In a poor attempt to test my spontaneity yesterday, my clever husband asks me if I am up for going to Japan in 7 days. No plans, no preparation, no idea where we would stay except that this time, we must go to Hakone to climb Mount Fuji – be not impressed; it’s no Everest, [...]
japan
Tell a story without so many words for a change! There is the newest challenge yet from my spouse. An exercise in brevity and a tall order to my devotion about writing my epic blog posts but variety is the spice of life and so I am up for the challenge. Thomas Jefferson once said: [...]
If you desire it, they will have it, in the world’s best kept and most delicious secret: the Depachika, the food havens in the heart of underground malls of Tokyo. A depachika is a contraction of depato (department store) and chika (underground mall), a place of endless wonder and marvel producing a feast for the [...]
The Japanese are brilliant. I have always known this. Growing up in Iran, we had a ranking system for all products that were imported from various countries. The Japanese always and without exception ranked the highest. It did not matter if it were clothing, electronics, house-hold items or a car battery. Their brand was universally [...]
Japan has fascinated me since I was a child. My grandparents made a trip over to Tokyo in the 1970s and for years, they talked about it to everyone. That’s what people did back then. Or at least where I grew up. They would go on one trip to a “foreign” land and come home with [...]
Opening paragraph of Yoko Ogawa‘s short story: “What is your shoe size?” “How much did you weigh when you were born?” “What is your height?” “When is your birthday?” These were some of the questions the housekeeper encountered every morning from the professor whom she cared for. He asked because he loved mathematics and because [...]
If you don’t want Japan to buy it, don’t sell it. – Akio Morita I was first introduced to Michael Crichton by complete accident when my husband brought “Travels“ to our Hawaii vacation and I promptly stole it away for my own reading pleasure. Or perhaps more accurately put, Crichton stole me away from all [...]
