Just a few weeks ago I was extremely surprised to learn there is a monument to WIilliam Adams located just a few minutes from my workplace as I thought after nearly 40 years of life in Japan I thought I knew pretty much all there was to know about the Briton who was made a samurai and inspired a shogun. The monument to Adams, the first English person to go to Japan in the late 1t6th century, is tucked away between a couple of buildings in Nihonbashi, the central Tokyo district from which all distances in Japan are mentioned. Adams…
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Nothing really remotely related to the lyrics, except the hardenbergia has bloomed beautifully and I am loving the dainty violet flowers popping up in the garden. And I am even happier because I grew the flowers from seed, which is an accomplishment I had never imagined possible (despite its mundaneness), and one that brings immense delight. Work is a little bit crazy at the moment, and I am also supposed to be studying, so I have little time on my hands. Added to that, the new fiscal year starts today and for the next 12 months I will be serving…
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The fickle spring weather gods afforded me another day of cycling this morning, which allowed me to get out on the bike and take more photos of the cherry blossoms as they near their peak bloom. I got to head out on my bike on the usual morning route I take, and was rewarded with an essentially people-free view of some beautiful cherry trees in almost full bloom and looking pretty, well, cherry ripe! Areas less exposed to the sun are still to fully flower. Today’s forecast is for cloudy weather, and the rest of the week will be the…
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Cherry blossoms have started to bloom in Tokyo’s suburbs. For the most part, flowers have yet to reach peak bloom along my most-traversed part of the Tama River. But in some of the areas where the flowers are at their best, the view is lovely. It was a bonus to be able to see them in flower this morning as I had presumed the entire weekend to be a washout. It rained incessantly yesterday. It gave me time to do some much-needed study for work, which is paying me to take the course I’m doing. I should be putting in…
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After an interminably long wait, it finally got warm this week, prompting me to spring into action. It was hard to believe that just last week Tokyo got blasted with heavy snow. Short sleeves and shorts were the watchword, even for typically well-covered types such as Mrs. Kangaeroo. Even though she notoriously feels that anything under 35 degrees Celsius is cold, even Mrs. Kangaeroo was walking around on Friday night in short sleeves due to the delightfully warm weather. My aches and pains eased a little with the warmth, too, which made it a bit easier to be mobile. It…
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Blessed by sublime weather, I got to experience the delight of helping out a canicross–canine cross country–and spent the day being surrounded by literally hundreds of doggos, thse glorious little angels without wings. They were taking part in Dog Marathon 2025 Shonan Beach Canicross on Tsujido Beach in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture. There were four different races with owners running together with their pooches (at least in theory, as slogging it out on the beach is pretty touch work, even if you’ve got four legs, as would prove to be the case for many dogs). It was an absolute delight, though,…
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With the onset of spring, I finally took action and planted seeds in the hope of bringing more, longer-lasting flowers into the Aussie garden we call Kangaeroo Corner. I planted some banksia, grevillea and eucalypts, using a variety of different methods. I put seeds into growth pods in three types of planter box. Two of these were to be lit 24 hours, and the other left to get light when it could. Two were also soaked in water, and the third wettened, but essentially to remain dry. The seeds are supposed to sprout anywhere from one to three weeks from…
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After months of being covered up to ward off the cold, I spent the morning removing the insulating materials draped over our jacaranda tree, unleashing the tree beneath the bright spring sunshine in the hope that we will get a full blooming tree by the early summer. It was good to crack open the tree again after months of a huge bag dominating the garden and being an eysore for the neighborhood. In theory, covering the tree in insulation material over the winter will make it more likely to bloom in the summer. Our jacaranda bloomed in the first year…
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Spring in Tokyo is always a delight for me, particularly as I age and the cold makes it harder to get active and the winter seems to linger endlessly, but sometimes it’s hard to see the silver lining in the clouds and today is a case in point. I’ve got meetings all day today, so I got up early to head off on a quick ride to give myself some spark, but it was pouring rain. With my wet weather bike with disc brakes and thicker tires stolen, I don’t have an option to ride on days like today. So,…
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Kylie Minogue dazzled Tokyo on March 12 on a whirlwind trip as part of her global Tension Tour 2025. The evergreen Aussie singer thrilled the packed Ariake Arena in her first show in Japan for 14 years. She clearly enjoyed being around the Japanese crowd and thanked them for the huge support they gave her career by backing such hits as Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, I Should be So Lucky, The Loco-Motion and Turn It Into Love, a Japanese version of which reached No. 1 in Japan in 1988 when performed by Wink. Kylie is gorgeous, both…