Mish! How's life for the working man in Canada? I hear the metropass is going up, but on the bright side, I understand there are some city councillors who want to require cyclists to have licenses, so if that goes ahead at least bikes won't be an option anymore. Anyway, your streets are less crowded than mine:
Japan's pretty Japanese. They, and therefore I, just got a new Prime Minister, the first liberal in ever, whose wife is very, very much on-record about believing she was abducted by benevolent aliens and rode a triangle to the planet Venus. The newspapers published drawings of the triangle. So basically the new PM is the Obama of alien abductee spouses. Japan goes through governments like you go through a bag of tomatoes, you tomato-lovin' guy, so we'll see how long Space Wife Obama lasts. He's been good so far. On the social welfare front, he increased the daily government allowance of Giant Octopus and dolphin meat to three kilos for every man, woman and child and four kilos for every housecat (he wants to encourage cat use). I don't feel bad eating them—if they're really so smart, how come they keeping getting themselves caught? Really, though? Fresh fish costs slightly less than lettuce. So our salads are usually about fifty-percent swordfish, to reduce expenses. While produce is super expensive, a small subset of it is very delicious. I just cleaned off a whole bowl full of a kind of tiny hypertangerines that try to survive by disguising themselves as limes. Man, are those good.
How is the situation doing at your swinging pad? You should give me your address—I've got a Japan Thing I want to send you guys as a house present. It's called a Fukubukuru ("luck bag"), and it's a random merch bag that every store sells—you buy it without knowing what's inside, but there's always something really odd. I've got a talking chocolate bar and a highly suggestive plastic tornado doll.
I miss Toronto, though. On the other hand, I mostly miss you guys, and a ticket to Hawaii costs just as much as one home. Wanna meet up in Hawaii? I'll buy the first round of drinks, and then we'll do whatever it is people do in Hawaii. Bodyboard? Bodybuild? Waterboard? Anyway, I'm sure it'd be great. Let's do it.
What else can I tell you about? I went back to Kyoto the other day and we picked up a temple pilgrimage book. That's this accordion-bound book of good calligraphy paper that you take with you to temples, and the priests sign it in elaborate brush paintings. I know. Pretty sweet. And I visited the Temple of 1033 Golden Buddhas in Orderly Formation. It was much as the name suggests! Also, rocks in smocks like those at left are big here.
How's the writing going? Have you had anything else accepted lately? Doing NaNoWriMo?
Ah! Okay, I gotta go see a guy to settle and argument about who's better at frisbee and sword fighting in Wii Sports, so I'll leave it there. Write me back and remind me how it feels to be able to stretch your arms out on the sidewalk and spin around without hitting twelve people!
- André Read Full Post
