Musings from a financial translator in Tokyo (and now London)
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 15th, 2010
Hanae and I went to see Jamie Cullum yesterday - it was one of the English Heritage Picnic Concerts. An outdoor concert in the summer? With a picnic basket and wine! Sign me up! Only problem was the weather – it rained most of the day, and was coming down cats and dogs when we [...]
Posted in Music, Uncategorized on Mar 18th, 2010
2010 is a big year in the classical music world, which is celebrating the 200th year since the birth of Chopin. I didn’t know much about Chopin until I met my Much Better Half, who plays some of his pieces on the piano. Some of Chopin’s pieces are absolutely delightful, and now I have a [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 14th, 2010
I loved this little problem from math class. 0.999… (with the ellipses representing ‘repeats forever’) equals one. The first time most people see this it doesn’t quite compute, since conceptually people think of 0.999… as ‘always getting closer and closer to 1 – but not quite reaching it – for infinity’. Wrapping your head around [...]
Posted in Music, Uncategorized on Dec 20th, 2009
X Factor is a ‘let’s find a new singer star act’ here in the UK – think American Idol (both shows are, in fact, produced and run by Simon Cowell). The show has run for about six years now – and every year, the final show generates massive newsflow and ratings. The last show of [...]
Posted in MBH, Pet, Uncategorized on Dec 7th, 2009
Yep, it’s that time of year again! We trimmed our Christmas tree over the weekend – this was the same tree we had in Tokyo. Despite being in a box for two years, and despite the 5,000-km trip by boat over the Big Pond to Ol’ Blighty, the tree and our decorations seemed none the [...]
Posted in Food, Pet, Uncategorized on Oct 11th, 2009
It’s a tradition in our family to make chili the first time it snows each year. Since we’re in London now, we’re not so sure how likely we are to get snow – so this past Sunday when we didn’t really have any other dinner plans, I whipped up some chili. Chili and football – [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Sep 7th, 2009
By the time we got back from beach and relaxed back at the hotel it was evening. We decided to head out for a short walk before dinner. We ended up finding by accident a footpath that went all the way down the southern coast of the island, with beautiful views of the faraglioni – [...]
Posted in London, MBH, Music, Uncategorized on Aug 14th, 2009
Every year, the BBC sponsors an eight-week classic concert festival – the BBC Proms. Most of the events are held at Royal Albert Hall. The MBH and I have talked about enjoying the arts and culture here in London, since the opportunity to do so in Tokyo is considerably more limited. So when we [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on May 10th, 2009
Day Three! On our daily trek up the hill from our hotel to the main Sultanahmet area, we were surprised to see the streets lined with barriers: The last time I saw these barriers was last year during the Tour de France broadcasts. Hmmm. Yep, it was indeed for cycling! Turns out we were on hand [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 18th, 2009
I took a short video clip while the evening prayer song was played from speakers throughout the night Istanbul sky. Get the Flash Player to see this content. var params = { ‘allowfullscreen’: ‘true’, ‘allowscriptaccess’: ‘always’, ‘wmode’: ‘transparent’ }; var attributes = { ‘id’: ‘video1′, ‘name’: ‘video1′}; var flashvars = { }; swfobject.embedSWF(“http://blue-eyed-samurai.com/wp-content/plugins/flash-video-player/mediaplayer/player.swf”, “video1″, “”, [...]