Unexpected

Inspired by all the biking that I made it through in Kyoto last week, I decided to ride my bike to work today. Then I hopped on after work...

One flat tire
One broken axle
One somewhat bruised tailbone
2 missed CT1 buses
and $90 later...

I made it to the Burren in Davis Square for a much deserved beer.

Bike in the shop until Friday night.

Announcements

On the way out of Japan we were greeted with this announcement from the airplane's lead flight attendant:

"If you're going to be sleeping with us tonight ... er, well, I mean, um, if you're going to... if you're planning on sleeping on the airplane ... please be sure to fasten your safety belt low and tight across your lap over your blanket so that we don't have to wake you if there is rough air."

There was a slightly delayed response, but it certainly garnered a chuckle out of the English-speaking members of the flight.

Okonomiyaki

"Good Fried/Cooked Thing" is what that literally means, but in practical terms, it is a pancake made with egg and savory batter. In the version we had, there were also soba noodles and pork involved. Then you choose one topping for them. I had garlic chicken, but you could choose from a range of vegetables, fruit and meat. The food is cooked on a large griddle by the chef dudes, then served at the table where there is another fairly large griddle in the middle of the table. We had to strip down a little bit to get that to work for us, but it was nice being warm for a change. Only fancy department stores and the like have central heat, so you're often found huddling around the heated seat on the train, a heated blanket, a heated toilet seat, or a space heater. In this case the table was hot hot hot, so no need for huddling. This is the bar where they made them and the menu is on the wall on the wooden panels. As you can see, there are plenty of choices (not one of which I can read).

There are a few more pics on Flickr, so visit if you want to see. We went to Nara yesterday and saw a gigantic Buddha and deer that bow before you feed them. I will give better descriptions of the photos once I'm not sharing a computer with 3 other people.

Yum!

This is a little pastry with red bean paste inside and it is delicious! No fish flavor...

Number Exchange

So far we've learned a few numbers in Japan.

2
Beeru Nihon. 2 Beers. Pretty self explanatory.

3 & 4
One of the main streets in the downtown area of Kyoto is Third Street. But, as you may or may not guess it is NOT written as a number, but rather as the name Sanjo and the kanji for three which, fortunately, is three horizontal lines. Fourth is Sijo, but the kanji is not so simple.

24.5
That's how many centimeters make the largest size women's shoe in Opa, a Japanese department store. 24.5 is about a 7.5 in our sizes. Another funny thing about Opa is that its pronunciation is apparently similar to the word that means "boobs." Oppai.

69
This is one we taught to an innocent Japanese girl named Junko (pronounced June-ko). After Karaoke (and non-stop drinking) I showed her my new shirt which says in perfect Engrish, "The magic 69 of sound." Joe, our travelling companion asked Junko, who speaks decent English, if she knew what 69 meant. Since she didn't I took it upon myself to explain that it meant (with pointing gestures) your mouth goes here and his mouth goes here. We were all a little tickled after that one.

Other learning:
The only sentence I can say with any consistency is "Toirey wa doko des ka?" Which means "Where's the toilet?"

Arigato gosai mas: Thank you very much. However, I almost said to someone who had sold me postcards: Arigato konichiwa. Which means "thank you hello". Every one talks really fast.

We do a lot of pointing and grunting when Laura isn't around.

This Week

Completed (as much as possible) a big project at work that went better than expected
Lost my credit card
Had $800 in charges removed
Lost my wallet (by leaving it at the office)
Became an official Harvard employee at the rate of $665/semester
Did my taxes
And prepared for my trip to Japan!

Needless to say, I'm in the middle of packing for my flight that leaves in 8 hours. With any luck, I will bring back images and stories from the land of the land of the rising sun that will knock your socks off. Your cute little Japanese socks.

Bush Detailed on Possible Katrina Destruction -- Does Nothing

MoveOn.org is currently making a campaign to get this word out and I wanted to help get this to the 6 people who read my blog. According to the Associated Press, the President was fully aware of the possible destruction and chose to relax and do nothing about it to prevent disaster. Please read the article and inform your friends. I could write a more compelling story, but I'm at work...

OK, after having actually read this (and several other articles) I have a few things to say. MoveOn is probably over doing it a little -- or at least my initial reaction may have been an over reaction. The spin back seems to be that "the President was attentive and asked questions", and "there wasn't a lot anyone could do", etc. Even if all this is true (and by the way, we should expect our president to be attentive when an imminent and deadly threat is on the verge of attacking), the fact remains that a) the president still said "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees" after having been "attentive" and "inquisitive" and b) the administration is still being secretive and opaque about documentation etc. It's not like this is a terrorist attack and we don't want the enemy to know our secret plans. If anything, we want people to know so that we can teach them our state-of-the-art response technology and lead by example.

The problem is either we are not so state-of-the-art or we (read: the administration) don't care enough when it's not in our back yard. I wonder what would have happened if Rita had been first. Clearly, they couldn't do it 2 in a row, but if Rita had been first would this have happened? Would there have been preparations? It's hard to say, but considering who was left behind, it's hard not to speculate that the folks in Texas would have had an easier time getting out and preparing.

I work in an industry that is pushing corporations toward more transparency. It's a big word these days. This administration is exactly the opposite and it's not surprising considering their leadership background is from companies like Halliburton whose corporate policy it is to hide things and keep secrets.

Granted, I don't know what they're actually doing and I don't know the demographics of the areas affected by Rita, and I don't even know good hard data on exactly who was left behind in New Orleans, but I'm not trying to prove a statistical hypothesis. What I do know is that this administration is not to be trusted. Preemptive war with less than stellar evidence and a laundry list of excuses, wars against people who try to stand up against them (Plame), no attention to the people whose children are fighting this mission-accomplished bloody war, wiretapping without informing the court and then making excuses and covering up, keeping the Straight Shooter under wraps for days, and now this... another blatant lie about what they did and didn't know.

I generally think of our President as a buffoon who is prone to inaction and confusion (think: reading the kindergarten book while the 2 towers go down). However, I think that he and his team have much much more charisma than we who dislike him give him credit for. That he made it through the debates against Kerry is as miracle. Ok, so people don't want another Slick Willy president who's smarter than they are. They'd rather have a conniving right hand man and team of cronies to lead this country. Fine. WHO ARE YOU?

President Bush is not stupid. He's cunning. The fact that he's gotten away with so much is absolutely proof.

New Pics

They're not too exciting, but I put up a few pictures from recent life on the flickr site. You can click on the little boppity flickr badge to your right or click here if you want to see them.