My friend (who is escorting me around some of his old hangouts in Tokyo’s Akihabara today) and I wander into Yodobashi Akiba to check out the latest consumer goods. Continue reading
A friend whose visit to Tokyo overlaps my own suggests that we meet. He wants to show me some of his favourite haunts of bygone days before he became a permanent resident in Canada.
In front of the Hard Rock Café in Ueno Station he greets me with a huge Canadian-style hug, and numerous black heads swivel hard. What is this Japanese guy doing? Public displays of affection are more than rare here. Continue reading
On my way to and from my hotel to Tokyo’s Metro line, I pass a supermarket. Outside is a large bicycle parkade. Here young mothers with a couple of kids (usually without helmets) strapped on front and back, flawlessly coiffed matrons, and elderly obaasans pedal in, park and begin their shopping. Continue reading
Here in Niigata on the north side of Honshu (Japan’s main island) the weather has not lived up to the morning’s weather forecast I checked from my hotel in Tokyo. Instead we have watched woolly skies deliver light rain which escalated to hard nails thrown sideways by high winds. Dark clouds pouring in across the Sea of Japan are now stacked up into the stratosphere. Their menacing heights grow as my brief tour of Niigata concluded, I board the early evening Shinkansen (bullet train) and head back to Tokyo. Continue reading
This post is inspired by Barbara Winters as described by Laura Eggertson. ‘You are so loved’: Lawyer describes efforts to save Nathan Cirillo in The Globe and Mail. Friday October 24, 2014: A11.
As Nathan Cirillo, the honour guard soldier gunned down at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, Canada, lay dying, Barbara Winters an Ottawa lawyer was among those trying to save him. Continue reading
Since we are miles outside Niigata city at the Northern Culture Museum, the taxi driver has kindly waited while I toured the former Ito estate. In that interval the weather has continued to deteriorate. Now high winds drive the rain sideways and flip umbrellas inside out. I’m definitely not going to get a feel for Niigata by wandering through its streets today. Continue reading
On the first morning of harvest, the rice combine conks out.
The Broken-down Combine
Abbotsford Rice Field Harvest Halted
On arrival, I don’t have much information on what Niigata city offers other than a river cruise with three daily sailings and a museum. There’s also a shrine. It’s Japan. There’s no escaping senbei or shrines. Continue reading
Needing to take a long journey in order to get the full value out of my JR Rail Pass, a friend suggests a day trip. From Tokyo it’s two hours one way to Niigata or Sendai. He’s sure I’ll enjoy the view through the mountains or the Tohoku region as the train is a comfortable way to see vast tracts and different parts of the country. Continue reading