Happy Birthday to Me

One of my "most loyal and devoted readers" (no, not one of our mothers) sent me an impassioned email deploring the fact that I blogged right past my birthday (the 1st) like it never happened.  Well, fact is, it was pretty uneventful.  Chad was scheduled to return home from a two week trip to China the day after my birthday, and we were on watch for an approaching typhoon that might delay him.  So that was more on my mind. (He was not delayed, and has returned home safely.)

Birthdays aren't celebrated much in Japan.  I did have Japanese class on my birthday and even though the teacher knew about it (the word for "birthday" is "tanjobi" [tan-joe-bee]) it went by unnoticed.  I wasn't particularly surprised because our last teacher told me that birthdays weren't really a big deal here except for little kids.  I think she may have told me that even for little kids presents aren't common, just a cake and singing (in English).  She also made sure we knew that Chad's birthday would not be celebrated at work at all.  She said, and I quote, "Co-workers don't care about your birthday."  Since neither Chad nor I are big birthday people, this doesn't really faze us.

However, I did receive an exceptionally good present this year.  Chad remembered a camera bag I fell in love with a couple of months ago and ordered it for me. The company Epiphanie makes camera bags that look like purses and are much prettier than the bags that camera companies make.  When you spend a lot of time lugging your camera around taking photos of toilets and barbershops, the bag you carry it in becomes important. 

it's well-made and works great as a
combo camera bag and purse

it has more padding than a regular purse and the dividers
inside are velcro so you can move them around

Side note: I did mention my birthday a couple of weeks ago in regards to having to get my driver's license renewed.  Unfortunately, the SCDMV has informed me that this time I must report to one of their locations to renew.  We are planning to come back to the US next month, but we were not going to come to South Carolina.  Now it looks like we're going to have to make a side trip just long enough to go wait in the DMV line.  Sigh.

Ciao!

So today is Italy Day in Japanese Walmart.  I assumed while I was there that this was some important day in Italian history.  However, after I got home and looked it up, I have absolutely no idea why this is Italy Day.  I can't really find anything that stands out about today in regards to Italy.  If anyone knows, please clue me in.

The displays included the standards....pasta, tomatos, olive oil etc.  Lots of Italian flags and posters of Italian villas.  And on the boombox?  Italian opera, of course.

Radio Radio

There is one English radio station (810 AM) we can tune into here.  It's a military station that is broadcast from a US military base.  I did what I thought would be some easy research to see if I could determine what base it's from but I was startled to learn exactly how much of a military presence the US has in Japan.  It took some digging around but it appears to be part of the Far East Network located out of Yokota Air Base on the outskirts of Tokyo.

At any rate, the format of the station varies from day to day, it can be rap, country, rock, classic rock, alternative, you name it.  The cutesy name it gives itself varies depending on what type of music they're playing so perhaps it's just piping it in via other stations.  The commercials may be the best part, they are usually in the form of public service announcements aimed at members of the military and to be honest they don't paint the prettiest picture of G.I. Joe.  Drunk driving is a common subject but my favorites are the ones about STDs. ;)