no this is not the new way of building houses to save space in Tokyo. It's some random Ferris wheel but with little houses. Kind of weird, we'll have to try.

Asakusa is pretty

Today we went to Asakusa, there's a very beautiful temple from 1649, the "Sensoji Temple". Think of the neighborhood as an old downtown. Small houses and shops, pretty much what you think Tokyo could have been before the skyscraper era.

I'm a big fish nerd

So here in Tokyo there are a lot of fish stores (not the one you eat silly, the one you lock in a small see through tank and stare at). Usually you find them on the top floor of department stores, or in obscure underground galleries. They have much cooler exotic fish then we do (I guess there are less regulations on what you can sell). Here are one very cool eel (hum, I think it's an eel). Pictures are a bit blurry because instead of pausing she kept trying to attack through the glass. I don't think she liked me.

sept07

And last but not least a little video. So I'm still tryin g to figure how to post a video directly on the blog, if it's not working just click on the image and you should be ok

gold fish are for real

So I've always wondered why gold fish were called gold fish. I mean they are usually red right? Well good thing I've traveled all the way to Japan to discover a gold fish that is actually GOLD. So why are they call gold fish? Why don't you check wikipedia yourself if you want to know.

"The first recorded instance [of swallowing a gold fish] was in 1939 at Harvard University." There are so many things going through my mind right now that I think I just won't say any...

En anglais on appelle les poissons rouges "gold fish" (les poissons dores). Je me suis toujours demande pourquoi les poissons qui sont rouges aux USA comme les notres (vous me suivez?) sont appeles poissons dores. Et bien parce que a l'origine ils etaient plutot dores que rouges (explication complete en anglais du pourquoi du comment ici). Et au Japon on trouve des poissons dores! Maintenant je me demande bien comment on appelle les poissons dores en francais. Des poissons rouges?

On japanese アナヒセ (I think that means Anais but I wouldn't bet my savings on it)

So I've started Japanese classes again (fine, one so far). And I've decided that not only I should try to speak it but I should also try to read and write it (might as well right?). For those of you who don't remember what the Japanese "alphabet" is from your high school years, here's a extremely short, probably not that accurate explanation.

- A long long time ago Japanese wasn't really a written language

- With all that trading going on between China and Japan, the Japanese decided to adopt the Chinese character system, the Kanji (kanji is the fun one, each 教 represent something, so think you need to know as many as there are things in the Universe (also that's not true, let's say you have the symbol for the door and then you had the symbol for "open" or "close" see what I mean? If not, feel free to get on msn and I'll tell you all about it.

- There was also the Man’yōgana in the 5th century (think Chinese characters but used for the pronunciation, not the meaning), this ended up being simplified and turned into the hiragana. Because Japan was a great advanced country like many others, education wasn't really for women and they did not have access to Kanji. So women started writing in hiragana.

- From the Man'yōgana also came the Katakana. But I'm still trying to figure this one out...

- Anyway it all ended up being mixed up and tied together to confuse me.

So to make things clear: In modern Japanese, kanji are used to write parts of the language such as nouns, adjective stems and verb stems, while hiragana are used to write inflected verb and adjective endings (okurigana), particles, native Japanese words, and words where the kanji is too difficult to read or remember. Katakana is used for representing onomatopoeia and non-Japanese loanwords (this is from wikipedia, for the scholars amoung us, click here for the full article

Fun facts:
- You have to learn 1006 kanji when you're in elementary school
- 1945+939 kanji in junior high and high school

Ok, so what's my point? Well my point is that on top of already looking pretty complicated, you need to know how to draw to write this language. And if there's one thing I absolutely can't do it's drawings. Practicing my ただ越え来れば made me remember of elementary school (or whatever school you learn your letters). Lines and lines of AAAAAAAAAA BBBBBBB ccccccc ddddd. Just thinking about it makes me want to cry.

So here I am almost 30, back in school and sucking at it. Nothing ever really change I guess. That's it for today, you'll be thrilled to know that I have finally replaced the battery of my camera. So you'll get fresh pictures soon.

Meanwhile, here's the best thing ever from Muji (for our American friends who don't know Muji take a look here or be patient, I know they are about to open one in NYC)




Glasses of rose in a can, Genius. Merci Muji.