Yesterday I was supposed to go out to run some errands after work and finished much earlier than I expected. When I arrived home there was a strange car parked in front of our house. I walked in and…

It was Yamaguchi sensei and Kuniko talking over orange juice in the living room. Yamaguchi sensei had brought over some shampoo that she recommended. We talked a bit and then she headed home, and Kuniko and I whipped up a quick dinner out of leftovers. It was a nice evening relaxing around the house – not much to report, though.

Tonight I’ll be on my own for dinner – Kuniko is away at her cooking class – so I think I’ll make some quesadillas and play some video games. Boring, but with this cold weather it sounds really good right now.

We’ve got a lot of events going on this month. Some are casual, some more formal, but our social calendar is pretty full. Winter is over, and it is time to get out and hang out with friends again. This week is pretty normal, other than a yakiniku date on Friday. Starting next week things will get more interesting.

Also a quick shout out to Kawasaki – they started running Kawasaki train cars on the Metro North line between Connecticut and New York. This winter was pretty tough on Metro North, and I know that my students were working very hard on getting these cars running. From here the rest of the 300 car train order will be built in Nebraska and put into operation gradually as they are being built. I rarely get to talk about work stuff here, but as this is public info I guess it’s OK…

Quick post today and I’m out of here and off to work…

Last night on the way home my train was delayed about 15 minutes. This is kind of a weird situation, because since my train runs every 15 minutes, I actually caught the train before mine at the my regular time. The only problem was that there were a lot more people on board.

When I first arrived in Japan I was astonished by how many people ride the train during rush hour. Normally it isn’t a big problem for me – I can choose my train and it is rarely crowded, but on many other commutes people face crammed trains every day. The first time I saw it I remember thinking that they wouldn’t let the train leave with this many people on board. But of course they did.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to catch a corner when an old man fearing his placement moved deeper into the train. I squeezed into the corner and watched as more and more people crammed and levered their way on the train. There is a really interesting move for only the most desperate where they turn around, push their butt into the crowd, and reach up above the door to push themselves through. Since the person is not making eye contact with the people he/she is pushing aside with their butt, there is apparently no embarrassment.

Once they get the doors closed you are surrounded by total strangers pressed against you, and all rules about personal space no longer apply. Years ago I got off a packed train with the shape of a woman’s face painted on my black jacket – her foundation had left a nice little silhouette on the side of my coat.

I’m always impressed how despite these packed conditions, people rarely get angry with each other. Even though it is a pretty stressful situation, everybody knows there is nothing to do about it but hang in there and wait for the their stop. This sense of group working together to get through a tough situation is interesting – I couldn’t imagine the same situation in America without some people getting upset/angry/threatening lawsuits.

So yesterday I got home just a few minutes later, with no makeup on my coat, and with a little deeper appreciation for public transportation. Sometimes there are sacrifices to be made, but for the most part they’ve got it figured out here in Japan.

Friday night Kuniko and I bellied up to the sushi bar for a delicious sushi dinner at Nadaya. The place was booked for the night, and every time a group of people left soon after some new customers took their spot. We sat in the best seats – front and center in front of the display of fish and also in front of the head sushi itamae. As usual we had the makase course, letting the itamae choose what we ate and when we ate it. Only occasionally we asked for this and that to tailor our experience just a bit.

Next to me an older couple were sitting, and at one point the older guy next to me jumped into a conversation that we were having asking about me and showing astonishment that I could eat sushi. This kind of thing happens a lot, and as usual I switch to “just off the boat” foreigner mode. The guy likes telling me all about the wonders of Japan, the restaurant, whatever, and I nod and smile and speak some broken Japanese to show that I’m doing my best. He was nice enough to start pouring his sake for us, and wouldn’t accept more than a small glass of ours. We got into a little trouble from the wife of the master for mixing two types of sake, but everyone was drinking and nobody really cared.

Anyway, after talking with him while we were eating it was clear that he had a good time, and he shook my hand and said “Nice to meet you” in English as he left, and internationalism strikes again in the heart of Kobe. Good times.

This weekend Kuniko and I indulged in the beautiful weather by climbing mountains in Suma, and then grilling burgers outside on Saturday night. Kuniko’s homemade burger buns were great, and held together nicely considering the giant burger patties I ended up making.

Sunday was relaxation all day long, and only late at night did the rain come in and start pouring. Last night the rain woke me up a couple of times, and it seems like it will be raining most of today and tomorrow as well. The warmer weather is nice, though. So I’m grabbing my umbrella and heading to work now. The end of February is here, and I’ve just got a couple more weeks with my current students.

A couple of days ago the Japanese company Rakuten, who bought Buy.com last year, announced that they had made a special arrangement where customers from Japan can buy selected merchandise directly from Buy.com. One of the categories of merchandise they promoted heavily was wine (Buy.com had made an arrangement with Wine.com), so it wasn’t long before I hit the website to check it out.

I was excited about what I saw. Lots of good California wines available, and the prices were not marked up 100%+ as most overseas wines tend to be when they retail in Japan. In fact, although the prices were in yen they were pretty much what I’d expect to pay if I was living in California. So you can imagine that I was getting pretty excited about this new service.

Then I popped a bottle into my shopping cart and saw that it cost more than $20 to ship a bottle. The scale slid upwards from there – two bottles cost around $30, and a 12 bottle case cost more than $100 to ship to Japan.

What? Are you kidding me?

We usually buy our wine these days from Costco. They ship enough merchandise to Japan that it doesn’t cost them very much money at all to move high volumes of wine as well. We can buy many California wines for about 800 yen ($9) a bottle, no shipping. I guess when I heard about the new system at Rakuten I was hoping that they would have a similar shipping system in place. But I guess not.

It’s nice to have the option of buying good wines at good prices, but until they figure out a better shipping method I don’t think anybody in the Japanese market is going to pay $20 to receive an $8 bottle of Gnarly Head Zinfandel.

There are lots of other problems with California wines in the Japanese market, and this is just another one. I guess it means I’ve got to go back to America more often and stock up.

In part of my everlasting quest to keep my music collection organized I have been spending my free time this week rating songs that I have in my collection. Right now I have about 36,000 songs in my collection, of which about 10,000 have been rated. There’s still a significant amount that haven’t even been listened to, so I’ve got a big job ahead of me. My goal has been to rate about 2000 a week using my iPhone, and so far I’ve been keeping the pace. There are a surprising amount of good songs in my collection that I might never have run across otherwise – and that’s the point of doing this exercise I guess.

In some Kuniko news, she found out that her next school year’s work and club assignments are exactly the same as this year’s, so things will continue to be on the easier side. She’ll also teach some special courses to high school students again, and it sounds like she is looking forward to flexing her English skills in front of some students that recognize them. So I guess both of us have “more of the same” next school year.

I’m sipping hot chai and getting ready to hit the road right now. Rain has been coming and going overnight but it should be a nicer day, and the weather is even starting to warm up slowly. Good news for the weather wimps among us.

After work last night I went over to Junpu to meet the Denya gang and catch up. It was the first time in a long time seeing everyone – the Master, his brother and his family, and the other Denya regulars who I drank with routinely back when I lived in Futami. Everyone looked good, and we caught up over drinks and teppanyaki dishes. I couldn’t believe how big the Master’s brother’s kids had become. They were chattering away in Japanese despite their parents’ best efforts to get them to speak some English. Once they got comfortable with the environment they started speaking, though.

The staff at Junpu did a really good job and the food was excellent. I was glad that we could spend our money at a local place. After dinner we went our separate ways, but the master talked me into stopping for one more drink at a place near our house called Jin. I walk by the place twice a day but I had never been inside, so my curiosity got the best of me and we went inside. The inside of the place was completely different from the image that I had in my mind – sort of like a comfortable living room with lots of alcohol – and the owner was a friendly lady who seemed to know the master well. He had grown up in Okubo so he knows a lot of the people and stores around the area, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. After a quick drink I begged off because it was a school night, but I got the sense that the master was ready to keep the party going. Sorry, dude – I’ve got to get some sleep!

The temperature is slowly rising and we’re starting to get a little more comfortable walking to and from work. But it is still definitely cold, and even though spring is around the corner we were eating steaming hot bowls of oden last night. Actually it was the first time this year for oden, and it really hit the spot. It was a good way to kill off the potatoes and daikon that we got from Kuniko’s parents, and with a simple kit from the supermarket we filled it out nicely with other items. It was the first time for me to try “hanpen” はんぺん – an airy piece of fish cake that floated on top of the boiling soup. Very good.

At work yesterday there was a big revelation from one of my students, but unfortunately I can’t discuss it here. Hopefully when the time comes (maybe this fall) I’ll be able to talk about it more. Sometimes it’s a bummer to keep all these secrets…

Tonight I’m headed to Junpu to meet the Denya gang for dinner. The other day I stopped by Junpu and reserved a table for 8. The guy was really happy – the economy is bad here too – but after I left I wondered if I should have told him that it was going to be mostly Japanese people. I hope he doesn’t spend a lot of time studying English in preparation for a bunch of foreigners showing up…

Saturday night I met Kuniko in Sannomiya to celebrate her birthday with a little bit of shopping and dinner. Weeks ago we had agreed that we would go shopping for her birthday present together, but unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to pick up what she wanted before our dinner reservation. We had some other errands to run before dinner as well – so we had to abandon the gift shopping in favor of making our reservation. This proved to bite me in the ass later.

Dinner was quite good. We went to Evolve, an upscale Chinese restaurant near the Kitano district of Sannomiya. It had a nice atmosphere, and menus that had no prices on them (which is always a little scary). I came prepared, however, and in the end the prices were less than we expected. As for dinner it started out great with their signature dish – 四川風よだれ鶏 (Nishikawa style drooling (?) chicken) but got a little less interesting after that. We ordered plenty of food, and although each dish was delicious the overall meal failed to impress me.

After dinner we were stuffed and came home present-less, which as you might expect, left Kuniko a little bummed out. Previously I have always had a surprise present ready to go, and when no surprise materialized this time she was naturally disappointed. A classic example of setting the bar a little too high – even for myself. We hatched a plan on Sunday to do some shopping next weekend to make up for it.

During the day on Sunday I went and got a much-needed haircut, and that night we went to visit Kuniko’s parents, and they looked healthy and very happy. Kuniko’s dad had to go to work in the evening, but we stayed around and spent time with Keiko watching figure skating on TV. She kept the coffee and snacks coming, so by the time we left we were full of good food.

This week should be interesting – a dinner with the Denya gang tomorrow night, and sushi night this Friday at our favorite sushi bar, Nadaya. Looking forward to it!

We finally pulled the trigger on our trip to India – we’ll be there from August 13th to the 19th, shuttling between Dehli, Agra and Bangalore to see my friend Vishnu. We’ll even get to do some domestic flying which is always a little more exciting. I’m really looking forward to the trip as we’ve always wanted to go. Now we just have to get some visas and we’ll be set.

Tomorrow is Kuniko’s birthday. We’ll be headed to an upscale Chinese restaurant in Sannomiya. I’m not sure if it’ll be delicious, but it was certainly tough to get reservations. I promise to give a full review afterwards.

We slept in a little too long this morning so I’ve got to rush out the door. More updates after the weekend!

Last night after work I went out with some of my students to a fugu restaurant near the office. The food was delicious, and they served plenty of blowfish in various forms for everyone. We ate it raw as sashimi, in soup as nabe, even fried as karaage. It was good to talk with everyone in English and also to try to improve my Japanese skills – they were kind enough to endure my broken Japanese. Also in the restaurant was a large fish tank full of live blowfish swimming around awaiting their day of reckoning. It was a good reminder of the before while we enjoyed the after.

We’re nearing the end of the week, and I’m looking forward to the chance to sleep in. These cold mornings have made it tough to get up on time. I think I’ll have a couple of days to catch up on my sleep coming up. I’m also happy about the upcoming return of Survivor and The Amazing Race – I love that stuff!

We are cruising along through February and there is no end in sight to the cold. Hopefully by the end of this month things will get a little warmer, but it is hard to imagine drinking beer under the cherry blossoms at this point.

I’ve got a couple of events coming up in the next few weeks. Kuniko’s birthday is coming up this weekend, and to celebrate we’ll go out for a Chinese dinner in Sannomiya. Tuesday next week I’ll meet up with the old Denya gang in Okubo after work and catch up with everyone, and then that Friday we’ll head back to Nadaya for some really delicious sushi.

Other than these big events we’ll just be trying to stay warm and stay out of trouble at work, so not much to report these days.

In a first for my life, I walked home last night in the snow. It has been snowing on and off the last few days, but yesterday was snowy enough to leave piles of snow on the ground. That meant that the trains were delayed, and I had to trudge through snow and mush to get to the station, and then walk through even more snow on the ground in Okubo.

This kind of thing just doesn’t happen much in California.

Luckily it was a good experience because of the sheer novelty of it. I can’t imagine doing that every day, though. Kuniko beat me home last night and cooked up some hot soup to welcome me home, along with some Valentine chocolate. Because it was so cold outside we spent most of the evening in the bath together warming up. Happiness is a giant automated Japanese bathtub.

The end of the week turned out to be pretty nice. I finally heard from my staffing company saying that they’d like me to stick around for another year at KHI, which set a bunch of events into motion. I contacted my friend Vishnu in India and started planning a trip for this year. We’re both looking into the trip from different ends to see what will work out the best.

Another year contract also means that I’ll have to pick a year of days off in advance, which is always tricky. This week Kuniko and I will pull out the calendars and see what happens.

Friday night we some of Kuniko’s college friends over for a late lunch/early dinner. We served Thai food and had a good time catching up with them. A new visitor was Chu-Chu’s fiancée who fit right in and helped us polish off three bottles of wine. After so much eating and drinking it was nice to have some time to relax on Saturday, and then Sunday the Okamotos came over for tea in the afternoon. We had fun playing with Sota – he’s a great little kid. He was very talkative, although nobody could really understand what he was saying. He didn’t seem to mind, though, and had a great time walking around and playing with the toys that they had brought.

Today is Valentine’s Day in Japan, and Japanese chocolate makers are very happy that it falls on a workday for the first time in three years. Women in the office will be compelled to give chocolate to the men they work with, and give homemade chocolate to the really special guys. Luckily I don’t work with anyone, really, so this Valentine’s will be easy on my waistline…

Well, hello there. Welcome back.

Things seem to be returning to normal here. I had some problems with the fredricks.net domain, but they seem to be cleared up now. My apologies for the downtime, and also to the rest of the family who depend on fredricks.net for their websites and email. Sorry for the inconvenience.

What happened? It’s a long story that really isn’t that interesting. I promise I’ll tell it to you offline, or at some future date if/when this domain changes locations. For now, everything is hopefully back to normal and I’ll get back to posting starting Monday.

See you then!