Being back in Tokyo after some ten weeks feels a little like coming home. Only home it is not, but there is a comfortable sense of familiarity and I did not have to check any map or ask for directions to get to my hostel. Knowing where you are going with luggage can never be [...]
Am three-quarters into The Book Thief, and am already dreading the end. Such a good read. I think I will be sleepless tonight. Today, I washed, vacuumed and threw out four big bags of garbage. I also ate the remaining contents of my fridge, which consist of (the list follows, for the sake of posterity) [...]
I plan for it to be, anyway. Today, just barely here, is the day before I leave Hokkaido for Tokyo where I shall spend the remaining week of my holiday. Yesterday, I bought myself a small suitcase so tomorrow will be a lot of fun. I shall heave a huge sigh of relief when I [...]
Just saw a raven trotting through snow. Damn adorable. On the bus to Asahikawa 旭川. 09:10, I can no longer make out the horizon between ground and sky. If anything, snow can be unifying. 09:17, Mayday’s 温柔. 09:20, it is so pretty out here. 09:25, it is probably true that the most beautiful scenes are [...]
A foot of snow fell between yesterday and this morning. I think there was a foot. If there wasn’t, well, I just had been wanting to say that. But there was a lot of snow. Too much. At this point, I can safely say I don’t care for another 1/16 inch of snow. I’m hoping [...]
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Woman in the Dunes – Kobe Abe Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie What the Dog Saw – Malcolm Gladwell The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle A Cold Faint Fear – Karin Slaughter Then We Came to an End – Joshua [...]
Most friends can vouch for me that I am not a fan of vegetables. I don’t order them voluntarily, and if they appear in my meals, they were usually treated with polite disgust and they often ended up balanced perilously on the edge of my plate or in the company of other vegetables in an [...]
I can now truly empathise with the tourists who flock to Singapore during winter in their respective countries. This week brings a forecast of negative maximum temperatures, and that, I find laugable, because the word ‘maximum’, while still being factually accountable, has lost its relevance. What use is a maximum temperature forecast if it lingers [...]
Saturday nights like tonight get me wondering, of what it would be like at home, or on a night’s out at the movies followed by supper(s), or how the Internet looks like, or whether I would take an earlier flight back if such a chance arises. Saturday nights, without a book and with the exhaustion [...]