I must admit that it has never really occurred to me to consider what kind of kitchen cleaning cloths God would use in Heaven's Kitchen...
Not until now, that is. Which brings to mind a Crashtest Dummies favourite of mine, "God Shuffled His Feet" I love you! Cam P.S.
You may recall a while back how I was talking about the new Converse sneaker design changes... Unfortunately the two pair of traditional Chucks give me such bad knee pain that I end up limping for weeks in recovery. Don't get me wrong; I love them both. They are designed for the standard North American foot which is narrower and has a much higher arch than the standard Asian foot. They fit my feet perfectly. I actually am a "perfect 10" when it comes to shoes. Europen shoes don't fit me as well as the NA ones.and the Japanese shoes, although of excellent quality, arew designed for flipper-footed Japanese with wide heels and thick feet. I have never bought a pair of Japanese shoes that have fit. Not true... Mizuno volleyball shoes I used in the gym for many years were a perfect fit, but apparently they are not popular among Japanese due to their narrow fit. Fancy that. Even the NA brands that are made for the Japanese market are EEE size and they do not fit me at all. I am a 10D.
The new Chuck Taylor Converse have been dramatically improved in one big respect: there is a removable sports insole designed into them. This makes a HUGE difference as the traditional Chucks are very flat and very hard. They have next to no cushion in them at all. This is what kills my knees. Also, if you think of most other shoes, whether for sports, leisure or dress there is some slight to large rise/inclination in the heel. The only shoes I can think of that are not like that are cheap flipflops and Jesus Sandals. Other than that, I have never owned a totally flat pair of shoes. Except for my Beloved Chucks. And I have never had the kind of knee pain I started experiencing except for while wearing my Beloved Chucks. I can wear them for short jaunts, but if I am out doing any walking, like yesterday ootnaboot for six hours, I have to live with a week of knee aches. Although I don't need another pair of runners, the frustratingly reprodicible knee pain in my Beloved Chucks combined with my great curiosity to experiment with the newly engineered Chucks-with-insole (note: these are not just an insole added as an afterthought to the old design, but designed to have one built in properly and still fit) led me to purchase this pair of six-coloured Japan-only models and see what would happen! I spent the entire day walking in these yesterday, and you know what? Knee pain begone! This morning I was worried about waking up and having to limp over to the dresser to put on my new and uber sexy yet oh so retro popart designed (artist collaborated) BWs, but there was not a single twinge at all. I must say I am veritably impresses with the change in fit with the new insoles, not to mention the great six-colour design on these babies. If you are in the market for a new pair of Chucks, and you can find a design that suits your fancy, I highly recommend you give these newly designed, technologically modernized Converse Chuck Taylors a try. They are different. My guess is that little by little they will be fazing out the old manufacturing and building the new technology into all of their great retro designs. In fact you may not even realize it but you might be wearing one of the newly-engineered models right now! Want to know a quick way to check? Reach down and run your fingers over the ALL STAR logo on the heel; if you can feel the logo raised off the label, you are wearing the new design. Apparently this is another engineering change they recently did. The old printed rubber labels wore off too easily so they chose to make them out of a mould in bas-relief. There was one more subtle engineering/design change they made but I cannot recall it at this moment. And that is it for the Chuck Taylor Converse All Star talk that I had been wondering if I would ever be able to do. The price? They are a bit more expensive than the old models but not inhibitively so. As you likely know there are so many different models and designs out there now (it seems that they are really good at innovation and design and now they are owned by Nike they have the marketing power to go with it) and the prices are all different, so before you turn your nose up at a pair that is more expensive but looks exactly the same as the cheaper ones, take a closer look. You may be paying more for the newer tecnology and not just the design. Have a great weekend.
For all the sushi lovers out there...
This is what the wasabi root actually looks like before it is ground into the green paste we all love between our raw fish and vinaigred rice. Prices are attached to each (in Yen).
Yesterday I picked up the telescoping seat pillar for my Dahon bike. As Stefnee knows, it was always just a bit too short for my just a bit too long legs so the riding pleasure was diminished. I have been trying for several years to find a solution to this issue that has decreased my folding bikeriding pleasure. FINALLY I got a call from Y's Road Shinjuku telling me that the telescoping seat pillar, my last possible option, was no longer available from the distributor and that Dahon had stopped selling the part. This was of course after a few years of attempting to find a seat adaptor for the silly i-Beam system they used on the seat/pillar of this model. If I could get a nice cushy thick seat that might be enough to do the trick, but the proprietary clamping system prevented that. Then I found an adaptor for the i-beam which would allow clamping regular saddles onto the pillar. When I went to buy it, all excited and uki-uki I discovered that Dahon had changed the i-beam system so that this adaptor was not designed for MY i-beam. Argh! That is when I saw the telescoping seat pillar in their latest catalogue. There wasn't enough data in the catalogue to know if it would fit my bike tubes or not. Makers constantly change designs and use different diameters of tubing so I could be out of luck.
They researched and said it would fit, so I ordered it. A few days later I got a call saying it was not available. That's when I started checking the internet stores. I found several listed but every one, when I checked, said that the product was unavailable. On Saturday night while enjoying a bath at my gym, Y's Road called and said that they found one at one of the other stores!!!!! So on Sunday, in spite of the rain I rushed down there and got it. Yes! Before picking it up, I was at Tokyu Hands getting a new deck of cards for my cribbage game. The game is nearly 25 years old now and the cards, although worn, soft, looked fine; however they stunk so badly of mold that I couldn't stand playing with them anymore. That is how humid Fukui is... playing cards go all moldy (invisible mold)! I got the cards, but as I love Tokyu Hands I wandered the other floors. There is a great sporting goods floor and I found the saddle that I wanted to put on my new telescoping seat pillar IF it fit my bike... So I went to Y's Road and got the pillar. It was raining too hard to go back for the saddle and I knew I could go today on my wAy to Kobuchizwa. So I did. And this is it! It seems I'm riding my folding bike a lot more in Tokyo than my other babies... but it's just easier to open up, ride, fold up, park, etc. I miss riding Grey and Mikan-chan and Grey is getting rusty outside all the time (in spite of being covered up and under a lean-to parking area) but there are no easy access locations to ride here and serious city riding or road riding has absolutely no appeal to me when all you get to enjoy is cars, buildings, traffic lights and people. I'd rather just toodle around in my jeans on Dahon than get all suited up for Grey. I sure miss Fuui mountains for that reason... But now the Dahon should be perfect for even me to ride and I won't have to over-extend the seat pillar into the "Do Not Insert Less Than Here!!!!!! Zone" just to keep my knees from hurting but potentially damaging the bike due to the leverage.... See how The Universe always gives you EXACTLY what you need as long as you make your need perfectly clear by doing everything in your power to obtain your needs on your own? Thank You Universe! Cam P.S. Now if only I could use the line in the title of this thumb-typed-on-cellphone blog with a really sexy woman dying to have sex with me! Hmmmm.... I hear the Universe giving me a hint.... I better get to proving how much I want that, eh?
I love this combination of photo and comic. It shows so well how the old Japanese houses were built. One of the women in my class at Kobuchizawa lives in a house like this. Do you see the guest is entering and the floor is made of mud? That is actually INSIDE the home. Look how much higher up the rest of the house is from that "Do-ma" or earthen-room. Also you can see how everything was so open; there was no glass for the windows back in those days so they had wooden slats to block the elements. The inside doors were sliding and they had paper on them to let in some light and block some of the wind. But it must have been really cold in there in winter...
The imagery is stunning. I have seen examples of these kinds of homes with straw thatched roofs when I went to Shirakawa-go (remember, Stefnee?) Amazing. The train has arrived, so toodleoo! I love you!
Since I don't seem to have much opportunity to get into the sun with my new lifestyle, I've decided to catch some rays wherever and however can. So today, instead of dressing in my work clothes and carrying my usual heavy black bag to the trains in Shinjuku I decided to go in shorts and a t-shirt. I would rather get all sweaty in my t-shirt and change at Kobuchizawa station than arrive all sweaty and have to work like that into the evening. I sweat enough at work as it is so not having a dripping wet shirt from carrying my pack will make a big difference.
Plus, as I rolled in this blog with the title on sunshine, it allows me to come here a little bit early, grab my lunch and sit in the sun for 30 minutes. I think next month we start with cool biz which means we don't have to wear neckties until October. I am looking forward to that for sure!
This morning I woke up with my back frozen... it has been some time since I got my "sleeping on the floor" back. But moving around always loosens it up. We had breakfast, checked out, visited Higashi Honganji Temple (East Honganji) and walked to the metro. We went two stops, got off, found the place for the tea ceremony, then went for coffee.
The tea ceremony was great; the sensei explained it all in English for Mia (write tea ceremony on your list...). Then we went one street over and visited a sake/beer brewery where we learned of their 120year history and had a small tour ending in a tasting. *hic* Now we are walking back to the station in glorious weather, will get our Shinkansen tickets and head back to Tokyo to meet our former optical clients for shabushabu dinner! But first... Lunch! I love you.
Apparently the god of the area here in Nara came down the mountain on a white deer so all of the wild deer here wander around freely, mooching food from the tourists.
Mia and I took the morning Kyoto Sightseeing Tour. It was pouring so we all got soaked. Nijo Castle (Tokugawa Shogun's Kyoto Residence), The Golden Pavillion (Kinkakuji), and the Emperor's Kyoto Palace. I think I've been to these five or six times now... Now we are stopped at Nara Stn to drop off a seven member family from India. Thank God! They have been so damn noisy the entire time... talking on their multiple communication devices... wow. This morning there was a different Indian family and the parents let the daughter and young son run around playing, chasing, pushing in and out of the crowds... I was not particularly impressed with their parenting efforts. We visited Nara in the afternoon and are heading back to Kyoto for the end of the tour. Then a tea ceremony tomorrow and home to Tokyo. Todaiji in Nara houses the largest wooden structure in the world... The bronze Buddha inside is huge... Todaiji burned several times in its 1250 years of history... and was rebuilt based on the fancy of the times so the structure changed. There was one gate that escaped the ravages of was and it is still standing as originally built 1250 years ago. Big breath... wow... 1 2 5 0 years in the past and still in use...
I'll keep this one short as the battery on my keitai is running low...
What? Cam... Short??? Impossible!!! We walked to Nishi Honganji Temple, then another 30minutes to Sanjugendo Temple which houses 1001 buddha statues each representing 1000 arms... each arm representing 35 worlds... I wanted to bring Mia here as I have come many times with friends. It IS impressive. Then we walked another hour to the Gion area looking for a bar... finally we found Shiba near the Kamogawara River. So now we are enjoying great conversation with the owner who was the 1971 Japan Grand Prix F3 Champion! Very cool... he has also been running this tiny candlelit restaurant for 40 years and has changed almost nothing in that time! So we are having horse sashimi (raw horse), okonomiyake, lamb shabushabu and probably whale tongue! It is all delicious! Sea Shepherd eat your fucking hearts out! Kampai! I love you!
We wanted Mia to experience the obento on the shinkansen...
So she is! And you know what? I think she likes it... Vegetables...
