Hunkabutta Archives
10.25.02

click to enlarge      
click to see full version

click to see full version

click to see full version

click to see full version

click to see full version

I'm sitting on the Yamanote train right now. It's Friday night, 11:00 p.m., and I'm on my way home from the pub. The red-faced drunk sitting beside me looks like a lobster with a crew cut in a gray suit.

I've heard that a lot of Japanese people are mildly allergic to alcohol. If you could see the number of people with cherry red faces on the train on a Friday night you may tend to believe this assertion.

The upside to this is that Japanese people are, in general, wonderful drunks. This is especially true of the men. They never seem to fight when they drink. In fact, they seem to relax and become 'normal' when they're drunk. By 'normal' I mean that they laugh, touch each other, and express their feelings.

Comments?
6 comments so far

10.23.02

click to enlarge      
click to see full version

click to see full version

click to see full version

click to see full version

click to see full version

I'm back in Tokyo and it feels like I never left: The streets are still narrow, the trains are still busy, and the people are still polite.

Work is the same. Yesterday morning the Yamanote train spat me out at Shibuya station as usual. I reset my wrist watch by the platform clock, and then I walked towards the pedestrian bridge that leads to my office building and thought about my trip to British Columbia.

It seems like a dream already -- a blur of faces and locales. I had forgotten how much nature seems to loom over you in British Columbia. Everything is big there: big mountains, big trees, big ocean, big animals, and big people.

I'll be posting pictures from my trip for the next couple of days, just because I have so many of them, but after that you Tokyo-junkies will be happy to know that the Japano-pictures will return.

Comments?
10 comments so far

10.18.02

click to enlarge      
click to see full version

click to see full version

click to see full version

click to see full version

I can't write much now. I've left my computer power cord at our friend's place and I'm writing this post on battery power, and that's almost up.

We've been up the coast and that's why I haven't been able to post lately. I'll be back in Tokyo in a few days and things should start getting back to normal then.

Until later.

Comments?
9 comments so far

10.14.02

click to enlarge      
click to see full version

click to see full version

click to see full version

click to see full version

click to see full version

click to see full version

Things are going well.

I failed to mention last time that I finally got to meet Karen's infamous Uncle Bill, some of you might know him from his witty comments on Hunkabutta. We dropped by his place on Thursday, but I was pretty sick at the time and really wasn't much of a house guess. I didn't take any pictures -- sorry. If you want to imagine what he looks like, picture Richard Branson (that British lord who owns Virgin Enterprises) with short hair and a pair of giant fuzzy moose slippers.

Uncle Bill's wife, Aunty Louise, really flattered me by having a bunch of Hunkabutta pictures stuck on her fridge. She was very sweet.

Uncle Bill's kids, Honey and Harley, were also there, and so was Honey's little boy Brody, but I was so doped up on cough syrup and Contact C that I really wasn't able to have much of a conversation with them. Jack really loved hanging out with Brody though, so I didn't spoil the whole evening.

Today we went to a Thanksgiving dinner at Karen's cousin Kathleen's. While there I got to meet Karen's grandfather David. He had some amazing stories about coming to British Columbia on a wagon from Alberta about 80 years ago. I also got to see Karen's Great Aunt Fran, who is the most fit and sprightly senior you could ever hope to meet. Just being around her made me feel bad for not taking better care of myself. Finally, I got to meet Kathleen's son Max, a shy little guy with a cape and a kick board.

Everyone in Karen's family has been making me feel very welcome, and that's something that I'm very grateful for.

Like I said, things are going well.

Comments?
8 comments so far