I like the details and colors of this photo more on the screen of my keitai, a fact which has exactly zero value to you, dear reader.

Kizu is an area between Nara and Kyoto where Taro showed us the best junk/secondhand/recycle shops we have ever seen. Didn't take any pictures inside because I was having too much fun looking at stuff.

Scoop of the Year: The mattresses at the Mitsui Garden Hotel in Nara are made by Toyota. True futon otakus know the Toyota I speak of is not the same company that makes the 376mpg Prius.

A weird sidebar on the menu of a pretty lousy Italian chain restaurant in Japan, Saizeria. Turmeric, huh? Just how popular is the "equivalent of cubic zirconium for saffron" in Italian cooking anyway? I reckon they must have had paella on the menu or something. The best paella I ever had was in San Sebastian, at a seedy tapas bar where the barmaid ignored us and had an uncommonly hairy back. The worst fried sausage and peppers I ever had was at Saizeria. I want to know how they can so expertly fuck up a dish that even Tony Soprano can make.

NOW OPEN AT EXCLUSIVE NAMBA PARKS LOCATION - FOB COOP! Come partake in noisy group consumption of cheap, smelly food "from the homeland" in a less-than-completely hygienic setting...

Bill was less than thrilled at the present I brought back to his bar from the states. Maybe he just needs someone to show him the light. Hmm... I will pay someone to preach fire and brimstone at the front door on the weekends and entice people to go home and stop being sinners. Are you up to the job?

I took this photo of a chopstick sheath at our doctor-friend's wedding reception at the Ritz Carlton Osaka. After taking it, I tweaked it with my phone's onboard graphics editing software (I like to think of it as PS for AU). Hint to future friends-of-the-groom-in-charge-of-announcements: If I am reduced to playing with my keitai during your speech, you're choking it!

There were giant takoyaki decorations hanging from the ceiling of the main building by the Koban inside of KIX when we left for home in December. By the way the sauce had congealed on the top, I surmise that it was amakuchi, not karakuchi. Either way, it could have used more bonito shavings.

The hot new line of kids clothes by the Aeon Corp. You guys rock!