Driving Home

When I don't have any particular plans after hours, I usually commute by car. I drive on a street that was used to shoot one of the very first scenes in the movie entitled Lost In Translation. Driving makes me just being back to myself, even after a bit crazy day like today..........

La Laisse

In the Chuo Line back home, I finished reading La Laisse by Françoise Sagan. I was surprised by the last showdown...it was totally unexpected to me.....

It is natural that you want to be with a person you adore. But what if loving someone doesn't mean you are with the person? Do you still love him/her? Do you still want to be with him/her? In that case, is that love after all?

The novel let me ponder over love in another dimension. I was left satisfied after reading the book. Each one of Sagan's work adds depths in my inner life....

It's so 80s!!

Sorry for being like a broken record, but I LOVE 80s music. This Gerge Micheal is so adorable, cool and cute...and so, so 80s!! I like the lyrics of this song so much. Anhow, he looked totally different from now....

Shinjuku--the World's Busiest Railway Station

I like the concenpts of "busy" and "centeral." Shinjuku Station, where I go every day, falls into these two categories perfectly. Somehow, after finishing shopping of contact lenses and cosmetics, I felt that I really liked Shinjuku Station while I was heading towards its south exit....

It is the world's busiest railway station -- about 3.5 million people use it each day. I am one of them. A few years ago, I ran into Mr. Seiji Ozawa, an internationally renowned conductor, in an escalator of Shinjuku Station!! I was amazed, but didn't forget to ask him if he is really Mr. Ozawa and shook hands with him.

Of course, it's exhausting to walk through the crowds, but I love the hustle and bustle of the big city. Shinjuku Station, to me, is the charismatic core of this megalopolis.

Preview of Tokyo Midtown!

There have been new development projects in Tokyo in recent years -- the Roppongi Hills, Maru Building Renovation, the Omotesando Hills, and the latest one, the Tokyo Midtown, will open this coming Friday, March 30.

Using the land where the Defence Agency was formerly built, the Tokyo Midtown is a compound of shops, offices and residents. My friend and I went to its preview tonight. We were impressed by the world-class restaurants....the Union Square Hospitality Group, which runs fine restaurants in New York City such as Tabla (which I LOVE:) and the Eleven Madison Park, both were actually used to shoot some scenes of the popular drama Sex and the City, will open its first restaurant outside Manhattan here in the Tokyo Midtown!!

So, here we went to its opening reception (see picture: from left, myself, Union Square Hospitality Group's President and CEO Mr. Danny Mayer, Executive Chef Mr. Michael Romano, and my friend Charlotte. )

Our collective impression was that the Tokyo Midtown looked like built after learning lessons from other projects stated above. I mean, the Roppongi Hills seems to be built in an intentionally complicated way, sort of...and Maru Building is ok, but not really interesting...the worst is the Omotesando Hills....I think its land was just too narrow for a structure like the Guggenheim Museum.

The Tokyo Midtown looked like a fabulous place to walk around, eat and shop...even Seven Eleven was cool (see picture)...All I need is a gorgeous guy to hang out with.....:<<

Bruce Springsteen - Born In The USA

And this was also one of the music, a song about underprivileged Americans...

I love Music in the 80s!

It seems that ANA does quite good marketing research...its inflight entertainment was excellent! Especially music in the 80s...this was played as the first song with Japanese subtitles in a flight bound for JFK.

Just for the Weekend

I went to the other side of the planet just for the weekend. Some people say it's crazy, but you know what, it was FABULOUS...I saw my friend Anna from the journalism school in NY (see picture), and enjoyed much more....:)

The Significance of Reading Originals

Today is my father's birthday. I drove to my home and delivered a little gift to him. Then my parents and I went for dinner. Our conversation drifted about many subjects and went ashore on French literature.

"I couldn't understand why La Petit Prince is supposed to be a masterpiece," I said to my dad.

"Well, that's because the translation was not good." His voice was very confident.

"Then, if I read it in French, I could appreciate its value?"

"Absolutely."

When he was young, my dad attended an extremely intensive boot camp to learn French and other expertise needed for his work. He actually mastered French in six months -- read
L'Etranger by Albert Camus in original then.

I recently managed to purchase all Japaneses translations of my all-time favorite writer Françoise Sagan's work at online used book shops. The translations' publisher somehow made many of those out of print recently. I don't understand why they made such a decision. But this led me to take her work actually all the more seriously.......

Right now, I've been reading La Laisse. It's a story about a up-and-coming musician and his rich and beautiful wife. She isn't quite happy about his new success, and that affects their marriage. Not to mention my dad's opinion, I would much better appreciate the novel if I could read it in original.

Mmmm.... I should start learning French again....perhaps in April.

Unpredictable.....and Exciting Karma?

I've been feeling like trapped in certain karma.....good and bad mixed...and sure it's somewhat exciting.......

Last Monday night, I had nice food at a reception. But during the midnight, I gradually began to feel sick, and finally threw up really hard (sorry!!) After waking up on Tuesday morning, I still felt not well and decided to take a leave.

I completely lost appetite and almost had fast for the past few days. I got ok enough to go to work finally today.

Two to three cups of coffee are usually my day's starter. But today I would rather have hot green tea. So, I went to the ground floor and tried to buy a can of tea. When I put a 100 yen coin, the vending machine didn't respond. So, I inserted another 100 yen coin, which showed a "100" figure sign. As the tea was 120 yen, I put a 50 yen coin, and pushed the button. A can of tea came, but only 30 yen change.

"Gosh....." It's a bit less than one dollar, but I was uncomfortable with the fact that the machine sort of stole the first 100 yen. I called Coca Cola Japan's office, and explained about this. Soon a person who is in charge of this particular vending machine called me back.

"We're sorry, but we come to your building only on Tuesdays. I'll bring you 100 yen next Tuesday -- would that be ok with you?"

What if I say no.......well, I said, "OK." Then I gave him directions to my office and said, "See you on Tuesday."

As I got back to work, I tried to print out some materials. But the printer didn't function at all. I asked my colleague at the computer office to fix the problem. She always does a great job. And you know what, as soon as she came and moved the printer only a little bit, it began to work....

Well, meanwhile, good karma was going on as well. Somehow I remembered my old friend from college, who is a publishing agent and helped my book to be translated into Chinese and published in Taiwan, sent me the premium but not the Chinese version itself.

I suddenly wanted to see the book....so, I sent her an email, but it bounced back. Then I wrote to a fellow Fulbrighter in Taiwan and asked him to buy a copy and send it to me. He wrote back so quickly -- from China, surprisingly. He is a financial manager for the largest tea company in China. Wow. He is a very bright Wharton School grad, so no wonder having such a hot job! Anyhow, his friend in Taiwan will take care of this, thank God!

And then just tonight, another old friend from college who lost in touch for the past few years suddenly wrote to me, saying "Kei-chan (my nickname among college buddies) -- is this email of yours still functioning?" God, she is so funny....she doesn't even say "How are you?"

Well......it seems like that something exciting in many levels is being conveyed to my world, under this unpredictable weather of early spring.