More than a journal this site has become an occasional scrapbook of everything that doesn’t fit elsewhere. Here are some assorted scraps and odds and ends that don’t fit in other places or that I haven’t had time to post lately…

That there, is a very famous cherry tree in Maruyama Park. I was there two weeks ago at my school’s cherry blossom viewing party. Now, after having been back at school for but a week and a half – it seems like a million years ago. This next one is a pic of me and Mr. Yamashita. He was a very nice teacher to work with but sadly I don’t get to teach with him this year…

It was extraordinarily cold that night so I drank hot sake to keep warm. I drank a lot of hot sake to keep warm. Hence the beaming red face.

The blossoms have been particularly tenacious this year, there are still some blossoms peeking out between the leaves even now. When you get cherry blossom and green leaves together it’s called hazakura. “Ha” is 葉 meaning “leaf” and the sakura part is 桜 meaning “cherry blossom”. Don’t say you never learn anything around here.

This next scrap is a preamble to a piece I put up on Deep Kyoto last night… I wrote and then decided it didn’t fit on Deep Kyoto so I’m sticking it here instead. I think it fits quite nicely in here, in my scrapbook…

Why Mewby likes Curry

There was a time when Mewby didn’t like curry. Or she thought she didn’t, because all she knew was Japanese curry – which is hardly representative. To be honest, as it invariably contains meat, I’ve never actually eaten the Japanese variety myself.

A serving of Japanese curry.

However, I have to say it doesn’t look very appetizing.

So I sympathised.

“But,” I told her, “Indian curry, real Indian curry, is something else altogether.”

She didn’t believe me. For her curry held no appeal.

But I was determined to teach her the truth about curry – real Indian curry – a life without which was barely a life lived at all – so I persisted, and finally, she caved, albeit reluctantly, as she’s not too keen on spicy food in general. One night I took her to the Indian restaurant just off Hyakumanben, asked them to go easy on the spice and she gave it a whirl. It was a taste revelation.

And now she is a true believer. Or perhaps addict would be a better word. Because after I moved away from north Kyoto and no longer lived close by that fine Indian establishment, she still had curry cravings but nowhere to sate them. Until she found Thilaga that is. About which you can read more here…

Finally,

…some music. Some time ago I was in Cafe Kocsi and they were playing some music and I thought to myself “That’s nice” so I asked a waiter what it was. He came back with the CD, so I thanked him, made a note on a piece of paper, lost the paper and promptly forgot all about it. Until the next time I was in Cafe Kocsi – when exactly the same thing happened again. I think this happened three times (that I remember) before I finally resolved to order the album off amazon. It’s Yael Naïm. I’ve been listening to her a lot lately. And she’s lovely.

Buy Yael Naim on amazon, amazon.co.jp, and amazon.co.uk.