speach tree

My brother came to visit over the Memorial Day Weekend, and it was an action-packed weekend, now that I think back on it: Lunch at Cha-An Tea House 230 E 9th St. Shopping and browsing in Lower Manhattan. No picture available :( Coney Island, where Y is being burried alive... slowly... Dinner niku-jaga, ohitashi. Protest at Kawa Sushi Restaurant It was a blast though!

Last night we stayed at the funeral home and kept my grandmother company all night for the last time. (We had to greet visitors from the neighborhood who wanted to pay respects. About 40 people came to the wake.) I got up at 4:00am as usual and went across the street to the convenience store. I had seen yakuza in Tokyo before on a few occasions, but this was the first time I've seen one in my grandmother's neighborhood. He was with his girlfriend and a chubby drag queen. There's not much to do around here and it looked like they had been out clubbing, maybe they were coming back from the city... Here are some pictures of the neighborhood in daylight: This is the playground where I hid from my mom whenever we got into a fight. There are a lot of rich farmers like this one around here. They opened up a cafe in their old storage building next to their fields. A lot of them pave over their fields and live on the monthly parking fees they charge other residents. This is the insi...

Every time I come here I am once again reminded how expensive it is to survive. See below for prices. This is breakfast. Granted at a fancy place, but 900Y is ridiculous. (~$11) What I had for breakfast in the food court was comparable and only about 630Y which is still not cheap. This tea pot alone was 630Y (I didn't pay for it) Just getting to the city from the airport was 800Y per person (we took the super-express and paid for reserved seating, which was unnecessary but this should give you an idea of how expensive it is. Compare to the metrofare in NYC to get from JFK to Manhattan: $2.25, which is bad enough...)

I've been a passenger for a large part of the past 2 days: After learning of my grandmother's death, SF drove me home from Chinatown to Queens (15min), then back to Chinatown (15min), where I got on a bus to DC (5hrs). My father picked me up in DC's Chinatown and drove me to VA (30min), where I spent the night. In the morning, my mother picked us up and drove us from VA back to DC (30min), where we caught a plane to Detroit (1hr), in order to catch a connecting flight to Nagoya (13hrs). It didn't end once we got off the plane of course. To get to my grandmother we had to get on a train to downtown Nagoya, 890Y (30min) and connect to the Higashiyama Line (subway) to my grandmother's stop 230Y, (10min). The riding continues, but for now I will explain the following images of Nagoya's Central Airport... Some toys at the convenience store Some unfathomable beauty enhancement product for women on display across from abovementioned toys at same convenience store Shop...

My おばあちゃん passed away today, February 21 at around 5am. She was alone, and they say that no one noticed her go.

something came over me just now, as i finished writing holiday cards to ppl in japan. my grandmother is in a private hospital, blowing all her decades of savings in the high-income ward where she was placed when she collapsed from diabetes complications. she cycles in an out of good health according to my mother, who flies back and forth between DC and nagoya in the final months of her 30-year employment at the world bank. my mom bikes back and forth from the hospital to the little wooden row-house (長屋) that survived air-raids during WWII, virtually untouched since that time. back and forth in and out up and down how to break free of this incessant cycle of death and rebirth? only through struggle...