I applied to renew my visa to stay in Japan, today. That means that we've been here almost three years now, which on top of the 8 years I spent when I was just out of college, adds up to making me feel old. 🙂

What a difference it is dealing with Japan's version of the INS compared with the American version (now called something I can never remember and thankfully, no longer need to).

When applying for Fumie's green card in 1998-1999 in San Jose, California, we had to go to the INS office numerous times, and it was [...]
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As part of the process of renewing my visa to stay in Japan, I had to make an unplanned trip to Hirakata City Hall (about an hour's drive south) to pick up a copy of Fumie's koseki (family registry). On the way back, I came across the Yodogawa Kasen Koen, the Yodogawa River "Rivers Park" in Yawata City (Kyoto Prefecture), a mile-long raised berm in the middle of where three rivers join to create the Yodogawa River (which empties into Osaka Bay twenty miles later, a good mile in width by that point).

The park -- the mile-long raised berm [...]

The little path by the river next to my place is not heavily traveled, although foot traffic explodes in this whole area during cherry-blossom season, and so these days a fair number of people walk by. In particular, it doesn't hurt that some the cherry trees lining the river are already half in bloom -- the ones lining the canal will be much nicer, but they haven't yet come in. (Here's an old photo of the canal lined with cherry trees, where the canal runs in front of our place.)

Because I'm always behind the camera, I don't see how [...]

The dinner party I went to yesterday was right in the middle of Gion, Kyoto's traditional area for maiko and geisha.

We ate at a simple okonomiyaki restaurant on the Shirakawa river (the river that runs next to my place, but a kilometer downstream), just off a street whose name translates, literally, to "Cherry-Blossom-Viewing Lane". The immediate area has a lot of traditional architecture, cobblestone streets, and the river overhung with cherry trees just starting to blossom, so you can imagine the photographic potential.

So can everyone else, which is why I was surprised that it wasn't super [...]

At a small dinner gathering today with some friends from Anthony's preschool, I was shocked to see little May, the younger sister of one of Anthony's classmates, deftly use chopsticks as if she'd been doing so all her life.

I was pleased as could be when Anthony could use chopsticks when he was three, but this little girl just turned two earlier this month. She just grabbed her daddy's chopsticks (adult-sized, no less) and went to town on a wiener without the slightest hint of difficulty. I grabbed my camera, asked her to show me, and I got the picture [...]