Tokyo is full of wonderful small museums and recently I visited two of them. Yesterday, Brad and I went to the Fukugawa Edo Museum. The museum, which can easily be done in a half hour, consists of an accurate life-size reproduction of a 19th-century neighborhood in Edo (the old name for Tokyo). The exhibit includes rooms you can walk around in (you must take your shoes off to enter the tatami rooms), sound effects (a cat on the roof periodically wails a plaintive meoooowww), lighting effects (while we were there we witnessed a dreamy sunset and an abrupt sunrise) and a bit of humor (there is a dog relieving himself on the watchtower). After visiting the museum we strolled through the nearby Kiyosumi Gardens. Located on the site of a feudal lord's estate, the gardens are beautifully landscaped and contain a man-made pond filled with water from the Sumida river. We saw lots of birds by the pond, added the black-crowned night heron to our list, but are still trying to identify a little duck with red markings on his head. We rounded off the outing with delicious bowls of steaming Ramen (chinese noodle soup).

On Friday, I went to the Showa-kan with K.C. and Michiko. This museum, concerned with Japan during and immediately following WWII, contains a wonderful collection of artifacts, everyday objects and printed materials from the Showa period. (Much of Japanese history is divided into periods designated by the name of the ruling Emperor. Hirohito is known as the Showa emperor.)

Today I accepted the position of website coordinator with CWAJ. I'm not sure what my duties will entail, but at least I'll be getting more experience working on websites. Hopefully they'll be open for a redesign -- I think it needs it badly.

Taffy seems to be having more and more trouble walking these days. She stumbled and fell down several times today. Once it was just a loud noise on the street that knocked her off her feet. Poor puppy . . . I'm not sure what else we can do for her.

I saw someone wearing a Bin Laden t-shirt today. He was jogging on the baseball field near our house. Almost the entire front of the t-shirt was taken up with a color photo of UBL's ugly mug. There was a black and white image on the back of the shirt. I tried to get a look at the face of the t-shirt wearer, but never did. I wanted to see if I could tell what nationality he was . . . Japanese, Middle Eastern, whatever. Not sure what difference it would have made. The shock I felt when I saw the the t-shirt took me by surprise. I guess I've been feeling fairly removed from the anti-American sentiments that exist quite strongly in other parts of the world. It was just a small statement of support that I witnessed, but it made me feel angry . . . and a little bit vulnerable.

I've become involved with another volunteer women's organization: The College Women's Association of Japan. This organization has a totally different focus and membership than DigitalEve Japan. CWAJ's main mission is to provide scholarships, mostly for Japanese women who would like to study overseas. They also promote cultural interaction. The membership are generally older women half of whom are Japanese; the other half a mixture of non-Japanese nationalities. DE-J has free membership and members can elect to volunteer for the organization. CWAJ membership is ¥10,000 (roughly $US100) per year and every member must take part in some kind of volunteer activity. I almost got roped into becoming their newsletter editor, but I wiggled out of that. I just didn't want to get bogged down with a print publication. I'm hoping I'll be able to help out on their website instead. They have many special interest groups, one of which is called women.com. They meet on a monthly basis to go over basic computer-related topics -- it's aimed at beginner users. There is also a reading group in which I'm very interested. I'm wishing I had joined this group earlier . . . now that our time is running short and with all the traveling we'll be doing soon, I will miss out on a lot of the CWAJ events.

I picked up our airline tickets for China today, plus we received all our final itinerary and tour/hotel vouchers from our travel agent today. Wow. I can't believe that in two short weeks we will be on our way to China. We've been planning this trip for a long time and somehow it hasn't felt real yet. It's beginning to now.

We will spend three and a half days in Beijing (including a trip to the Great Wall), then hop on an overnight sleeper train to Xian. We'll be in Xian for two days and get a chance to visit the terracotta warriors. From Xian we catch a plane to Chonqing. We spend one night in Chongqing and then board a boat for a three-day cruise on the Yangtze River. The cruise brings us to Wuhan, where we're immediately whisked away to the airport for a flight to Shanghai. After two full days in Shanghai we'll head back home to Tokyo. Whew. Sounds like we will be packing in a lot of sights for the two weeks we'll be away.

I hope I'll be able to find Internet access while on the road so I can make entries in this blog.

Yesterday Brad and I had a nice day ambling through Asakusa. It was crowded, as it oftentimes is, but maybe more so as this is a long weekend. (Today is another national holiday -- autumnal equinox day.) We strolled down the Nakamise and did a little bit of shopping (it's so hard to resist the colorful and whimsical wares for sale), Brad nibbled on freshly baked Kaminari-okoshi (rice crackers), while I munched on a sesame ningyo-yaki (a sweet bean cake) from my favorite vendor. Everytime we go to Asakusa we notice something new. While wandering near the main temple, we came across what looked like a monument to pigeons. There was a statue with several cast-bronze pigeons. Next to the statue was a booth where a vendor was selling birdseed. You can imagine the mob of pigeons attracted by people who were throwing the bird seed. A little girl picked up a pigeon in her hands as grandma snapped her photo. People were walking around with pigeons on their shoulders. It reminded me a bit of St. Mark's Square in Venice. I got close enough to snap some photos, but certainly didn't want any of those birds perching on my shoulder!

Today is a Japanese national holiday: Respect for the Aged Day. I don't really know what is done to observe this holiday. Most office workers have the day off, banks are closed, but stores and most other businesses that offer a public service are open. It's been a dull dreary rainy day. Brad had to go in to work -- he works on Japanese national holidays, but is off on American holidays. I've been catching up on the laundry and email.

This has been a weekend of mikoshi processions. Mikoshi are portable Shinto shrines, some of which are very heavy and elaborately decorated, sporting a gilt phoenix on top. Mikoshi, which are paraded through the streets of various neighborhoods during festivals, are said to house the spirit of a local deity during the procession. The local people who carry the mikoshi are dressed in traditional clothing that is modelled after costumes worn by firefighters from the Edo period (1600-1867).

Some mikoshi processions are attended by hundreds of people. This weekend we witnessed small processions. We had decided to go shopping in Naka-meguro, a neighborhood we recently discoverd while attending another summertime festival. We saw some men mounting what looked like a miniature mikoshi on a platform. They told us the procession would start at 1 p.m. We hung around to see it and discovered why the mikoshi was so small -- it was carried by a group of small children. They were just so cute. As I snapped a few photos one of the little boys helping to carry the shrine kept looking directly at me. He must have thought I was someone important -- the only westerner in the crowd taking photos. The other photographers were friends and family members, I'm sure. We also saw prepartions being made for a procession in Hiroo, the neighborhood at the bottom of our hill. Yet another procession made its way directly past our apt. building.

About a year ago to this very minute, Brad and I were awakened by a phone call. We turned on the TV to witness the terrible events that began to unfold. I remember sitting on the sofa in total horror and disbelief. I remain horrified and in disbelief in the aftermath of those events. I can't believe a year has past since the terrorist attacks against the U.S. I can't believe that our country is now poised to wage war against Iraq. Will we never learn the lessons of the past? Will we not learn when we see the evidence before our eyes in the Middle East, Northern Ireland, the Basque region of Spain . . .

Violence only begets violence. How can we allow ourselves to be caught up in the vicious cycle of revenge.

I have to believe there is another way.

Cabin Fever! That's what I've got now. Trying to stay off my feet so my toe can heal, so I haven't ventured outside at all this weekend, except to pick up some videos on Saturday morning. I watched Gosford Park (excellent, though I had a bit of trouble keeping up with the dialogue, what with all those British accents), Cast Away (it was okay -- schmaltzy ending) and Gladiator (fascinating despite all the grotesque violence. I think Joaquin Phoenix did a terrific job and Russell Crowe wasn't half bad either!).

Can't believe the news out of Germany this weekend -- two suspected terrorists arrested in Walldorf, near where we used to live in Ketsch. The woman worked at the Heidelberg Commissary, which is a new facility that opened up after we left. Was so odd to see the shots of Campbell Barracks on BBC World News.

Ouch! I stubbed my little toe yesterday on the vacuum cleaner and it really hurts! I was in the middle of cleaning the apt. and didn't want to quit so I finished up the vacuuming. By the time I was done the base of my toe was swollen and had begun to bruise. I think I may even have broken it. There's not much you can do for a broken toe except put ice on it, keep it elevated, tape it up and stay off your feet as much as possible for the first few days. Which is what I'm trying to do now. I will have to take the puppy out for a walk though. Of course today it's raining like a mad man. We'll make quite the pair, the two of us hobbling about in the rain.

The vet came on Tuesday to remove Taffy's stitches. Taffy trembled the whole time Dr. Tanabe examined her, but was an excellent patient nonetheless. He also brought the test results for the lump that was removed. It's a "fibrosarcoma"; the sarcoma part means it was malignant. There is a 25% chance the malignancy could spread to her lungs. There is an even greater chance that another lump could form. The only thing we can do now is keep an eye on her and try to maintain her health. She's been doing really well lately. She's been perky during the day, but lazy at night and in the early morning when she needs to be coaxed to go outside.

Today Brad and I went back to Shimo-kitazawa for a shopping excursion. It's a funky little neighborhood with an interesting mix of boutiquey shops and traditional stores. We found a few antiques stores that had a great selection of items at reasonable prices. We bought a wooden cabinet that will be delivered this Thursday. We believe the cabinet is designed for preparing and serving tea serving. It has a few drawers a long shelf and a recessed section where a hibachi is placed for heating up the tea water.

One of our favorite things to do in the Tokyo area is to visit antique markets, usually held on the grounds of Shinto shrines. Yesterday, we went to one that was one of the nicest we've seen during our two years in Tokyo. It was held at Tomioka Hachiman-gu a shrine near Kayabacho that appears to be known for its annual mikoshi festival. There must have been at least a hundred dealers there selling a wonderful variety of antiques and collectibles and many of the prices were quite fair! It's fun just to look but I picked up a few items this time that I'm quite happy with: a silk (or silk-like??) happi coat for ¥500 (about $4.20) [for that price, I don't care if it isn't real silk -- it's quite lovely, solid black with a white crest on the back and a cream colored lining with a delicate pattern in gray], a carved wooden mold with a shrimp design for ¥1,500 ($12.65) [I've been collecting the wooden molds, used for making Japanese sweet cakes, ever since I spotted one at the first shrine sale I went to], a blue glass marble bottle for ¥800 ($6.75) [at the turn of the 20th century bottles used to be sealed with a marble] and a delightfully frightful clay mask for ¥1,000 ($8.45).

In the afternoon, I met up with Kaori, a Japanese woman I met through DigitalEve. We were chatting at one of the DigitalEVEnings and discovered that we live very close to each other, so made plans to get together. She invited me to join her at Frawbow, a Chinese tea parlor that is about a 10-minute walk from my apt. Kaori speaks excellent English (having lived for many years in Manhattan -- she used to work for the American Museum of Natural History) and was able to help me with the menu. She is a regular at the tea parlor and we chatted with the tea servers and the shop owner. It was a blazingly hot afternoon, but it was cool, calm and relaxing inside the tea parlor. Floor to ceiling shelves held beautifully decorated tins of custom-blended tea. We sat at a wooden counter that wrapped itself around the tea preparation area. I ordered a snack set: Lychee tea, a chinese pork bun and pumpkin pudding. Kaori had another kind of tea and a chocolate cake. Everything was delicious and the presentation was exquisite. As we nibbled on our tasty treats, the tea servers prepared several different kinds of tea for us to sample. Each tea was served in a different style tea cup. I'd love to go back there again, but I'll need Kaori's help in navigating the menu.