Who knew cute tights at three pairs for 1000 yen were as close as the Ayase Hills mall?? JUST what my wardrobe needed to suffer through this freezing weather and transition from winter to spring colors: grey argyle, sheer plum with stars, skulls and crossbones, and of course black with pink roses. Kawaii!!!
Tight With Winter
The Cure for What Ails You
The entire world was covered in rain clouds when we looked at the worldwide weather map this weekend. Bleak. What a time for a three day weekend. By Presidents Day we decided we’d had enough so we pulled on rain boots, braced our umbrellas into the wind and headed off for Enoshima Island. EnoSpa is…
Plum Crazy
Like clockwork, the weather flipped with the calendar page. All of January had just one rainy day (coincidentally, it was the day of Root Canal Procedure Part 2). February first marked the beginning of more or less two straight weeks of freezing rain. This is especially obnoxious because Chris just completed his strenuous Helicopter Aircraft…
Cafe Ko-Ba
Tired of Japanese food? Wishing a crusty loaf of bread would come your way? A snug, sort-of Northern European-style lunch is only a Cafe Ko-Ba away! My lunch set (the no.2 pan set, 990 yen) included the above tea and the below salad, bread and sausages. The mushroom and ham pasta is topped with seaweed…
Bamboo: Friend of Winter
One time I was trying to get somewhere faster and thought, “I bet this is a shortcut!” I ended up on a freeway on the Scoop lost for the better part of an hour. I will be lost forever! I thought. I will become a ghost on a ghost Scoop, doomed to wander the back…
Lost in Translation—North Africa
A couple summers ago my sister Hannah and I sailed across the Straights of Gibraltar from Tarifa, Spain to some town in Morocco where we rode a camel for a dollar. We stayed in the colorful Hotel Tarik that included: a nice view, dinner, bugs to chomp you in your sleep. We watched the sun…
Early Plum Blossom Tour—This Way!
Thank you for joining us today on this early season plum blossom tour! Let’s explore Yokohama’s Sankeien Garden. I thought this was the first weekend of the garden’s plum blossom festival…turns out that starts next weekend, with koto music on Sundays and everything. Le sigh. Oh well. Little plum blossoms were still starting to peep…