Visitors and the JSDA

Since April, my apartment has been seeing a nice, steady flow of couch surfers coming through. Soon after Jane's visit over Golden Week, Anand and Menka dropped by Tokyo for a visit. Radhika is going to be here in a week or so, Anand is slated to return sometime in June, and I think Dan is coming by once he gets his act together. I get really excited about visitors. It's a big thing for me. Spending such an obscene amount of time at work means that my place sits empty, wasting away, most waking hours of the day. I'm lucky enough to have a spacious pad in an absurdly expensive city, so I love the idea of sharing it with friends and random visitors (sorry, sappy). Waste not want not. I've been thinking about updating my hospitality club profile, to point to Tokyo. (I've been neglecting my HC e-mails for the past year and a half, mostly from travellers asking for a crash pad in San Francisco.)

Just a couple of hours ago, as I was studying for the JSDA (see below), I got an e-mail from Scotty telling me he'd just boarded an airplane in Houston, and that he'll be in Tokyo in 13 hours! I'm so psyched right now!

In other news, I've been wasting inordinate amounts of time studying for the JSDA exam, which I'm writing on Tuesday (the JSDA is like the Series 7, but for Japan). This, at the expense of thesis-writing and chilling out with friends. The material is utterly useless for my job, but the law mandates that I have to write it. Precious hours of my life that I'll never get back. Sigh. (Thankfully, the weather has been lousy, so being indoors hasn't been torturous.)

The study strategy for the JSDA is as follows. There is roughly 1300 pages of material to cover, on the minutiae of Japanese securities law. Clearly, I'm not coming anywhere close to learning all that useless crap. Instead, I've just been attempting questions from past exams (getting most of them wrong), and then memorizing the correct answers in the hope that the questions come up again on the exam. Consensus has it that this approach gives me the best shot at passing (I need 70%). How pathetic. I feel dumber for having studied for this exam.

Anyways, I'm done complaining for now, so here are some pictures.

I strolled into the KDDI store in Harajuku a couple of weeks ago for no good reason, and stumbled upon "Soul Gumbo" putting on a free show. (Nope, I've never heard of them either.)

The drummer from "native" (lowercase n), during their show last Saturday at Spuma, in Shibuya.

Our table (minus me) at Spuma.

Shiny disco balls.

DJ Niche on the decks last night at Velours.

Golden Week

It's been a busy few weeks since I last posted here. Jane dropped by Tokyo for a couple weeks, on a visa run from Oz, surfing on my couch. Her visit coincided nicely with Golden Week in Japan, so we got to spend some quality time hanging out. We rarely managed to connect in San Francisco, so it's ironic that we both had to travel halfway across the world to make this happen. When it's time, it's time.

So, yeah, it was a pretty intense two weeks of going out too much, staying up too late, and eating and drinking filth. So, with help from Jane and Paulette (my support group of sorts), I'm now on day five of a two-week "detox" diet: fruits, veggies, grains, tofu, no oil and definitely no sugar.

Before Jane got here, I could have counted on one hand the number of times I had actually used my kitchen to prepare a home-cooked meal. Sad. On weekdays, I was always buying my lunches and dinners (and eating at my desk, sigh) and on weekends I would just eat out. The situation is a lot better now, especially now that I'm trying to detox for a bit.

This week I went for my first non-treadmill (i.e., outdoor) run since moving to Tokyo. 30 minutes, a light easy jog, and so very overdue.

Jane at the Yebisu Beer Museum. She had borrowed my camera all week, and left me with a collection of masterpieces.

Outside "Ever" in Aoyama. That's Niche, Matzz, Arnab and me.

When it's late and you're fiending for sugar, you invent stuff like Banana Japana.

I was too shy to look at the camera, for some reason.

Delicious. I don't even know what these are called.