weather confusion

Tokyo, we have a problem here.

Today's weather in Syracuse, New York (observed):

86 and SUNNY!   

Today's weather in Tokyo (forecasted):

  

55 and partly cloudy.

For reference, this is 5 degrees colder than the average for Tokyo and 14 degrees warmer than the record for Syracuse.

I expect to see signs of improvement soon. 

In spite of this we are going out for a little Hanami party of two plus thousands of others in Ueno park this afternoon.


Mata ne,
Melissa

bathroom confusion

Admittedly, it is not initially clear as to which way one is supposed to face when making use of a Japanese toilet.  I, however, never thought to sit on it!  eeewwww!

The hood in reality is much closer to the ground that it appears in this drawing and I find it hard to believe that people actually sit on it!

Hint: To avoid finding yourself in this uncomfortable situation, avoid the public toilets in parks and look for the sign on the door that reads "Western Toilet."

Mata ne,
Melissa

embarking on the journey

Aaaannnnnd we're back.

We had quite the time exploring Kyoto and western Japan on our trip.  Our trip involved lots of travel guides and confusing train schedules (in Japanese no less) and included several long days of walking all over various cities and two overnight trains, so I think you can imagine we've needed some time to recover. 

Of course, as you'd expect from us, we were quite the explorers.  We did all kinds of fun stuff and scouted out some great places to take both sets of parents who will be gracing the island with their presence(es?) in the next two months.  There is no possible way that I could go over all the fun stuff in one post, or even two.  So instead, I'm just going to post the exciting things individually.

I like to call it building suspense, not laziness.  Ok?


I'll whet your appetites with a picture of Jeff right before we embarked on our first overnight train.  That's why he still looks happy.

More to come!

Mata ne,
Melissa

Jeff protested that there was a picture of him but no picture of me, so for my adoring fans husband....

busy bee

I have been a terrible blog poster lately.  I've been distracted.  But I have an excuse.  Several actually:

One of Jeff's good friends from Cornell who was just offered a tenure-track teaching position was in town so we got together with a few fellow Asian studies scholars for a night of celebration. 

Also, I've been reading the Collected Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald.  If you've had the pleasure, then you understand they're hard to put down.

I've taught a few English lessons this week, too. 

I also ran 10 miles this morning.

Ok, so none of those really warrant my extended absence. 

BUT what does make it all ok is that we've also been furiously planning my parents once-in-a-lifetime Japan experience, as they've both told me this will be the only one.  That's a lot of pressure to put on a girl's shoulders.  Even if she is an overachieving first-born.

Right now, the big decisions we're making are Kyoto vs. Iwate and trains (shinkansen) vs. rental car.  Feel free to weigh in. 

There's my sweet husband staying up late and calculating every permutation of the train/rental car and Kyoto/Iwate/Hakone/Takayama debates.  What a great son-in-law!

Tomorrow night we're going out of town for a few days, so I can't promise my posts will be any more frequent.  I can promise that we'll have some interesting things to talk about when we return.

Mata ne,
Melissa

biting my tongue

Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change

Is it even possible to remove Thomas Jefferson (i.e. the writer of the Declaration of Independence) from the conversation on the writings that inspired revolutions in the late 18th and early 19th century??

Mata ne,
Melissa