Daniel Stowe

We went to Daniel Stowe Botanical gardens again the other weekend. That's the same place we took the first and only photo that Jen's sold, so it's quite special.

Here's a link to more photos from Daniel Stowe

Hospitality

Allow me to generalize. Japanese know how to do hospitality right. Never have I been anywhere that folks go to such extremes to please the customer. We could learn a lot from Japan's customer service.
Almost everywhere we went, our experiences were enhanced by exceptional customer service. The post office, hotels, cell phone rentals, buying train tickets, street vendors - everyone was friendly
and efficient and really eager to please. That kind of attention makes you feel good about spending money.

As an aside, some of the most lackluster service we saw was in convenience stores. They seemed to have the same kind of "I'm ready to go home" attitude that we have in the US. After a while we became accustomed to being treated well. Coming home it was quite a culture shock when we met our surly immigration officials in Chicago. I could only think about how much more effort it would take to be pleasant to people. Not that much.

That's a big part of what I love about Japan. It seems second nature of people to want to be helpful. Everywhere you go, you're a guest, and folks treat you like one. On one occasion I asked a young
couple for directions to a temple. They weren't sure of the way, so they insisted on accompanying me along the 15 minute walk to where I was going. This kind of behavior isn't uncommon.

A guide to squat toilets

Here's a typical squat toilet in Japan. It's not uncommon when a westerner is faced with one of these for the first time that they wonder "What the hell am I supposed to do with this?" Well good news for us, we actually found some instructions for using them. To unlock this mystery of Eastern culture, click on the jump.




The ever useful instructions:



The arrows in the left graphic represent the force of gravity on poop. When using one of these toilets, you can assured that gravity is in fact still in effect.

Claire

Claire, originally uploaded by Geekly.

Here's our girl. She's a lot bigger than this now, but this is the best puppy pic that we have.

Tonkii

I ordered some Japanese Readers from White Rabbit Press a few weeks ago. They're a really good way to study Japanese. The stories are simple and often based on traditional (or contemporary) stories from Japan. They're like children's books with illustrations and simplified language.

One of the stories in the Level 2 set is about an elephant in the Ueno zoo around the time of WWII. His name is Tonkii. It was heartbreaking. I'm surprised that a story written in such "simple" language could be so moving.

I'd recommend these books to anyone that's had trouble finding reading material on their level. It was a great find.

Japanese Graded Reader

There's also mention of the elephants on the Wiki page for Ueno Zoo

Hello World!

I started this blog a while ago to kind of keep track of things that
interest me. Looking back, it's a pretty scattered collection of
thoughts. What this medium is going to evolve into, I don't know
exactly. I think I'm going to start posting here again.

My life these days revolves around my wife (Jen) and my dog (Claire).
My primary obsession these days is still studying Japanese and
spending time in Japan. The former I can realize, the latter is more
day dreaming than anything. Photography is still a big interest,
although we haven't taken many shots lately. We still play World of
Warcraft pretty regularly, but I feel more and more like it's a drain
on our energy and that I'm left with nothing to show for it.

So, I'll try fill up this space with things that interest me on the
off chance that it might interest someone else.