Wataru Tenkawa
@10wataru
Naturalized Japanese citizen from Michigan via San Francisco, car-free Tokyo resident since 1978, thriving on a no-mammals diet since 1970
Look closely at that ham radio antenna I posted yesterday and you can see birds on it. These are not birds indigenous to Japan but are rose-ringed parakeets, also known as ring-necked parakeets, which escaped from cages and settled in Tokyo many years ago.
Love these ham radio antenna arrays. Takes me all the way back to age 14, when I built a shortwave radio and strung an antenna from my room to a tree in our backyard. (This was taken in Musashino-shi near Midori-cho.)
AEON obon campaign before and after. No doubt a wise move to ditch the BON!
The Kavalan Distillery in Taiwan, winner of multiple awards, offers these malt samples only to visitors. My wonderful son-in-law gave me these, which he got from a colleague. Looking forward to tasting them individually and in blends. #whisky
Saw this, and recalled the rude welcome Pielke Jr. received when he joined Bluesky. He was put on block lists, as were his followers, and effectively driven away. Yet what he said is now accepted wisdom. No wonder Bluesky remains such a niche platform. Self-important but with minimal impact.
What kind of watch is this young lady wearing? (My wife and I were chuckling when we saw this, as we have often observed to each other how NHK cameramen choose their "targets" with a certain consistency.)
My daughter's interesting idea of what I would enjoy as a Father's Day gift. Will wait until dinner to try it out.
Am I the only one? Not exactly "separated at birth" but close enough that I often see photos of Kevin Warsh and think I'm looking at @tobiasharris.bsky.social
Happy to see that Japanese TV treasures its drag queens. The one on the left is a regular commentator on afternoon variety shows.
Not a huge IPA fan but this one is really nice. I used to drink it at an Irish pub in Shibuya and it's also available at a local Fish 'n Chips place in Mitaka, but I was glad to find this at Queen's Isetan in Musashi-sakai
My wife loves to make salads with fruit, and in this case, raw sea bream slices
Of the five bottles of nihonshu I sampled this evening, this one was my favorite, a junmai from Nagano. (The others were decent, except for a low-alcohol one that I won't be buying again.) Details at the brewer's site: naganosake.jp/products/yuk...
A miso shop in Kichijoji, which closed a couple of decades or so ago. The owner, like many who used to live upstairs from their shop, could no longer tolerate the increasing liveliness as surrounding establishments stayed open later into the night.
Cheap and highly recommended. This far surpassed my expectations and was part of a set purchased online for just over 700 yen per bottle. It is "sparkling" but only a little, and the strawberry notes made it really enjoyable.
This is how I use Bluesky, thanks to deck.blue. Note that there are two "Science" columns because one is a list I made and the other is a custom feed.
Not the first time I've read an analysis of Japan's political scene like this one, but I'm curious what Bluesky Japan watchers think of it
LOL, what Komeito thought about its current partner just a little more than a year ago. Maybe it really was a cunning assassination plot?
This tweet, for me, highlighted a fundamental problem with the sudden merger of two rather different parties. I certainly lean left but could absolutely not hold my nose hard enough to vote for people like her, our former mayor.
I kind of feel this is a bit of a sexist comment by Noda. Am I wrong?