リフォームしなかったJR中野駅南口には、レトログラマーが残っています。アメリカにいるときは、電車でどこでも行けるのが懐かしく感じます。日本の電車は、世界で一番きれいで便利だと思います。
There’s a certain retro glamour to the un-renovated South entrance of JR Nakano station. When I am back in the US, I miss the ability to go literally anywhere by train. The cleanliness and comfort is unsurpassed.
もう一度、タヌキさんは日本の選挙に立候補します。誰を一番信頼できますか。
Will tanuki receive more votes than last election?
東京を散歩中に、タヌキさんが足湯で休んでいます。日本の多くの場所のように、この公共の温泉にも数え切れないルールがあります。
At the foot bath, volunteers remind tanuki that, like most places in Japan, there are countless rules to follow here. Can a wild animal find happiness in the world’s largest city? Please find out tomorrow when tanuki visits Shibaura House to discuss Making Friends.
I did a double take on my bike as I passed this portable Shinto ceremony on a nearby empty lot. Ostensibly, they are praying to the local gods in advance of constructing a residence. But I think this is not the first year they’ve done the ceremony here.
This summer the weeds were rampant, and the empty space became a bat colony. Somehow the Mercedes in the foreground of a Japanese religious ritual no longer surprises me, even in Nakano.
この冬は長くて寒いですね。最近、自転車でホーム・センターに行って、花をたくさん買いました。ルピナスと言う花はキャンディーのような色です。北米の起原だけど、日本のは全然違います。ベランダに置きました。素敵です。
This winter seems to never end. So I biked over to the local home center recently, and loaded up on bright flowers including daffodils, tulips, stock, and this amazing lupinus. I am familiar with it as a very handsome deep blue flowering perennial, native to North America, that becomes a bush. I’d never seen it in candy colors and bred for maximum floral display. It’s at once familiar, odd, and just the right antidote for more cold days.
Tokyo Green Space 