NOW OPEN AT EXCLUSIVE NAMBA PARKS LOCATION – FOB COOP! Come partake in noisy group consumption of cheap, smelly food “from the homeland” in a less-than-completely hygienic setting…

Bill was less than thrilled at the present I brought back to his bar from the states. Maybe he just needs someone to show him the light. Hmm… I will pay someone to preach fire and brimstone at the front door on the weekends and entice people to go home and stop being sinners. Are you up to the job?

I took this photo of a chopstick sheath at our doctor-friend’s wedding reception at the Ritz Carlton Osaka. After taking it, I tweaked it with my phone’s onboard graphics editing software (I like to think of it as PS for AU). Hint to future friends-of-the-groom-in-charge-of-announcements: If I am reduced to playing with my keitai during your speech, you’re choking it!

There were giant takoyaki decorations hanging from the ceiling of the main building by the Koban inside of KIX when we left for home in December. By the way the sauce had congealed on the top, I surmise that it was amakuchi, not karakuchi. Either way, it could have used more bonito shavings.

The hot new line of kids clothes by the Aeon Corp. You guys rock!

Asse brand chocolate is a sure hit, in my mind. We took several boxes back to the states as gifts because nothing says “I love you” like a handful of Asse.

Watch out, Virgin/Tower/HMV! This little shop in Sumoto proudly boasts CDs, LDs, and cassette tapes! Reminds me of an NTT mobile store in the Kyushu countryside that had a sign advertising “mobile phones, car phones, and shoulder phones“.

I get the feeling that the person who thought this product up is frustrated by the idiots at his company who can’t appreciate his visions of a future robotic nanosociety where metal tools are grown, not stamped or molded.

When you enter a 100 yen store, make a beeline for the molded plastics section, it will instantly make you feel better, richer even. Do you know how much this stuff would have been worth say a hundred years ago? Two hundred? (Neither do I. I just like to make other people think.)

Went to kaiten sushi with Taro and Mimi. A large tuna roll jammed the dishes rotating off the conveyor. A flying fish egg roll almost fell off onto Mimi-chan. The kitchen staff unjammed the mess of plates that were stacking up just in time. Dammit.