I started helping out Australian professor Jim Breen with his "edict" online Japanese-English dictionary in about 1989 when it had less than 3,000 entries. It has more than 230,000 now. In all the intervening years we'd met in real life only once, about 15 years ago, so I was very happy to meet him for lunch today as he finishes up a long hiking vacation in Japan.

He mentioned an interest in Yuba, so I knew the perfect spot, Junsei Okabeya (清水順正 おかべ家), which I wrote about several years ago here.

It's near the Kiyomizu Temple, so I went there [...]

The other day I got to participate in a relaxing countryside tour in the city of Otsu, next to Kyoto. The tour company, Tour du Lac Biwa ("Lake Biwa Tours"), specializes in unique experiences of things not generally open to the public (even to Japanese) combined with countryside food and hospitality, all presented in English.

この間、面白い事できました。このヴィデオ（NHKより）は簡単に説明します。

When I've gone on tours by them in the past (including this, this, this, and this) it's usually been as a "test foreigner" to give them feedback as they design their tours, and to share my photos with them. It's a symbiotic relationship, where [...]

I haven't posted anything in a week, or even read email in a week, because I've been working on some new software projects.

The lack of externally-visible productivity (sorry if you've written and I've not responded) is not because I bought a new bicycle, but while we're on the subject, BTW, I did buy a new bicycle. 🙂

This is a long article written mostly for my own memory. I won't feel bad if you don't read it all

The Old Bike

If you've seen any of my many cycling posts, you'll know that since I started cycling earlier [...]

Finally getting around to finishing Day 1 of "Bridget and Sarah's Tour-de-Kyoto", after Part 1 and Part 2 last week.

After many flats and a nice visit to a rural temple, we headed south toward Kyoto...

My favorite little secret restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Clicking on "nearby photos" above shows the many times I've posted from here.

The girls were starving and were finished with their curry before the photo above had finished writing to the camera memory card.

On the way home after lunch, we stopped by Kyoto’s Nasty 21% city-bike hill climb, which Bridget hit with [...]

I stopped by NORU Kyoto today, which reopened after a summer hiatus. I'd mentioned them last May in "Discovering Kyoto’s Wonderful Toji-in Temple on a Tour with NORU".

I picked up a nice quick-dry T-shirt from Morvélo, a British cycling brand.

I think that NORU is the only place to get them in Japan, though I suppose you could get them directly from the company if you didn't mind paying more plus shipping.

It's much more expensive than the 500-yen Uniqlo T's that I wrote about three years ago, but also much more comfortable and stylish. The price is on [...]