Excellent introduction to cycling in Tokyo by CNN’s Christopher Johnson:
Two wheels better than four in Tokyo | CNNGo.com.
As many of the photos illustrating the article suggest, cycling downtown on the weekends is marvelous.
If only the sento would start catering to cyclists who just need a quick shower.
Nice article on a fun way to get to know Japanese cities:
Exploring Tokyo Through Its Ramen Shops – NYTimes.com.
Ramen is yummy–pork fat is the king of lipids after all–but I prefer a nice bowl of sansai soba (山菜そば, mountain veggie buckwheat noodles).
I’ve started playing with the Google Japanese input method first released last month. Even in beta it is stable and fast enough to use as my primary IME, and the dictionaries built from Google’s search index seem to work well. When I tried inputting my name, the first suggestion it offered after typing 「じょえ」 was French chef ジョエル・ロブション (Joël Robuchon), something that would never have happened out of the box with Kotoeri.
At long last, a text input method that brings a Japanese-style Input Method Editor to English:
英語もかしこく便利に入力できる｜日本語入力システム ATOK 2009 for Mac.
Phonetic, clairvoyant text entry is what makes Japanese mobile phone typing so fast and popular, but there has never really been anything of equivalent sophistication for western languages.
I’m looking forward to seeing ATOK become a multi-lingual text input system–I remember back in 1990 suggesting to Apple’s Developer Technical Support group that they implement this in Kotoeri so that non-Japanese engineers could test for inline input and double-byte compatibility using their native language.
On the way back from Yokohama the other night I came across two new polite behavior encouragement campaign posters by illustrator Akira Yamaguchi that stopped me in my tracks. The iPhone photos I hastily took were too blurry but here are a couple of blog postings on the two I saw:
The skies over Tokyo this morning were clear and the air cool–perfect for an early walk with Bjorn through Tama Reien to the Sengenyama view of Mt. Fuji.
BBC reports on yet another Tokyo architectural landmark’s demise:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7718442.stm
Yeesh.
It’s Valentine’s Day here in Tokyo. Lots of chocolate being bandied about.
