Fuji!

I feel like I owe you two something. This was the sunrise near the summit of Mount Fuji. I went about two weeks ago. Pretty, and I think it was worth the effort and pain now but I was cursing silently for a good part of the night (it was a night climb).

watermelons...

so you've heard of square watermelons...but have you seen pyramid shaped ones? and to emphasize this point, they put a sticker of a sphinx on it. i didn't look at the price tag but I didn't feel the need, it will be ridiculously expensive. I would mention that this fruit store (yep, only sells fruit) in Tokyo's new "midtown" (a really nice mall basically) but it wouldn't help much.

Happy Birthday daphne! (two days late), a.k.a where i would take your for cake if you come to japan

This post is mostly a lame excuse for me to wish daphne happy birthday in public. also shamefully as i am late. this is a random bakery i bumped into wandering around harajuku one day last week during lunch time. i really like the style of some of the buildings in this area. they are fun and more creative than other neighborhoods i have been to, and this one felt warm like a home kitchen inside. the curry bread i got was delicious..curry pan is a soft bun filled with curry (japanese style, not spicy a little sweet) and then deep fried. they are usually cold when you get them at bakeries or convenience stores but this place heats them up for you. They also have what looks like an excellent cake set (i.e. japanese speak for a slice of cake and tea/coffee; actually in japanese it would be something like kayki sehtoh). For anybody who wants to find this shop, it is in Harajuku (off of Omotesando) across from, I kid you not, the "Ill Store: Extra Dope Wear Select Shop". Yessssssssss. I have photos if either of you want to see. They also coordinated the vending machines outside of their store to match their store colors and carry their slogan.
Happy Birthday Daphne! (sorry I am late, please have 2 shaved ices for me!)
love love (public declaration of love on blogspot! now who else has done this for you?)

brazilian barbeque!

in honor of my other reader, i will post to say that i went to have brazilian barbeque today. rather i was taken out by my boss along with all of the part time guys (and they are all guys, perhaps translating work and male-ness are linked somehow). it was all you can eat, delicious (although dessert buffet outside of grilled pineapple was disappointing). so that was my first brazilian barbeque...there was a lot of quite bloody meat but i ate indiscriminately. threw in a a few chicken hearts for good measure.

i realize that work is rather boring for me. i thought at first that it was because i haven't been sleeping enough (which is true), but then i went to a nytimes article and miraculously woke up. apparently clinton campaign (can it still be called that?) is in some serious debt, that, and g8 decides that they should cut emissions.

Trying to outpost Daphne

in terms of text length. she is currently my one reader, (not that anybody else would care). one of my favorite parts about my work is the location. There are so many cool buildings...and with that I think I have topped Daphne for sure. This isn't really a cool building, but I liked playing with the colors

Tokyo!

I have been pretty bad about posting, but since I have a grand total of two people as my audience (and I am pretty sure that Gabe has forgotten by now) I think it wasn't missed.
My internship is pretty nice, the boss (社長) is an eccentric I think...I haven't actually met him. But he seems to run around collecting antiques. Everybody at work has different antique desk lamps. They look nice, but heat up pretty quickly and since mine is all metal, I have already burnt a few fingers trying to turn it off.
This whole week is getting to know the company week...pretty boring except when I talk to the boss directly above me. Everybody seems to have real work and is too busy to talk...but today I was sent to the company bookstore to check it out. It's in this funny pyramid shaped building. The picture is from the store, it's a pair of antique doors from China. There are also these funny statues from the Amazon and a Tibetan sculpture that apparently houses the bone of some pretty high ranking monk.
At the office, I have been stationed in the midst of the tech group. Funnily, this group is almost completely Chinese except for this one Japanese guy who is the connecting piece (since he speaks Chinese, Japanese, and English). I want to talk to them more! (and practice speaking Chinese...) but they always seem so busy doing their techie thing.

Internet at Homestay

I was going to be super cool like daphne and blog in Chinese, but that consumes too much energy so will stick to english for now. I am sitting on the steps outside of my homestay house right now as I write, it is the only place around the house that gives me consistent (fairly) wi-fi from annoymous benefactor "corega". The only downside is that here is no outlet, although I could extend my wire out from the window of my room (not as ridiculous as it sounds as I am located on the first floor and the window is about two feet away from me right now). I don't know how long I can keep this up though, my glowing screen is already attracting a fair number of bugs.

Things are going fairly well at homestay although my host mother is feeding me an odd assortment of food. Breakfast has included cheesy bread for the past two days. This is like garlic cheesy bread, toasty and crunchy, minus the garlic. That with jello and salad constituted my breakfast today. One memorable day last week she served me curry rice. It is all tasty in its place (except for the national love of mayonnaise which I cannot understand) just not for breakfast. My rule thus far has to been finish whatever she places before me though as she is quite nice and I wouldn't know how to reject it without being rude. (She has also been doing my laundry...and the explanation she gave, as far as I can understand, was basically that the drying racks are upstairs. I haven't been upstairs yet, so this sort of explanation gives rise to all sorts of images mostly involving illegal activities. for some reason I think of speak-easys even though alcohol is so easily accessible that that this particular concept is fairly far-fetched).