend to see the Chinese New Year festivities. Lots of fun. To kick off the post, here's video of a dragon dance in the parade.

Snapshots: The gate to Chinatown

Roasted chestnuts for sale. Lucinda loves them, and Arno tried them (very rare development) and liked them!

An old traditional house on the main street.

A dog, sitting in a stroller and wearing a dress with a denim skirt. (You have to look closely, but it's definitely a skirt.)

Lucinda, wearing a dress purchased by her grandparents in Beijing, and Arno, in a Chinese devil mask; in Japanese, it's called an "oni."

Lunch for sale: heaps of pork (I think).

Lucinda's lunch: a steamed meat bun from a street stall for 200 yen ($2).

Chinese children led the parade with dragon puppets.

The emperor, who spoke very good English when he wished the children "Happy New Year."

Another creature came over to greet us.

On to the rest of the Year of the Tiger!

Blaine's latest...

2010-02-25T18:55:00.005-08:00

...is an incredibly sad story about a Korean man who took his wife and two daughters to North Korea and then abandoned them there. He lives in Seoul now, and as far as he knows, his wife and daughters are in a prison camp.

Headline: "A family and a conscience, destroyed by North Korea's cruelty"

And here's Blaine's video, also terribly sad:

Pre-spring

2010-02-25T03:49:00.003-08:00

I saw these lovely plum blossoms in Aoyama cemetery about 10 days ago. Magenta blossoms, very fragrant.

Renovated playground

2010-02-18T18:15:00.000-08:00

Most Tokyo playgrounds have woefully old equipment, but we went last weekend to a newly renovated playground - known as the "100 yen park" - after a family bike ride around Meiji Jingu Outer Gardens. The previous 100-yen incarnation had near-rusty jungle gyms over dirt. It now has clean, safe climbing equip and a long roll-y slide...

...a new swingset and tires to climb on...

...and a corral's worth of bouncy "Rody" horses.

There were even fancy wicker chairs for parents!

A hot-dog stand...

And astroturf around the trees. Not sure if it's meant to protect the trees from the kids or the kids from the trees.

Snowy morning

2010-02-17T18:11:00.001-08:00

We had a treat this morning: actual feathery snow falling as we walked to school. Very rare in our Tokyo experience.

Funny buildings

2010-02-15T18:48:00.000-08:00

I went for a walk recently in Kappabashi, the Tokyo neighborhood where you find kitchen and restaurant supplies. On this visit, I noticed some very odd decorations on buildings.

Like a giant beetle.

And a stack of coffee cups.

Blaine's latest...

2010-02-13T23:51:00.001-08:00

... is an analysis of the Toyota situation, on p. A1.

Night out

2010-02-13T18:46:00.003-08:00

Blaine and Lucinda went to the Father-Daughter dinner dance at the Tokyo American Club last night.

Polished

2010-02-04T05:19:00.000-08:00

Curious machine: an automated shoe polisher in the subway station at Marunouchi, the banking district. 100 yen ($1) for 2 shoes, black or brown.

Minky

2010-02-03T20:36:00.004-08:00

I saw a small dog wearing a mink coat today outside a grocery store. It looked like real mink. It's pretty chilly here - but mink for a dog?

Sadly, I didn't have my camera.

Armory

2010-02-02T05:00:00.001-08:00

I haven't been carrying my camera as often lately, but I was glad I did on a recent pass through the Marunouchi business district.

I came up from the subway to the ground floor of the Marunouchi Building to find an amazing exhibit of Samurai armor reproductions, including some designs from the 1500s.

Most helmets had very cool shapes and designs, presumably to identify samurai from a great distance.

And one (in this photo, near right, click pic for closeup) was extraordinarily Darth Vader-esque. I would not be surprised if George Lucas was a samurai-culture aficionado.

Bananas

2010-01-31T17:27:00.000-08:00

Food in Japan is notoriously expensive. Milk = $10/gallon. Butter = $15/pound. Strawberries = $6 (if you're lucky). One apple = $1-2. Green beans at one store cost $5 for 1/3 pound. And one banana, on average, costs $0.50 cents.

So I was astonished to find the most amazing bargain at Daimaru Peacock, a fairly expensive grocery store in Azabu Juban.

18 Chiquita bananas - for only 198 yen! That's $2! We ate 15 in 3 days, and I made banana bread with the remaining 3.

Nishimachi's birthday

2010-01-29T05:28:00.005-08:00

Lucinda's school, Nishimachi International School, is celebrating its 60th anniversary. It was founded by an American-educated Japanese woman, Tane Matsukata, in 1949, to build understanding between people by, in part, having all students study English and Japanese.

I went to a cocktail party tonight (on Founder's Day, which is Tane Matsukata's birthday) and snapped some archival photos on display.

From the 1950s.

From the 1960s, dancing around the maypole in front of the Matsukata family home, which was built in the early 1900s and survived the war. Now it's the recently earthquake-proofed admin building.

From the 1970s, Miss Matsukata and students.

Lucinda's kindergarten class in 2007-8. Lucinda is in the second row behind Rhen, the boy in the blue shirt. Compare this photo to the 1950s one; the school has fulfilled the goal of selecting students from many nations.

Chiang Mai

2010-01-23T05:23:00.001-08:00

The best stretch of our trip was 3 days in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, an hourlong flight north of Bangkok. (Interior flights in Thailand are only about $100/person, fantastically cheap.)

Chiang Mai is Thailand's cultural capital, influenced by northern "hill tribes" -- in the photo above, Lucinda is wearing a traditional hill-tribe hat -- as well as Burma (to the west), China (north) and Laos (east). Wikipedia tells me there are nearly 200,000 city residents, with 1 million in the metro area. But it didn't feel crowded and had much less grime than Bangkok.

Our hotel, Yaang Come Village, booked on Expedia for about $200/nite, was lovely. Its entrance-building is next to a massive rubber tree (you can see Arno's tiny shape next to it in the second foto).

Our room had murals painted on the walls. (Click foto for a closer look.)

The sweetest hotel accoutrement was this tennis-y bug zapper. You press a button, swing away - and fry mosquitoes! Revenge for years of bug bites. (Our hotel attendant warned the kids not to play with it.)

Our first afternoon, we walked to Chiang Mai's "old city" to see the excellent Sunday Market. It wasn't crowded at dusk but was packed by 8pm.

I thought Bangkok's famous night market was quite dull: heaps of counterfeit Gucci, Polo, Chanel, Dior, Vuitton, etc. We quickly realized that Chiang Mai's market was going to be more genuine - not just for tourists - when we saw the table of cooked bugs for sale, including...

...fried grasshoppers and...

...grubs with a leafy seasoning. I once wrote a story for The Boston Globe about a "bug chef" in Washington State, but this was the real thing.

Other curiosities: Monks buying books.

A girl dressed for a stage performance.

We bought street food for supper and Blaine made the best choice. From this woman, who was cooking in clay pots on a side street...

...Blaine bought spicy curry-noodles for about 25 cents. The most delicious dish of the whole vacation.

Here was my favorite dish, which Lucinda and I bought at Chiang Mai's regular night market. Mango sticky rice for 50 baht, or about $1.50.

Arno's joke

2010-01-14T14:45:00.002-08:00

Whilst eating his Cheerios this morning:

"Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to other slide."

(With credit to Elmo.)

Hong Island

2010-01-14T05:22:00.001-08:00

Thailand has fantastic diving near Krabi, and you can take a longtail boat to famously beautiful islands like Ko Phi Phi or James Bond Island to see fish. When we considered day trips, though - with Lucinda, a good swimmer, and Arno, who can't swim and is fully capable of whining his way through the most delightful scenery - we decided to take a much easier snorkeling trip to Ko Hong (Hong Island).

We hired a longtail boat for about 1200 baht (33 baht = $1, so that's about $40 for the day), including lunch. Our captain, who said his name was Jack, met us after breakfast.

We arrived at Ko Hong a half-hour later, the second boat to anchor - and the beach was almost empty (see top photo and below).

Lucinda, almost always willing to try new things, enjoyed snorkeling; Arno was predictably a bit anxious about the novelty but enjoyed looking for shells on the beach. Then some beer-drinking Germans (beer at 10 a.m.!) gave us some slices of bread to feed colorful fish who swarmed around us in a frenzy.

A little later, we walked into the island's interior and learned, by way of wooden boats flung 100 meters into the jungle, that Ko Hong was slammed by the 2004 tsunami, causing some deaths and injuries. (Here's one person's account of it.) There hadn't been any tsunami damage at our hotel or in Ao Nang, as (I think) that slice of shoreline was protected by Phuket, to the west.

Ko Hong has a neat geology: limestone formations that make the rock look like dripping candle wax.

After lunch, when it was high tide, "Captain Jack" took us around to the other side of the island to see its lagoon. Quite beautiful views, as you float through the narrow entrance.

The water was very warm and only a few feet deep over flat, soft sand. So Lucinda, Arno (buck-naked by that point) and I climbed out of the boat and walked around.

It was an easy adventure, without being too much adventure, for everyone.

The Beach

2010-01-09T05:16:00.031-08:00

We flew south from Bangkok to Krabi province (a quick hour on a packed Airbus) on Thailand's west coast. Krabi is vastly more sedate (I'm told) than Phuket, with pleasant beaches and massive limestone rock formations for climbers. This is what we saw on the way to our hotel.

The Sheraton Resort in Krabi was comfortable and well-designed, though a bit dull - a fine place to decompress from Tokyo life. There's a good breakfast brunch, a small "kids' club" with arts and crafts, hammocks, free internet, and a powdery beach on the Andaman Sea. The downside to the resort was the $100/night (!!) fee to borrow an extra twin bed; last year, the Westin in Bali didn't charge anything.

The best features were the resort's two huge swimming pools. They were wonderfully warm with varying depths; I swam laps and the children spent hours playing in them, often with an 8-year-old American girl whose family (from Michigan) lives in Shanghai.

There wasn't much to see near our hotel, just a few restaurants plus laundry, tchotchke and massage shops, so we twice went to Ao Nang, a touristy beach village with long rows of shops selling counterfeit stuff and handmade suits.

Fortunately, Ao Nang's beach is quite picturesque, with traditional "long-tail boats" anchored offshore and cliffs in the background. We took a stroll and the children hunted for quality shells.

Then we had supper (twice) at Ao Nang's beachfront restaurant row.

Our Lonely Planet guide suggested Sala Bua & Lo Spuntino, which has Thai and Italian menus, and it was fantastic. Every restaurant has an ice-filled "boat" at the entrance to show the daily seafood catch: massive prawns, shiny clams, mussels, fish, crabs and Andaman lobsters.

We ordered crab and prawn pasta one night, and seafood pizza the next...

...and Lucinda and I indulged in shockingly good, fresh "watermelon shakes."

We all enjoyed the sunset (behind Phuket island in the distance).

Day in Bangkok

2010-01-06T04:11:00.012-08:00

Our flight to Bangkok was right between Ho Chi Minh city and Taipei on this Narita Airport departure screen. (If I'm taking a photo of it, it's still a thrill to live here.)

And Thailand: we loved it! I found Bangkok a bit overwhelming with children, but we had a nice work/life decompression at Sheraton's beach resort in Krabi province (southeast of Phuket island) and especially enjoyed Chiang Mai, a mid-sized city in the north. I'll write several posts about it.

The flight to Bangkok: 7 hours, arriving at midnight. Here we are, headed to a Mercedes that took us to Le Meridien hotel. (Posh 5-star hotel at the "bargain" rate of $160/night deal on Expedia!)

The morning view from our 16th-floor room:

We took the very clean Bangkok subway to the Chatuchak weekend market to see some neat stuff. First stop: Coconut ice cream, scooped into a coconut shell, with raw-coconut scrapings underneath.

A Buddha shop.

Frosted cupcakes!

Gigantic prawns, gray, alive and wiggling (at left) or pink and boiled.

Feather duster salesmen.

And a shop full of baskets.

After a few hours in the heat (December is the mildest month to visit Bangkok but we are wimps), we returned to the hotel to swim in the swanky 6th floor pool.

More on the way...

Happy New Year!

2010-01-02T05:27:00.003-08:00

Happy 2010! We went to Thailand for 12 days, a wonderful and entertaining vaca, returning on Dec 31, and I'm just now catching up on non-immediate business after sleeping in, doing heaps of laundry, and tossing out ancient art projects and other clutter.

After 2 weeks with the children, Blaine and I escaped tonight for our Saturday date: to see Avatar. Wow. I'm not a "big movie" person, usually hate them, but I thought it was great: plot, special effects, action, flying dinosaur-like creatures.

Winter concert

2009-12-17T04:21:00.003-08:00

Tonight was Nishimachi's annual winter concert, and most songs had a "peace" theme. Peace and mutual understanding are key elements of the "Nishimachi values" they promote at the school, which was founded in 1949 by a US-educated Japanese woman, Tane Matsukata, to promote international understanding. That's one reason all students study English and Japanese.

The school song is called "Let Peace Begin with Me," and most students seem to take it to heart - or Lucinda does, anyway.

Lucinda wore a lovely red dress that we bought last summer in Denver. She was very composed at center stage during the song "Hanukkah Shalom." And the school borrowed our little menorah for that song, which was fun for our 2nd grader, too.

The school's only Christmas tree is decorated with origami cranes, also a symbol of peace in Japan.

Reading and children

2009-12-10T04:01:00.003-08:00

I just heard this fascinating National Public Radio (US) story about reading and a child's brain. Lots in there, about how kids who struggle with reading have different brain pathways - but they can be rewired with intensive reading classes. And a quick mention of how playing a musical instrument also builds these pathways.

Blaine's latest...

2009-12-09T23:52:00.002-08:00

... is an excellent story on the impact of global warming in Australia.

Headline: "A lingering pool of disbelief: Despite a decade of record drought, Australian farmers refuse to buy into climate change"

It's timed perfectly for the Copenhagen conference on climate change.

Don't forget to check out the amazing photo gallery that goes with it. One photo shows how eucalyptus tree trunks and roots have been exposed by the near-disappearance of Lake Hume in southern Australia.

Trailing spouse: Health edition

2009-12-09T23:34:00.003-08:00

Blaine is in Seoul this week to report the last story in his yearlong examination of North Korea. It's a valuable time to be there because the Obama administration has sent its special envoy, Stephen Bosworth, to Pyongyang this week. (Here is Blaine's preview about that.)

Unfortunately, though, Arno has been sick since last Saturday with a very bad cold, low fever, congestion and general unhappiness. He skipped 4 days of school and only today - Day 6! - he felt well enough to trade his horizontal couch position for a trip to the grocery store to buy some Japanese candy that is packaged in small boxes. He actually doesn't care much about the candy but wants to use the boxes for "junk art," an obvious sign that his brain is working again.

So I've been tethered to the house for days and days! I can't wait for Arno to go back to school tomorrow, Friday, so I can get of here, go swimming, do some holiday shopping - or just hang out in Tokyo.

La vida loca

2009-12-05T05:48:00.005-08:00

Proving again that our expat life is la-la land, Blaine and I went to a black-tie "casino night" benefit last (Friday) night, the first time Blaine has worn a tuxedo since our 2002 wedding. The photo could be better, but, hey, it's evidence!

We were guests of some Tokyo-Seattle friends whose company paid for the table at the Westin Tokyo in Ebisu. After supper, I had a superfun spin at the benefit blackjack tables, especially after Blaine arrived to end a long streak of losing hands. I'm the second pile of orange chips from the right - worth about $7.

I've never gambled for real, and I'm clueless about the odds of this or any other game. Fortunately, there was a very bossy, busty American party guest at the table who claimed that she'd been a dealer in Louisiana. (Alas, no photo.) Somewhat drunkenly, but not irrationally, she repeatedly overruled me and everyone else about when to "hit" or not - and she was right most of the time. I more than tripled my $30 in chips by 10:30pm, when we flaked out and bet it all on a losing hand before hopping in a taxi to go home.

Bing Maps

2009-12-05T05:40:00.002-08:00

Our supercool Seattle friend Blaise Aguera y Arcas is in charge of Microsoft's new Bing maps, using Blaise's "Sea Dragon" and "Photosynth" inventions.

Here are stories about this in the Wall St. Journal and Seattle P-I.

I've posted about Blaise's genius before - like in this lecture to the TED audience a few years ago. Microsoft, which bought Blaise's company and Sea Dragon a few years ago, is smart enough to put Blaise in charge of more and more of its real estate.

Congratulations, Blaise!

Tokyo garden

2009-11-30T04:46:00.000-08:00

I recently saw this container garden outside a house in Seijo-Gakeunmae, a neat university neighborhood west of Shinjuku. The house was just across the street from a train track and the pots dressed it up quite a bit.

Procrastination

2009-11-29T04:22:00.002-08:00

A very pleasant game to waste time: Obechi.

Karaoke with 2nd graders

2009-11-26T17:26:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday afternoon, Lucinda and I met school friends and their moms for two hours of karaoke. We went to a place in Roppongi, the famously sleazy nightspot where Americans get robbed after imbibing spiked drinks. But it's perfectly harmless in broad daylight.

I've never sung karaoke and had no idea what to expect; a stage with a microphone? Totally wrong. We took the elevator up to the 4th floor and found super-mod living rooms, each with shiny couches, cocktail tables and a flat-screen TV on the wall.

Ours had couch seating for 9 people and 2 shiny silver microphones. Btw, each mother-daughter pair paid a very cheap 1000 yen (about $11) because one mom joined the karaoke club.

You choose the songs out of this enormous phone book-sized listing, with songs in English, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog for Filipinos (click the pic for a close-up view)...

...and you punch the song ID numbers into this wireless device.

The television queues up the songs and shows the words over very cheesy B-roll video. Among our selections: "Summer Lovin'" from Grease, "Piano Man" by Billy Joel, a few songs from High School Musical, "Stop in the Name of Love," "Holiday" and "La Isla Bonita" by Madonna, and a bunch of others.

Lucinda loved it (she'd gone with a friend once before), and so did her friends. Here are a few pix...

...and one potentially headache-inducing video of the high-speed "It's a Small World."

"Sugoi" Circus

2009-11-24T05:12:00.005-08:00

Lucinda, Arno and I went to the Cirque du Soleil tent tonight near Yoyogi Park to see its "Corteo" production. I managed to snap one photo of the stage before being instructed to put my camera away.

I thought the Corteo storyline - something about a dead guy, a funeral, angels, reliving his life, lots of singing, whatever - was lame. But the acrobatics were seriously impressive, especially the trapeze-less trapeze, the high bars, the chandeliers, the enormous metal rings, and the woman who swung a man in the air by her very long ponytail!

Lots of "wow!" or, as the Japanese say, with great enthusiasm, "sugoi!"

Arno and his friend Max, in almost-matching striped shirts, loved their caramel corn and the flashing CdS logo lights in the lobby.

November activities

2009-11-24T05:03:00.005-08:00

It's been a very busy month here. My mother and stepfather came to visit (her 5th trip to Tokyo!) for a few weeks. Blaine traveled to Australia and South Korea and covered Obama's visit to Tokyo and Seoul. I had an interesting corporate assignment, to research, conduct interviews and write a report about Japan's foreign aid policies.

Also this month, Lucinda really learned to ride a bicycle and sang karaoke with several friends and their moms (including me). Arno turned 5 and will have his birthday party this weekend. Blaine took the children to Mizuno, a huge sports store, to buy baseball mitts. Both schools had parent-teacher conferences in recent days, when we get a vague sense of how much Japanese the children are absorbing. And today, the last of a 6-day school vacation, the children and I went to see Cirque du Soleil.

Based on this month alone, they seem to be the luckiest children alive, though I don't think they've realized that... yet?

Trailing Spouse: Obama edition

2009-11-18T17:19:00.003-08:00

Blaine has been quite busy in the past week covering President Obama's visits to Japan and, today, to South Korea.

Here are some of his stories, often with WashPost White House correspondent Anne Kornblut:

Hiroshima: The dreaded invitation
Obama declines offer to visit the bombed city on his first trip to East Asia

In Japan, Obama stresses Asia's role in U.S. economy

Obama, Japanese premier at odds over air station negotiations

Obama to discuss vexing N. Korean behavior with S. Korean leader

In Seoul, Obama will confront trade and security issues

Red letter day

2009-11-15T03:55:00.003-08:00

Today was Arno's 5th birthday, which seems like a pretty big milestone in childhood. He loved his presents, especially 2 Star Wars Lego sets from my mother and stepfather and a motorized build-it-yourself dinosaur from Lucinda. And he loved his gingerbread cake (served with cinnamon whipped cream), which is suitably sugar-free for me to take to his school tomorrow. A party at home w/his friends will happen in 2 weeks.

Lucinda was less than thrilled about Arno's birthday but she rallied for her own achievement today: She really learned how to ride a bike! Last summer she could pedal if Blaine ran alongside to get her started, and so far this fall, she'd resisted riding at all. But today, Blaine suggested that she give it a try - and she was off in a flash. Then she went around the block about 20 times, no problem.

Temples and leaves in Nikko

2009-11-04T05:47:00.000-08:00

This - my third post about our weekend in the mountains - covers our visit to Nikko, the historic capital of Japan's "Shogun" period captured by James Clavell. The original shogun, Ieyasu Tokugawa (1542-1616), who is buried here, is said to have "unified" the country in 1603, when he was named "Seii-taishogun," or "great generalissimo." (All of my historical info, btw, comes from the Nikko Tourist Association's website, which also has very reliable travel info and suggestions for short or longer walks in the area.)

We arrived in Nikko on this old-style train, which has red velvet seats. Two train lines go to Nikko: the JR (Japan Rail) line and the private Tobu line, and each has its own train station a few blocks apart. Does not seem like the best use of public land...

The Tobu train station has a Vermont-ish style.

After 1.5 hrs on 2 trains from Nasu-shiobara to Nikko, I thought it would be a good idea to to walk uphill through the town to reach the major shrines, instead of taking a bus. Um, bad idea. Arno was so unhappy - and his whining made me furious! This captures the moment perfectly.

I bribed Arno to keep walking by promising a piece of chocolate at the top of the hill. On the way, we found that Nikko is packed with old-world Japanese houses and temples, including one with a Volvo parked outside and another high on a hill.

The first "must-see" sight is the red-lacquered Shinkyo (Sacred Bridge) over the Daiya River. For centuries, only the emperor could cross it; now anyone can pay about 400 yen to stand on it. The bridge and river are lovely, but a busy intersection nearby lessens the romance.

Nearby, up some mossy stone stairs, is the Rinnoji Temple complex. A huge temple - but we skipped it, on the advice of our Frommer's guidebook, to stroll in the gorgeous Syouyoen Japanese garden that was constructed centuries ago. Its Japanese maples were at peak color and the children loved skipping on stone paths and bridges. The family photo at the top of this post was taken there, and here's another shot.

Dozens of massive koi swim in the pond, and fish food is available in small bamboo containers, shown here, for 30 yen. The fish were not hungry, though.

Next up, the Toshogu Shrine, where Tokugawa-sama is buried. The structures decorated with gold leaf were impressive, but we marveled at the massive cedar trees encircling the shrine, which were actually planted here centuries ago. In this photo, see how tiny the people are compared to the huge stone torii gate at the entrance to the shrine complex - and the trees tower over that.

After you buy tickets, you walk by the "sacred stable," which allegedly houses a white horse (unseen by us). The stable's carving includes the famous "three monkeys" of "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" fame. Which is a commentary on childhood innocence, blah, blah.

The monkeys:

To enter the shrine, a crowd waited to walk thru the Yomeimon gate, which has 500 sculptures...

...including samurai guards on either side.

Once inside, we looked it over and were suitably impressed - especially about the trees!

We didn't stay long because we had to catch a train to reach our hotel. We returned to the Shinkyo Bridge, ran for a bus, and reached the train station just in time. Congratulations all around after a sometimes-trying day of sightseeing and choco-bribery.

If this sounds like a good trip for you, there are several other sightseeing stops in Nikko, including Lake Chuzenji, the Kegon and Ryuzu waterfalls, and neat-looking hikes in the Senjogahara marshlands. Our kids are not old enough, or maybe willing enough, to deal w/that now. Maybe another time.

"This is the best Halloween ever!"

2009-10-31T17:51:00.000-07:00

So said Arno, as we enjoyed our third Halloween in Tokyo. Arno was a vampire with glow-in-the-dark teeth, and Lucinda was "Trixie" the witch.

Some other pix:

Night at the ryokan

2009-10-30T06:52:00.003-07:00

Traveling in Japan is shockingly expensive: about $500/night when you include shinkansen (bullet train) tickets, a decent but not stellar hotel, meals and extras.

Fortunately, I won a top raffle prize at Nishimachi's recent Food Fair for a family one-night stay at Nasu Onsen Sanraku, a luxury ryokan (traditional Japanese inn). We knew this would be a full-on Japanese experience: a room with tatami mats, an elaborate kaiseki (multi-course meal) served en suite by a maid in a kimono, a bath in an onsen (natural hot-springs bath), and sleeping on futons on the floor. The real cost for the four of us -- in Japan, you pay for each guest, not for the room itself - would have been $1,000 for that one night. So we were feeling pretty lucky!

From the start, the service at Sanraku was exemplary. When we explained that we'd left our suitcases at the Nasu-shiobara train station to go hiking, the staff offered to pick the bags up for us, a round trip of about an hour. Here's the ryokan's entrance:

Here's our pristine room. You eat and sleep in the main room, with an alcove by the window for reading.

Our window framed the autumn leaves, an essential part of the decor.

On the table when we arrived: a warm towel, a warm sesame-paste sweet, and frothy, freshly whisked matcha (green tea).

When you walk into the hotel lobby, you take off your own shoes and put on slippers. Then in your room, you leave your slippers in the entryway (called a genkan) and tread on the tatami in bare feet or in white tabi socks. You also change into a yukata, a cotton kimono.

We went to the hotel's onsen, which was amazing. You shower and shampoo before you get into steaming water for a soak. Sanraku has an indoor pool and an outdoor pond with rocks to sit on. Men and women are separated because everyone is naked. It's delightful and incredibly relaxing. After the bath, Lu and Arno hung out in the electronic massage chairs.

After the bath, we returned to our room for supper. It was delicious and somewhat overwhelming. The maid brought in about a dozen plates, some of which had 4 or 5 different foods.

The intro (top) photograph in this post shows the first offerings served with a pear-wine aperitif. The menu also included:

Did I mention that the food was overwhelming? Arno didn't know what to make of the "kid's" meal, which included some delicious grilled steak and wasabi-free sushi. He drank orange soda and ate rice and omochi (pounded rice balls) filled with azuki bean paste. But Lucinda was amazing and tried almost everything.

Here's Blaine, drinking a beer and lounging in his yukata at the very, very low table - which is not so comfortable for tall people like us.

After supper, the kids watched Japanese TV in the ground-level chairs...

... and then we walked around the hotel, checked out the gift shop, and returned to our room to collapse on the futons by 10pm. Sadly, I took no photos of the futons, but a worker moved the table to a corner and put four futons in a row against a wall of the main room. A very comfortable family sleepover.

The next morning, the maid returned with a massive and complex kaiseki breakfast of a dozen dishes, including fish shabu shabu, grilled fish, seaweed and pickles. This view shows my breakfast.

At this moment, all I wanted was a fresh croissant, a pot of jam, and a big cup of cafe au lait - or maybe some bran cereal, walnuts and sliced banana. I realized, as the maid walked in with maybe the 10th dish, that a little ryokan goes a long way. An amazing cultural experience, but one night was enough.

As the hotel van pulled away, en route for the train station, the staff bowed to say goodbye and thank you.

Day at the volcano

2009-10-27T17:44:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, we went away for three days to Tochigi Prefecture, a mountainous region about 200 km north of Tokyo that has natural hot springs created by quiet-but-alive volcanoes. We made two stops, Friday in Nasu and Saturday in Nikko. I'll cover the visit in three posts: The volcano, the ryokan, and Nikko's temples - with lots of photos.

I planned extensively to make train and hotel connections work smoothly. This great website, Jorudan, gives you all the train options and prices, incredibly valuable in a country where trains leave precisely on schedule.

Shinkansen arrives.

Shinkansen apple juice!

An hour and 100 km later, we were in the country.

The shinkansen took us to Nasu-shiobara, from which the main road leads into the Nasu highlands. It reminded me of upstate New York: country houses, grape vines, high-end shopping and autumn leaves. We caught a bus to our first sightseeing stop, Mount Chausu (Chausu-dake), a steaming volcano that last erupted in 1963.

A 5-minute tram ride...

... takes you up to a small building where you can buy ramen and corn dogs for lunch and read amusing signs.

You can hike to the summit but we followed the near-empty trail that circumnavigates the peak. It was foggy, then clearing. It looked like the volcano had spit up massive rocks everywhere, leaving a lunar-with-plants landscape. The kids loved climbing on the rocks.

The geology was pretty cool: huge ash-gray boulders, plus seams of rust-colored (iron?) or yellowish (sulfur?) rocks.

We walked for about 75 minutes - certainly not all the way around - because we had to catch a bus down the mountain to get to the ryokan. This warning sign was posted near the tram doorway.

Next... a night at the ryokan

Origami of the week

2009-10-27T05:54:00.000-07:00

A new rabbit, which Lucinda folded to celebrate Otsukimi, the full-moon festival, a few weeks ago.

Reading out loud

2009-10-24T22:36:00.004-07:00

How delightful: On this cloudy Sunday afternoon, Blaine and Lucinda are sitting in the living room and reading "Romeo and Juliet" aloud. Lucinda is a fan of "Shakespeare in Love," and chose this play out of Blaine's everything-Shakespeare volume. Meanwhile, Arno is planning his next "junk art" masterpiece.

Trip to the mountains

2009-10-22T06:33:00.003-07:00

We're going away for the weekend into mountains about 100 km from Tokyo. We'll do some hiking, see heaps of autumn leaves and stay in traditional Japanese inns.

I won a raffle prize at the recent Nishimachi Food Fair for all of us to stay overnight at Nasu Onsen Sanraku (the luxury Sanraku inn). Looks amazing.

Then we're going to Nikko, a well-known leaf-watching haven, with various temples and shrines, a tramway, and Lake Chuzenji. Our hotel, Nikko Toshogu Koyoen, in Shimo-imaichi looks lovely, too.

So we'll be wearing yukata (cotton kimono), soaking in the onsen (natural hot-springs bath), eating kaiseki (multi-course supper) served in our room, and sleeping on futons.

Back Sunday, with lots of photos.

Blaine's latest: North Koreans make weapons out of forks and spoons!

2009-10-16T23:54:00.005-07:00

I'm slow to post this, but Blaine wrote an awesome story, "N. Korea Swiftly Expanding Its Special Forces" (published 10/9) about a massive increase in North Korea's Special Forces. In the event of a South Korean or US attack on the DPRK, these commandos would come over the border to wreak havoc in Seoul, potentially killing many thousands of people.

Fun facts to know and trade:

- North Korea now has an estimated 180,000 special forces commandos! The US, by contrast, has about 51,000 special forces worldwide (Army Rangers, Navy Seals, etc.)

- Among other routes, these deadly folks could fly over the border in low-flying World War II-era biplanes.

- Like villains in a 007 episode, North Korean special forces are skilled in "throwing knives, firing poisonous darts and running up steep hills wearing backpacks filled with 60 pounds of rocks and sand."

- They are also "drilled in street warfare, chemical attacks, night fighting, martial arts, car theft..."

- And finally, in what may be my all-time favorite fact from one of Blaine's stories: These DPRK commandos can "use spoons and forks as weapons." You don't read about that every day!

Fun with math

2009-10-15T00:37:00.003-07:00

Math was something of a chore for Lucinda in 1st grade and she really resented my efforts (last summer) to make her practice basic addition and subtraction on worksheets every few days.

But we're having a better time with math this fall because her school purchased access to an Australian website/company called Mathletics (link here: www.mathletics.com.au). It lets children practice equations at their grade level and compete against the computer or children in countries all over the world to answer questions in 60 seconds.

Lucinda usually avoids overtly competitive situations (i.e. swim team, Student Council elections, aggressive soccer team), yet she loves, loves Mathletics. When Mathletics scans the globe to match her with other kids who are looking for a contest, she gleefully announces the players' names and countries ("Audrey from Australia! Mohammed from Qatar! John from the United States!) and doesn't mind whether she wins or loses.

Mathletics also lets teachers arrange homework for children to complete on their own time, and it's available to anyone with an Internet connex who buys the annual $100 subscription.

Wonders never cease

2009-10-15T00:19:00.004-07:00

I'm always amazed to learn something new about Japanese efficiency, and especially how technology is put to work to improve basic boring bureaucratic operations.

Today, for example, I went to Japan Post to mail a registered letter to the US. The post-office lady asked me to wait and, a minute later, handed me a computer printout with actual scanned images of the address and return address I'd written on my letter. She didn't have to write anything or copy anything herself.

At city bus stops, each bus's GPS tells waiting commuters when their bus is 1, 2 or 3 stops away - and sometimes how many minutes it will take to reach the next major destination based on the traffic ahead. (In 2001, when I was covering then-candidate Mike Bloomberg's first campaign for NYC mayor, Bloomberg said he wanted to install GPS on every city bus - and I thought it was a ridiculous and impossible idea.)

And at grocery stores, clerks feed paper money and coins into the cash register's computer to ensure exact change is returned.

I'm sure there are hundreds of other examples that I haven't yet seen.

Vietnam in Afghanistan?

2009-10-07T19:46:00.005-07:00

One of our good friends in New York, Gordon Goldstein, has been getting a lot of ink lately because his book Lessons in Disaster, about the Vietnam War and JFK's and LBJ's National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, is said to be on President Obama's nightstand. (The book just came out in paperback... order at Amazon!)

Frank Rich featured the book in a recent NYT column entitled "Obama at the Precipice.". And the Wall St. Journal cites Lessons in Disaster in its story today, Behind Afghan War Debate, a Battle of Two Books Rages.

What a wonderful achievement for Gordon and his wife Anne Gilbert (who went to Columbia University's J-school with me). Gordie worked on the book for more than a decade and it was published last year. He and Bundy collaborated until Bundy died, in 1996, and the Bundy family withdrew its consent for the material. So Gordie had to make the tough decision to go on alone with the project, and according to a review in the NYT by Richard Holbrooke last fall, it was clearly worthwhile.

Congratulations, Gordie!

Incidentally, I interviewed Gordie for a piece I wrote for Salon.com in 2003, "Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President," when the Iraq War was going south.

Bye-bye, Super Typhoon

2009-10-07T19:04:00.003-07:00

It was quite rainy overnight, but Super Typhoon Melor has gone north ahead of schedule.

Right now, at 11 a.m. Thursday morning, a strong, gusty wind is pushing massive, puffy clouds very rapidly across a bright blue sky. The only remnants are some leaves on the ground; there's no flooding because the city's roads are gently curved to send rain to curbside drains leading to Tokyo's gigantic sewer system.

Lucinda's school is closed (because it was still raining at 5 a.m. when they made the decision) so she's at a playdate. Arno's school is open, which makes us all very happy.

Super Typhoon!

2009-10-06T06:20:00.003-07:00

There's apparently a Category 5 storm, Super Typhoon Melor, arriving tomorrow in Tokyo. Always something new and different here.

Here are some NASA radar images of what NASA calls "monster Super Typhoon Melor." Not the most calming headline!

Japanese spareribs

2009-10-06T04:58:00.004-07:00

I'm determined to find some new recipes to add to our staples, and this one tonight was a keeper: Japanese-style braised spareribs.

Very simple ingredients, including ribs, sake, soy sauce, honey, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, rice vinegar, oil, water and a heavy pot to brown and braise them in. Marinate for an hour, cook for an hour. I didn't broil or grill them after braising, as suggested, but Blaine, Lucinda and I thought they were delicious as is.

Fishkill

2009-10-03T17:43:00.001-07:00

Our last three fish expired yesterday! My original purchase, Tut - the old man of the bunch, bought six weeks ago - was found at the bottom of our glass fish-cube this morning. Arno gave me a sad look and a sympathetic pat and said, "I'm sorry, Mom."

Feeling guilty - and very aware that our fish seem to die on a predictable 2-week cycle - I cleaned the cube this afternoon. Soaped and rinsed everything thoroughly, installed a new filter, replaced about 2/3rd of the water, and returned the remaining fish, Wanda and Cheetoey, owned by Blaine and Arno, respectively, to the cube.

A clean bowl usually peps them up, but an hour later, Wanda and Cheetoey were lying together dead on the gravel at the bottom, next to the plastic turtle. I can only assume the new water was too cold for our delicate, tropical friends?

This time, no one cried. When I suggested filling the void with some plain ol' goldfish of the non-tropical variety, Lucinda, who begged me in August for some fish, said: "You can't hold them, you can't pet them. I want a hamster!"

A year older, a year stronger

2009-10-02T17:48:00.001-07:00

We made our third annual visit to the obstacle course at Heiwa no Mori park last weekend. Here's the report from our first trip (in 2007); we made a second trip (in 2008) with our Seattle friends Blaise and Adrienne and their children, Anselm and Eliot.

As always, the children were fascinated by these log and rope obstacles. But I loved seeing Lucinda's and Arno's very tangible mental and physical developments since last summer.

When Lucinda was 5, she found some obstacles too scary to contemplate. At 6, she took more risks with her balance, especially on water obstacles. This year, she was completely engaged, very strong, and unafraid to lead the way on the highest rope-web climbs.

Two years ago, Arno was too young to enjoy Heiwa no Mori. Last year, he did the easier obstacles but skipped anything that looked risky. This year, he was inspired by Lucinda's example to try almost all of them, sometimes with Blaine's help to talk him over the high bars and climb down the other side. I think Arno even surprised himself.

We'll definitely go back next spring or summer.

Here, by the way, is a story in the Japan Times that lists several of these courses for children to connect with their "inner Tarzan." I'd like to try the one in Chiba.

Thanks for reading this blog!

2009-10-01T06:28:00.001-07:00

My blog is seeing more readers lately, and some of you are sending me comments and ideas. Thanks for reading! It's fun to have an audience.

Teenager already?

2009-10-01T05:37:00.005-07:00

Only in Japan: Lucinda sang karoake today after school with her 7-year-old friend Sylvan.

Sylvan's babysitter took them to a karaoke place in Roppongi, which is seedy after dark but perfectly safe at 4pm. They drank pineapple juice in a small karoke room and Lucinda sang to her heart's content.

I hope Lucinda remembers it for a long time.

Sunday in Shimokitazawa

2009-09-29T17:17:00.000-07:00

Shimokitazawa, or "Shimokita" for short, is one of my favorite neighborhoods in Tokyo. It's a half-dozen stops west of busy Shibuya on the Keio Inokashira commuter train line, and totally worth a trip to look around. Heaps of college students, cheap restaurants, fashion-y stores and nightspots - on a human scale. (Natasha Caryl, whose husband was Newsweek's last correspondent here, took me there 2 years ago.)

I took Lucinda and Arno there on Sunday to see "Playmoland," which had a gazillion Playmobiles and other stuff.

Other curiosities from our day out: This restaurant sells fugu, or blowfish, which are poisonous unless you prepare them properly. There was a fish tank built into one corner of the building (just in front of Lucinda).

The Hana Donuts shop which, in addition to plain and cinnamon-sugar, sold a donut that maybe had basil or thyme in it?

And a pink Jaguar.

Very stylish.

Antique obi

2009-09-28T04:50:00.000-07:00

One thing that distinguishes Tokyo from US and even European cities is that centuries-old traditions co-exist with modern life. That was certainly true in the Ningyocho neighborhood near the Imperial Palace, where traditional shops are mixed in with office buildings -- and where these ladies-who-lunch (above) were walking around in kimono, geta sandals and white socks.

My first stop (on a tour arranged by the Tokyo American Club) was a corner workshop where an artisan made lacquered, woven boxes for kimono and obi storage. This is the entire operation; the artisan, who was painting the inside of a box-top, sat on the floor and hung boxes on ceiling hooks to dry.

Most boxes had a symbol (like the chrysanthemum) or some Japanese kanji characters on them; I didn't have a chance to ask what anything meant, but here's a close-up view.

Next I spotted a store selling individually forged scissors and other sharp items.

Then we walked to a nondescript office building with kimono and obi for sale on the 2nd and 3rd floor. The variety was overwhelming, but I was drawn to the antique obi, which were defined as "at least 50 years old." They're quite heavy and embroidered on both sides with silk thread. I bought the one on the left, with flowers (chrysanthemum, cherry, others) and fans; hopefully not a completely ridiculous purchase.

Close-up view, below center. The saleswoman said it was probably a wedding obi. It's about 15 feet long - seems impossible to wrap and tie around a tiny Japanese woman. People drape them on decorative hangers for display.

There were also some "story obi," helpfully labeled in English with prices...

... and thousands of cheaper polyester kimono with pastel flowers. I wasn't too keen on them.

Odd Egyptian pattern.

And a strange boar statue to finish the day.

Mystery treats at the konbini

2009-09-16T05:38:00.010-07:00

One of the games I play in Japan is "mystery treat": At the konbini (convenience store), I buy random things without knowing exactly what's in them. I search the label for English clues, decipher Japanese hiragana when I can (like finding the word oishi, which means "delicious"), look for color clues (among soy milk boxes, for example, I've learned that yellow is banana flavored, pink is strawberry, green is green tea), and buy it anyway.

Sometimes it works, like when I found green-tea flavored milk or honey-flavored milk with tapioca in it. Sometimes it doesn't, like when I bought ume (sour plums).

Tonight I found an unusual ice-cream treat at our local AM/PM konbini. The only English was "White Taiyaki," and because it was in the ice-cream freezer, it seemed logical to guess that it would be a fish-shaped ice-cream dessert.

This is what it looked like inside: a palm-sized fish, very lightweight. The outside layer was made of very thin, styrofoam-y, edible wafer material.

I've seen fish-shaped treats lately at the grocery store, which led me to believe there were greater cultural forces at work in the design. I was right... Wikipedia tells me that a taiyaki is taiyaki is a "fish-shaped cake" that is usually filled with azuki (red bean) paste. I think they must also be an expression of autumn, because the Japanese love seasonal variations in food. Here's the taiyaki from Wikipedia.

I'm not a huge fan of azuki because it can be thick and bland; today's other "mystery treat" was azuki-bean-flavored soy milk that I bought for Lucinda. Not a big hit. So I took a bite and...

Delightful! Inside the fish, there is vanilla ice cream and a thin layer of sweet red bean jam.

So delicious that after Blaine finished writing about the new Japanese prime minister, he rode his bike to the konbini to get one, too.

Weird science

2009-09-13T18:42:00.000-07:00

The Japanese are the healthiest people on earth - but they do have some odd health-related ideas.

For example, the preschoolers at Arno's school gargle with water every time they return from the nearby public playground. Is it supposed to cleanse the throat of bacteria or viruses? I have a hard time believing it works.

Then there's the pinworm test. At Lucinda's school, students in grades 2-5 have several swim lessons at a pool in a nearby elementary school. But before they can swim, every student has to be tested for pinworms. Never mind that the US Centers for Disease Control website says, "It is unlikely that pinworm infections can be spread through the use of pools."

A pinworm test arrived in Lucinda's homework packet. It included a small envelope with this charming diagram. (Click on the pic for a close-up view.)

And inside, the 2-day test: 2 outside layers of clear tape, each with a bullseye, that you stick to a central layer of plastic after the procedure.

The school assures us that no Nishimachi student has ever tested positive, and we assume that Lucinda doesn't break that record.

Soup of the gods

2009-09-12T18:05:00.003-07:00

For our Saturday date last night, in honor of the recession, Blaine and I spurned fancy restaurants for a cheap ramen shop under Shinagawa train station. These places are common near big stations because you can grab a meal quickly and sit by yourself. (This photo shows Blaine's $10 salt ramen with pork - very steamy!)

Underneath the trains, there's a long hallway filled with ramen places.

We chose Saijo restaurant, where we've been before, because there's English on the menu. The restaurant is enclosed in plastic sheeting all year round.

You use a vending machine by the front door to choose dishes and pay in advance.

The menu, with English titles, hangs above the vending machine - but the vending machine only has prices and names in Japanese. So we stand there looking stupid while we match the kanji characters to get the right dish.

My 900-yen ($9) miso ramen on the menu...

... and its button on the vending machine.

The machine prints out small white tickets, which you hand to a waitress and she hands to the cooks.

5-10 minutes later, your supper arrives. We ordered 2 bowls of ramen, a $5 plate of fried gyoza (potstickers) and a $5 draft beer. It's customary to loudly slurp your noodles as you inhale them, but we're not very good at it.

The well-considered extras on the table include (left to right) soy sauce, toothpicks, white pepper or red pepper for extra-spicy flavor, chopsticks, and tissues - because the soup really can make your nose run.

Ramen, soup of the gods.

Blaine's latest...

2009-09-11T17:22:00.000-07:00

...is about the sudden reversal of North Korea's leadership succession from Kim Jong Il to his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, because Jong-Il's health might be better. In early summer, N Koreans were being taught a song about Jong-Un, but no longer. Interesting stuff.

Humming along

2009-09-10T18:31:00.000-07:00

Lucinda is in her 3rd week of school and Arno is in his 2nd week, and it's a delight to see how they're both calm and happy about their surroundings at Nishimachi and Willowbrook.

Lucinda and several of her close friends have a wonderfully warm teacher, Ms. Greene, who has been nicely encouraging in math and reading from the start. Lucinda marched straight into class on Day 1, and Blaine and I can see her fresh confidence, sense of self, and comfort at school. It seems that 7-year-old girls know themselves pretty well.

Arno was disconcerted that his closest friends from last year all left for kindergarten (he's in a mixed-age 3-5 class). But he's making new friends - particularly those with a similar love of action figures - and already seems very pleased with his teachers. He's not reading yet - and I would love to see that happen this year - but he's become drawn, again, after a slow period, to making his own spaceships out of Legos.

Meanwhile, Lucinda has a new, energetic Japanese tutor (a teacher from Arno's school) and will participate in Nishimachi's afterschool ballet and "active games" (kickball, basketball, wiffleball, soccer) classes. Arno is again taking an afterschool art class. And we're inheriting a friend's okay-but-not-great piano; maybe we'll try piano lessons?

So much for underparenting?

Sights of Yokohama

2009-09-09T17:21:00.001-07:00

Blaine was in Seoul over the weekend, so I took the children to Yokohama on Saturday to see what we could see. It turned out to be a very pleasant day trip.

We emerged from Yokohama's Sakuragicho train station to find the Yokohama Landmark Tower, which Wikipedia tells me is the tallest building (71 floors) in Japan, with the world's second fastest elevators!

At Yokohama Station, Bubby's restaurant; this satellite of the Tribeca favorite opened in June 2009.

The moving sidewalk (under a roof) that transports you probably more than a kilometer to see the sights.

The Nihon Maru, a four-masted sailing ship that was built in 1930 to train Japanese sailors.

On the Nihon Maru: the deck, rigging, and tiny bunks with privacy curtains.

Destination: World's largest ferris wheel, called Cosmo Clock 21. I dodged the endless drip-drip of yen for little rides along the way.

At the top of the ferris wheel, the views from our glass bubble: The next car, Yokohama Bay, a mini-golf course on the roof of a nearby building, the Hotel InterContintental.

For lunch, we went to the American House restaurant. Here's our waitress, the ketchup supply and our hotdogs, served with lettuce and onions in the bun and a dozen french fries.

Nutty sidewalk performer and the balloon hat he made for this little girl.

We took a water taxi from the Hotel Intercontinental to Yokohama's main train station. It's rare for us to be on the waterfront in Japan.

The boat lands near the huge Sogo dept store, which you walk through to get to the train station. We checked out the children's floor (8th floor), which had toys, spectacularly fancy clothes, and $25 bibs.

I'll leave you with this sign from the water-taxi pier, which sums up the public experience in Japan. Rule #3: "No annoying behavior for others."

One fish, two fish, three fish, dead fish

2009-09-08T04:56:00.007-07:00

We recently obtained our first family pets: three small tropical fish, purchased for 300 yen each (about $3) at the Azabu Juban fish/turtle store near our house. The store also sold us a $40 fish-care pack with a glass cube, filter, gravel, plastic plant and fish food.

Here's a close-up view of our happy children on Saturday August 22. They've been hounding us for a dog, a cat or some fish, and we're starting small.

Lucinda named her fish Nibbles. My fish was Tut (as in King Tut). Arno's fish was Spot. All seemed well.

Until this morning -- 18 days later -- when only two fish greeted me for breakfast with less enthusiasm than usual. Arno's fish Spot had gone to the great fish bowl in the sky; his now-lifeless tail was being pulled into the filter's intake tube.

Alas. Arno cried big tears. We left for school. I put Spot into a container in the fridge and guiltily cleaned the bowl, a few days late. After school, Arno returned Spot to the sea via the toilet. This weekend, Blaine and Arno will buy two new fish, who will, we hope, live for at least a month.

Rainy day

2009-08-31T17:00:00.000-07:00

For a big rainstorm yesterday, Lucinda and Arno were kitted out in Japanese style yesterday, with Hello Kitty and Shinkansen raincoats and ubiquitous clear-plastic umbrellas.

Blaine's latest... and Japan's big election

2009-08-30T20:50:00.002-07:00

The Japanese rejected the Liberal Democratic Party after 54 yrs in power, and replaced it with the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).

The new ruling party brings some needed fresh faces and more women into the government. And to encourage child-bearing, the party has promised to make childcare much more widely available and to send monthly $250 checks to families for each child. (Turns out that we're eligible because we're also paying high Japanese taxes, so we won't complain.)

But do Japanese voters really want change? And is dramatic change really possible in this stable - and some might say ossified - society? Stay tuned. Should be interesting.

Arno's recent developments

2009-08-28T06:49:00.007-07:00

Arno started his pre-K year at Willowbrook on Thursday. He is again in Willowbrook's dual-language program, and this year he's in "Take" (Bamboo) class, which is mixed with younger "Takenokko" (Bamboo Shoots) students.

Arno is very proud to be an older student, especially one who does not cry when his mother leaves the classroom and shows the ropes to his classmates. He's also very conscious of the privileges of being in the older group from his experience last year, as a younger student in the Sakura/Sakuranbo class. For example:

Every morning on the sign-in sheet, older (Take) students (age 4-5) write their first and last names while younger (Takenokko) students (age 3-4) write only first names. On Day 1 of school, which was a Japanese day, Arno waited for me to produce Blaine's WashPost business card so he could copy the katakana for "Harden." (he learned "Arno" in katakana last year.) This morning, he quite nicely wrote "Harden" in English for the first time.

The summer has also proven to be an effective transition time in other areas. Most crucially, Arno has given up his stroller - big news around our house! Last spring, he whined incessantly when we made him walk to Willowbrook, about 1/4 mile away. Since our return to Tokyo, the stroller is stashed in the garage and he walks most places without complaint. (We also take him places on our "mom-bike," with a seat on the back, but we don't mind that.)

This afternoon, Arno walked from our house to pick up Lucinda at Nishimachi, which is perhaps a 1/2 mile, and then to Tokyo Midtown, which is close to a mile. No wonder he is sleeping well. When I tell him he has to walk somewhere, he likes to say, "That's not very far at all!"

To finish off the week, Arno - who rarely tries new foods and particularly avoids eating most fresh fruit - sampled pear and peach tonight for the first time. I admit it: I bribed him. We had the season's first pears and some ripe peaches, and I offered him 200 yen for a bowl of each as a "fruit allowance." Timing is everything. He wants to buy a particular toy, which costs 200 yen. Now he can buy 2 of them.

Summer festival

2009-08-22T05:10:00.001-07:00

Friday night was our third time going to the annual Noryo Matsuri, or Summer Festival, in Azabu Juban, and it's definitely less exotic than it was for us in 2007, when we were fresh off the plane, or last year, when we were more excited about surfing along in the crowds. Having said that, here are some new favorite photos from our evening.

Above, one of my favorite photos from Japan, because it's hard to capture the artificiality of Japanese fashion.

Lucinda and Arno dressed for the occasion:

Kimonos and crowds:

Shown from the back, a fan tucked into a sash (obi) holding a man's yukata (cotton kimono) together. The fan is printed with this year's festival poster design.

And fruit with a colorful candy coating, cooling on a huge block of ice. Friends of Lucinda and Arno bought some and found, to their disappointment, that their fruits were ume, or sour plums. (Top left in photo)

After a long walk home, Lucinda declared that she doesn't want to go next year because she played three games of chance and was rewarded only with the cheapest and worst toys.

Lobsters, ahoy

2009-08-21T06:05:00.000-07:00

At the fish market, I was struck by a sudden inspiration to buy Canadian lobsters. Three of them, as it turned out, for 1500 yen ($15) each, which seemed to me to be an incredible bargain.

Lobsters being packed at Tsukiji:

Lobsters hanging out in our kitchen:

Lobsters after a hot bath:

Back in Tokyo

2009-08-20T03:04:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday aftenroon, on the bus from Narita to our neighborhood, I was so happy to see Tokyo again. Of course we enjoyed almost 6 weeks in the US, but it's very exciting to come back here for what is effectively our junior year abroad.

The next morning (Monday), I celebrated by taking the children to the Tsukiji Fish Market for the daily tuna auction. It's the ultimate touristy thing to on your first morning after a flight from the US, when you wake up around 4 a.m. But I hadn't seen it before, though Blaine has. Lucinda, Arno and I arrived at the market at 5:30 a.m. and weren't too far back in the long line waiting for the auction.

Visitors walk on a fairly narrow path through the middle of the auction warehouse, where massive frozen submarine-shaped tuna are laid out for examination. Wholesale buyers cut a piece out of the tail and look closely with flashlights. For what? I have no idea.

One side of the room:

Other side of the room, with even bigger fish:

Man with flashlight looking at tuna:

After our auction visit, we walked around the market a little - we'd been there before - and then considered the final step in our touristy plan: to have sushi for breakfast. I had no idea where to go, so Lucinda told me how to say "sushi breakfast" in Japanese and I stopped a well-dressed man in his 50s, but clearly not a laborer, who was wearing tall black rubber boots (a sign of someone in the know at Tsukiji).

"Sushi breakfast?," I said, in what must have been appalling Japanese. I expected him to vaguely point me in some direction, but he briefly looked us over, took pity on us, and beckoned for us to follow him. Then he set off at a clip with us trailing like ducklings, fending off trucks and mechanized carts as he walked for several minutes and several blocks. An astonishing generosity toward tourists.

When we reached the outside market section, with small restaurants and produce shops, where he greeted several shopkeepers, grinned and pointed his thumb at us, saying something I guessed was the equivalent of "I'm taking them to find sushi for breakfast!" The first place on his list was closed, so he kept walking until he stuck his head into English-friendly restaurant #3, established that a "sushi breakfast" was available - and waved us into the door. I thanked him, and he strode off. Here's the place:

I ordered, yes, a sushi breakfast of 8 pieces and miso soup for Lucinda, who told the waiter in Japanese that she didn't want wasabi, plus sea urchin and ama-ebi sweet shrimp for me. (Arno ate some milk-caramel biscuits I'd bought earlier.) Lucinda then consumed her first serious raw-sushi meal, when the fish wasn't masked in, say, a California roll. She proudly ate scallop and fatty tuna and yellowtail and amberjack, plus crab and shrimp - and said she liked it.

Arno photographed the meal:

And his own breakfast:

And his shoes:

Oedipus Rex

2009-08-09T14:16:00.004-07:00

This morning, at Top Pot, the coolest donut shop in Seattle:

Arno: "Mommy, will you or Daddy die first?"
Me: "I don't know, Arno. Why?"
Arno: "I want Daddy to die first."
Blaine: "Why's that, Arno?"
Arno: "I love Mommy."

Maybe it had something to do with my agreeing to take him to Target to look for Bakugan battle brawler balls.

In the US

2009-08-09T14:15:00.002-07:00

"Jessica in Tokyo" has gone silent for several weeks because we're in the US on vacation. But I'll be back and posting shortly.

North Korean computer attacks

2009-07-19T21:44:00.003-07:00

About 10 days ago, the WaPo, NYT and AP wrote about cyber-attacks against US Govt and South Korean websites that are believed to come from North Korea.

One newspaper was also targeted - the Washington Post - which (who knows?) may have something to do with Blaine's stories about the DPRK this year.

Blaine's latest...

2009-07-19T21:24:00.002-07:00

... is a terrific and sad front-page piece about North Korea's concentration camps. Truly horrifying places, where people survive on next to nothing until they are worked to death. And yet the US Govt, Hollywood and DPRK allies like China don't say or do anything about them.

The Post added a neat multi-media display with a map and details of five labor camps, and more precise details of one camp, Camp 15.

Here is the lede:

N. Korea's Hard-Labor Camps: On the Diplomatic Back Burner
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 20, 2009

SEOUL -- Images and accounts of the North Korean gulag become sharper, more harrowing and more accessible with each passing year.

A distillation of testimony from survivors and former guards, newly published by the Korean Bar Association, details the daily lives of 200,000 political prisoners estimated to be in the camps: Eating a diet of mostly corn and salt, they lose their teeth, their gums turn black, their bones weaken and, as they age, they hunch over at the waist. Most work 12- to 15-hour days until they die of malnutrition-related illnesses, usually around the age of 50. Allowed just one set of clothes, they live and die in rags, without soap, socks, underclothes or sanitary napkins....

..."We have this system of slavery right under our nose," said An Myeong Chul, a camp guard who defected to South Korea. "Human rights groups can't stop it. South Korea can't stop it. The United States will have to take up this issue at the negotiating table."

Ancient history

2009-06-25T21:37:00.003-07:00

I've been reading some of Blaine's old stories because we are thinking about writing a book together, and I stumbled on a story he wrote just 2 years ago about a family trip we took to San Diego. The headline was "Simple Pleasures for the Sippy-Cup Crowd."

It included this excellent photo of Arno, who was really, really, really into pirates (and donuts) at age 2 1/2. He has since become serially obsessed with Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Star Wars (Luke and then Anakin Skywalker), Transformers and, now, Ben 10.

I'd forgotten most of these details, and it was an excellent reminder of how far we and the children have come as a family. They're older and more interesting, we're older and more patient - and we're all better at managing adventures and travel uncertainties together without having to deal with naps and, for the most part, tantrums.

Asphalt playground

2009-06-23T02:59:00.005-07:00

When you don't have a backyard, you use what you have for a playground: a flat side street very close to our house.

After a very comfortable May and June, it's gotten into the high 80s during the day; the humidity will be reasonable until early July. Around 4:30/5pm, when the sun is low and Blaine finishes his work, he takes the children outside to ride their Razor scooters and to kick or play "Monkey in the Middle" with a soccer ball.

Baby food

2009-06-21T06:21:00.005-07:00

Japanese baby food is so different than American baby food! I saw these at the big Nissin grocery store.

This is my favorite. How many American parents think that their babies would eat sardines?

It's amazing to think how baby-food companies train citizens for the national diet. In the U.S., you often see very sweet baby foods like mashed yams and carrots and, in some brands, bland grains tarted up with corn derivatives.

But the Japanese seem to think that (1) seafood is pretty important and (2) sugar doesn't have to be the dominant ingredient.

North Korean insurance scam

2009-06-18T15:52:00.002-07:00

Blaine has a truly excellent story on the front page of Thursday's WashPost: about the North Korea goverment's insurance scam that brings hundreds of millions of dollars into the "hermit kingdom."

Grand Sumo

2009-06-14T17:31:00.001-07:00

Last month, when Lucinda and Arno didn't have school, I took them to see one of the three annual Grand Sumo tournaments in Tokyo. It was fantastic. The kids loved it and it was, astonishingly, one of the best bargain outings this city has to offer.

I learned a lot about sumo when I wrote a story about it for Kateigaho International Edition, the arts and culture magazine that I work for in Tokyo. Last October, I went to a sumo "stable" to see an incredibly grueling practice session, interviewed a wrestler named Chiyoshuhou, and ate lunch with a group of the lower-ranked men. Here is my post about my visit to the Kokonoe-beya stable.

Of the six national tournaments every year, three are held in Tokyo. Each tournament lasts for 15 days; in the top two divisions (Makuuchi and Juryo), the wrestlers have 1 match each day. The lower divisions compete in 7 matches each. Those who win a majority of their matches improve their ranking; those who lose a majority slip lower in the rankings. (Here's the tournament website for details.)

The Grand Sumo tournaments take place near the Ryogoku subway station in the Kokugikan arena. There are sumo murals painted outside.

This is what it looks like inside. Google tells me that sumo is deeply tied to the shinto religion and shinto ritual. The wrestlers face off on a clay-and-rice-straw platform that is rebuilt for every tournament, consecrated by priests and off-limits to women.

If you buy general admission tix, you can sit right in front until it gets more crowded. So we had great views all day. I even saw the wrestler whom I interviewed - and he won his match.

Going to sumo is kind of like going to the circus. People order box lunches, beer and sake that are delivered to their seats in large shopping bags. Our lunch was this huge box of Morinaga's Milk Caramels.

At noon, we wandered around and watched lower-ranked wrestlers walk around in colorful cotton yukata and sandals. Highly ranked wrestlers wear more expensive dark-colored kimonos and seem always to be followed around by younger rikishi carrying supplies in plastic boxes. Wrestlers have greased topknots, and the Old-Spice-like smell of the grease pervades the arena.

There are, naturally, all sorts of sumo trinkets to buy - and we bought Blaine the coffee mug on the right.

The main events -- matches in sumo's top two divisions -- begin at 2:30pm. In box seats, before their ticketholders arrived, we watched a procession of the Juryo (second-highest) division. These guys are not necessarily that tall, but they are quite huge - probably 250+ lbs. They get to wear one of the "skirts," which typically cost thousands of dollars (or millions of yen) and are sometimes covered in jewels, when they reach the top two divisions.

Here's one of the matches, captured on my little digital camera. One of the wrestlers might be Bulgarian - definitely not Japanese. Audio from Lucinda: "Why is he choking him? Why is that other guy choking him?"

We left at 3:30pm - 5 hours after we arrived - just as the matches in the top division were about to begin. I'll definitely take the children back and hopefully Blaine can come along, too.

Arno - in Japanese!

2009-06-14T00:22:00.004-07:00

It's news to us, but it turns out that Arno can sing the Willowbrook song in Japanese, too.

Arno loves his school

2009-06-10T03:10:00.004-07:00

Arno loves his preschool, Willowbrook International School, and he has been singing the school's song lately.

He's feeling kind of sad because all of his closest friends from Sakura/Sakuranbo (cherry blossom/cherry) class are moving up to kindergarten. Most of them will go to Nishimachi, Lucinda's school, but Arno still has a year of pre-K ahead. Fortunately, he's a friend magnet and we're sure he'll be happy as long as there are a few talkative, action-packed boys in his class.

Blaine's latest...

2009-06-08T20:52:00.003-07:00

... is about Toyota's new, 3rd generation Prius. He spent a few days last week at a Toyota mfg plant in Toyota City and said the new Prius gets 50 miles/gallon and has been adjusted to suit larger (some might say "fatter") American customers.

It's a little crazy to think about how much money the US Govt is pouring into General Motors and Chrysler, which are just starting to reinvent themselves to build cars w/ better gas mileage. Meanwhile Toyota and Honda are ready to crush them before they get out of the gate. US automakers have been so short-sighted.

In other "Blaine's latest" news, North Korea has sentenced 2 American women journalists to a dozen years of hard labor.