Wednesday May 12, 2:32 p.m.

I was now in the second half of my odyssey from Asakusa to Shibuya using the Ginza Line as a guide. After getting out of Shimbashi quickly due to the loudmouthed ultra-right wingers, I ended up on the other side of the aural spectrum. Do you remember that scene in "Vanilla Sky" where Tom Cruise's character is running through a deserted Times Square? Well, I entered my own little version of that whilst walking through the next leg of Toranomon and Tameike-Sanno. Since both areas are heavily populated with office buildings, the holiday meant that the area was largely devoid of cars and people. It was like going through the concrete jungle after a neutron bomb had gone off.

However, I did come across one place of buzzing activity and that was the Free Cafe, Harimaya Station. Grandma Enka had first put me onto this cafe in the downtown area which boasts free tea and rice crackers. The only catch is that there is a showcase selling rice crackers right where the doors are so that the guilt factor can quickly impose upon one to buy something. I didn't even have the chance to feel guilty since the place was packed to the gills. Still, I will try it out sometime in the near future.

Then, I hit the ritzy entertainment district of Akasaka-Mitsuke where I came across the legendary Akasaka Prince Hotel with its jagged triangular design. All good things must come to an end, and so it will also be the same with this place since it has now been slated for demolition in about 10 months. During its peak, the Aka-Puri was Ground Zero for celebs and pols; the LDP even had unofficial headquarters on one of the floors for some time. But I gather that the shelf life has pretty much gone by. When I met Paddy there for dinner some years ago, even then when I traipsed through the lobby, I already had the impression that the place was now a faded glory...it had that archaic 80s look to it. Still, it'll be sad to see the ol' girl go.

Wednesday May 12, 1:32 p.m.

Had my monthly session with Grandma Enka. Always appreciate that she loves to talk.

Now, I'm just waiting for the remaining three students. I've got The CEO, 001 and Mr. TOEFL. Should actually get onto planning the lessons.

Pretty darn windy out there, even for Nakano-Sakaue. My work neighbourhood has always been affected by wind tunnel effect but at times, I wonder if even I could be literally swept off my feet.

Wednesday May 12, 11:15 a.m.

A bit drippy out there but it should start to dry up later this afternoon.

Met The Beehive for the first time since Golden Week. Mrs. Jade had gone on a bit of a recce through Shanghai, the site of the current expo. She brought back some interesting dried cherry tomatoes that taste like giant red raisins. Good with beer, she says. I tried them...yup, they're fine with me but the reaction was split with the students at the juku. Of course, Sugar N' Spice being teens had a completely wacky reaction with them.

In any case, it was a very long day on Tuesday since Cozy requested his lesson yesterday morning before I went and saw The Beehive. Then, of course, there were 4 hours of juku folks. Sugar N' Spice are nice kids and they like English, but I've come to the conclusion that they're not initiators by any means...they would be very content to be just spoon-fed their stuff, which means more work for me.

Some guy named Brown got his butt kicked once more and is now leaving with his head firmly between his legs. But this guy isn't Charlie but Gordon. After five days of one of the most exciting general elections in recent memory in jolly ol' England.

More later...

Monday May 10, 8:45 p.m.

Continuing on from last week's odyssey from Asakusa to Shibuya...after the relative excitement of Akihabara, the next half-hour of walking was fairly...well, pedestrian (ha-ha). Quickly scooted through Kanda and Mitsukoshi-mae before hitting the grand bridge of Nihombashi...that is, before it was overshadowed by a huge ugly expressway. Then, it was under that and straight through Kyobashi before hitting the Ginza. Since it was a national holiday last week, Ginza had its pedestrians' paradise (hokoten) so everyone was out in force on Chuo Avenue. I did see the latest addition to the grand avenue....another branch of Forever 21. There wasn't the kilo-long lineup but it certainly looked plenty crowded.

Then it was on to Shimbashi, at least the modern side of things, otherwise known as Shiodome. I went into the Shiodome City Center and up to the 42nd floor. Unfortunately, all of the restaurants had taken all the great viewing windows so I had to sneak in a couple of tight shots through the skylight. Then it was back down and I started walking over to Toranomon. Unfortunately, those pesky right-wingers and their black trucks started harassing some of the companies over toward Hibiya although the riot police kept them busy.

Saturday May 8, 12:09 p.m.

Taking a quick break from the odyssey to talk about the day at hand. Yup, Spring has finally come to stay. It's sunny and warm, though, I hope the humidity isn't anything like it was yesterday.

I have 2 lessons at Speedy's today...one of which I've already completed. The Intellectual seemed rather jittery...wasn't quite sure if he were in need of a bathroom break badly, but he managed to hold it all together until the end. And I've got The Businesswoman in less than an hour.

Yesterday was pretty wet out there...which didn't help things in terms of humidity. I had The Bass, Swank's husband and the juku. It looks like The Bow is out of the loop for the foreseeable future...at least until July, she says, since she has a temporary job for the next several weeks. I wouldn't be surprised if she were actually kissing me off, though.

Saturday May 8, 11:58 a.m.

Continuing with Part 3 of my great odyssey from Asakusa to Shibuya in 6 hours...

After I'd escaped from the right wingers and their megaphones in Ueno, I walked briskly into the Akihabara area. Naturally, Akiba can take up its own section of the trip...as the pictures will allude to.

The first picture up on the upper left (at least, the way I'm looking at it right now) is a shot I took of one of those trucks with anime designs emblazoned on the sides like a huge mural tattoo. If there's anything that could cause the ranks of waiting otaku to cry out "MOE!", it's this thing. The second picture in the centre is of a pillar by one of the big stores showing a mere fraction of the AKB 48 lineup. Unless one is a huge fan of this group of girls/women, one would need a fairly thick pamphlet to keep up with the names.

And then there is the picture right beside all this text....this is The Gundam Cafe, so named since the theme is the beloved robot anime franchise. It opened just a couple of weeks ago, but it has garnered huge lineups to get into the place. I'm sure the menu isn't the priority....watered-down coffee and mediocre sandwiches are probably the norm...the main thing is the fact that you've got tons of Gundam figures inside and perhaps even staffers who are quite moe about folks like Amuro Ray and Char.

I didn't bother waiting the 2 hours to get inside The Gundam Cafe. Instead, I did the oyaji thing and went to Sushi Zanmai up on the 8th floor of the Yodobashi Akiba electronics shop. Next to my Doner Kebab stand, Sushi Zanmai is probably the 2nd-most popular foodie emporium for me in Akiba. I filled up on my toro, anago and the like to ring up a 2,740-yen bill. Yep, over my daily budget but once in a while, it's nice to splurge.

Thursday May 6, 7:42 p.m.

The first leg of the odyssey was pretty uneventful. But when I reached Ueno, that's when things got lively. There's a bit of a subtext in my marathon walk from Asakusa to Shibuya, and that was represented by black trucks and belligerent voices. As you can see from the right picture, you can see one of those trucks with the Hinomaru flag emblazoned on the sides. I was wondering what the ultra-right wing nuts were doing out at this time of year since I usually imagined them as more of a summer phenomenon nearer to the anniversary of Japan's surrender in WWII.

Then, I remembered the holiday. May 3 just happened to be National Citizen's Day, the one day of Golden Week that the ultranationalists would trumpet their cause. And trumpet they did...at megabels of volume. Screaming epithets at the bulwark-like riot police at Ueno Station, and exhorting the masses to rise up in revolution, it was pretty much a case of their bark being worse their bite. The wingnuts may have sounded like very irate yakuza...in itself a cause of some alarm...but as far as I could tell, they stayed very securely within the confines of their metal tanks. I would've stayed in Ueno a bit longer but with those guys adding to the usually ambient noise pollution, I got out of Dodge rather quickly. A pity, too, since I'd wanted to take a further look into the famed Ueno Park. However, that can wait for another day.

Thursday May 6, 7:36 p.m.

And thus, my telling of the Monday odyssey from Asakusa to Shibuya begins with the half-hour leg between Asakusa to Ueno.

The weather was good and the tourists were indeed out en masse invading the shopping streets, rickshaws and photo ops. I made my out from Asakusa at about 10 a.m. and started walking. I did good time along the way through Tawaramachi and Inaricho on the Ginza Line, the subway on which I based my walk. At Tawaramachi, I was also in the famous neighbourhood of Kappbashi, known for its sales of plastic food and kitchen goods. Unfortunately, being a national holiday, all of the stores were closed but at least the famous symbol of the area, the Niimi Chef's Head, was there to greet all who crossed his path.

Thursday May 6, 9:35 a.m.

Well, Golden Week has gone for another year. I'm paying the price for my ultra-walk between Asakusa and Shibuya on Monday....ended up with a strained back on Tuesday....which meant that I ended up not going to The Bass' gig in Otsuka. Sent him an apology letter. So, basically I was out on said back for most of Tuesday and started moving like The Hunchback on Wednesday. I'm wearing that brace The Matron gave me years ago for a similar problem.

Not too bad schedule-wise for the first day back from the first major holiday season. I just finished with The Patent Attorney...always great with him...the hour just flies by. Grandma Dynamite makes her first appearance of the year after several months away again. And then there is a huge donut of several hours before Mr. TOEFL and The Music Man come by in the evening.

Managed to catch a couple of solid flicks on cable over the past couple of days. I first saw John Sayles' "Eight Men Out" with John Cusack and John Mahoney. It was about "The Black Sox" scandal of 1919 with the A-lineup of The Chicago White Sox being accused of throwing certain games in The World Series. Nice solid movie...especially liked pre-"Frasier" Mahoney as the sympathetic coach Kid. It was also interesting seeing a freshly minted Cusack a couple of decades before he became the poster child for disaster movies as an unfairly doomed infielder.

The other flick was 1995's "Casino", another in Scorcese's crime drama masterpieces. Of course, the actors and director will dissent terribly but I think it's almost an alternate-universe version of "Goodfellas", with Joe Pesci's psychopathic role being the lynchpin. A lot of meat for the actors to chew on, especially one visceral fight scene between Sharon Stone and Robert DeNiro. Frankly, all of the main characters were psychos in one way or another.

Monday May 3, 6:27 p.m.

Well, halfway through Golden Week, and I carried out what I'd said I would do today, and that is to walk from Asakusa to Shibuya. For those not familiar with Tokyo, we're talking about 10 to 12 km. And with all of the stops for lunch and drinks and just some time to rest my weary dogs, I was able to pull it off in about 6 hours....as much as I'd expected. Luckily, the weather was fine. Unluckily, because today is known as Citizens' Day, the ultra-right wing was out in force and in their super-loud bullhorns and black trucks to basically scream abuse at the riot police in Ueno and Shimbashi and exhort the rest of the normal citizenry to rise up against the West.

I'll provide detail and photos on Thursday when I'm back at Speedy's but I'm just too doggone tired right now.

One thing I will tell you is that when I stopped off at Omotesando Hills, I did go to that exhibition by photographer Leslie Kee. His latest project, SUPER TOKYO, had him photographing 1,000 of Japan's elite in the entertainment industry...on condition that his subjects would go au naturel. The latest issue of METROPOLIS provided an article breathlessly pointing out this fact. Some of those 1,000 included singers such as the Queen of J-Pop Yuming, model/TV personality (and a target of hate by Nicole Kidman) Ririco, and even blobby comedian Shofukutei Tsurube. There was also the limited edition photo book going for 15,000 yen (!). Well, I gotta say....naked entertainment elite...Wow! However, the wow factor was a bit underwhelming, say to say. As a guy, I wasn't too thrilled to see more naked men prancing about than women (but then again, Kee is gay so I'm sure he was happier than sin). Plus there was also the fact that the 1,000 may have been elite but a lot of them were not household names at all, so frankly I did a quick pass on those. And finally, considering the hype that these folks were all taken naked, contributions by the household female names such as former aidoru Miho Nakayama, actress Narumi Yasuda and hip-hop singer AI were all just head shots. Do you really expect me to believe that these folks stripped to their birthday suits to only have their faces photographed? I'd think that the ladies would've felt a bit cheated. I certainly felt so. But then again, I think their agents probably put up crossed arms right in front of Kee's face at the thought of shooting them au naturel. And as for seeing Tsurube-san smiling and laying out like a Playgirl model....uh, too much information, guy. Basically, it was a case of sizzle over substance.

Anyways, yesterday, I went to a party held by 002 for the first time in 2 years...since our little falling-out due to Speedy's anal-ness. I'd even forgotten 002's apartment number so I couldn't buzz in...luckily, a delivery guy had the door opened so I quickly scooted in right after him. Well, it kinda felt like old times when me and 001 used to go there fairly regularly to partake in food and humourous banter. I was a bit cautious, though, but the party went off well. No awkwardness...no mention of the sour notes from before and 002 at the end told me that she and her hubby hoped that I could come back for further parties in the future. I told them that I would adjust my schedule to fit them in...which was pretty much a statement that everything was hunky-dory between us again.

Now that Golden Week will be starting to close up shop for another year...I've been thinking about my future with Speedy. For the past several months, I've been pondering about leaving the place since I'm getting just a little tired of getting home at midnight 2-3 times a week, and sometimes even having to come in some 8 hours later with less than 6 hours of sleep. I realize that the bossman really pulls his weight for us and the school, but I don't know if I can really enjoy my job this way. Plus there's the fact that Speedy and my private students are starting to compete for my shrinking availability. When that sort of thing starts, I know that I'm gonna have to think of some sort of ultimate resolution. I've been at the school now for over 6 years; I could use a change, although the loss of salary wouldn't be small. I figure that I'll come to some sort of decision by June.

Saturday May 1, 1:15 p.m.

MayDay! The day itself and not the SOS. I'm sure a lot of the Communist regimes (what few of them there are left) are having their little proletarian celebrations. I just had my final lesson before I really get into Golden Week. Miss Prissy hadn't been here in almost a month, and unfortunately, it showed in her fluency...or lack thereof. Even in her prime, she was fairly molasses-like in her delivery. Well, today, these were molasses in the dead of Winter. I almost felt like whacking her with a newspaper to speed things up. Instead, I just calmly mentioned that we would be reviewing part of the lesson next time...for speed purposes...a bit of a shot across the bow.

Now, as for the picture above. That is the Akasaka Prince Hotel. The ruffled triangular shape has made the hotel one of the most distinguishing pieces of architecture in Tokyo for decades. I first came upon it via one of my brother's photos when he had come back from his month-long trip in Japan in the early 80s. Seeing that building pretty much cemented the image of The Big Sushi as a technopolis of considerable merit. Well, that building is gonna be coming down next year. I just read yesterday in "The Japan Times" that as of April 2011, the Aka-Puri, as it is known amongst the hoi polloi, will cease operations and most likely be torn down. It's a bit of a pity because of its architectural prominence, but then this is Tokyo. Sentimentality and history haven't had much of a place here as it has in many other major cities such as London or Berlin. Economy of land is one such reason, but the other I guess is the fact that buildings have been razed either from war or natural disaster over the past century.

To be honest, I had actually met Paddy at the Akasaka Prince some years ago. And the lobby struck me as being somewhat faded in glory. Kinda like an architectural version of Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard"; she used to be something but had long been superceded by other more modern constructs. And yet, until recently, the hotel was still the power spot for the political elite...i.e. the LDP wonks...and probably the yakuza as well...which frankly turned me off the place even more.

Still, it'll be kinda weird not seeing that shape in Akasaka anymore. But then again, we all have the Tokyo Sky Tree and other new shapes to look forward in the decade to come. Tokyo is an organic city...even if stuff comes down, there will always be stuff coming up.

Friday April 30, 3:39 p.m.

Golden Week has arrived...and we've got the weather to match! Finally, weather that doesn't require an umbrella or a sweater to sport. It looks pretty promising for the rest of the holiday, too.

The traffic is certainly reflecting the holiday as well. According to NHK, about 46,000 people were on the move at airports and train stations. Compared to the 120 million who live on this archipelago, less than 50,000 folks may sound like a drop in the bucket but try saying that while looking at the footage of Narita and Haneda. And perhaps the numbers don't include the cars that were stuck on the nation's freeways. The holiday backups of 50 km were back to make the expressways the largest parking lots on the planet.

I'm doing my usual bit for GW and staying put in my little city. Showa Day yesterday had me luxuriating in a long bit of sleep...didn't get up til 11 a.m. And I just went to the supermarket to get some fixins for dinner last night. I actually have an hour worth's of classes tonight with just the juku boss and The Restauranteur. And then it's only Miss Prissy for a rare Saturday morning lesson at Speedy's. Ordinarily, I would've been rather unhappy about having to come to school for just one hour but then again, I did say that I would do some shopping over GW so I'm gonna indulge at Nakano Broadway and perhaps even head over to Shinjuku to pick up some DVDs.

I had to send out my Mother's Day card and present over this afternoon since by the time the post offices are back in operation in the latter half of next week, it'll be too late to send them in time back to The Great White North.

Skippy has sent me that word about getting together next week for Eggs N' Things, that new Hawaiian restaurant that has opened up in Harajuku.

Wednesday April 28, 10:46 p.m.

Well, it's been a day. I've taught an art student, a jazz-vocalizing CEO, a nurse with a Germanic accent, a university counselor and a mysterious music man today. Quite the potpourri of students. And now I'm off to enjoy a day off tomorrow due to Showa Day, aka Emperor Hirohito's birthday.

I will really want to luxuriate in sleeping in late and perhaps even partaking in a sinful afternoon nap.

But I have to admit that I got a real kick from my Mixi Doctor Who fan who showed me some YouTube parodies of "Doctor Who" credits done via "The Love Boat", "Dallas" and "Charlie's Angels".

Wednesday April 28, 1:24 p.m.

This is basically gonna be a truncated work week since Golden Week is now almost upon us. Tomorrow's Showa Day will start things off. Happily, the temps are now more reflective of the current season and not of the extended Winter. So I can hold off on my pun of Cold-en Week for this year.

Yesterday at the Beehive session, Mrs. London came in. As I've mentioned before, she's the one who got me introduced to The Queen Bees all those years ago. She's been in-and-out of the group over the past decade, but it seems like that she'll be having a bit more regularity in her visits since it's been decided that she'll be appearing at the end of every month, and then she even stated that she would be coming weekly from the beginning of next April. Now, that's an advance reservation.

The juku sessions were OK. Mr. White is most definitely a Koreaphile...he's been working hard on his Korean and has started watching TBS' very first addition of a Korean drama to its prime time lineup last Thursday. The show is titled "Iris" and is a spy drama which was filmed in far-flung places like Hungary, Korea and even this country's Akita Prefecture. As a result, the Korean tourists have been flocking to the northern territory. I only had the one sister...Spice, for her hour. Still did well and gabbed non-stop. As for The Milds, I found out that Mrs. Mild will once again be touring Europe without the hubby...this time, the stop will be The Czech Republic. And Mr. Nice Guy has been stumbling through his grammar gamely.

Today, I find myself with a pretty busy Wednesday. 001 won't be here but I just had a model lesson...quiet but game young university student. And I'll be having The CEO in about 90 minutes, followed by The German, and then later in the evening, The Businesswoman and The Music Man.

The local controversial starlet of these shores, Erika Sawajiri...or Lady Erika...as the media wonks have dubbed her since she started giving off major 'tude a few years ago at a press conference has been hitting the front pages of the papers way too much since she announced her intention to divorce her hubby. It just so happens that Lady Erika married a guy almost 2 decades older than her...which at her age (early twenties), pretty much made it inevitable that she would be a future ex-wife. In a country where public divorces are a dime a dozen, Lady Erika's breakup should only merit a day's worth of press, but then we are talking about Lady Erika. She (may have) mentioned that she found her husband, kimoi (gross); I think any guy in his 40s who marries someone barely out of her teens deserves the label and should've been obvious to the starlet.

Wednesday April 28, 1:11 p.m.

Next on the list of disaster-movie-in-more-ways-than-one from Saturday, MB and I had our usual DVD Night at his place. We caught "2012" which was basically a mix of "Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow". It starred John Cusack who seems to have an affinity for this kind of movie. It was a purely popcorn movie without the salt and butter...no depth to it at all except for the special effects. And of course, there was the perquisite rousing scene of survivors whooping it up at the end.

The next day, I had to leave MB's a bit earlier than usual since I had that 2-hour lesson with my newest student, Yajima, over in Den'en-Chofu. He picked me up at the station and we passed once more by PM Hatoyama's house. Still only 2 cops in front of the place which means that the Prime Minister is still hard at work in Nagatacho. Although for how much longer I'm not sure with his plummeting ratings...perhaps he and the missus will be spending more time there after July. There were about 90,000 angry constituents in Okinawa amassing for a protest against the Futenma Base.

After the lesson, I went over to Harajuku and Meiji-Jingumae just to see the characters there. As it turned out, there weren't all that many. There was that flaming transvestite from last week, the neon pink-haired girl taking pictures with the foreign tourists and folks willing to give Free Hugs. The Free Huggers were making some business but the customers were basically foreign. This is pretty much the wrong country to have that sort of thing since public affection is still sorta frowned upon, but within a couple of generations, who knows?

Wednesday April 28, 10:29 a.m.

Yup, it's been one of those weekends...and weeks. Not enough time to blog until now, and I think I'm taking a bit of a risk by doing so now since I've got a model lesson from 11 a.m.

As for the above, it was indeed a hodgepodge of everything. After having my lone lesson on Saturday, I met up with the usual movie crowd...all masculine this time. MB, Frodo, The Satyr and I gritted our teeth and caught "Clash of the Titans" at Wald 9 in Shinjuku. We'd come in with the assumption that the movie was probably not gonna be anywhere near Oscar-bait. Seeing the title misspelled on our tickets as "Crash of the Titans" was a definite example of foreshadowing...and the literary technique was better used on our stubs than anywhere in the movie.

Never saw the original with Ray Harryhausen and Harry Hamlin...something about seeing a future "L.A. Law" actor in a mini-skirt that didn't attract me. The new movie was basically an excuse for otherwise excellent actors to wallow around in scriptwriting mud for....money! Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes got together for the first time since "Schindler's List" to play Zeus and Hades respectively....only to be saddled with some of the worst dialogue that a B-movie could permit. The other weird thing was that there were a few other distinguished actors in blink-and-miss-them roles that lasted all of one line and three seconds...et tu, Pete Postlewaithe and Danny Huston? I think the only good thing about "Crash of the Titans" is that it gave the four of us hours of bantering pleasure at J.S. Burger Cafe across from JR Shinjuku. Yup, that was my second weekend in a row on the Burger Tour...my doctor would have conniptions right now. No real comparison between my Bacon Cheese there and the one at The Great Burger in Omotesando...just the impression that the one at J.S. seemed to be a bit bigger.

Time is growing short before the model lesson. But I will mention about the top left picture. That was at Meiji-Jingu just across from Harajuku where the weekends mean a lot of foreigners taking shots of photogenic goth-loli and other intriguing folks of nature. In fact, the young woman above seems to be a melding of the two...more later.

Thursday April 22, 10:56 a.m.

I guess in all of the other news, I did forget to mention that I had met that newest student...who happens to be the son-in-law of MB's colleague. He picked me up at Den'en-Chofu Station on Sunday morning. He has nothing to do with the educational community; he's a salaryman who works for the Japan Travel Bureau all the way near Tokyo Station. As he was driving me over to his place, we passed by one of the many big houses in the neighbourhood (Den'en-Chofu is a ritzy suburb) and there were a couple of cops standing near the entrance. It turned out that it was the private house of none other than Prime Minister Hatoyama himself. During Diet sessions, he stays at the Official Residence in downtown Tokyo so I could imagine what it must be like when the PM goes back home. My newest student just says that there are about 5 times the number that we saw and some of that group includes the Japanese version of the Secret Service.

Not sure what I'll call the student...he looks like a tarento though, so I may call him Yajima.

Thursday April 22, 10:46 a.m.

Back to the cold and wet again...Dog's Nose weather. Incredible.

Had my first official lesson with The Patent Attorney this morning. He's just like Swank....a good conversationalist. The hour went down as smoothly as a good sake...just the topic we based most of our hour on. It's a bit of a pity that I have to do an early shift to see him but as long as it's him, I guess things will be palatable.

Got word from the juku boss that yet another of The Restauranteur's relatives has passed away, so there will be no juku session tomorrow since basically The Restauranteur is the only student I have on that day. Kinda nice to have a rare Friday night off...but then again, I did meet up with The Anime Court last Friday. I guess I mean a Friday night off at home.

Also got word from The King himself that I am to meet him and The Anime Chamberlain tonight at 7:45 for dinner. I wonder what we'll be going for.

I guess that shoe finally hit the floor. Former Health and Welfare Minister Masuzoe, probably the only government official during the Taro Aso era to have any sort of respect from the people, has decided to part relations with his party, The Liberal Democratic Party, and perhaps start his own party within the next 24 hours. Of course, the current weak leader, Tanigaki, has been resolutely mum about the so-called surprise announcement. I just hope that Masuzoe comes up with a far better name than The Sunrise Party or Your Party. In a way, the LDP seems to be dying from a thousand paper cuts rather than a single sword thrust.

Well, I'll be taking off in the next few minutes to get some texts.

Wednesday April 21, 8:37 p.m.

Just had 001 today...which meant that I'd had a nice time walking around Ginza today. The walk included another stint at that Chinese dim sum/buffet restaurant in Yurakucho. For a little under 1500 yen...I am able to get the dim sum offerings from the carts, stuff from the buffet table and even a bit of hot pot. Not too bad. I was pretty good with the pacing; didn't stuff myself into a coma, just feeling pleasantly full. I was hoping to find that textbook for my newest student but it didn't seem to exist at Yaesu Book Centre or even Book 1st, so it looks like I'll be hitting Kinokuniya in Times Square before I meet up with The Sisters of State.

I took a dip into Yamano Music...saw some discs that I'd like to get but I'm holding off until Golden Week arrives. The Manhattan Transfer tribute to Chick Corea is there; I've definitely fallen back on any CD purchases over the past several months...either I've finally outgrown my music habit or the economy austerity program has finally internalized itself.

It was the first really decent day that I've seen in several of them. It almost seems as if the freak snow on Saturday was just an illusion, considering today's warmth and sun. I was sweating in my jacket, but then I was wearing my Autumn number.

001 and I had a pretty disgusting but hilarious talk about her job. Since she's a medtech, she often handles urine samples, that I often refer to as "apple juice" (to those who may be imbibing the stuff as they read this, I profusely apologize). But in the past few weeks, she's also had to handle...No. 2...shall we say? The really funny stuff came when she said that some of the nimrods who had to give a fecal sample got a bit carried away...and kinda packed that plastic container. I guess that food equivalent would be "brownies"....you may vomit quietly now.

Tomorrow will be another unusually quiet day for me. In fact, it starts unusually with me "teaching" The Patent Attorney...the bossman's student whom I always let in early in the morning. The bossman will be out at some fair with Ray. I've always been the warm-up act for The PA before Speedy gets in...just chatting with him like a good secretary before the boss gets in. Now, I put the word "teaching" in quotes, since Speedy informed me that a usual session with him consists of that very thing...chatting...and perhaps looking at some English correspondence. It should be a nice outing...but he often cancels at the last minute. So I won't be surprised if I get a call from the bossman just when I hit home near midnight tonight.

And that morning class will be all she wrote for anything at Speedy's. I'm then on my own teaching The Sisters of State...The New Yorker in the afternoon while I've got big sis The Carolinan a few hours later. Looks like I will be obligated to pay for that extra Caffe Latte to keep management happy, although since it is Starbucks, that won't be too hard to do. Then, I'm meeeting up with the remainder of that massive influx of Canadian otaku from last week. The Anime King and The Anime Chamberlain will meet up with me right after the lesson tomorrow night; not sure where we'll go. I know that The Chamberlain isn't too hot on Foo Foo, but then again he's rarely without some sort of disparaging comment on any place. Kinda incredible that he's just so big.

Monday April 19, 10:31 p.m.

Another fine time was had by all yesterday as the Burger Gang did another Burger Tour. Yes, it was Skippy, me, The Satyr, Miss Ivory, MB and The Sylph who got together in the craziness that is Harajuku Station so that we could walk down and try out yet another hamburger emporium in The Big Sushi.

At least, we weren't suffering in the winter of Saturday. Things were meterologically back to normal on Sunday. The walk over to The Great Burger was a bit circumlocutious from the main street....I can only guess that the owners wanted us to really earn our appetites. Still, we made it there by sunset. And the results are up above.

As usual, the decor inside The Great Burger was akin to some old American honky tonk dive, replete with condiment containers and boxes of Bisquick adorning the shelves. I had my usual go-to burger in the form of a Bacon Cheeseburger and the drink du jour was a Strawberry Milkshake. In other words, I made my own Cholesterol Set. Unfortunately, an Automatic External Defibrillator was nowhere to be found, so if my heart decided to silently explode, I was plain out of luck. I was in luck and managed to survive my "ordeal". In fact, I pushed fate even harder by ordering desserts.

The Bacon Cheeseburger was juicy and messy....everything that an American burger should be. The only concession was the Japanese envelope to put the burger in. Considering that young people often dress up for just taking the dog for a walk, I can't say that I was surprised. Still, my shirt was saved from any assault by spewing relish.

All in all, The Great Burger lives up to its high-flying name.