Final Dawn of 2010! It was a very good year!

As I sit on the upstairs tatami floor of my in-laws ice box house, the sun is rising over western Japan and the rest of Asia for the final time in 2010. It has been a fine year for us. Of course there has been the downside as well, most notably the passing of my sister-in-law at much too young an age, also my “big brother” cousin passed without being able to say good bye.
In reflection, I realized that of the 44 New Years that have transpired in my adult life I have spent 21 of them abroad. Of these, 2010 was a year of major change for us as I left my job before it completely dried up due to a lack of students. Now I find myself a masterless samurai, “ronin”, in quest of new teaching adventures.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, in which I said farewell to my political activism stage and quit my old Twitter account, we all experience stages in our lives. In my case, I realized that it was well past time to put aside some vices that were no longer appropriate for a man of my years. I see far too many folks my age and even younger that have allowed habit to make them unhealthy and unhappy. Mind you, I am not going to become an evangelist for sobriety, fitness and nutrition, and I fully realize were I 30 years younger I would still be asleep and would be hungover when I did get up; after all, it is the New Year holiday weekend.
This was a very rare year in which I was successful in my resolution to lose weight down to 75 kilos. I need to be more disciplined in 2011 and explore the physical limits of a body that wants to surrender to the law of inertia. Never give up, never surrender. Bushido!
This won’t be my final post of the year, but is the final major post. Later I will post pictures from our final 16+ hours of 2010. I wish you all a healthy and prosperous New Year.

Kanmon Bridge

Kanmon Bridge
Originally uploaded by osiodhachan

This Kanmon Staits Bridge that connects Honshu with Kyushu at Shimonoseki and Kitakyushu City. Cold and grey, but still very picturesque. Eating at a cafe with this view.

Bullet train interior

Bullet train interior
Originally uploaded by osiodhachan

For my followers who live abroad, this is the interior of a Nozomi Shinkansen (Bullet train). We just passed Mt. Fuji on the West side, Tokyo Bay on the East. Very smooth ride.

"Over the River and Though The Woods"

Today, Monday before the New Year’s holidays is trip prep day for us. From tomorrow I will be doing some mobile blogging and Tweeting from the in-laws I southern Honshu. They will see their grandson for the first time in 14 years. I know, my wife and I should be flogged for not visiting them since we came back from “that country”. The cost has been almost prohibitive as it costs more to go there than to go to Los Angeles. It appears that granddad is “sweating” his return; we got a very rare telephone call from them last night checking on our plans.
I would normally look forward to a bullet train trip, but not with luggage and definitely not over the crazed “Shogatsu” holidays when the trains run at 120% capacity. Cold prevention gauze masks are de rigeur . I am looking forward to getting some good photo ops and some “different” victuals from my mother-in-law’s kitchen.
So if you are so inclined, make sure you click on my links on Twitter that mention a blog post. Don’t you know that 140 characters just don’t get it on special occasions and in my book, everyday is special.

Christmas Japanese Sweets

Christmas Japanese Sweets
Originally uploaded by osiodhachan

"Wagashi" or Japanese sweets can be charming as well as sweet! These are special for the season. Best wishes for a happy Christmas!

Buckwheat noodles in curry soup

Buckwheat noodles in curry soup
Originally uploaded by osiodhachan

"Soba" is buckwheat noodles and a favorite of mine. This is from a shop on the bypass in Tateyama. It's one of several "mom & pop" shops that I love to visit.

"Mom and Pop" shops a vanishing treasure.

The year seems determined to finish as its has presented itself so far, unseasonably warm. Yesterday we made the 2 plus hour trek to Makuhari, between Chiba and Tokyo, to see the movie “Tron”. After the movie, which exceeded my expectations and introduced me to the music of Daf Punk, we had coffee al fresco on the patio of a little Italian restaurant,”Pinocchio”, in the outlet mall next to Makuhari station. The pleasure of having a civilized coffee outdoors in December is hard to measure, especially considering that one of my Twitter friends in Miami was complaining about the cold. Today, so far, the weather has been fabulous with flowers that normally bloom in Spring bursting forth. This strange weather could play havoc with the seasonal trade in flowers in nearby Shirahama. Normally tours from Tokyo and Yokohama come here by bus after the New Year holidays to pick flowers along the beach(and strawberries behind our house). If the flowers bloom too soon and then get hit by a normal cold spell it could be a very disappointing ride for the senior set.
Recently I have re-discovered the joy of avoiding the 2 nearby “super” markets to patronize some of the locally owned specialty shops, a meat market, a fish mongers.
In this area it is almost needless to use the term “mom and pop” to describe any shop that isn’t part of a regional or national chain. There are many shops that have closed their shutters for good for various reasons, primarily old age and competition away from the center of town on the major “bypass”. It is sad that the personal attention, friendliness and service that these “mom and pop” run stores provide will soon be a faint memory.
In a few minutes, my son and I will take advantage of this fine weather to have some wonderful buckwheat noodles at a local, you guessed it, “mom and pop”, soba shop.

Christmas Hearts.

IMG_0632
Originally uploaded by toshihide.sato

I'm taking the opportunity afforded by the arrival of a great seasonal photo on Flickr by Toshihide Sato to try out posting to this blog directly from Flickr. If it works as hoped, it should be a great way to quickly blog pictures, a welcome alternative to Tweeter.
If you have time you should visit Toshi's photo stream. He has some very nice night photography going on there and autumn foliage in Kyoto.
Let's see how this works.

From JFK to Obama; why I'm done.

It’s no secret that we go through stages in life, most of them segue seamlessly; yet we all have climactic moments that we can pinpoint; the birth of a child, death of a loved one, war. We also have currents that run throughout our lives, our passions, our fears and hopes. I have been a political animal, espouser of causes, a would-be world saver since my senior year in high school when I attended a campaign rally for John Kennedy and had the great fortune to meet him and Mrs Kennedy. I spent part of one, long, very hot summer during university in Montgomery, Alabama much to the distress of my mother. Those were exciting times and you could almost feel a change was coming, not the current “change” of a glib, charming charlatan.
Recently, I’ve made some major lifestyle changes best characterized by the country western icon Willie Nelson when queried as to why he quit drinking; “I got sick and tired of waking up feeling sick and tired.” I have had more lucid moments in the last 3 months than in the last 20 years. There were several events during the summer that formed a perfect storm for a new stage and I realized what I could do to make my life more harmonious.
As I look at world events over the past 50 years I feel that all my involvement, all the arguing with conservatives, all the ranting on Twitter and even the tear gas inhaled has basically come to naught. We all preach to our own choirs and seldom sway opinion. The truth is that I don’t want to waste anymore time trying to save the world. I’ll leave that to the “bright-eyed and bushy tailed”-as we were called by our wonderful civics teacher my senior year in high school.
It’s time now to be at peace for the rest of my life, enjoying my passions for music, baseball, food, prose and poetry. Of course, I mean my own personal peace. I have little hope for humanity to stop doing what it has done since the first human cracked open the skull of another.
So I have decided to retire my “political” Twitter account, @GGMMX, to concentrate on blog posts. Twitter has introduced me to some great folks and I hope they will continue to follow me on my protected, non-political account and/or read my blog. The caveat being, if you start ranting about politics or religion, you are gone! So, if you are a campaigner or activist, I wish you more success than those who have gone before you and I urge you not to darken my door.

New Year's Priorities!

We are now just  2 weeks from the end of another year and time to start contemplating what one would like to accomplish in the coming year. I got a late start on my "resolution" for this year, but have managed to lose a significant amount of weight; thanks mainly to my wife's cooking and co-operation. But, let's put this year to rest and ramble on about next year.

I feel that I need to Twitter less and blog more. I mean, after all, wasn't the original idea behind "web logs", to express yourself, share ideas, recipes, .etc with those who find they share your interests. I can't promise you that every post will have pictures of Japanese food. In fact that is the purpose of my Tumblr photo blog which has a link on this very page. I intend to revert to the original web log concept. When something worth sharing occurs I will share it here. I intend to completely eschew politics and world affairs. I have had my fill.

My goal for the coming year is to learn to sew. My wife is quite a talented seamstress and she has already deigned to teach me. I hope to be making my own shirts by this time next year. I'm already on a learning project to take 4 inches out of the waist and seat of an old pair of jeans. I told you I lost a significant amount of weight. This brings to the front my primary goal of maintaining the lifestyle I have adopted over the last three months.

Resolutions made on new year's eve often fade quickly from memory. So, maybe we should just call it "prioritizing".

I will post another blog about  closing my main Twitter account soon.