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10.25.02
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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.
10.23.02
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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.
10.18.02
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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.
10.14.02
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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.
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