I finally caught a glimpse of the snake of Arisugawa Park. I've heard several eyewitness accounts of the snake, but never seen it myself, despite all the time I've spent there while walking Taffy. Today I was walking through the park and had stopped by the pond at the bottom of the hill to take in the scene. There were the usual fishermen casting their lines into the pond. Our resident egret was wading in the water as a bright orange carp glided by. Then I heard a strange call from one of the jungle crows. I looked up to see the bird attacking a snake! The snake was about 4-5 feet long and curled up on some thin branches of a tree. The crow had grabbed the snake's tail in its beak and was pulling on it with all his might. Another crow joined in the attack. The snake began to jab its head at one crow, then the other. This went on for a few seconds and as the crows changed positions some of the thin branches the snake was resting on began to crack, then broke off altogether, sending the snake hurtling to the ground. I watched with fascination, making a mental note of thanks that I hadn't been walking under that branch when it gave way. The snake slithered away underneath some bushes near the pond and the crows gave up the attack. It was a remarkable scene to be witness to -- I was amazed no one else in the park took notice.

I received the video tape of my Japanese TV appearance today. What a riot it was to watch it. A wonderful unique souvenir to bring home with us.

In all the excitement between my TV appearance and winning the car I forgot to mention that we took a very nice daytrip to Matsumoto on Friday. It took 2 hours 40 minutes to get there by train from Shinjuku -- a nice comfortable ride. Matsumoto is the gateway to the Japanese Alps and we were just able to make out the shapes of the mountains through the mist. Matsumoto is home to one of the few remaining original castles in Japan. The castle is known as Carasu-jo or Crow Castle because of the black walls. It's quite an imposing view. We climbed the steps to all six floors and have the sore muscles to prove it. The steps were rather tall and steep in some places. We also made a trip to the Ukiyo-e museum and saw a wonderful exhibit of woodblock prints by Hiroshige. These prints were different from others we've seen so far -- on each print was depicted three, four or sometimes five different scenes. What a treat it was to see these original prints, just a small portion of the huge collection held by the museum. Also picked up an interesting item in the gift shop -- a fold-out map of 53 stages of the Tokaido with small depictions of each print on the series. A perfect companion to our collection of those prints. Between the castle and the museum we wandered around town, stopped into several interesting craft shops, had lunch in a quirky ramen shop with a rock and roll theme (one of their specials was called "Yellow Submarine", the other was "Brawn [sic] Sugar", and bought some black sesame butter in the Parco department store. Michiko says I can add it to vanilla ice cream to make that exotic flavor I've come to love.

Smart Car

I still can't believe it but we have won a car in a raffle. Brad bought three raffle tickets for a high-profile fundraising raffle for Nishimachi International School. We received the unofficial notice this weekend that we won the top prize -- a smart car from Mercedes. I say "unofficial" notice, because the news was relayed to us by one of Brad's employees whose kids attend Nishimachi. We should get the official notice on Monday. Brad doesn't want to tell anyone yet till we get through all the inevitable red tape, but the plain and simple fact is that we won the car. It's actually kind of ugly and is in a hideous lime green color, but in a way I kinda like it. If all goes well and we can get Mercedes to ship the thing for us, it will be my car once we're in the UK. If there are problems with shipping the car, then we'll likely sell it and use the proceeds to buy a car once we arrive in the UK.

I don't know what's wrong with Blogger. It won't let me publish my posts anymore. Until I can get this problem fixed I'll continue to post my entries and try to publish them later. Here is my entry for April 9 that I was not able to publish on that date.

Wednesday April 9: Almost Famous

Yowza! I appeared on Japanese TV this morning. I sang the first stanza of an American folk song, "Go tell Aunt Rhodie". Why would I sing that song, you might ask. Because they asked me to. Okay, here's what happened. I was walking through Arisugawa Park when I was approached by a reporter and a cameraman from Fuji TV. They asked me to listen to a song on a boom box. I put the headphones on and heard what I recognized to be an American folk song, but could not recall the title. I thought maybe Woody Guthrie was the artist and told the Fuji TV guys as much. They seemed confused by that. I reiterated that it was an American Folk Song. Then they whipped out the CD brochure and showed me the title and lyrics to the song, "Go Tell Aunt Rhodie". That was when they asked me to sing it. At first I declined, then when they started to beg, I relented and sang. When all was said and done, I couldn't believe I had agreed to sing that song! I asked them when the clip would air and they told me on Monday at 6 a.m. I set my VCR to tape Fuji TV from 6-7 a.m. on Monday morning, but did not see the clip. So I just figured they decided not to use it. On Wednesday morning one of the fellows in Brad's office reported that he had seen me on Fuji TV! He said the song in question had actually been adopted by Japanese and transformed, with Japanese lyrics, into a children's song. I'm going to see if I can get ahold of a tape of the that show. Certainly would be a unique souvenir to bring home.

Days to Remember

Yesterday was Astro Boy's birthday. Astro Boy, or Atom, as he is known in Japan was the creation of manga (comic book) artist Osamu Tezuka. The flying boy-robot made his debut in comic books in 1952 and was seen in the 60s in cartoon form on Japanese TV. Astro boy's popularity is on the rise again: a new TV series has just begun running on Fuji TV. The story line in the original manga maintains that Astro Boy was created on April 7, 2003. There was a parade in Tokyo over the weekend to commemorate the event.

Today is Buddha's birthday, celebrated as Hana Matsuri or Flower Festival. Buddhist temples all over Japan are holding ceremonies in honor of Buddha. We attended one last year. We witnessed an outdoor service that featured mesmerizing chanting and music performed by monks at Zojoji. After the service, devotees lined up in front of a small statue of Buddha placed on a platform under a flower-covered awning. Each person took a turn ladling sweet tea over the statue, a symbol of purification. The tea is made from hydrangea leaves.

Today is also my and Brad's eighth anniversary. Brad had planned to take the day off so we could take a day trip from Tokyo. Our destination would have been Nikko Edo Mura, a Samurai theme park. But Brad had to work, so now we'll celebrate with dinner at Blue Sky, a wonderful Chinese restaurant that revolves atop the New Otani Hotel giving a panoramic view of Tokyo.

It is cold and rainy and windy and downright dreary today. I'm bummed, cause it's the weekend and I wanted to get out and explore more of Tokyo, but we are just hanging around the apt. It's too damned miserable outside to do anything. We'd be soaked to the bone even in a short walk to the subway station. I'm getting antsy now that we have only weeks left in Tokyo. There are so many items on our list of things to do and see and the time is just dwindling away...

Last weekend Brad and I went Yokohama for the second time since we've been here. This time our destination was Sankei-en, a large garden on the outskirts of town. The garden is on the site of the estate of Sankei Hara a wealthy silk merchant. Like so many of the gardens in Japan, the landscaping is breathtaking. On the grounds of the garden are several minka or Japanese farm houses. The minka were relocated from Kyoto and Kamakura and rebuilt and integrated into the landscaping of Sankei-en. The park is said to have scores of cherry trees and that was the reason we decided to go there, but we were a bit early for the blossoms. Strange since the trees in Tokyo were reaching their peak at about the same time. There was even a sakura (cherry blossom) festival planned for the weekend at Sankei-en. Despite the shy blooms, the festival went on as scheduled. We were treated to a half-hour performance of Japanese folk dancing and drama, the highlight of which was a shishimai (lion dance) performance. I've been wanting to see a shishimai ever since we moved here and now at least I can tick that off my list of things to see.