Talk about extremes.

Just two days ago, we had a warm spike, the weather rising to 65 degrees F (18 C), possibly even more than that. And tonight we’re having a pretty significant snowstorm, several inches at least. That’s quite a shift in temperature… and an excuse to upload a few photos of the white night to the ol’ blog.

Went to Inogashira Park today, and did something I haven’t done in many trips past: looked at the birds. You take them for granted, but there are so many there. At least three or four different kinds of ducks, for example, including the Tufted Duck, Common Pochard, the Northern Pintail, and I think Mallards, though I’ll have to research the identity much more closely. Here is a photo of a bunch of them in a feeding frenzy…

…But the interesting find was this bird, which I haven’t fully identified yet–maybe a Black-crowned Night Heron, but I really have to look into it–when I have time.

One other bird we spotted, but only in a flash, with an emerald or turquoise flash of back feathers–maybe a Kingfisher. I’ve got to go there again sometime soon. But I’ve also identified three parks with bird sanctuaries–one in Setagaya, Koganei Park, and Showa Memorial Park in Tachikawa. All should be good places to go.

Some more nice sunset photos of Mt. Fuji from the banks of the Tama River. Click on any of the photos for a 1280×960 full-sized image (about 60KB each).

These are my new students for the Winter 2005 semester of Introduction to Computers at Lakeland College Japan. A big class this year!

Of course, after the photo was taken, I realized that someone was missing–but there was no way to take the photo without leaving someone out of the picture. Except, of course with Photoshop–so we took another picture just of me, and with a little retouching–

Voilà!

From the 12th to the 14th centuries, Japan was ruled from Kamakura by the Minamoto shoguns. Today, it’s a seaside resort (near Enoshima), and is famed for having a large, outdoor statue of Buddha. And that’s where I went last Friday with a friend. After enjoying some really good noodles (they make ’em in front of you) at a shop in Yokohama’s Chinatown, we headed over to Kamakura in the hopes that maybe the on-and-off Typhoon (#10) weather would clear well enough so we could enjoy the beach. Alas, no–even though we reached the beach and the sun was out, the waves were too high; a red flag was flying, meaning you can’t go in there, bub. And laying on the beach didn’t work too well, either–the sun was just too danged hot to stay under it for too long.

Still, we enjoyed the town, and went to the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, where the photos below were taken, save the last one. We didn’t go to the shrine per se, but visited the lotus flower gardens named after the Heike and the Minamoto (two clans that battled each other), each with different-colored lotus flowers. The place has quite a bit of wildlife–the trees are filled with herons, large white long-necked birds, and the ponds are inhabited by rather lively turtles that come up out of the pond when people come to feed them.

While taking a leisurely walk around the neighborhood, we came across a shop with a rather imposing name:

And we took a side trip when we saw direction to a temple called “Komyoji,” supposedly one kilometer distant. However, despite following directions, we never found it–only new signs to other temples and shrines, which we decided not to follow. After all, “fool me once, shame on me, fool me, can’t get fooled again.” Or something like that.

But what we did find was a local temple that had this rather imposing fellow guarding the outside. He seemed rather annoyed to be having visitors, so we quickly prayed and skedaddled.

One of the topics that came up from seeing the Heike pond, by the way, was the Heike Crab. It’s a crab found in Japan with the face of a scowling samurai on its carapace. I remember first seeing it in Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” series quite a while back, as an example of accidental forced evolution. The idea is that of the crab that were being collected by the fishermen, one had a mutation that made its carapace look a little like a face. Superstitious, the fishermen who caught this crab and its descendants threw it back–so it survived and reproduced, more than the others. Over time, successive mutations made the face more and more like a scowling face of a samurai, the best carapace a crab could wish to have to avoid being eaten.

The legend of the crabs is that they were created after a terrible water-borne battle between the Heike and Minamoto clans, which the Heike lost. The dead samurai, lost to the waters, are said to have be reborn as the crabs–hence the name “Heike Crab.” The crabs with the human faces happened to emerge in that area at about that time. And it was that battle which led to Minamoto dominance and the beginning of the Kamakura Era.

Just a little fun fact there.

Yesterday, as one of my school’s yearly events, all students who wanted to went to a bayfront park on the newly-built Daiba island for a barbecue. Could have used some actual barbecue sauce and maybe some ribs, but otherwise it was a perfect event. A bit hot–in the low 90’s–but that just made the water fun more appealing.

Too high a flame!

Getting ready some sprouts, sausages, yakisoba, steak and salad…

Ruth getting splashed after ambushing some students

Cheezu!

And one more, this a landscape from the park. Remember those matte painting shots from Star Trek episodes? This skyline really brought that to mind, looked as much like an artist’s rendering as it did like real buildings… and there are some more exotic buildings over on that island, let me tell you. Like an architect’s playground.

By the way, a thumbnail page with 64 photos from the event is available here.

I Went to Akihabara today to try to find some computer equipment for the school. Every time I go there, I am less and less impressed; really, the electronics stores in Shinjuku are better stocked and with better prices. There was a store called “Liberty” which sells used DVD movies for cheap (¥980 and up), which might be something to visit once in a while, and if you hunt long enough, you might find some cheap junk at some stores in the back alleys, but other than that, I don’t see much use to visiting the place. Maybe 20 years ago some deals could be found and some merchants were willing to dicker and bargain, but now it’s pretty tame.

I did find an interesting new sight, however: a place called “Smoker’s Style” (pictured below). Apparently, a place where they could dwell in smoking heaven while working on their computers, eating snacks and drinks bought from the machines, and so forth.

God knows they need a place like that. After all, with 90% of the coffee shops and restaurants being only mostly smoking (who could stand to be in a place where non-smokers were allowed a corner of the room?), smokers need places like this now more than ever.

Apparently, the room was created by Japan Tobacco, Inc., because, in theory, smoking was banned on Akihabara streets (though not in cafes or restaurants). Funny, because I saw dozens of people smoking on the streets, as well as about a dozen cops walking around, and no one being ticketed. I also saw no prominent no-smoking signs.

Japan Tobacco is still half-owned by the Japanese government (the Finance Ministry, specifically–they owned two-thirds until a month ago, when they sold off 15% of the company for $2.2 billion), and while one part of the government is making the very Japanese-style shallow acts of outlawing smoking on a few streets, another is fighting back with lounges like these. All kind of bizarre, meaningless, superficial–in other words, business as usual.

If you want to keep up with smoking news in Japan, this page is where the action is at. Roughly 53% of Japanese men smoke, the highest percentage among industrialized countries, and Japan is among the nations that tried to block an international antismoking treaty (the U.S. and Germany were the other two holdouts), until revisions watering down the treaty were introduced. So what will Japan do? Increase the warning label on the cigarette packs (maybe) and consider changing the name of its “Mild Seven” brand to one that does not include the word “mild.” Goody.

Sometimes I just like to step outside, pick a direction, and see what’s down the road. I don’t do it every day, but when the weather is good and there’s nothing else to do, it’s fun to explore. All too often, having lived in Japan for more than 13 years now, I forget that I’m living in a foreign country and haven’t seen a lot yet. I’ll stop where I am, look around, and realize that I’m in Japan. It sort of hits you that way sometimes.

This time I went to the edges of town, near where the railroad runs against the nearby cliffs and hills, and noticed more and more the little farms that traded off occupancy of the lots with suburban houses built on the less expensive real estate on the fringes of town. There are lots of little farms all over Tokyo, in fact, and you’ll find them in the darndest of places–an artifact of high property sales taxes and low property ownership taxes, subsidies to small farmers and so on–the farmers have been represented fairly well in government.

What I saw more and more were small orchards of trees kept at a low height, maybe 6 feet or so, and hanging from the trees were small paper bags. When I got to wondering what was in the bags, I asked a lady at a small fruit stand (they sell a lot from the mini-farms and -orchards at stalls), and she told me they were pears. Not grapes? They can be wrapped too, she replied, but they’re wrapped in different paper.

Too bad I’m not a big pear fan….

A small break from politics… a few shots I’ve taken recently.

and one taken shortly after I noticed the moon rising tonight

During vacations my sleep schedule gets shot to hell. One advantage of this is that I see a lot more sunrises. I really should aim towards waking up to them and not going to sleep by them, though…

So, you’re an American living in Japan, it’s past April 15th, and your taxes are still not ready? Well, don’t worry about it quite yet. You get an automatic 2-month extension from the IRS, until June 15th, to file your income taxes. And if you want to, you can file for another extension after that, and usually you get it–but June 15th is enough, and filing for an extension would actually be more trouble than it’s worth unless you have some unfortunate and bizarre situation going on there.

Since we all get the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE), now at $80,000 per year, most of us unlucky enough not to earn more than that end up not paying anything in taxes to the U.S.–which is fair, because we have to pay full taxes here in Japan. But we have to file with the IRS anyway.

“But I don’t owe anything, and I paid taxes to Japan, so I don’t need to file.” Well, we all wish it were so. But alas, you have to file no matter what. In fact, you have to file to get the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion–if you don’t file, then technically you will have to pay complete U.S. taxes! So make sure you do file…

In order to file, you need Form 1040, Form 2555, a 2003 “gensen chusho” form (a small slip that documents your income and tax fess for the year) from your work, and the 2003 Annual Average Rate for the yen and dollar.

By the way, here’s a news flash: As of June this year, the IRS office at the Tokyo embassy will be shutting down permanently, which sucks big-time. The person at the office said the shut-down is to save money (money that Bush has spent on Halliburton or tax breaks for billionaires). They have always been there to answer phone calls, not to mention being there to help you in person if you have problems that can’t be handled by phone. So now if you need help, you have to pay international dialing rates and wait on hold for an hour and a half to talk to someone in Philadelphia who knows nothing about paying your taxes from Japan. Ah, Bush’s America.

But if you want help in the next two months, then call (03) 3224-5466; press “8” as soon as you hear talking in order to avoid the mind-numbing voice mail handling, and instead get switched directly to an “assistor.” If they’re busy or out to lunch, then you can leave a message and they’ll get back to you.

Anyway, I decided that this year I was going to explain how to get those forms done, because there is a bit of a confusing process to go through for this (it wouldn’t be taxes if it weren’t at least a little confusing), and I tend to forget how to do this from year to year. This explanation should help all you regular Americans living in Japan do your tax returns, although:

DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional tax preparer. I do not guarantee that any of the information or advice on this page is correct. If there are any errors which lead you to make errors, that is your responsibility.

In other words, I want to try to help you, not get sued by you. So follow my advice at your own risk. that said, here we go:

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