We're in Japan . . .

Cauliflower is setting up the board for a game of Life on this rainy afternoon. He calls out, "We're in Japan so everyone needs to put their driver on the right."

We brought about six bags of marshmallows home from the scout hut, so we've got big plans for our cocoa.

Sunday in Tokyo

Last Sunday was Father's Day. My dear one said that he wanted French Toast made by Rutabaga and then a trip into Tokyo to visit the Tokyo Fire Museum. If you know us, you're not really surprised that the first family trip up to the capitol would have this as its goal. After all, this is the family that took public buses and trolleys to visit the fire museum in Riga.

The trip required a couple different trains and a short metro ride. Probably the most confusing part of the trip was finding the Tokyo Metro in the vast caverns of the Shibuya train station. We've read that this is the busiest train station in the world and I believe it.

The fire museum itself was one of the nicest that I've visited. It had lovely exhibits, with state of the art multimedia presentations. And most noticably, everything worked. So often US fire museums have exhibits that are decades old and have long ceased to wow or even to respond to button mashing. There was a floor on Edo era fire fighting, recent historical eras (1800s to 1948) and modern. The museum was very kid friendly and had a whole floor dedicated to children's education. Enough was in English that we didn't feel totally lost. There was also a floor with large apparatus, including an American-LaFrance, that of course we visited.

(Update: the best info on the Tokyo Fire Museum that we found in English was at Tokyo Qool, which has other Tokyo museums and family sites profiled under their playground section.)

When we were done at the museum, we walked back toward Shibuya Station along the street. It was a little drizzly but not too bad and the streets were pretty deserted until we got near the department store district near Shibuya. That let us gawk at store windows to our hearts content, especially the incredible display of sushi and fish dishes in one window and the go sets arrayed in cubby holes along the walls of another.

Shibuya itself is a much busier place. We checked out one department store. I found some nifty stationary and stickers, but alas, almost all of the toys were German imports. We also hit a multi-floor bookstore that had a foreign language section where I was able to find a couple English books I'd been looking for (English books are foreign language books in Japan). I wish I'd gotten pictures of the elevator ladies in these two stores. They were dressed like 1950s flight attendants, complete with little pillbox hats.

Outside the stores the streets were nice and lively. Click on this picture and look down the street. That is just a green crosswalk signal, not a street festival. One of the indoc instructors describes it as putting the crews of an aircraft carrier on one side of the street with the airwing on the other and having them change places in 60 seconds with no fights breaking out.

This police cruiser had a cool pop up light bar.


I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw this sign. Shakey's was the pizza joint of my youth, long before a Pizza Hut ever came to town. We ended up having dinner there. About the price you might expect in DC or NYC, but an all you can eat pizza buffet. Plus a nice rest for our tired legs. Then more people watching on the train ride home.



Not bad for a Father's Day.

Trains in Yokosuka

This sign might give you an idea of some of the inertia that I have to break when we want to go somewhere. The trains in Japan are in fact great. They are clean and punctual. But there is always a low grade stress about finding one's way to the right train at the right time.

This picture is taken from my favorite place at the local station I use to go to Tokyo. From this position, I can read the tiny Romanji (English script) next to the Japanese station names. There are three types of trains that run through here, differentiated by the color of the kanji that their names are written in (black kanji, green kanji and red kanji).

It took me a few trips before I realized that the lights in the colored stripes at the top of this board actually show the stops made by the trains of that color. This is a really good thing to learn since the train labeled with the stop you want might actually take much longer to get there than a train with a different name; because one is a local while the other is a limited express.

I don't think that I've stood on this platform without having someone approach me, either to see if I needed help or to ask me for help.

Food on the Brain

An interesting discussion of food's impact on the brain as part of an article on a new book. Is the food you get in a restaurant or packaged food in the store designed to make you unable to resist?

I've been working on changing my own eating patterns lately. One thing I've found is that I really was eating far more sugar than I realized. Now that I've cut back, fruit has become a new delight. A bowl of grapes is one of the most luxurious things I could eat.

Bravo Zulu, Volume 1

Frequently dh and I have caught an exciting tv ad featuring Navy Seals or aviation, only to realize that the product in question is a newly released video game, not actual military service.

However, the US Naval Academy recently released its first issue of Bravo Zulu, a graphic novel intended to show life as midshipmen and graduates.

A download of the first issue is available here. I thought that it was not bad and I hope that they stick with it for a while. Maybe the ghost of Heinz Lenz for the next issue?

Blessings

I posted a couple weeks back about needing to wait for something to develop. At the time, we were short of enough adults to go to summer camp with our boy scouts. I had volunteered to coordinate the paperwork, so it sort of fell to me to point out that none of the adult leaders were planning on attending. I was the one who had to point out, a week before registration, that we were in fact in danger of not being able to send our scouts at all.

We went all around the various options. I even considered spending the week at camp with my younger sons along. When I posted last, we had asked a neighboring troop if there was a way that we could combine with them.

The scoutmaster and I had finally concluded that we would need to cancel sending our scouts to camp when one of the dads came forward, along with two men who work with him to take the scouts. Then one of the assistant scout masters, who had been away with work for months, came and said that he though he could get leave. Just when I'd given all up as lost, God provided an answer.

I am still going up to camp for a couple days. I want to see camp so I have a better vision of what it looks like. Somewhere along this chain of events, I volunteered to be the new committee chair for the troop. Lots to try to rebuild here. Starting with communications among the parents and the various leaders. And putting the emphasis back onto the troop being scout led. And maybe building at least a polite, if not cordial working relationship with the other troop in the area.

Books Read 2009 - May Update

May 2009

I didn't keep such good track of my books in May. Here's what I remember reading.

Master and Commander -Patrick O'Brian. Great book that I couldn't get into years ago but that I really enjoyed this go round.
This is a Flower - Ross E. Hutchins. An older book about how flowers work. Really very interesting.
The Revenge of the Fourty-Seven Samurai - Erik C. Haugaard. A young adult retelling of a famous incident in Japanese history.
The Big Year - Mark Obmascik. A funny book about three bird obsessed guys and their attempt to see the most number of birds possible in the US in one calendar year.
The Scout Master Handbook - Boy Scouts of America. I've volunteered to be the committee chair for our boy scout troop. This has a lot to do with my lack of pleasure reading and blogging.
The Phantom Tollbooth (Sonlight) I'd never read this before and it was quite good. I loved watching Rutabaga, my oldest, who was simply rolling with all the funny puns and jokes in the story.
The Master Puppeteer (Sonlight) Another book I hadn't read on my own. It was good but I think it would be better read than read aloud (although my kids would probably disagree).

I seem to remember reading more than this, but the exact books escape me.


April 2009
Dracula - Bram Stoker.
The Serpent in the Crown - Elizabeth Peters.
Shinto: The Kami Way - Dr. Sokyo Ono and William P. Woodward
Homer Price - Robert McCloskey

March 2009
Ring of Fire - Eric Flint et al.
A Civil Campaign - Lois McMaster Bujold.
Miles, Mystery & Mayhem - Lois McMaster Bujold.
Mirror Dance - Lois McMaster Bujold.
Diplomatic Immunity - Lois McMaster Bujold.
The Bronze Christ - Yoshiro Nagayo.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling.
Charlotte's Web - E. B. White
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury.

February 2009
Basic Economics, 3rd Edition - Thomas Sowell.
Black Rednecks, White Liberals - Thomas Sowell.
Serving Homeschooled Teens and Their Parents
In the Shadow of the Sun King - Golden Keyes Parsons.
The Secrets of Mariko: A Year in the Life of a Japanese Woman and Her Family - Elisabeth Bumiller.
Gaudy Night - Dorothy Sayers.
Thrones, Dominations - Dorothy Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh.

January 2009Back on Blossom Street - Debbie Macomber
Twenty Wishes - Debbie Macomber
Busman's Honeymoon - Dorothy Sayers
Whose Body? - Dorothy Sayers
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie
Death in the Air - Agatha Christie

Audio Book Giveaway

I just received the disks of poetry that I won from Recorded Books last month. I haven't listened to all of it yet, but the set is six disks of poetry read by the authors. To be honest, although they are American poets and I have a degree in English, most of the names are unfamiliar to me. I'm looking forward to enjoying these. Since I tend to enjoy listening to talk over music when I clean, this may be a welcome break from my typical podcasts.

Recorded Books is having another giveaway. This time they are giving away Around the World in 80 Days and The Twenty-One Balloons. Look here for more details as well as lesson plans for the books.