The Wayfarer Blog

Update (3/27/07): This issue should be resolved now. But if you notice and problems or have any suggestions, please click on the “contact” link in the header navigation bar above, and send me an email.

Hey Internet Explorer (IE) users: Can you see my sidebar on the right side? (It’s blue with a Flickr photo badge, and a bunch of links to previous posts.) I was talking with one of my friends, and he told me that my site was messed up, because the sidebar, which should be on the side, has been on the bottom for a long time.

Well, I don’t have regular access to Internet Explorer (proud Mac user, thank you very much :razz:), but I also observed this behavior on Internet Explorer at an internet cafe once. The entire sidebar was on the bottom of the post! The thing is, I don’t know what causes it. I often use Windows computers at work, but I rarely look at my site on Internet Explorer. But most of the time, (other than that time at the internet cafe), it looks fine. It might be something from my site, like one of the plugins I use on my blog or maybe a CSS incompatibility, but I suspect it has something to do with their IE settings, since this doesn’t seem to be a problem for most people who view my site.

By the way, about half of my audience uses Internet Explorer. The other half generally uses Firefox, Camino, or Safari. I use all of those, plus I also sometimes use Flock and Opera, but I recommend Firefox for its security and extensibility. It has a huge set of powerful plugins and themes you can add to the main browser. I guess most people don’t think much about the browser they use (IE comes with Windows, so that is what they use.) That is fine. I’ve heard some good reviews of the latest version, but I haven’t used it. There are many, many browsers, so you should use whichever one(s) you want. But I am always surprised to hear people say they thought they had to use Internet Explorer. You don’t. If you do, you want to make sure you are running the latest version, Internet 7 (IE7), here. Older versions are less standards-compliant and may have security holes, which puts you at risk. Plus, IE7 finally has tabbed browsing, like everyone else! (Ok, I’ll be nice….)

If you want to learn more about the history and development of web browsers, check out this Wikipedia article. Wow…I remember using NCSA Mosaic. And I remember when Netscape came out. Some people on the internet were unhappy because they thought it was going to ruin it. Only time will tell if they were right…

Anyway, if anyone else is seeing the sidebar on the bottom, please let me know.

My sister and I went to the Country Club Plaza, in Kansas City, Missouri, on January, 3, 2007. One of Kansas City’s sister cities is Seville, Spain. The Plaza is an outdoor shopping district that is modeled after Seville. The Plaza has a website. This line, from the “Art and History” Page, says it best: “Only Rome has more fountains than Kansas City, and several of the more spectacular ones are found on the Country Club Plaza.”

I only took a few pics, and I missed a lot of great fountains and buildings, but here a few I took. Enjoy. You can see the whole set (and also a few pics from Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport here).

The homepage for the Country Club Plaza is here. You can also take a virtual tour of many fountains and buildings, if you want to see what I missed or learn more about the pictures i took.

The other day, I posted this article about Japanese comics, and I talked about a couple of books that I found very useful for studying Japanese, because they taught realistic expressions and vocabulary in everyday settings. I gave a link to some samples on that page. One of the links was an article, written by Dr. Tim Screech, Professor of Japanese Art History at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. I had been to that website before, but I had never read Dr. Screech’s article until this week. I think it is pretty interesting. Just in case you didn’t read it the other day, here it is.

The article introduces many traditional spirits and creatures that have inhabited the Japanese psyche since ancient times. As a student of martial arts, I was always interested in the stories of great warriors, who would go into the mountains for solitary training. According to legends and scrolls that have been handed down for centuries, the mysterious and superhuman sword techniques of many masters were attributed often to Tengu.

Tengu, according to Dr. Screech, are:

A powerful mountain goblin, originally portrayed with a long beak and wings but gradually becoming more human-like, with a long nose instead of a beak. Tengu can assume various forms and can be kind protectors or cruel tricksters, carrying off small children, starting fires, and even inciting wars.

I’m not familiar with Dr. Screech’s work. I will have to check into this more. But I did go to his website at the University of London

As usual, I am going to send anyone who is interested in learning more directly to Wikipedia to learn more. To be honest, I just glanced over the article on Tengu, but I will read it more carefully later. You can check it out yourself here.

To be continued…

I’m glad to see that my friend Stew has updated his site here, after a recent trip to Europe and Korea. I’ve recommended his site before. He has traveled all over the world. His photography captures the spirit and diversity of the people and locations he has encountered.

Sometimes, it is hard to find the time and energy to keep writing a blog when you are busy working and dealing with every day life. It helps to know that people appreciate the time and energy you sacrifice to inform and entertain them. Yes, some of us are still reading your blog, Stew. Keep updating us about how things are going in Qingdao. 加油。

I uploaded about 12 pics from the holidays (yes, I know…It’s March and I am way behind…better late then never!) I put up some pics from the Plaza (Kansas City, MO). I have more Plaza pics to go up, plus some pics from Minneapolis Airport and Seattle. And I still have tons of pics from China and Japan. I’ll get my act together…someday.

Here is the link, if you want to see them.

Today is March 3rd, which is 雛祭り (Hina Matsuri/Girls’ Day) in Japan. 　雛 (”hina”) means “doll” and 祭り　(”matsuri”) means “festival.” All across Japan, people are displaying their dolls in their homes. But, according to tradition, they have to take them down by the evening of March 4th. I don’t really know much about this day, but apparently, there is an old tradition that if a family leaves it’s dolls up too long, their daughter will find it difficult to get married.

I did see a couple displays. They are very nice. It’s too bad they only display them for a week or so every year. At one of the homes where I teach children, I had hina-arare rice crackers for the first time. It’s hard to describe them. There were pink, yellow, and brown ones, of varying sizes. They had the same texture as a corn puff, but with a mild flavor. This site has a good picture of what they looked like.

If you want to learn more about it, and see examples of some of the dolls, the Wikipedia article is here. And you can go here for a site on children’s festivals in Japan. And of course, you can also type in “hinamatsuri” in Google. If you want to look at pictures on Flickr, try here, here, or here.

Yesterday was a good day. It was Wednesday, a day I usually find myself struggling to get through. But for some reason, I woke up early–despite being tired–and everything seemed to flow. My last company class of the day was canceled, so I was able to go home early. To top it off, the weather was nice. It is beginning to feel like spring, though it still gets chilly at night.

I don’t know how common this is outside of Tokyo, but outside of major train stations, people often give away various free advertisements and gifts. Usually, it is just a piece of paper or a small pack of tissues. But sometimes they give away pens, hand towels, drinks, or other things that are more interesting.

Every Wednesday morning for the last several weeks, when I walk out of Ichigaya Station in Tokyo, several people have been handing out Manga (comics;漫画) magazines for free. I had read a post on another blog about this, but I had never gotten one. When you are walking out of the station with a huge group of people who are in a rush to get to work, it is all about simple timing: if they happen to be handing it out when your hand is in front of them, you can take it.

Of course, the fact that I am not Japanese makes it a bit more likely that I won’t get something like that. After all, I am not Japanese, so there is no way I could possibly know Japanese…that is how many, if not most people, seem to think.

Now, you might be thinking that comics are for kids. But in Japan, comic books and magazines are available for people of all ages, and the stories often revolve around everyday people. There are comics about everyday life, historical events, baseball or judo experts, to name just a few. You can often find people reading them on the long train ride home. And if you are interested in learning Japanese, they are quite useful, because they provide a good lesson in realistic Japanese in various situations.

I don’t read comics all the time, but when I do, I usually prefer historical or educational ones. I recently got one a cheap book from the used bookstore. It is a historical manga that focuses on certain key historical events from the Meiji Period (1868-1912), such as the assassination of Toshimichi Okubo (大久保 利通).

Actually, I haven’t really been reading much manga lately, but I should. It is a great way to learn about Japan. I remember many years ago, I saw a two-volume set of books called, “Mangajin’s Basic Japanese Through Comics.” But I only wanted to study “serious” books, so I never looked it them. But one day, at Border’s Book Store, curiosity got the better of me, so I picked up Volume 1 and began leafing through it. I was amazed! It was really useful, because it showed realistic situations, with realistic Japanese expressions, and lots of detailed translation and explanation. To see an example, look here. (Click on one of the Manga links, for example, “Ojama Shimasu” to see what a typical lesson looks like.) Mangajin was a magazine series that taught Japanese through comics. The books I saw at the bookstore were taken from the magazine series. Although the magazine shut down almost 10 years ago, you can still get those books. If you are interested in Japanese language, I highly recommend them. (By the way, you can also pick up back issues of the magazine from the link supplied above.)