Not much going on

It was super cold for a while but has been rather spring-like the past couple days.

I've been pretty busy with work lately, and studying Japanese vocabulary again.

Oh, I passed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test level 1! Very happy about that.

The pollen season is starting again. A large portion of the Japanese population is apparently afflicted with various pollen allergies. It's called 花粉症（かふんしょう kahunsho）.

late trains

Lately the first train I take to work has been late. Specifically, the train has been running late for 2 days. It's a little disconcerting for the train to be running late. I feel like the world has gone a little akilter, and the day is abnormal. It's kind of like the feeling I get when it has been declared a snow day and school has been cancelled. I think, "I should be in school, but I'm not! How odd!"

I find my expectation of timely trains to be very amusing. My world has become a world where trains run on time, within a couple minutes. A minute or two doesn't disconcert me, but let there be a six minute delay and suddenly everything is a little out of order.

This hasn't affected my schedule personally. I normally take a 9:21 train, but I've been getting on the 9:15 train which has been arriving at 9:21. Heh.

In general, it's unusual for the train to be late, and even more unusual for it to be late on consecutive days. However, rain usually delays train schedules a bit.

In case you're curious, my commute consists of about 15 minutes of walking and 2 trains.

how long does asparagus last?

For people (like me) who don't know much about cooking related things such as food storage, there are web sites like this one, which answered my question of how long asparagus lasts in the refrigerator.

When you don't have "common sense," there's the Internet!

happy 2006 and overeating

Happy 2006! May it be a good year.

I have been overeating almost consistently since vacation started on the 28th. At least I went swimming once. I will go swimming this weekend too. It's been a little hard to eat enough vegetables too. For example, if I go to the convenience store, my eyes automatically seek out the grilled pork bento, which consists of salt, pork, and rice. Salads just look boring in comparison. And have you noticed that it's a lot of work to eat a salad? Stuffing leaves into your mouth is a very messy process. Cutting the leaves up into bite sized pieces and getting them to stay on the fork also takes time.

I went to the Buddhist temple Senso-ji in Asakusa with my friend's family for the traditional midnight visit. We actually left before midnight because the lines were crazy and it was really cold. I took lots of pictures but most of them are probably too dark.

Starbucks and other stores actually started selling their 福袋 (grab bags) at midnight. These grab bags are like mystery packages - they contain a variety of items worth more in total than the purchase price. The catch is that you don't know what is inside until you buy it. Uniqlo sells grab bags labelled by size. Prices can range from approx. $20 and upwards. Apparently there are some really expensive grab bags available at department stores. Hanshin Department store had a special 2004万円 (about $200,000) bag to celebrate the 2003 Hanshin Tigers baseball team's championship. Limited to exactly one bag, at least 100 people applied to buy it. (source: a site on grab bags)

Japanese post: new vocab

段ボール箱（だんぼーるはこ）: cardboard box

For people living in Japan who have always wondered where to buy cardboard boxes other than the handy post office, Askul sells boxes in sets of 10. They have a wide variety of sizes to choose from. I am unlikely to need 10 boxes at a time unless moving though.

christmas frenzy

In Japan, Christmas is a couple's holiday. Christmas cakes and romantic dinners. Apparently Christmas Eve is including in the festivities, so all restaurants are expected to be packed on those two days. I'm guessing that it'll be the restaurants with nice ambience that will be packed, but there will probably be some overflow into the regular places. It's probably a good day to stay home.

parched!

I've been requiring a lot of liquid lately, probably because of all the heaters running in Tokyo, including in my apt. It's cold here!

Shinjuku is pretty these days. Specifically, the area around Takashimaya Times Square (not a square as far as I can tell) has pretty holiday lights out. Apparently it is titled "Snow Cosmic Fantasy" this year.

By the way, the other day I passed a club titled "Evil Yokohama" in Yokohama. I'm not sure what clientele they're going for...