many cutting

Had about 9 at cutting practice. A couple of folks brought their own swords, so we had two going at once, and managed to get everyone through 3-4 targets in just a couple of hours.
I broke in Urabe-san's new cutter. Cuts fine for me, but he needs to work on technique. Also tried Ohtsuka-san's monster cutter. That thing goes through double targets like it's cutting butter!
Like I told everyone: a good sword cuts well, but a good swordsman can cut with anything.

gyoza happy hiroko

gyoza happy hiroko

best damn gyoza, ever: nonho

best damn gyoza, ever: nonho
Grungy little take-out Chinese place in Shinohashi. Couple plastic tables and folding chairs in the back. The most delicious gyoza ever. EVER. And stupid cheap. STUPID.

self explanatory

self explanatory

kaotan ramen

kaotan ramen
Still hungry after the kushikatsu, Hiroko wanted ramen. So we walked over to the ever-so-sketchy fire hazard that is kaotan ramen. This place is typical of what makes Tokyo awesome: the building itself is patchworked shacks lashed together with blue tarp and exposed wiring. The background music was bad Bollywood 80's hits, the staff Chinese and middle eastern. The menus scrawled on the walls included bad (not "cool" bad, just bad) random artwork about the various specials, the tables are low and cramped. The whole place is just grungy and dingy and nasty and dirty and greasy. Love it.
Hiroko got ramen with a double-yoke'd boiled egg and I went for a collection of sides: flavored beef, boiled wantons, and gyoza. It was all stupendously good, cheap, and perfect.
Tokyo is brilliant specifically because nasty little places like this on the ass-corner of Aoyama Cemetery, that have never even heard of health codes, not only spring up randomly on street corners, but in fact become veritable institutions that command near-religious followings and long lines of worshippers.

kushikatsu

kushikatsu
Hiroko and I went to a kushikatsu bar in Nishi Azabu. It's really a bar first and foremost; all standing room downstairs, with a low-ceiling'd loft that can seat a few people. It was dead empty when we went in about 8pm -- always a bad sign. We bought tickets from the ticket machine and had a couple of assorted kushikatsu (breaded and fried foods on a stick): pumpkin, tomato, beef, tofu, asaparagus, shrimp. It was perfectly ok, but not really our scene.

moron with an opinion

Sorry, Mark Devlin, but you're just a moron. Not only are you singularly responsible for more animosity in the English press in Japan than any other individual, but your statements in this interview in the Japan Media Review demonstrate your idiocy.
Choice quote #1: "I think that blogs will die out soon."
Choice quote #2: "The tablet PC will be the catalyst for change."
Uh yeah, right. That killer device that everyone simply must have: the tablet PC.

gum

gum
Proof that Japanese gum makers care more: large tumblers of gum, this one from Lotte called "Fruits Assort +X" (X = Xylitol), come with a small pad of sticky notes. No, not for noting how delicious the green apple, pink berry, and blue citrus (huh?) flavors are, but for conveniently disposing of one's chewed gum.

it's all in the hips

Class at honbu. The regular crowd, Matsushita, Miyasawa, etc. Maybe it's because I've been out for a week, but these guys are getting good.
Miyasawa had an epiphany and has stopped rotating so much; his cuts are much straighter and cleaner. I'll have to get him cutting from the draw on Saturday to see what happens.

tattoo

The moral is: don't get a tattoo you can't read. Even if kanji looks cool.