By tomorrow, the host city of the 2016 Summer Olympics will be decided by the International Olympic Committee. As for Tokyo, the lack of public support has been pointed out earlier to be its weak point in the bid. Well, I think many of the Tokyoites would love to have the Olympics held in their own city, if they are able to see the games live however, the chances are thin for us to be able to win that ticket war.

I think there has to be something done about those tickets at least for host country residents. It's gone too commercial.

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Caterpillar

It's been raining here in Tokyo for a couple of days. Looks like it has rained today in Suzuka, too, where the Formula One Japan Grand Prix will be held this weekend. And as this F1 season is coming to an end, I came to think of Takuma. What's he doing, now? He's been away from the circuit for a while now. I don't see why he still can't earn his seat in a team, having driven fastest in the Red Bull's test in Spain held before the season. Is it only because of the fund problems?

I was hoping that some Japanese team would make a smart arrangement to pop him up on their driver's seat just for their home GrandPrix, but they turned out to be much concerned in winning the race than to make the fans happy. It's a pitty.

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Caterpillar

While I was chitchatting with my client, we somehow went into a conversation about birthdays, and ended up finding out that her and Cow's birthday was only a day apart. As a matter of fact, my client is much older than Cow as much as a quarter cenruty, I think, but still it seemed a quite rare case to me. And it reminded me of an article I read in the papers about a Japanese man named Hiro-something Tanaka, holding a gathering with nine (or more, sorry I forgot) other Japanese men who had exactly the same name in the same Kanji characters as he did. According to the article, one of the Mr. Tanakas had searched his full name on the Internet, finding other people under the same name and started the gathering from several years ago, being curious what kind of people the other Mr. Tanakas were.

Hmmm. That sounds interesting. I think I'm going to let Cow know about it. Hey, Cow...

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Caterpillar

I was talking to Cow on Skype again this afternoon, when he raised a shriek voice telling me that former Japanese finance minister, Shoichi Nakagawa, has been found dead at his home in Setagaya, Tokyo. Oh god, what happened, Sho-chan? According to the news, there were no injuries found on his body and no will had been found so far. Instantly, a memory flashed into my mind about a jockey that appeared in the book "Seabiscuit", George Woolf. I've read in the book that he had suffered diabetes which troubled him in sudden attacks of sleep, sometimes making him fall asleep in mid-conversation. Looking back on Sho-chan's "drunken" news conference at the Rome G7 summit now, perhaps he could have been having diabetes symptoms.

If it had been diabetes and not alchohol that made Shou-chan behave like that, I owe him my sincerest apology. If it hadn't been diabetes, still I think he must have had some sort of health problems to finish his life so suddenly, though even himself might have not been aware yet of what was happening to his body. Rest in peace, Shou-chan.

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Caterpillar

Last night I finished reading "The Last Battle" the last one of six books of the box series, "The Chronicles of Narnia". I think I was about eight or nine years old when I read the very first one of the series, "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" so that sums up to more than a something score years to finish reading the whole series though of course, there were some several years' intervals between each book.

What I want to say here is, that after taking so much time (though it's mostly my own fault) that ending was pretty much a let down. After all the adventures and magic and fantasy with talking animals and being transferred to another world, all the evils are simply wiped away by Aslan, the great lion who seems to be representing God himself? With all the children believing in Narnia to be killed in a railway accident to live forever in a never-ending new Narnia? What is this, The Bible? No wonder the writer had arguments with J.R.R. Talkin who wrote "The Lord Of The Rings".

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Caterpillar

A short while ago, they were lecturing how to attach false eyelashes on the radio. As a caterpillar having a new hobby to personally enjoy translating "Seabiscuit" word for word into Japanese, I can't understand why girls use such weird items when they already have lashes of their own. Some girls have told me before that they make their eyes look bigger and resultingly make their face look prettier however, since I've never cared much about the size of their eyes more over, whether they're with or without false lashes when I've met girls, I think they're not so effective as expected to be. Well, maybe someday I'll try one for myself and see how it's like.

Incidentally, Cow has extraordinarily long lashes that he can lay four matches on them. I guess he'll never need false lashes.

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Caterpillar

Today was supposed to be my lucky day. But the weather has been nasty. It should be. A large typhoon was crawling up from the south, which was said to land on Japan somewhere between tonight and tomorrow. In such weather, I've been busy all morning picking up Obaba's medicine, dropping by at a patisserie to buy a cake for my client for whom I was planning a small surprise birthday party. So carrying lots of bundles with my backpack and umbrella and wabbling in my rain boots, it turned out to be quite a task for me to just reach my office.

But my client seemed so happy about this tiny surprise that it also made ME happy. Well, it was worth all the trouble and I guess it wasn't such a bad day after all. Though it's still not over yet.

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Caterpillar

A powerful typhoon, Typhoon Melor has hit our nation landing on Aichi prefecture last night, bringing heavy rain and violent winds with it climbing up north hitting Nagano and Tokyo on its way. I think it must have reached somewhere near Hokkaido by now.

By the way, I personally like autumn typhoons. It may sound imprudent for big ones sometimes, do serious damage or hurt people even take their lives, but I like those wild stormy nights because it reminds me that I'm only a part of great nature, as well as the luckiness to have a roof over my head and some walls around me, that keeps me safe in such condition. Added to this, I also like the windy morning after the typhoon has passed, since it usually clears up like nothing had happened leaving an additional breeze. Have I written this before? I'm beginning to feel like I have...

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Caterpillar

In the subway on my way to work this morning, I came across this weird old woman. She was wearing a nylon parka on her sweat shirt and a pair of sweat pants, nothing out of the ordinary, if it hadn't been on a subway just about to leave Otemachi station located in the heart of Tokyo. What made her more weird was that she was mumbling something in a quite large voice, large enough for a bunch of passengers around her to hear, with a newspaper in her hands. At first, I thought she was reading the papers to herself, but a few minutes later I realized that she wasn't. She was actually those "mumbling" sort of people, complaining about life's bitter moments... And the frightening thing happened.

She was sitting next to me before I knew it! I was too absorbed checking today's schedule and all, I almost yelped when I noticed the mumbling right at my ears. Not to mention, I spent the rest of my ride uncomfortable and uneasy.

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Caterpillar

Lately, it has become my personal enjoyment to drop buy the supermarket near my office on Saturday mornings, to buy a freshly-fried Kare-pan (Japanese curry bread) there and have it for breakfast in my office. Kare-pan is a kind of bread made of slightly sweetened dough, deep fried with curry paste fillings resembling a Russian piroshki. I've always had a bad impression about them since they often turned out to be too oily for me, but the ones sold in that supermarket was different. Perhaps it might have just been fried, there seemed to be no oiliness like in other Kare-pans that had bothered me somany times before. Instead, it was crunchy and crispy, and still lukewarm. It was goood! The moment I took a bite, I was sure that I've found one of the best Kare-Pans in town.

And it's only 168 yen!

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Caterpillar

Mainichi Oukan, the prep race for the autumn Tennousho (the Emperor's Cup) was run today. The performance of Vodka was in the center of the attention pushing her up to a favorite of 1.3 to 1, since it was her first race of this autumn season. Vodka has been undefeatable since last autumn, winning every top grade races that she competed in, and everyone wanted to see if her overwhelming power was still unchanged. She took the lead taking advantage of her exceptional speed, but finihsed second of Company who specialized in the distance of 1800m (a mile and 1/8). But this must have been within the scheme of Vodka's camp, actually aiming for the Tennousho.

Consequently, that only seems to ensure Vodka's second victory in the autumn Tennousho coming up on November 1st. So all I have to do is find the right horse who comes in second and third. Wow, doesn't that sound easy.

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Caterpillar

I have an old English picture dictionary that was there on the desk of my bedroom thirty or so years ago, on the first day I arrived in New York. It must have belonged to the former resident, but as I was a non-English speaker I decided to make use of it, and I've brought it home with me to Japan when I came back. A long time has passed since then, and the spine label of the dictionary had peeled off as well as some pages that hung loose. So I've been to Tokyu Hands today, to get one of those plastic protection films for books. I'm going to glue the fallen pages back on and cover the dictionary with this protection film after I finish this "Murmur".

Fortunately, I was able to find the film quite easily, and so far things have been working out like I've planned, except that the film costed more than I had expected... oooh, 724 yen for a roll of only about five feet! That hurts...

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Caterpillar

I was walking down the aisle of a subway station that led to an escalator climbing up to the ground level, when I saw a JK (standing for Joshi-kousei, literally meaning senior high school girl in Japansese slang) in her school uniform. She wore her skirt so short, especially with its hem shoved up by the bag she carried on both of her shoulders, and I was rather worried than excited. Then as I turned the corner and went on the escalator, what I've been worrying has happened. She was now cmpletely revealing her panties... Oh, god.

Would someone teach her some risk management, please?

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Caterpillar

Cow has dug out from his belongings, an old pack of play cards called "Race Play Cards". He seems to have been doing some searching to find a bunch of old photos, and he happened to come back with these cards probably finding them by accident. It says "Just Arrived, Horse Race Cards, Wins and Quinella exactly like the real race" on what seems to be... an instruction manual.

Wow. This sure does look like a vintage. Must be a rare item er? Cow went searching right away this time on the Internet, but to his disappointment the same kind of play cards were still sold under the name of "Derby Race Cards" for 210 yen a pack. Hey, don't be so upset. Why don't we play a game with this, huh?

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Caterpillar

So we opened the pack for the first time in decades. On the left side of the card were three columns printed respectively, numbers from one to eight, pictures of cantering horses with jockeys on their backs, and eight empty boxes. On the right half of the card were the winners and odds masked with.. what's this? A special sort of ink, I guess, with some instructions on how to play beneath it. According to Cow, each of the players are supposed to choose the numbers they like and write in their names in the empty boxes of their chosen number. When the boxes have been filled out, you scrub the ink off the masked part of the winners and odds with a piece of cloth attached to the instruction, either wetted with water or spit(!!).

We tried it anyhow. The winner was number seven, followed by five and six. It paid out 1/8 for Cow, 2/8 and 5/8 for me resultingly making me the winner of the game. Well, it wasn't so spectacular as we've expected after all...

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Caterpillar

There is one thing that's been caught up in my mind since I've finished the game of "Race Play Cards". In around the middle of the instructions printed on the right side of the cards, it said "currently applying for a patent" in parentheses. But these cards originally were from several decades ago, as I've said earlier.

I wonder if they're still applying.

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Caterpillar

I've written earlier about Kare-pan (Japanese curry bread), that buying them on my way to work on Saturday mornings has become my latest enjoyment. But there is one problem. The bakery that sells the Kare-pan is located in the supermarket near my office however, the supermarket usually opens at 10:00 AM unless they are having a special sale day. On special sale days, they open from 9 o'clock or 9:30 so I'm able to drop by, buy a Kare-pan and still make it on time for work which start from 10:00 on Saturdays. But the problem is that they don't have sale days every weekend.

Unfortunately, they weren't having sale this morning and the supermarket was still closed when I came, and I couldn't buy that delicious freshly-fried Kare-pan... I've been trying to keep in mind to check out the dates of the sale days whenever I drop by that supermarket, but somehow I seem to forget ending up standing in shock and sorrow in front of the supermarket.

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Caterpillar

The last race of the fillie's Triple Crown, the Shuka-sho was run today. I called up Cow as usual to tell him which horses I wanted to place my bet on, so he would be able to put it on the respective horses using the JRA(Japan Racing Association) PAT system, an online betting system. I thought I had won but to my disappointment, I hadn't. Apparently, Cow seems to have put the bet on the wrong horse, or perhaps I've said it wrong. Now that the race is over it doesn't really matter which of us's fault it was.

What was more shocking was that Buena Vista who I thought came in 2nd, had been dropped down to 3rd position due to her interruption against other horses. Wow. The trifecta pay-offs must have jumped up then...

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Caterpillar

The exhibition of "The Power of Dogu" seems to be beginning from Deccember 15th at Tokyo National Museum in Ueno. They are displaying national treasure clay figures from the early Jomon Period(B.C.8,000-B.C.300) to the middle of the Yayoi Period(B.C.300-A.D.300), and latetely I've been seeing lots of posters notifying the event. There's still more than one month to go before its opening, but I've become quite familiar with those posters now. They catch my eyes whenever I see one. The pictures of the clay figures called Dogu in Japanese looks pretty ethnic and nice, but it's the catch phrase that actually grabbed my heart.

There's only one vertical line printed saying "The Jomon superstars." HA-HA, this is brilliant. Great sense of humor.

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Caterpillar

Today I've had fried horse mackerel for lunch. Horse mackerels are familiar fish to us Japanese since they are mostly caught in the near ocean, and often appear on our tables as side dishes probably because they are usually sold for a reasonable price (except the brand fish). The so called Aji-fry, horse mackerels deep fried in batter, has long shared the position of a favorite side dish in average Japanese homes. Not to mention, I'm not an exception to this. As a matter of fact, I love Aji-fries. Yum.

But unfortunately, a bone has been stuck in my throat... Two and a half hours have passed since I've had my lunch however, so far the bone still seems to be staying where it got stuck and it's giving me a slight sting... ouch.

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Caterpillar

Yesterday, I heard the radio talent saying something about the Orionid meteor shower. Well that reminds me of a shooting star that I've seen on Monday night. I was having a smoke on the balcony as usual, looking at the sky without much thinking when a narrow streak of light shot across the sky near the Orion. Was that a shooting star? I rubbed my eyes, not knowing about the Orionid meteor shower yet. It was the next day I learned that the meteor shower would be seen up to the 23rd.

Having known about it, I looked up at the Orion again last night and saw another shooting star. I think I'll accept yesterday as a lucky day although I've got a horse mackerel bone stuck in my throat (looks like it's come off some time between last night and this morning). As they say, all goes well that ends well. Good luck to those who still haven't seen it yet!

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Caterpillar

The Yomiuri Giants has lost their first game in the play-offs while across the Pacific, the New York Yankees is about to grab the ticket to the World Series. And I have been awakened this morning, by what I thought was a ding-dong ditch. I was still sleeping when I noticed our doorbell being battered, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, without a pause. Knowing that the midterm exams in high schools must be coming up by this week, and that the students would be dimissed from school earlier than usual, I shook off my sleepy head and went downstairs to grab the kid who rang the bell by the neck and teach him a lesson.

But I didn't catch a school boy. Instead, I caught JoOusama... Apparently, she seemed to have been locked out by Tono while she was idling her time away around the house, after she had seen off Obaba to the daycare center. "It's good you woke up," she said, as I unlocked the door and let her in. Can't she ever simply say "Thank you"?

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Caterpillar

It's been about a week since I almost passed out looking at my face in the mirror. I usually wash my face to freshen up before having supper. As I looked up from the sink and took a glance at the mirror, !! my left eye was blotted out with red, seemingly blood! Eeeaaoow, what an occult! Looking closely, I realized that there was a streak of blood in the white of my left eye, leading to the red smudge that blotted out nearly half of the white part.

This week I've squeezed out some time to search what it was and what could have caused it and I've come to a conclusion that it must be what's called, hyposphagma. Hyposphagma often referred to as "acute red eye", seems cause hemorrhage from conjunctiva due to dry eye, tiredness or various other reasons. It said there won't be much to worry as long as I don't have other specific symptoms such as pain or uncomfortableness, and that the blood would disappear in a couple of days, otherwise I should consult the doctor. Thank God, the red has gone and my eye has returned to normal now.

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Caterpillar

I was palnning to drop by and take a peek in the library near my office yesterday but I got late, so I decided to wake up early and go next morning before work. And I did. I'd have to admit that I was surprised to find a whole shelf in that library filled with English books, while there are hardly any in the one near my house except several picture books. There was another thing that also surprised me. An old man was there standing? with his back against the shelf. I wasn't paying much attention until I noticed him moving up and down and sideways as if to draw a circle with his back.

What in the world is he doing? Is he dancing? Alone?? From nine o'clock in the morning? In a local library?? But then I knew. Why, he was rubbing his back against the bookshelf! Did he have to do that in the library?

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Caterpillar

I was thinking of staying home today since I thought the weather would be nasty, but Cow received a call from Mr. N-jima so we set out to the off-the-course betting booth to place our bets for the Kikkashou, the last top ranked race limited to this year's three-year-old colts. The winner was Three Rolls, a medium long shot of 1 to 18.

I hate to admit it but I've lost again (as usual). Though I've found a better route to get to the betting stand that could save me the single train fare. Oh, I'm definitely going to use this route from now on. That should save me enough money to buy another triplet. Why didn't I notice it before?

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Caterpillar

I came in a little late today. Another typhoon is creeping up from the south along the Pacific coast, and I had to struggle again in my rain boots. When I reached the office, Cow told me that my ex-client had dropped by before I came. She's a talkative person, sometimes too talkative, and Cow seems to have tried to get away with her by pretending he hadn't noticed, but he failed. She peered in from the door and asked how I was doing. Unprepared, Cow answered, "Yes, still well, thank you."

Later he fed me with an excuse that the phrase "still not here" and "is well" got mixed up in his head. Well, I'm still alive, thanks.

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Caterpillar

It looks like Obaba has received a package from one of our relatives in Miyazaki prefecture. She opened the package and gave it to me, because she probably couldn't think of what to do with it. There were some printings on the light green box that said, "Organic," "Hebesu" in bluegreen, and "King of tree vinegar from Hyuga" "The local specialties of Miyazaki." in red ink.

Tree vinegar, I assumed, must be some kind of citrus fruit, but what in the world is Hebesu? I've never heard of it before. They look like small oranges, only the colors are green. I couldn't think of what to do with it either, so I gave them to Cow. If there's anyone who knows what a Hebesu is, I'd be happy if you drop me a line. Thanks.

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Caterpillar

I've been pretty busy this week and I'm also a bit tired since I couldn't get a good rest this week, having gone out on Sunday. As for today, I've been engaged to taking Obaba to the clinic this morning and work after that, so my batteries are running out now. I was hoping to go home early today, eventually giving me a chance to get enough sleep however, I have discovered this morning that Obaba has apparently lost her health insurance card...

That means that I have to be engaged this time, to searching it and digging it out from somewhere in her room after I got home, eventually leaving less time to sleep. Otherwise, I would have to apply for a new card for her before her next visit to the clinic, which lays only two weeks ahead and that would surely be a task. Oh, I wish I had something like a metal detector that would find the insurance card in an instant and tell me with a beep.

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Caterpillar

So I searched all over Obaba's room for her insurance card. I guessed that she must have forgot to take it out of her purse and put it back to the usual place in the drawer, after she brought it along to the dentist which she had been to on her own and searched everywhere fore her purse. But the purse was nowhere to be found. Having nothing to do, I checked the drawer one last time and found what seemed to be an insurance card. The card appeared different from the one I knew, but I asked Obaba anyway to make doubly sure, "Have you received a new insurance card lately?" in case she or somebody else might have replaced it with the old one I was looking for. And that old woman answered, "Of course, it's new." So I've wasted an hour of my sleep looking for an invalid insurance card that already didn't exist...

And I'm sure, definitely sure, that it was my aunt who must have replaced the new card with the old one, not Obaba, though she answered in that everybody-knows-that kind of tone in her voice. She's such a jerk sometimes.

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Caterpillar

When I took Obaba to the clinic on Wednesday, we met an old lady on our way home. Obaba seemed to recognize her face. Perhaps she was one of her many acquaitnaces that she exchange greetings with whenever she goes out walking around the neighborhood. Obaba called out to her and said hello. The woman, hearing Obaba's extraordinarily loud voice, turned her face in response and said, "Oh, hi, there. You've had your home helper take you to the clinic, eh? I'm glad you have someone to help you," as she passed us by pushing her bicycle in the direction of the supermarket...

I'm her grandchild! Not her home helper, I wanted to say, but she was gone before I can say a word. Well, I guess I can't blame her for taking me as a home helper. Grandchildrens generally don't take their grandparents to the clinic every time their old folks need a visit, it's usually either their mothers', their aunts' or the home helpers' job here in Japan.

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Caterpillar

While I was pumping away at my work preparing for the coming week, Cow has been fooling around with his lap-top computer as usual. He came across a comedy movie of Jerry Lewis which he actually loves, and asked me if I could follow what they were saying because it didn't have closed captions in Japanese. I answered I could, and then told him that I'd rather prefer watching an old American family drama called "Happy Days",; though I've never found it on YouTube. Cow went searching and to my surprise, he came up with a movie of the "Happy Days" actors' reunion! Wow, this is amazing!

I know this wouldn't make sense to those who haven't seen it, but look at Richie, look at Fonzie! Look at Mr. C and Mrs. C, Potsie, Ralph, and, and... Gosh it brings back the memories.

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Caterpillar