Every year around this time, I get very depressed. It has become a pattern for a few years, and the intensity only seems to grow. It’s the Chinese New Year, plus minus a few hours depending on where you are. Some prefer to call it the lunar new year or Asian new year, just to
White Christmas-After
The 4.5-day weekend turned into a 5.5-day weekend when the historical storm struck the New York region. Some areas near us reportedly got 32 inches of accumulation in less than a day. I cursed at the people who asked for a white Christmas, although didn’t mind the notice about office closing on Monday. Hong wasn’t
Japan Honeymoon – 100%
Today marked our last day in Japan. We both were sad about ending this fun trip, but at the same time relieved to end this continuous pain from walking too much. After checking out of the hotel, we locked our luggage up in a convenient coin-operated locker at Shinjuku Station. This was the third time
Japan Honeymoon – 90%
At the onset of this trip, I thought we’d have a chance to practice and learn some Japanese. Perhaps I could pick up a phrase or two, or ask for the whereabouts of a restroom. It shouldn’t be hard to at least see some improvement in my pronunciation of the limited vocabulary that I commanded
Japan Honeymoon – 80%
After picking up a couple of heavenly sandwiches from the Family Mart downstairs, we enjoyed them in the brisk morning outside an after school classroom names WAC. Then we decided that it wasn’t enough, and had seconds at a 24-7 McDonald’s filled with trendy youngsters who probably didn’t go home all night. I spotted this
Japan Honeymoon – 70%
The mountain climbing trips did wear us our because we passed out watching TV at 9:30 and didn’t get up until 5:30am. Hong got up and watched another hour of TV around 3, but she also got up slightly later. We took a brief morning walk to Higashi (East) Honganji, a Buddhist temple around the
Japan Honeymoon – 60%
It had become clear that we were adjusting for jetlag backwards: we were mostly awake between 12:30 and 7am, talking, showering, soaking beat-up feet and applying Tiger Balm, watching TV, etc, with a nap somewhere in there. Turning on Japanese TV for the first time was pretty entertaining. Too bad they didn’t play any prime-time
Japan Honeymoon – 50%
It’s pretty lame to start every post with a jetlag update. But, seriously, both people waking up to the morning at 11:58pm was not funny. We lay down less than 3 hours ago! Mixing half-ass attempts to sleep, shower, and magazines, we killed enough time before getting breakfast from 7-Eleven at 4:30. Oh thank heaven.
Japan Honeymoon – 40%
The jetlag problem improved drastically today as we woke up at 3 and stopped pretending to sleep by 3:30. We carried on some deep conversations (because 3 hours of sleep really cleared our heads like Drano would a toilet) for two hours, then we stepped our for an early morning walk like a grandparent-aged couple.
Japan Honeymoon – 30%
From way back, I had expected to experience jet lag on the first morning. I even planned around it strategically by arranging the trip to the fish market, which starts its daily business before dawn, on the first day. There’d be neither painful attempt to wake up early, nor would early bird sleeplessness be too