Wrapping Chapter 59....

Mina got this perfect seasonal cover shot right after it stopped raining on Sunday afternoon. It was a tough choice, as so many of her shots were so good.

Wednesday, November 26th

Already the end of November, and a couple of brief cold snaps aside, it's still pretty mild. There was a chill on the north wind this morning, but it actually got up to an unseasonably pleasant 18C this afternoon. With the very last of the leaves coming down, my running course is awash with late fall colours - an autumnal tapestry of siennas, oranges, reds and yellows. Really beautiful. It kind of makes me want to pick up a brush and start painting again. It's been thirty-five odd years since I took 'a break' from that business.

After nailing down the non negotiables, there really aren't enough hours in the day to squeeze in all the things that I want to do. I don't get it. When I was younger, I seemed to have an abundance of time for all kinds of foolishness.

Alas...the travails of aging, I suppose.

Maybe if start getting up at 4 am...?

Lest I enjoy my sunny mid-day arse hauling around the Horikawa too much, some random bum elected to curse me out as I was making my way back along the promenade. Lovely. That particular stretch of my run seems to be cursed for some reason. Vicious crows, predatory homosexuals...now mouthy bums.

I shot him the bird over my shoulder without breaking pace.

There's another bum that usually parks himself off toward the entrance to the Shirotori Gardens about five minutes north. He sits dead center on the back of a park bench with his legs spread out as wide as possible, bare feet in a pair of grubby black dress shoes planted shamelessly on the seat. He's always wearing the same worked out navy blue suit jacket with matching skinny leg trousers that ride up past his bare ankles, a ratty black mesh pork pie hat and a pair of ¥100 store black sunglasses. His ensemble never varies - it's like a four season thing. Oh...then there's the exaggerated white 'Santa Claus' beard, not unlike the one David Letterman has had for the last decade or so. He looks like an oddball hybrid of Top Cat and some kind of junkyard hipster Saint Nick.

A perpetually half full 500 ml bottle of lukewarm Coca-Cola is always close at hand. This might go some ways toward explaining the guy's disarming rotten tooth grin. To his credit, I've never seen him drinking alcohol or smoking, like a lot of the derelicts you see wandering around.

He sports the smug air of some sort of dis-placed blue blood or aristocrat. His 'royal steed' is a rickety old black shopping bike (a set up the J-natives call a mamachari ), which is always parked right to the side of his perch. He looks like he could be in his mid-late sixties...or seventy? It's really hard to say.

His royal highness occasionally holds court with a small handful of other aimless older men. They come out on their respective shopping bikes and gather around his canal-side perch to listen to him orate about this or that. His voice is distinctive and carries quite a distance. He seems fond of frequently punctuating his narratives with an annoying, sniggering laugh. Apparently he finds himself quite the wit.

When his small, irregular audience doesn't materialize and he's got nothing better to do, he'll hairy eyeball me over the rim of his cheap sunglasses as I jog by, and mumble some barely discernible shit, just loud enough for me to pick up.

Something to the effect of 'fucking gaijin, go back where you came from, yada,yada,yada' (loosely translated).

I find that his commentary gets slightly louder just after I pass. Like he's afraid to curse at me directly, but gets nervy when I'm a few meters down the way. I guess he wants to make sure that I'm aware he disapproves of my presence on his 'royal estate'.

While I do my utmost to ignore him, it's awfully tempting to tell him to go fuck himself.

I often imagine stopping and casually chucking him over the railing into the canal as I carry on south toward the site of the old Edo period fish market at Miya.

*(Mind you, I also daydream about a giant Great White Shark fin suddenly appearing where all the small boats are moored just past the southernmost bridge, and bloody carnage ensuing...complete with the 'duh-duh,duh-duh' Jaws score playing in the background. I have a fairly rich fantasy life)

While he's always on his Shirotori Garden-side perch like clockwork shortly before mid-day (weather permitting), he quite suddenly took leave toward the end of rainy season in July. His absence was a relief, to be honest. It was kind of nice to pass that group of benches without routinely getting stink-eye and a round of cursing. I found myself kind of hoping he'd gone down a bottomless sinkhole or something.

No such luck.

Around a month ago he was suddenly back, perched on the back of a different bench about 300 meters south of where he usually parked off...right near the Hibino Park 'suicide toilets', at the foot of the pedestrian bridge to the east bank.

How disappointing.

Of course, he locked on to me straight away, and made a point of shooting me a deliberately annoying half sneer. I did my best not to stare back or give him the satisfaction of any clear reaction.

The Top Cat Santa Beard Bum was still alive, dressed in his usual hipster-hobo finery, and likely nursing the very same half full plastic bottle of Coke as the last time I laid eyes on him.

Apparently he's taken to rotating his perch.

Fuck.

Friday, November 28th

Despite the morning sunshine, it felt distinctly more wintery today, with that recurring north wind coming on a bit stronger, making the afternoon high of 14 feel more like 8 or 9C. I decided to bail on my midday run up the Horikawa, and did 20km on the spin bike instead.

I was up on the course yesterday and it was 18C and beautiful. I noticed the Top Cat Santa Beard Bum had migrated back to his traditional perch over by the Shirotori Garden-side. Oddly, I didn't get any side-eye, sneers or mumbles, as he seemed oddly fixated on something across the canal. I wonder if he'll retreat again when it starts getting really cold in couple of weeks? I assume he loiters at the local shopping mall when the weather or climate gets inclement. I've noticed some of the local bum contingent seem fond of the couches over at AEON MALL, and I'm guessing they probably stake out their places as soon as the doors open.

Getting toward the southernmost 'bad mojo' stretch of the promenade, I looked up quite suddenly and saw another recently absent local fixture. This time it was the little 'Ganbare ji-ji', grinning and waving as I passed by. Of course I got the obligatory 'Ganbare!' (a common Japanese cheer meaning 'go for it/hang in there/do your best'), to which I managed a semi-wave and pooped out sounding 'konnichiwa!'. I hadn't seen him around for months, either. He's not a derelict or anything...just your garden variety pint-sized ji-ji (old man), out on his daily walk. I kind of wondered where he'd got to recently. I think I only saw him a couple of times over the summer months. It seems like a lot of the regulars have started opting for alternate venues when the weather gets to be too much. It never used to be this bad. Of course, it was fucking hot...but the most intense 37C + temperatures only lasted a two or three weeks. For the last few years the most intense heat has started to come on in mid June, and persisted straight through to early October. It's become totally over the top dangerous.

A couple of years ago there was another guy who would stand at the southwest corner of the first busy intersection at Takakura, on the west side of the JR/Meitetsu Railway tracks...less than a five minute walk north of the big Atsuta Ward Police Station.

He'd be out there all day, kind of pacing back and forth, occasionally pausing, leaning in slightly and looking north and south on the busy six lane thoroughfare, as if he were waiting for a ride to arrive. Initially, I though he looked like he could be on a construction job or something.

Apparently not.

He was balding, sort of wild eyed and wore exactly the same outfit every day...a pair of runners, grubby grey work trousers, a stretched out off-white t-shirt, and a chunky looking silver metal band wristwatch, which seemed a bit oddly out of place. He must have been in his early to mid 60's...again, it's hard to tell with these guys. It could be that he was even around my age.

I'd seen this kind of thing before. An old artist friend of mine back in Kitsilano had been prone to schizophrenic episodes. Every once in awhile he'd deviate from his meds, go off the rails and need someone in his local network to sort of reel him in. Ultimately, he'd end up needing to do a stint back in treatment to get sorted out.

The summer of 2023 was brutally hot, but the Antsy Waiting Guy would be out on that corner every morning, darting back and forth under that blazing sun. He'd always be totally drenched in sweat.

I mentioned the guy to Mina and told her that I felt sorry for him, and felt like passing him a bottle of water or something. Her reaction was predictably unenthusiastic.

'Nice sentiment, but don't get involved...we don't need any (more) trouble!'

As I said, I'm quite sure that he was a paranoid schizophrenic off his meds. With the cop shop so close by, and patrol cars constantly passing in either direction, I couldn't understand why no one did anything to help him out.

While he never directly acknowledged me when I passed by (he'd kind of half look in my direction, then make an effort to look away before making eye contact), one time I did see him curse out a group of junior high school age boys on bikes waiting to cross east at 'his' signal. They did their best to ignore him and streaked past me to the opposite side of the cross walk.

Potential crisis averted, I suppose.

As that summer gradually transitioned to autumn, one day he just wasn't there.

I wondered if someone had finally filed a report. It had sure taken long enough.

Months later, I saw him riding around on an old mamachari about four blocks west. Same work pants, runners and wrist watch, wearing a light winter jacket, looking laundered and...subdued. I've seen him around there a couple of times since. I assume he's back on his meds.

I wonder where these people come from, and what their back stories are?

In any case, I promised Mina that I'd be at home to receive a package delivery from 2- 4pm, so with my 20km set on the spin bike sorted, there was enough laundry and domestic busy work (blog entry aside) to keep me fully occupied until early evening.

Mina rolled in just before six and we had some quick microwave mentaiko udon (Tablemark brand from Lopia Supermarket - it's pretty cheap and actually amazingly good) before beating it out the door to the Kasadera ENT clinic for my 8:15 pm appointment.

We spotted parking pretty fast. I got out and went to check in with my 'member's card', so we could get in line. Fortunately we'd arrived with at least 15 minutes to spare. Plenty of time.

Prior to being called in to see the doctor, there was some minor drama with this frumpy looking middle aged woman in the waiting area queue. She apparently felt entitled to cut in front of us (though my number was lower than hers) and had a silent standing hissy fit after the nurse came in and asked her to make space for us to sit down on the bench.

At first she shifted the wrong way, making it impossible for us to sit down together. When the nurse repeated her request to make space for us, she simple stood up in front of the bench and fumed, like a spoiled kid.

I had trouble wrapping my head around the spectacle I was witnessing. It was so...pointless.

I turned to Mina, "Is she STUPID?"

Mina shot me a look.

I said it again.

"Shhhh! She might be able to understand you!"

(that's kind of the point)

I probably would have kept it up had I not been called in to see the doctor. After a quick once over and probing with the nasal endoscope, he announced that I was free and clear for now. No further antibiotics, and no follow up. I had to sit for one more obligatory round at the nebulizer pump, and that was it. Done deal. It had taken a month of weekly visits to clear this episode. The last time, it was during my sister's 2024 visit, and my course of treatment had taken slightly longer.

On the ride home, Mina harangued me for my repeated "Is she STUPID?" comments...though she admitted that the woman HAD tried to cut in front of us, and then made a fool of herself by standing in front of the bench when she got busted by the nurse. In other words, I was right... she was clearly some kind of a mental case.

When shit like this happens I have a terrible time keeping my mouth shut. It's like a knee jerk thing with me. Of course, it does no good, and puts Mina in an awkward position, which is never my intention. Perhaps I need to try reining myself in a bit more?

Baby steps.

Saturday, December 6th

Almost a week out from Mina's b-day and our wedding anniversary. Nineteen years...and almost precisely twenty from the day we first met. Back then I was in my late thirties and kind of a wreck. Like a beat up old truck stuck in a ditch, haplessly spinning it's wheels. It's kind of cringey to think back on. God. She's been so lovely and patient. She is my everything.

To honour the day, we decided to step out for dinner, and made an early evening reservation at Higashi Sakura Pakuchi, a Thai place that we occasionally visit up the hill in Kanayama. The last time we were there was just over a year ago, when my sister and her husband were out for a visit, and it was fine.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case last Saturday.

While the staff were friendly enough, the restaurant's dining area has definitely seen better days. The walls look like they could use a fresh coat of paint, and the once charmingly mismatched tables and seats have become ramshackle and shabby looking.

I guess the original goal of the place was to sort of simulate the 'colourful' atmosphere of an authentic Thai street food vendor's set up, while maintaining some level of a Japanese indoor eating establishment's hygiene and cleanliness.

Whatever they were originally aiming for has pretty much devolved into what can only be described as a cruddy old Thai meth head's garage vibe. For our 19th anniversary dinner, we were seated in front of an overflowing heap of junk boxes and discarded rubbish that had been carelessly shoved into the rear of the 'dining room', then loosely covered up with a makeshift tarp. Perhaps they've forgotten that people actually pay to sit and eat in there?

On a positive note, the single occupancy men's room was very clean. Clean restrooms are always a good thing, though it's a bit troubling when a restaurant's toilet facilities are cleaner and more appealing than its dining area.

Of course, the main thing with any restaurant is the food. The magic of great food is that it can make all the other dodgy stuff suddenly seem more tolerable. While the dishes we ordered were all edible, they were poor cousins of the food that place was known for. Most notable was the glaring absence of previously generous, freshly cut portions of the shop's namesake herb - 'pakuchi' (coriander/cilantro), which used to garnish the side of every dish. Mina always ordered the shop's signature 'Pakuchi Mojito', which was novel in that it was almost obscenely overstuffed with bunches of the fresh green herb.

This wasn't the case last Saturday. A few anemic looking sprigs with yellowing leaves in her drink, a limp little twig at the side of a pedestrian order of six small salad rolls, and nothing at all to garnish the other dishes we ordered, which all felt under-sized and carelessly plated.

This what ¥780 gets you. 'Fresh Spring Rolls'. Note the yellowing garbage sprig of pakuchi .They tasted OK...but for over ¥100 a bite? Really?

A middle aged woman sitting with a small group to our left asked their server where the pakuchi had gone, and he told her that if they wanted the garnish, it would cost extra. She seemed surprised.

"Extra?!?"

Apparently we aren't the only ones to have taken notice.

Maybe they'd better consider changing the restaurant's name.

Of course, the prices were also up by at least two - three hundred yen per item on everything straight across the board. We stayed long enough to finish a couple of drinks and a single round of small dishes. Maybe 45 minutes, give or take.

This wasn't anywhere near befitting of our anniversary, or Mina's birthday. It was like a really bad joke.

Aside from the shocking absence of the shop's once abundant (and free) pakuchi garnish, the evening's biggest disappointment was the usually fantastic flash fried soft shell crab in mild green curry sauce. This dish is the main reason we go to the restaurant, and we usually order it twice. Once was more than enough this time around. Aside from being ¥300 more than it was last time around, the texture was wrong, the portion seemed to be two thirds of what it usually was, and it was carelessly plated. Sadly, I've had more appealing frozen dinner fare come out of the microwave at home.

It's exceedingly rare for me to want to throw in the towel after two beers, especially on a Saturday night out... but neither of us were feeling the magic. It's really sad to see once decent eating establishments bite the dust. On the walk back we joked about what Gordon Ramsey would have had to say about our aborted 'fine dining' experience. He would have had a field day in there.

Shit food and atmosphere aside, it was nice to get out and about for the evening. We used to go to restaurants a lot more often, but post pandemic we seem to have settled in to a more 'stay at home' kind of thing, and simply bring in takeout and deli stuff when I feel like taking a break from the kitchen.

Slaving over a hot stove day in and day out tends to get old.

Upside? I feel like I'm becoming a better cook. Sure, I still fuck things up on occasion, but Mina is really patient and forgiving. Our kitchen is small, and though our current set-up (two gas burners and a single microwave/conventional oven combo) is pretty limiting, I somehow manage to put together some relatively acceptable stuff. Mostly.

Downside? I feel like I've kind of lost touch with where Losersville's good places to eat and drink are. Back in the day, I could pick out places all over town...from kaiten sushi, ezikaya, and noodle shops to bbq and hole-the-wall speciality joints.

Back in the day. when I was involved in all that music stuff, we were out eating and drinking all the time. Now I literally have no idea. When my sister was here last year, I ended making some pretty un-original choices. Places like Yama-chan and Misen. Long running Nagoya standard bearers. Rule of thumb? Call ahead, reserve for right when they open...like 5:30 or 6pm, and cross your fingers. When you go early, the service tends to be good, and everything is fresh and clean.

Another problem is that inflation has really started to bite. As we can't afford to eat out like we used to, it's all the more crushing when the odd time we do step out, we make the wrong choice and it ends up sucking major arse.

Friday, December 12th

The last kindergarten session of 2025 this morning. 'Santa Day' at the Insecthead school. It was sunny and bright, but brutally cold. Fortunately Mina had the day off and was able to drive, sparing me a bone chilling 25 minute ride out to Nakagawa ku on my bike. We left almost half an hour early, so I'd have enough time to get all costumed up...assuming there were no surprises in store, and everything was organized on their end. Wishful thinking.

We were about a third of the way there when Mina asked if I'd remembered to eat a CBG gummy.

Shit, shit, shit.

Where was my mind? I must have spent 45 minutes on the shitter after breakfast, Whenever I get worked up about something I need to do, my colon goes into overdrive. Just when I think I'm done, I'm actually not. It's a massive waste of time. I wonder if it's a symptom of aging, or whether the probiotic supplements we've been taking are a bit too effective?

In any case, I remembered to down a Tiovita Gold, so by the time we got there I was on a legal stimulant plateau of sorts...but without my trusty CBG to smooth out the jagged edges.

These event days - the ones where I need to costume and do class pictures - they can be a real test. There are so many moving pieces. Of course, the kids are totally unpredictable. At any given time, everything depends on how co-operative they're feeling, and how well organized the motley crew of teachers is. With the kids, anything goes- especially on Halloween or Christmas when they get worked up. The so called 'teachers' can be more of a head scratcher. Some of them are fucking thick. On average, I find that I lose my patience with them way more than with the kids. Children can sense when their designated minder is 'head-up-arse', and they'll exploit the situation. Things can quickly descend into chaos. More often than not, they are of little to no help whatsoever.

Fingers crossed today would be smooth sailing.

As Mina dropped me off and headed out to do some errands, I heard this god awful bone drilling and sharp whacking drift across the playground as I approached the front staircase to the second floor. I don't know what they were doing, but the front entrance to the office was completely obstructed with tarps and ladders. What appeared to be a middle-aged husband/wife team in hard hats greeted me politely as I edged around their toolboxes and chaos to get into the office. I did my best to nod back and greet them as politely as possible.

Why fucking today, of all days?

Insect wife and Insect daughter 2 were sitting in front of their respective computer monitors, and glanced up. After the obligatory 'Good mornings' were exchanged, I looked around for the white sack containing the Santa Claus costume and accessories. Most years they have it ready for me at the door, so I can make a bee-line to the side office and get suited up. It was nowhere to seen. Maybe they'd forgotten?

I looked at Insect daughter 2,

"So...today is the Christmas party...right?"

"Oh...yes, yes."

"Ummmm. How about the Santa costume?"

Apparently this year they hadn't bothered pulling the Santa suit and accessories out ahead of time. Insect daughter 2 took off out the door, navigating the construction mess to query the staff in the adjacent semi-partitioned office as to where the costume was. I fiddled around impatiently, then excused myself to use the washroom.

Five minutes later she returned with the delinquent white sack and a stream of apologies for not having been prepared. I went into the side room, and emptied the sack out on to the low coffee table to find that half of the get-up was missing. It seemed that someone else had been pirating components and not putting them back.This was so typical.

How the fuck could I have forgotten to eat that gummy?

I was starting to vibrate. Be cool. Be cool. Try to enjoy it. 'ho-ho-ho!'. It's such a magical time of year. Think of the children's smiles. Bugger.

Insect daughter 2 is a nice girl...but not as bright as her sister, Insect daughter 1, who'd plopped out a baby last year, and quit. Though I try to keep things simple and pleasant, I seem to get a lot of puzzled expressions.

I brought her in to the side room and showed her the incomplete costume pieces spread out on the table, then tried to explain that the crucial 'hairy components'...the Santa beard and wig, were missing. I'd actually ordered them off of Amazon a few years ago, to replace the sadly inadequate ones we'd been making do with up to that point. Of course, the tired old Santa beard was still there. Whoever had pirated through the kit hadn't wanted to use that one either. Assholes. I'd made a point of ordering the proper shit so I wouldn't have to go though this again.

She kept fixating on the old beard, pointing and repeating, "It's here! It's here!"

Sigh.

"This isn't the right one. This is OLD. Look. The elastic is worked. It's too small. It's finished. We need the other ones. The good ones."

"Ehhhhh? Good ones?"

I did some mime improvisation and stopped short of drawing a frizzy, over curly beard and wig on the whiteboard before something finally clicked in.

"Ahhh. Wakata! (I got it!) Please wait!"

She beat it around the corner and back to the adjacent makeshift office. After a good deal of chattering and clickety-clacking, she was back with another smaller bag. The missing pieces. Praise the friggin' lord.

Of course, all this needless drama had devoured almost 15 minutes. Luckily, I'd foreseen the possibility of something like this happening and told Mina not to come get me until around noon.

Costumed and ready to roll, Santa arrived 15 minutes later than scheduled...no fault of Old Saint Nick's, of course. With the exception of one boy in the 3-4 year old class having some traumatic meltdown to the extent that two teachers had to guide his sobbing, quaking, terror-wracked little body to the front of the queue to get his Christmas cookie (?!?!), everything went off more smoothly than I'd expected.

One of the teachers had even taken the initiative to put on some Christmas BGM, which I'd actually been thinking of asking them to do this year...so that worked out well. Of course, a few of the kids had to loudmouth that it wasn't Santa, but 'Shaun sensei' in a costume, and a few more had to try pulling off my beard...but that's kids. I tried to tell one insistent 4 year old boy that Shaun sensei wasn't here today, and he pointed to the blackboard, where one of the teachers had written 'Shaun sensei's Christmas Party - - 10:30-11:30' in kana. I was kind of at a loss. I reached over and patted on the head. The little smart ass got me.

'Ho,ho,ho!'

Done and dusted just before noon, I headed back to the office, changed and packed the reunited costume/accessories kit neatly into the white Santa sack, and presented it to Insect daughter 2.

"Please keep everything together, so next year is easier!"

She smiled and chirped,

"Yes! I think so, too!"

Whatever had been going on with the construction team at the entrance had suddenly been totally cleared away, and the frigid chill of earlier in the morning had graciously started to ease under the bright midday sun. It looked like Insecthead wouldn't be making an appearance today. On Santa Day, he'll usually show up just before I leave, but today it looked like it was just going to be Insect wife and daughter 2.

Just as well, I suppose. Recently he's been acting weirder and more annoying than usual.

I wished them a Merry Christmas, and Happy Japanese New Year holiday (Shogatsu is week long this year, from Dec.27th - Jan.4th), and made sure to wish Insect daughter 2 a happy birthday, which is easy to remember, as we are both Christmas Eve babies. This elicited a rare broad smile from Insect wife, who was lurking toward the back of the office, and they both seemed visibly surprised that I'd remembered to throw that in.

On that happy note, I slipped out the door and crossed the playground. I could hear a few of the kids yelling "See! See! It WAS Shaun sensei!" as I closed the gate and headed for the car.

Nothing gets past that lot.

On that note, I'll be wrapping up the unspooling for this year.

I always try to get these out on the seasonal equinox or solstice days...but lately it's been one thing after another. Every time I plan on sitting down and getting some writing done, there's suddenly some unforeseen situation that requires my attention...and nothing gets done. As I mentioned earlier, as of late, it really seems like there aren't enough hours in the day.

As such, the 'Hey Rube, Whaddaya Like ?!?' top 5 rundown list will (hopefully) return next time. To be honest, I had trouble scraping three items together for the autumn equinox dispatch...so it boiled down to three picks from my streaming media array...and over the last three months, that cupboard has sadly been kind of bare.

In a nutshell, a nice sounding Beatles Anthology 4, a patchy 7hr box set version of The Who's final album with Keith Moon album ('Who's Next'), and a handful of entertaining Korean Netflix shows. Oh...and the final season of Stranger Things. The first batch of episodes seemed entertaining enough, though the franchise seems to pretty much be running on fumes at this point.

While there are always plenty of things that I'm not that crazy about over here, stuff that gets a big 'thumbs up' is a fair bit more challenging. Japan has a new Prime minister. Again. Sadly, the neo fascist hard right witch Sanae Takaichi won. As expected, she didn't waste much time before threatening Beijing with military action should they move to seize Taiwan by force. This of course caused a major rift with the already hyper sensitive Chinese, who now have their North Korean and Russian pals making provocative statements and conducting joint 'exercises' a bit closer to the Japanese archipelago than usual.

Oh yeah...and Frau Takaichi has also promised to get tough on all of the dirty, ignorant foreigners currently living and working in Japan. The details of all of that will start coming down in the new year...but none of it sounds good. There will initially be a broad crack down on over-stayers and people who are tax delinquent, and/or haven't been paying into 'nenkin' (the national pension system). There is now talk of expanding the scope of measures to include very substantial price hikes on short and longer term visa renewals and extensions, and moving to require Japanese language proficiency (along with the successful completion of some sort of cultural 'integration' course) as a basic requirement for permanent residence. This is clearly overkill.

Apparently this is how Frau Takaichi sees herself...as a sort of standard bearer for resurgent Japanese militarism and nationalism. Japan for the Japanese!

Up to now, language proficiency (which can be a costly and monumental task) has only been required for naturalization. To obtain PR, one has needed to have been a resident of the country for at least 10 years, have a record of good conduct, and the means to support oneself. Having a native spouse and children can grease the wheels a bit, and may help get you acquire your PR visa a bit quicker, but as with everything here, it's all on a 'case-by-case' basis.

An application for PR currently costs ¥10,000. If Takaichi's J-MAGA crew have their way, that will increase to a whopping ¥300,000 - 30x what they are currently charging. The J-MAGA crew claim that this will put Japan's immigration fees on the same level as those of 'western countries' (where the minimum wage is well over twice what it is here). With the rapidly aging society and need for foreign labour, none of this makes much sense. As of today, the Japanese yen is at ¥157 to the USD. Wages have been largely stagnant for the last 30 years. Who will want to come and do all the shit jobs the natives can't be arsed with for peanuts, then be treated like untermensch just because? One thing seems fairly certain...we will all be placed under a much higher degree of scrutiny. Apparently she's impressed with what Donald and his MAGA crew are doing with their 'immigrant problem' over in the U.S.A. Long story short, we 'gaijin' (who have never been all that welcome to start with) are becoming increasingly persona non grata, and the current administration would like us all to pack our gear go the fuck back where we came from.

As for me, I'm glad that my PR was settled awhile ago. Hopefully there won't suddenly be an exorbitant fee attached to getting an extension on my card in 2030. This needs to be done every 7 years, and up until now, it's been free. As far as the proposed new language proficiency requirements, fingers crossed that they don't go totally punitive and make that a new condition for PR card extension. At this point I wouldn't put anything past this government. They seem positively inspired by all the illegal hi-jinx the Trump administration is engaging in with their ICE raids and so forth. Not even that odious MAGA crew over there has moved to require English language proficiency as a prerequisite to permanent residency.

It's an odd coincidence that I've been pretty diligent in attempting to upgrade my Japanese language skills over the course of the year. I finally decided to get serious about learning to read and write hiragana/katakana. After months of daily practice, I'm finally able to muddle through both character sets, but it's slow going, sounding out words like a kindergarten kid. It's kind of cool being able to read and write simple stuff, though. Of course, that's just a start. Time is short and the road is long. Again, there simply aren't enough hours in the day.

On the health and well being front, recently there are a couple of suspicious looking skin things that we're watching. I may or may not elect to go for some biopsies in January. We'll have to wait and see if they fade out or not. I'm booked in to see the skin cancer doctor at the University Hospital for my quarterly screening in early February, anyways. I'm trying not to put too much energy into worrying about it, but it's always there, in the back of my mind. Happily, that uptight little cunt doctor never came back. The mild mannered semi balding fill-in doctor will handle my next screening, then come April there will be someone new. It's a real revolving door over there. It would be nice to get someone who is at least a bit pleasant, and didn't mind busting out a few words of English to me, like the mild mannered semi balding guy, or my GP.

I have no idea about the Japanese Shogatsu New Year's break, but it looks like December 24th and 25th will be shite and rainy. The weather's been a bit milder than usual for the last week or so. We were out taking pictures in the park after the rain stopped yesterday and it was like 15C at 3:30 pm. Apparently the planet is sick or something...but hey, I'm all for a milder winter, if that's what's coming our way.

In closing, a fine and happy holiday season to anyone who's managed to stick with me this far. Fingers crossed that the new year brings some better stuff to everyone.

Oh...and you'd do well to remember that no matter where you go, there you are.

There and nowhere else.