Now that was a nice weekend!

Friday night we stayed home and I roasted some vegetables for a change of pace.  Usually on weeknights we have nabe (Japanese style soup) that is almost always vegetarian.  Mainly it has Chinese cabbage, tofu, mushrooms, leeks, and then some kind of basic soup – flavored with kimchee, soymilk or sesame. Since it was a cold Friday night I bought a bunch of root vegetables and roasted the vegetables in our dutch oven.  I had received a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau from the VP during our lesson that day, so we opened it up and it made for a nice dinner.

Saturday Kuniko was working, but I went out hiking with Yoshi for the first time in a long time.  I thought that since I’ve been riding the exercise bike so often that the hike would be a piece of cake, but writing this now on Monday morning my legs are still sore.  The weather was perfect, and we hiked up Suma mountain, and then along the ridge to the eastern part of Suma, and then back down to the beach and on to the station.  I told Yoshi the story about how we ended up in Hong Kong instead of Singapore, and he really got a kick out of it.  Yoshi’s work has been pretty stressful lately, and I think the mountain air and the change of pace were good for him, too.  

I met Kuniko for dinner at a place called “Obiobi”, in Sannomiya.  I immediately liked the atmosphere – dark and mysterious.  There were just a few tables and counter seating facing a big charcoal grill that was heating chunks of meat.  The idea was you picked some smaller dishes to support the main dish – a chunk of meat that they grill for you.  We selected lamb chops for our meat, and then we had some cheese gratin, grilled scallops and vegetables, some foie gras, and a mixed appetizer of antipasti. Everything was pretty good, but the lamb chop still had quite a bit of fat on it.  If I was grilling I would have cooked it a little differently – but I guess you have to let them do it their way… it is kind of the point of going out.  We had an Italian red with dinner, and it went well with the dishes that we selected.  We had fun there, but I’m not sure we’ll be going back.  On the way home we did some slightly drunken shopping at two of our favorite stores, and came home with a couple of bags of food each.  

Sunday we woke up early, did two loads of laundry, and then went out on the town for some shopping.  We did a little Christmas shopping, but most of what we brought home was supplies for our upcoming holiday parties.  We enjoyed lunch at our favorite Thai restaurant, Baan Thai in Sannomiya.   We were surprised to get a reservation there, and as usual during our lunch the staff turned away many, many people that didn’t have a reservation.  The food was excellent as always.  The staff asked us if we were aware that we had ordered quite a lot of food for two people, and confirmed with us that we really wanted that much.  This seems to happen to us a lot, actually.  We said yes of course, and had a very big, delicious lunch.  We had skipped breakfast and we ended up skipping dinner too, so it served as our food for the entire day.  Scrumptious!

This week will be a little busy for both of us.  I have a party on Wednesday, Kuniko on Thursday, Friday will be prepping for our holiday party on Saturday, and I’m sure Sunday will be a recovery day.  I guess that is what the holidays are all about!

Two days ago it was warm enough that I was sweating when walking to work in my coat, and my students and I wondered about climate change during our classes.  Last night a cold blustery wind came through, roaring outside all night, and when I walked to work this morning I was pretty cold.  Today was the first day to wear long underwear – so now we’re dealing with winter.

Three weeks ago I was sick and couldn’t go hiking with Yoshi, but we are on for tomorrow.  I’m not sure yet where we will hike, but we’ll spend the morning on a mountain somewhere.  It seems like I haven’t been hiking in ages – maybe all this exercise bike riding has cut my hunger for climbing mountains a bit.

Saturday after the hike I’ll go home, clean up, and then meet Kuniko in Kobe for dinner at a restaurant that she would like to try.  She had planned to go there with a friend and made reservations for two, but her friend had to cancel, and I am the pinch hitter.  

Sunday we may go out and do a little Christmas shopping, but nothing else special is planned.  It’ll be a cold weekend, but we’ve got to start getting used to this weather – it’ll be like this for the next four months!

Pictures from this trip can be found here.

Last weekend we took a day off of work on Friday, and headed off to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary in Singapore.  
Except we never got there.

The trip started off normally enough – we drove to the Kobe airport, took the bay shuttle ferry across the water to the Osaka airport, and got in the check-in line for our flight.  We handed over our passports, and the check-in counter staff had some trouble with my passport.  I started to get worried when she left the booth to talk with her supervisor, and then we got the bad news.

My passport was due to expire in four months.  Singapore requires that you have six months left on your passport to enter the country.  So I couldn’t go.

I was shocked – for the life of me I thought that my passport didn’t expire until May or June, but for some reason I never checked it before leaving.  I knew about the six month rule – lots of countries have it – but mentally I must have been thinking about the expiration of my foreigner registration card.  Anyway, no excuses here – I screwed up and I couldn’t go to Singapore.

Kuniko was cleared to go, and for a while we considered whether it was worth it for her to go and make the best out of the weekend since it was already paid for.   In the end we decided that she’d stick around, and we went downstairs to sit on a bench in the airport and think about our options. I called the hotel, and they were nice enough to let us cancel our room without penalty, so there was a glimmer of good news.  We got on our smartphones and started looking around.

I did some research and found that unlike Taiwan and China, Hong Kong doesn’t have a six month requirement for passports, and Hong Kong was already on our list. In fact, we were planning to go there in March 2016 anyway.  I double-checked with an airline agent to make sure that they would let me enter Hong Kong, and they said no problem.  With my phone I bought two tickets on a plane leaving that afternoon, and we were on our way.  I also reserved a nice room at the Hyatt Regency, and all that remained was waiting a few hours for our flight.

Kuniko was obviously disappointed because the plan had changed dramatically, but I was just happy that we were going somewhere fun together, and that we didn’t have to sit at home all weekend thinking about how I screwed up our anniversary plans.  

We were able to get exit row seats on Jetstar Japan on a non-stop flight to Hong Kong, and after a boring four hour flight we arrived in Hong Kong around 8 pm.  We took the high speed rail link all the way to Hong Kong’s Central station, and then found a cab to take us to the top of Victoria Peak.  

The view from up there was really impressive.  They built a big observation structure up there, and designed the walkways and other buildings to block the view – a subtle way to encourage people to pay up to go out on the observation deck.  We did just that, but the fee was worth it.  The night was a little cloudy, but the view of the buildings and architecture along Hong Kong Harbor was spectacular.  We tried taking pictures with my camera and both of our phones, but because of the wind and the low lighting it was not easy.  In addition, before we left on our trip I was working for about 30 minutes on my camera – it has an automatic lens cover that sometimes sticks, resulting in pictures with a dark corner.  It has been driving me crazy for years, and I thought I had it fixed finally – unfortunately at the top of the mountain with the beautiful view it was sticking again.  What a pain!

After getting our fill of the scenery we looked for a cab to get back to the station.  There was a cab nearby waiting, but the driver didn’t speak much English.  After we got moving he tried to get us to pay up front in cash instead of using the meter, and was pretty rude about it.  We tried to figure out what he was saying, but we never got it.  It started feeling weird to me so we had him pull over and we got out.  We had to walk five minutes back to the taxi stand, but we found another driver there who spoke English.  He offered to drive us down the mountain to the station for 250 Hong Kong dollars, which was pretty steep. We were on a tight schedule, though, and we figured the money was worth the time that we would save – the only other way down was the bus or a tram, all of which had long, long lines. 

Back at the train station we took a train under the bay to the Tsian Sha Tsui section of Hong Kong, where I had reserved the hotel.  As we walked through the crowded streets I suddenly realized I didn’t have my camera.  I checked my pockets, my bag, and then I realized that it had probably been left behind in one of the taxicabs.  I don’t know which one, but I hoped it wasn’t the guy that tried to rip us off at first… By this time there was no way that the camera would be recovered.  Oh well, I hated that sticky camera lens anyway.  The good news was that I only took about 10 pictures before I lost it, so we didn’t lose all our holiday memories.  

So I’m sure at that point Kuniko is wondering if I had some kind of brain disease or sudden onset of alzheimer’s.  Where is my normally organized and competent husband?  The wheels were off the wagon, folks!

Luckily, from there things started to improve.  The hotel was in an interesting neighborhood, and our room was quite nice.  We scored a free upgrade and had a great view of the harbor with huge windows across the whole room.  The bed and bathroom were spacious as well.  It’s good to have a credit card when you need it!

After dropping our stuff off at the hotel we headed out to explore. We ate dinner at a tiny shop that specialized in beef broth noodles, and they treated us very nicely and gave us English menus to order.  They even ran across the street to buy us beers (because we didn’t notice they weren’t on their menu).  

After dinner we walked around the neighborhood taking in the sights.  We were in the nightlife part of Hong Kong, and there was a lot going on.  The architecture is pretty impressive, but also I like the modern buildings surrounded by bamboo scaffolding, or the little alleys that led to dinghy shopping arcades.  There were so many people out and about (it was still Friday night, after all) and navigating the crowds was getting to be a little tiring.  

We went back to our hotel and went to the Chin Chin Bar, which was described as a Chinese lounge bar.  There was a foreign lady singing old 80’s tunes in the main lounge but we were able to get a seat outside and avoided most of the kitsch.  Our cocktails were typical Asian cocktails – watered down versions of the real thing.  But it was nice to sit down for a while and enjoy the warm temperature and the fresh(?) air. 

The next day was spent mainly eating.  Eating dim sum, noodles, won ton soup, more dim sum, coconut milk, mango and tapioca, fruit juices.  My favorite dim sum was a cake made with egg – described as a thousand layer egg cake – steamed cake with layers of salted egg yolk and coconut lotus paste in between layers of steamed flour. A revelation of salty and sweet! We ate and we walked and we ate again.  At one place the waiter came to change our dirty tablecloth. He removed the old one, and then spread out a new one – which looked just as dirty. He seemed to notice, so he flipped it over to the other side. But that side was just as dirty as the other two. Finally he just shrugged and put it on the table. The real Chinese experience!

Between the eating we enjoyed the views of the city.  Our favorite place was the harborfront on the central island of Hong Kong.  It was a financial district with almost no shopping, and so we could get away from the crowds but also enjoy the ocean view, lots of green grass and plenty of space to walk.  

The public transportation system in Hong Kong was just as good as the ones where we live, so it was no trouble getting around.  We also went across the bay using the White Star ferry, which was much cheaper than the train and more fun, too.  We once again covered land, sea and air during our trip.

We slowly walked and ate our way across Hong Kong’s old town until we got to the train station towards the airport.  There was a giant Buddha that we both were hoping to see, so we took the train to get there as it would be our last stop before we went to the airport.  Unfortunately when we got there, they said that we’d have to wait 45 minutes to board the ropeway, 30 minutes on the ropeway, 30 minutes to look around, and then we’d be behind many people and we would probably have to wait two hours before could catch the ropeway back.  The staff said we’d likely miss our flight home.  We were disappointed we couldn’t see the Buddha – I had no idea it was such a big attraction – but we’ll probably come back in the future and check it out.  Hong Kong is only four hours away from us and it wouldn’t be hard to return someday.

From there we went back to the airport, did a little shopping, and had a drink at an airport bar (we had to explain to the staff the difference between Chardonnay and Shiraz) and then it was a little shopping and home.  

The return flight arrived late at night at Kansai airport, so we had to kill four hours waiting for the first boat out.  We managed to kill time at the empty airport walking around, drinking coffee at McDonald’s and Burger King, and sleeping a little bit.  We caught a ferry around 6 am, and we were at home and in bed sleeping by 8 am.  

It wasn’t what we planned, but I really enjoyed seeing Hong Kong – it was slightly different from Taiwan but just as interesting.  Most importantly, Kuniko and I could spend time together traveling.  We’ll be heading to the USA for Christmas this year, but as soon as I return to Japan in January I’ll be sending in my passport for renewal.  Hopefully we can take a little redemption trip to Singapore in March of 2016!

Tomorrow is our ten year wedding anniversary.  We actually have two wedding anniversaries – one for the legal paperwork (which we celebrate in July) and then one for our wedding ceremony which we celebrate on November 20th.  Ten years ago tomorrow our family and friends came together in Kobe, Japan to help us have a big party with lots of food, beverages and speeches.  It was a memorable day for both of us and we’ve spent the last few days remembering the fun time we had.

Rather than give each other anniversary gifts, we decided to do some traveling instead.  We’re taking a quick trip to Singapore for a few short days and then we’ll be back in Japan before anyone notices we left.  I think our traveling time will (nearly) be longer than our staying time, but traveling is what we like to do, and breezing through airports never fails to excite us. 

Tonight is packing and cleaning up, and then we’re off early tomorrow morning. I’ll update with pics and stories once we get back…  

As I have previously stated, Wednesday is a really busy day for me.  I start with a special email writing class, a regular one-on-one business conversation class, and then a new lesson with a small group of new employees.  That means that I am trying out two new lessons, and switching all the materials and whiteboards between each class.  Not much breathing room!

Most Wednesdays, however, I have a free class period right after lunch so I can do lesson planning and clean up after all my other classes in the morning.  This open period is sometimes swallowed up by special classes with students that have to adjust their schedule, or maybe there is a project that I have to get done during that time.  Today I have the free period all to myself, so I’m looking forward to getting all caught up.

Tonight after work we are facing an empty fridge situation.  I’ll stop at the supermarket on the way home and buy some stuff to fill up the fridge, but it is a remarkably rare situation to have almost nothing to get rid of.  Well, there is a quarter of a head of cabbage, but we’ll be able to have a salad and knock that out.  I’m wondering what to throw together tonight. 

Tomorrow is the last day of our week, and we’ll be plenty busy tomorrow getting ready for our short trip.  Can’t wait!

During the commute yesterday there were a couple of events that threw off the whole system for a while.  Many of the employees at my company had to come in late, and Kuniko didn’t make it to work until noon, which is pretty dramatically late.  

I guess the first problem was a suicide – someone jumped in front of a train rather than go off to work on Monday morning.  The second problem was some power substation that went down, meaning large parts of the train line had to stop completely.  Some people were stuck in trains for almost three hours, and I saw some people had to get out of their train and walk along the tracks to the nearest station. 

So next time I talk about the amazing efficiency and convenience of Japanese trains please remember that there are bad days, too.

Luckily for me, I leave very early in the morning so my train (the first train from me station) wasn’t affected.  By the time I left work in the evening the trains were (mostly) back to normal, so I got home right about the same time as usual.  Sometimes it pays off to get up at (well, actually before) the crack of dawn.

This weekend was another good chance to rest up, stay inside and out of the rain, and do some cooking and relaxing.  I’m a big fan of doing nothing on the weekend – I spend 95% of my workday talking with students, and sometimes having a quiet weekend with Kuniko is just what the doctor ordered.  

The big topic this weekend was the terror attacks in Paris, France.  It seems like this kind of thing is becoming more common unfortunately, but when I think about all the good people around the world, and the acts of kindness that happen every single day that don’t get a big media story, well, in my mind the good guys are coming out way ahead of the bad guys.  We’ll be back in Paris – it is one of our favorite cities – and we’ll continue to travel regardless of these kinds of attacks.  If we die traveling then so what?  We die doing what we love.  

Speaking of doing what we love, we’re gearing up for a quick trip to Singapore.  We’re going during the rainy season, but it’ll be warm and humid while we’re there.  We plan on eating everything in sight – I’m bringing plenty of antacid just in case. Before the trip, we’ve got a busy class schedule this week, so first thing’s first.  

On the way to and from work every day I pass by a small restaurant/bar called “Jin”.    I may have written about Jin here before, and if so you’re about to get the same story again.  I really must figure out an easy way to search my own archives to find this stuff.

Anyway, Jin is an unusual place, mainly because of the strange times that it is open and closed.  For example, it is never open before 9 pm, any day of the week.  It is often open when I pass by on my way to work in the morning, which is about 5:15 am.  
Jin’s niche is serving people that work evening shifts, and I think that they probably open around midnight or so.  By the time I walk by in the mornings on my way to the station, there is usually the sound of lively discussion from inside.  Sometimes I even see someone I know come stumbling out of there.  Partying like rock stars in Okubo!

I’ve been to Jin once and I remember it very clearly.  It was recommended by the master of Denya yakitori, since he knew the owner who is a very nice lady.  I stopped in one night after drinking somewhere else – maybe Kobe or Osaka – and for some reason the notion of one more drink at a new place near my house appealed to me. 

The place has a small bar and 2-3 low tables on tatami mats behind.  I remember that it was winter and there was a warm heater and lots of blankets for people to use.  It had the feel of someone’s house more than a bar, which to me was quite pleasant.  The menu was predominantly fish and snacks – things that go well with shochu and sake.  I sat at the bar between a young woman who was talking with her husband/boyfriend and an older guy pushing 90.  

The master of the place was very hospitable, and she served me some sake and some smoked fish to go with it.  We talked a bit, and then she went to the back room to make more food for another customer.  The old man next to me was having trouble remaining on his bar stool, and he seemed to be having a conversation with himself.  I looked over at him, and that’s when he suddenly blew a mouthful of his drink straight at the bottles sitting on the bar and pretty much a third of the way up my right arm.  

I clearly remember thinking, “What am I doing here?”, and soon after I paid my bill and left to put my shirt in the laundry hamper.  Why was I paying money to drink things I don’t usually drink, eat food that I don’t particulary like, and have old people spit on me? After that I never went back. 

But really, my schedule and Jin’s schedule are completely opposite, and even if I wanted to go I don’t really have many chances.  Maybe it is for the best – the old man spraying his drink across the bar might have been fate giving me a message…

Working in a company that is more than a hundred years old in Japan really gives you an idea about their importance of taking the long term view. 

I’ve seen business decisions made today because of the possibility of future business 50 years (!) from now.  Companies in Japan have to work well with the other companies that they deal with, and in a small country like Japan, word gets around.  If you treat another company poorly, other companies can’t help but notice.  

Another student told me about a golf tournament that is sponsored by one of our customers.  Since they are the customer, our company is obliged to send a president or vice president twice a year to participate.  I off-handedly asked how long that has been going on… it sounded like a pain to send executives so often to keep a customer happy.  My student thought about my question for a little while, and then he said that the tournament started about 40 years ago.  Wow!

Things in Japan change very slowly.  The inertia of things here make it far more common to just do things the same as last year, because it seemed to work fine then and why shake it up?  You see it with company management styles, holidays, and consumer products.  Even the fax machine is still a trusted business tool here.

Today I had to smile when I read that Sony decided to stop making Betamax video cassette tapes.  Betamax?  Tapes?  It’s hard to believe that they still have been producing these.  How many people do you know that use Betamax tapes? Or even VHS tapes?  The article went on to say that they would be phasing out the tapes slowly, with the tapes finally stopping production in March of next year.  Even stopping production is a slow, gradual process.

This kind of phenomenon is fascinating to see, especially after working at fast-moving nimble companies in Silicon Valley during the first dot-com bubble.  Now I feel like I’m working on the complete opposite end of the spectrum.

Every morning I take the train to work.  It is the first train out of Okubo and it leaves at 5:31 am.  Usually there aren’t too many people waiting for the train at my station, but I see familiar faces every day – commuting to work just like me.

The time and location of the station in relation to the train’s course mean that when it arrives, the seats are about 90% full.  Usually if you are in the front of the line, you have a small chance of getting a seat.  Since I don’t get much exercise at work I usually prefer to stand, but many of the people waiting for my train try to get a seat.  This is really important to them for some reason, and you see some pretty surprising and un-Japanese behavior when an open seat is on the line. 

At each station on this train line there are markers on the ground that show the position where the train will stop.  Each marker has two symbols side by side to indicate that people should stand two by two and line up from there.  This is “the way it has always been done” and I think that most people follow this rule.  Some people don’t want to stand next to another person so they line up behind instead, and some people don’t line up at all and just wait for everyone else to board the train and then hop on.  

Down the platform from me there is an older guy who lines up right between the two symbols, effectively taking both front positions for himself.  When the train comes, he can choose whichever side looks best and he has twice the chance of anyone else to grab a seat.  This kind of behavior essentially gives yourself an advantage at the expense of others, and is something you don’t often see in Japan.  That’s one of the reasons I like living here – people tend to be fair about things and think of others before themselves.  

So every morning the guy down the platform takes both positions and people line up behind him properly and probably don’t really care because they don’t want to cause problems by calling him on his behavior and make a scene and disturb the quiet morning and everyone is sleepy anyway, and what does it matter – it is still just Tuesday and we’ve got to see this guy every day after this so we shouldn’t piss anyone off.

One of my students once told me a story about the time that there was a young woman taking both front positions in line early in the morning and so he politely asked her if she was standing on the left side or the right side, and she started screaming at the top of her lungs to “get the hell away from me you crazy old fuck” which certainly disturbed the peaceful morning and caused my student to permanently change his commute time to avoid any risk of bumping into the lady in the future.

But the thing I want to express here is that I think it is really important to just commit to one side or the other.  Make your decision, live with the result whether it is a good or bad one, and then use the result of today’s decision to inform tomorrow’s decision.  Hedging your bets between one choice and another at the expense of everyone else is not really making a decision at all, and I do believe that life will ultimately  reward people that are decisive, even if in the short term the result isn’t ideal.

As for me, I always stand on the right.

Last night we settled in to an evening of watching movies.  Most of the day we spent walking around town shopping for this and that – so it was nice to sit down and relax during the evening. 

The first movie we saw (“Locke”) wasn’t so great, despite having a good actor in the main (and only) role.  So we were looking for something we could count on for good entertainment as a second feature. We took a risk with the movie “Rising Sun”.

It is based on a very dated book by Michael Crichton, written during the bubble economy years of Japan when the USA saw the Japanese way of doing business as a new model.  Turns out this has changed quite a bit since then, but Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes navigating the ins and outs of international diplomacy using bad Japanese is something that shouldn’t be missed.  Kuniko and I spent most of the movie laughing out loud at either the ridiculous situations, the horrible Japanese language skills (some it from the “Japanese” actors) and the 80’s campy feeling of the movie.  It was one of the best rentals ever – after the movie Kuniko got on Amazon and promptly bought the DVD.  

Tonight after work we are going to meet up with some old friends we haven’t seen in a long time.  Micchi (and her family), Yuri (and her family) are going to meet us at a restaurant near our house to have dinner and catch up.  They were all at our wedding and so the timing is perfect.  Yuri lives in the USA now, and she’s married with two kids.  It’ll be fun to see her family – I’ve never even seen a picture of them.  Micchi lives nearby but since her husband is working so hard and her baby is keeping her busy we almost never get to see them.  I’m looking forward to it.

A couple of years ago during my annual health examination at my company the doctor told me that I had better be careful of my health.  My weight was up to 196 pounds (89 kg), my blood pressure was a little high, and my cholesterol numbers were getting high as well.  According to my BMI and my waist size, I was moving towards the “at risk” group.

So I took the wake up call for what it was, and the next day I bought an exercise bike on Amazon.  Since then I’ve been riding the bike for about 45 minutes a day, about 5 days a week.  

Each year since then I can compare my results with the previous year, and each year things have gotten better.  At first there wasn’t a big dramatic change, and I remember feeling cheated a little – like exercising wasn’t really the answer.  However I kept with the riding, and now my Pavlovian response to exercise is a desire to watch reality TV (instead of the other way around).  

Yesterday I got the latest annual results, and I was pleased  with the numbers.  Everything is in the healthy zone (and that is the healthy zone for Japanese people, by the way) with the exception of my LDL cholesterol which is still a little high but still lower than last year.  My weight is down to 185 pounds (84 kg) and my blood pressure is back to a low-normal level where it should be.  

So I’m sure I’m about to be hit by a truck.

Anyway, good news on the health front but I’ve still got to keep up the work.  One of the downsides of all this exercise is that I’ve noticed that some of my clothes (especially business wear) aren’t fitting well anymore, and I will probably have to buy a new suit.  Those are expensive!   

Last night I celebrated the good news with a vodka tonic and a night off the exercise bike, but this weekend I’ll get back in the saddle and ride.  I have to stay up to date with Survivor and Amazing Race, after all.

I know that I’ve still got lots of years left of working age, and as a teacher, my body isn’t really going through much wear and tear through the years.  As long as my brain is still operating correctly I should be able to work quite a bit longer.

However, it is hard not to think about retirement when you live in a country that is absolutely dominated by senior citizens. Just about everywhere you look there are old people walking around, and those are just the ones that are mobile enough to leave their houses.

The retirement system is under some stress here in Japan, with no end in sight.  In companies, the mandatory retirement age is 60 years old.  At that point, you have to leave your position… you’re done.  They have changed some laws and over the next ten years the mandatory retirement age will gradually slide up to 65, as a means of keeping people in the workforce.  There aren’t enough young people to keep it going, so they’ll keep the old folks working.

That’s probably a good thing.  Most people cannot access their pension payouts in retirement until they 65 years old, so for the longest time there was a five year gap when they had no regular income from their job, and they had no income from the pension system.  

Some retirees were rehired by their company at low-low wages and classified as special part time employees, thereby sidestepping the retirement regulations and also keeping their company salary budget lower.  The workers are just happy to have some income until the pension check comes in, and so it is a win-win situation.  However, not all people work for large, major companies in Japan.  Smaller companies cannot afford to keep the old folks on the payroll, and so they are cut loose at 60 and they have to fend for themselves.  Most old folks get a part time job directing traffic, working night security, or driving a taxi.  They hope to scrape by somehow until their pension comes in.

When the pension check comes, however, it is not a whole lot to live on.  In fact, it just barely covers the minimum to sustain a modest lifestyle. However, riches and freedom at the end of the rainbow is not really what people are looking for. From what I’ve heard and seen, workers don’t work their whole lives towards a goal of retirement, they work their whole lives because they love to work. 

There are a lot of retirees that succumb to depression and loneliness once they retire, which causes more visits to the doctor to socialize with other seniors. Because seniors here in Japan often go to the doctor every day to take care of the mild aches and pains they experience, it turns into a social event.  

My student once told me a joke about this phenomenon: two seniors in the waiting room of the doctor’s office were talking about a third senior that they hadn’t seen arrive yet.  “That’s odd,” one of them said.  “I guess he just wasn’t feeling well enough to come to the doctor today.”

Yesterday Japan celebrated “Culture Day” as a national holiday.  Most people had the day off, and that included me (but not my wife).  This was unusual for me because holidays that fall on the middle of the week tend to be rescheduled on another date to make a long weekend.  The work of shutting down all the equipment and starting them back up again just for a Tuesday holiday is apparently quite a big deal.

I enjoyed the day off, though.  I spent most of the time in the kitchen, making a pasta sauce, making enough soup for an army to take for lunches this week, and also an Italian pepper soup that we’ll be playing around with during dinner time the next few days. 

Because of the day off in the middle of the week I lost out on my planning time that is usually scheduled for Tuesday.  That meant more planning on Monday and moving quickly this morning.  It also meant that I didn’t have time to write this entry until my lunchbreak today.  But hey, I’m flexible.

Last night Kuniko and I spent a little time discussing where we’d like to go next year. The two places that came up are Eastern Europe and Africa, but a lot depends on our schedule (and contracts) next year.  Summer in Africa may be a little too hot for us – we like to find cooler climates for our summer trips.  Moscow’s weather was perfect for our previous trip.  No decisions yet, but our schedules should be coming into focus around December and January.  Hopefully we’ll be able to choose an interesting destination.

The weekend was a little bit more interesting than usual.  On Saturday night we went over to the Yamaji’s for dinner.  Anna was out of the hospital and she looked very happy to be out of there.  Unfortunately her husband caught a cold and couldn’t join us for dinner.  The Fukumi’s also came over, and Haruka enjoyed being the star of the show.  He is starting to talk now, and although most everyone else could understand his kidspeak, I was completely lost.  Baby talk is quite a bit different than adult talk in Japanese, and I can barely understand the adult talk anyway.  So I spoke to him in English and it went pretty well. 

Besides all the usual neighbor gossip that tends to go around the table at these parties we heard that there was a new Italian pizza restaurant that had opened in town.  Since we didn’t have anything really urgent on Sunday night we decided to go check it out.

The place is actually just a five minute walk from our house, and a little off the beaten path.  I think they will have trouble getting customers to drop in, but they were certainly busy when we arrived.  We had made a reservation in advance, and they were turning away customers at the door. 

Unfortunately, the atmosphere of the interior left something to be desired.  Overly bright LED lighting in a white restaurant made me feel like I was in a hospital or an office, not a place to relax over a glass of wine and some pizza.  The furniture was kind of cheap, and something about it just felt artificial and not really organic.  

But we don’t mind a bad atmosphere if the food is good, and so we ordered some antipasti, a pizza, and a dish of pasta.  The antipasti was pretty standard, but it didn’t really match up with the vast selection of Chiro in Akashi.  Not special, but not bad at all.  

The pizza came hot out of a big tile pizza over in the back of the restaurant.  The pizza oven looked pretty cool, with the name of the restaurant, SYUMONE, written in blue tiles on a white background.  The pizza itself was good – it was my favorite dish of the evening.  The red sauce was a little fresh rather than rich, but no complaint here – yum.  

Finally the pasta came out, and it was a little disappointing.  It looked like something we could have done better ourselves, and the taste was a little plain.  There were a couple of chunks of meat that had been cooked along with the sauce, but they didn’t really blend in with the flavor of the dish.  Disappointing!

They did surprise us by having a wine list, and we could pick from three Italian red wines, two from Sicily.  The wine was OK – if a bit simple – but it was helpful to get us through the pasta dish. 

After dinner we thanked them and left, but I doubt that we’ll go back.  However, I may order some takeout pizza from them sometime and bring it home.  Their location is exactly between the train station and our house, so it would be convenient to get takeout.

Unfortunately, last evening after the dinner I started having stomach pains and feeling nauseous.  I was worried that I ate some bad food, but Kuniko ate the same stuff and had no problems at all.  Maybe it was the restaurant, maybe it wasn’t, but it will make me think twice about visiting again.