Recently, I played two Warhammer 40K games with Mario. He's a fantastic modeler - he has a Golden Demon award for a model sci-fi walker he did and won Best Single Figure at this year's Astronomi-con Winnipeg ( Read more... )

Death related affairs have been much in evidence that last month or so ( Read more... )

From the Canadian Iaido Association list:

"As you know, in early June, Ted had an operation to remove a tumour from his spine. This left him with minimal ability to use his legs. It turned out that this tumour was caused by a very aggressive cancer. After a month in hospital, he came home, where he was comfortable and happy. He worked hard to get ( Read more... )

Friday I went back to Akihabara to find gifts for some friends. I was armed with a list ( Read more... )

Last Sunday Raj drew us a map of Kudanshita, showing us the locations of a couple of the best martial arts supply stores in the Tokyo area. Jeanny looked at the map, and remarked how it was "not to scale" and pointed out useful things like where the local police koban (community office) was located ( Read more... )

From Harry and Mieko, we learned that most Japanese schoolkids learn to read and write English, but not speak it. Jennifer confirms that there's people at work here she can e-mail and IM, but can't speak to on the phone ( Read more... )

After the Monet exhibit, Jen and I walked to Roppongi Hills, a very upscale part of Tokyo.

We found a little Italian place in an underground mall to cool off with a drink. That's how we've survived the hot and muggy weather. Walk, see stuff, rest and hydrate, then repeat.

Roppongi Hills is a swish part of a swish neighbourhood. High-end retail ( Read more... )

The National Art Center, Tokyo, currently has an exhibition of the works of Monet. From the website:

"To commemorate the opening of the new national museum, the National Art Center, Tokyo, the exhibition of Claude Monet, one of the most popular painters in Japan, is now on view ( Read more... )

The cars and streets in Japan are set up for right hand drive. Harry explained that this was a legacy from Japan's connection with England in the first couple of decades of the 20th century ( Read more... )

After our Shinjuku excursion, Jen and I returned to our hotel to rest and shower. That evening we had aranged to dine with Yamada Mieko, the former Assistant V.P. of Compliance at the firm Jen is doing work for ( Read more... )