“Whenever I’m browsing at a bookstore, I feel like I want to poop. It happens even when I’m constipated. I told my little brother about this and he said going to bookstores was a well-known trick to fix constipation. Is this true?”

No, this is not about me. I’m not that far gone that I feel like I need to share this kind of information with the world. This was an ad for NTT’s Ask Goo feature on its Goo portal Web site, where people can ask questions and Goo community members answer you. I passed the poster advertisement at Roppongi Station. I caught the word “poop” the first time around, so I doubled back to make sure I read it right. Then I passed by it a third time to actually see what the whole thing said.

I guess the ad worked.

(A source told me later that the ad is actually based on an actual medical study in Japan that caused a stir a little while ago.)

This is the fruit of my labor. I cut off a slice of my finger in the process. It took a good two hours to bring down the bleeding enough that I can put on a band-aid. Patrick had to feed me while I held my finger. I’m typing with 9 fingers as we speak.

PMK and I are in search of a good sushi restaurant.

Those of you, who have visited us have probably wondered what happened to Kyubei. In a nutshell, we got the worst service there that we’ve ever gotten anywhere the last time we were there. We made reservations for 8pm, and they didn’t seat us until 9pm. We asked for the head chef, and we got someone else. The chefs were incredibly apologetic, but the wait staff that answered the phone couldn’t care less. Besides apologies are pretty pointless after an hour anyway.

We realize we’re not “regulars” in the sense that we don’t drop a bucketload of money there once a week, but surely we might qualify as semi-regulars in the sense that they know our name and recognize us. We’ve been quick to defend Kyubei as different from most other Ginza restaurants, where they discriminate based on who you are and how much you spend. Sadly, it seems like we were proven wrong, and this is very upsetting. You might be able to tell how upset this makes PMK by the fact that he hasn’t even mentioned it on his blog.

We have a place we can go to casually callled Hanazushi in our neighborhood, and there’s always Sushi Zanmai with a family atmosphere and Daiwazushi to satisfy sushi cravings on weekday mornings, but we have yet to find some place we can go to for a really nice sushi dinner.

We’ll keep you posted.

I finally finished watching the last season of Amazing Race. It’s the one that started and ended in Chicago. I used to love this show because it wasn’t malicious and seemed to reinforce the positive side of people unlike other reality shows. Plus it was fun to watch the race through different countries.

But the emphasis is on “used to.” It was disappointing to watch the last season because they seemed to have taken out everything that was good about the previous seasons: the teams in the last season were mostly all beautiful people (instead of just regular people you could relate to), they turned to the sensational (wrestlers?!) and malicious (the teams are nasty to each other and rude and disrespectful to people in the countries they go to). The highlights of the season included couples, who verbally abused each other; a female wrestler who joked about how her breast implants were frozen; and a girl, who made fun of the fact that her Chinese cab driver couldn’t speak English by telling him that her boyfriend has three testicles.

I hear the next season will include a couple team, who were former Survivors. I thought I was done with Amazing Race before, but now I’m really done.

I went to visit my grandparents today. I try and visit them about once every month to month-and-a-half but it’s a real effort because it takes about 1.5 hours to get there each way. They live in an assisted care facility because they’re too old to take care of themselves, and they’re too much to take care of for my aunt and uncle, who share their home. My grandfather is 89 and my grandmother is 90. My grandmother suffered three strokes about ten years ago and is not very alert, but my grandfather still has a sound mind.

My grandfather has had an interesting life. He was the eldest son of the main family lineage, which means that he was spoiled even as a child and treated with preference compared with his siblings. He grew up to be a middle school principal, which is a very prestigious position in Japan especially back then. Both my grandparents were teachers, who taught through the war. They probably saw first-hand the changes in education policy before, during and after the war. I’ve always wanted to ask about how they dealt with that, but I haven’t found a way to broach the subject yet. I forgot to mention that he also taught school in Taiwan during part of World War II.

Today, our conversation went from talk about the tsunami in Thailand/Sri Lanka to memories of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923. My grandfather was in third grade at the time. It was Sept. 1 and school had just let out after the opening ceremony for the second of three semesters. My grandfather and some friends snuck into the grounds of a mansion nearby to collect cicada, a popular pasttime for children back then. That’s when the earthquake hit. He ran back home even while the ground was shaking and tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge because it was warped. The earthquake stopped as he managed to get it back open. No one in the immediate family was hurt, but he said an uncle later died as he was crossing a bridge to seek safety along with hundreds of others. The bridge caught fire, and people went up in flames, especially since many of them carried clothes wrapped in cloth on their backs.

We also talked a little bit about his experience teaching children in Taiwan during the war. The children were not permitted to speak in Chinese in front of the Japanese teachers, and Japanese military demonstrated their prowess often enough that no one outwardly rebelled (though I have a hard time believing everyone was obedient). The memory that sticks most in my grandfather’s mind is of the children, who preferred to go barefoot. When my grandfather and other teachers scolded them and told them to wear shoes, they “obeyed” by putting on shoes before they entered the school and taking them off again as soon as school let out. He laughed that it was the exact opposite of Japanese children, who change from their “outside” shoes to their “inside” shoes before entering school buildings. You would think that my grandfather would be resented as an imperial authority, but he actually maintained contact with some of his students for a long time afterward and went to visit Taiwan a couple of times after the war.

I’m not sure what to do with these memories, but I don’t want to lose them so I’m recording it on my blog for now. I figure it’s good family history that should be remembered.

Let me introduce you to my kotatsu (picture on the right). For those who don’t know what that is, it’s a coffee table with a heater that’s attached to the frame. You put a thick kotatsu blanket between the frame and the table top, and voila, you’ve got a kotatsu. I live in my kotatsu during the winter. Really.

The picture you see is one of my living room. There’s a floor cushion that you can’t see that you can sit on, so you’re not sitting directly on the floor. There’s a television a few meters away.

I can literally do almost everything here. I watch television, knit, read, nap, and have breakfast, all at the kotatsu. On weekends sometimes, the only time I leave the kotatsu is to go to the bathroom.

Really, I consider it to be one of Japan’s best inventions. They also sell individual-sized kotatsus — I know a girl studying for college entrance exams that swears by them because she can keep the heater off in her room. Her body stays warm under the kotatsu while her head stays clear.

Hey, she doesn’t need to convince me. I’m sitting underneath the kotatsu as I write.

I was watching a morning show yesterday before work, and I tuned on to a show where they were discussing the news about how an orphan newborn in the aftermath of the Tsunami in Sri Lanka (I think) was identified through DNA testing as the child of one of eight couples, who claimed he was theirs.

I can’t imagine how devastated the other 7 couples were, and I assumed most people would feel the same way as I do. But I nearly fell off my chair (figuratively-speaking since I was sitting on the floor) when I heard what flew out of the mouth of one of the commentators. His first thought: “All of the others must be incredibly embarrassed.”

It was a telling statement about how something like this would be perceived in Japan.

My finished project from my first official class at Carla Flowers near Gaienmae station.

I bought the yarn for this project when I was back home for the holidays at Sheep’s Clothing in Valparaiso, Indiana. It requires worsted weight wool that can felt and extra-thick eyelash yarn.

I didn’t expect to finish this project as quickly as I did, but it only took a long weekend.

I had a revelation today. Japanese people don’t like to apologize. Which is a little contrary to the polite Japanese image that a lot of Westerners have.

PMK met me for lunch today since it was Valentine’s Day. We went to a nice Italian place with a great view. We both ordered lunch sets, which came with a small salad and pizza, but when we got the salad, there was no dressing on it. Now, a normal reaction for a waiter would be to apologize and bring some salad dressing. After all, it’s no skin off of his back.

But not the waiter we had today. He first told us that the dressing was at the bottom of the plate. Then he brought us some dressing, but he had to point out that he was bringing “extra” dressing. If he feels like he would lose face over an incident like this then his “face” must be pretty trivial.

This is a great book. The sub-title is “Great Journalism Too Hot to Print”. Basically, it’s full of articles that were killed for one reason or another.

Some notable ones include:

- Betty Friedan’s article imploring women to take their college studies more seriously in the early 60s when most of them were just looking for future husbands. The article was killed by male McCall’s editors, who were threatened by the notion of strong women. The rejection of this article supposedly prompted her to write “Feminine Mystique.” Whether you’re a feminist or not, it’s a brilliantly-written article that logically makes the convincing point that education only helps women obtain what they want in terms of successful husbands, large families and a good life.

- An article about a Jewish American reporter, who goes to Palestine to report on the real people that live there.

- A personal narrative by a male award-winning writer in Canada, who also works as a prostitute.

- The real story behind the Body Shop.

And so on. At any rate, I definately recommend it.

We were in Kanazawa — by the Japan Sea — over the long weekend. The area prides itself on the great food, and we were not disappointed,

Even in Noto, about a 50 minute train ride outside of Kanazawa, we found a Japanese “Fisherman’s Warf” where we found this site. People were buying oysters and seafood and grilling them over charcoal. Lunch that day was grilled oysters, squid, scallops, shrimp and fish. Yum.

We came across these new-fangled bus-stops in Kanazawa. They let you know which bus is coming next. We’ve all read about these things, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen it. Pretty cool.

Of course, the bus that we needed was a cheap tourist bus that wasn’t on the list. And it was 30 minutes late. So much for Japanese punctuality.

120 year old imo store

Back in October, I wrote about a 120 year old sweet potato store. I can now finally upload pictures, so here is a picture thanks to my sister, who sent this to me ages ago.

I’ve learned how to put up pictures on my blog thanks to my husband. I’m starting to learn flower arrangement with a friend from work, so I thought I’d put up my first piece.

I have travel envy.

Someone I know is on a work-related exchange program to Australia for 3 months and he’s having the time of his life.

We also just spent some time with a friend of a friend, who is on an 80 day trip around the world on a gig sponsored by Chivas Regal. He was swinging by Japan in between Sri Lanka and Shanghai. You can read about his itinerary on his blog, and let me tell you, it’s a lot more exciting than my life.

I think I have the February blues or something.

It’ s almost Valentines’ Day. In Japan, the holiday (if you can call it that) has a strict definition. Girls give chocolate to the boys. It’s used as an occasion to tell the guy that you like about your feelings and ask him to go out with you. Literally. Which has always struck me as a little unnatural, but whatever.

Anyway, what all of this means is payday for the retailers. Big displays everywhere. Loft, which targets the Crate and Barrel kind of consumer, has a particular impressive one. Half a store floor was covered with make-your-own chocolate kits, thousands of kinds of chocolates and a whole section dedicated to wrapping. There was even a “hotel chocolate” section,which sells hotel-branded chocolate.

You see, the marketers have got it all figured out. Girls will obviously spend money on chocolate for the guy they love. But they want to squeeze every last yen out of the girls, so they’ve also successfully introduced a second type of chocolate called “Giri” chocolate, or obligatory chocolate. Girls get several cheaper chocolates to hand out to guy friends, colleagues and male bosses.

If you’re wondering when guys get to give (or when girls get to receive), never fear. Japan has got that figured out too. There’s White Day on March 14 when guys reciprocate. This, of course, means that as soon as Valentines’ Day is over, the retailers bring out all the White Day displays. Technically, guys give back candy (like hard candy) for White Day, but these days retailers will try to get them to buy more, especially jewlery.

Since we came to Japan over a year ago, PMK, who never wanted to celebrate Valentines’ Day in the U.S., insists that he receive something. Last year, I got him a big heart-shaped rice cracker. I’m looking for something to top that as we speak.