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I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so ...

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Am I nuts? A friend is coming over to the USA and I am getting him to bring me this: a Maneki Neko cat . If you follow that link, you will learn that this beckoning/waving/money/good luck cat is a popular fixture in businesses in Asia. A raised left paw is meant to bring customers; a raised right paw brings money and wealth. This little guy has both paws raised, albeit with eyes firmly closed as if to say "Bring it on!" I didn't have this background when I spotted it in a store near Gotokuji station where I stayed in Tokyo. I thought it was cute, but not worth spending $10 on to clutter up my no-room-for-clutter life. But then, I land in the USA, and I'm pining for this little cat. Ever done that? Wish you'd bought something and then gone to the trouble and expense of getting it later? It has a double significance for me, as Wikipedia speaks of its legendary origins where I stayed in Setagaya-Ku, one of Tokyo's west wards: The Temple Cat: This stor

What I bought with my very first paycheck

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After 30 years of keeping me fashionably late, my Golana watch has finally resigned. As if pining for a time when there were more hours in the day, it tells me it's brunchtime when people are heading back to their desks; it's ready to wine and dine when I should be hitting the hay. This tiny little watch - about the diameter of an Australian 5 cent piece - was the object of my desire for months, until I finally broke down and bought it with my very first paycheck: $A247. $247 was a lot to blow in one go, let alone on a watch. It felt like $1500 feels like now. I remember gazing at it through a plate glass window in Canberra, Australia, when I was 17 years old. The store, called Gold and Silver (I think),  jutted out from a very desirable little enclave of shops called Centerpoint, overlooking a pedestrian plaza. It was an exclusive little mall, selling fancy clothes by Aussie fashion icons like Nadjee menswear, Cue, and probably the best frozen yoghurt fruit salad I

A gal who saved my life: Patricia Soto

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I was delighted to receive a visit from a gal I met in a cave in 2004. Does that sounds mysterious? I was crossing the Yucatan on my bicycle - a hot, dusty and dehydrating affair. I met Patricia Soto in a cave somewhere in the middle. We walked and talked and ate. She also rides bikes, making her an anomaly among chicas en Mexico. Sometime later did suffer from dehydration. I suspect is was not eating enough, rather than not enough water - food provides salts and eletrolytes the body needs in extreme heat.  I barely made it across to Tulum, and called her. She let me to recuperate in her house Cancun, drinking Pedialyte. Visiting Patricia and her mother in her native Cancun If you have ever gotten dehydrated, you'll know it's not fun. You ache from the middle of your brain to your big toe. Nor is it easy to fix just by drowning yourself in large vats of water or electrolyte solution. It takes time. Meanwhile you feel like utter crap. You can read about

Somewhere to Go on Thanksgiving: The Charmin' Toilet Man

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Yesterday was Thanksgiving. I managed to rustle up a table of four to do turkey at the Standard Grill . It was OK for the price, considering it was Thanksgiving, New York City, last minute etc, although it was a bit mean on the sides, and the best dark meat was clearly spirited away for a more worthy class of diner. I jested with all my friends who had free invitations to eat  with families that only the friendless gotta pay! Walking around afterwards at Times Square - for want of nothing better to do - I came across the Charmin toilet man. This is a man dressed up as a toilet, inviting you to ablute in sanitary style at their pop-up toilet facility. He is accompanied by a pom pom girl, dressed far less imaginatively than she could be for such an important job - come on Charmin, don't tell me your political correctness prevented her from wearing a skimpy maid's uniform and wielding a toilet brush? This Charmin effort was all new to me, but Google tells me it's been a

To hell and back at The Standard Hotel

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  Above: The view from the Standard Hotel's elevator - one you don't mind being stuck in The  Standard Hotel  - a shingle as chicly understated as the building is understatedly chic - has opened its lounge in the stratosphere. Straddling the wildly popular Highline aerial park, which I  filmed  just before it opened, this Polshek-designed, Andre Balazs-owned inn reminds of the Jolly Gray Giant.  I don't even know what the latest name of the lounge is - Manifest? Boom Boom ... Boom? The celebs have christened it of course, but this post is for us plebestrians who pass between the Giant's gray chino'd thighs, peering crotchward to see if those  mile high performances  are just a myth (here's another punny headline to add to the mix: Motel Sex - boom boom). You enter the hotel through a Lego-like yellow cylinder and reappear in a small lobby flanked by two very cool, white egg-crate like partitions. The maid in me wonders if someone is hired to featherdust each and

Japan last Friday: Takashimaya Dreaming

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Exquisitely excessive packaging at Tayashimaya in Japan and Singapore. A ball of rice is presented like a jewel; a cake resembles an architectural sculpture. You know how you come back from some exotic place, and all you want to do is keep prolonging the experience, eating the same foreign food for as long as possible, mincing around in your sari or kimono or toga, playing Pavarotti or koto music while ordering papardelle con ragu for breakfast and a bento box for dinner? Well, as I wrote in my Cheap'n'Choosy blog , today I made a beeline for Takashimaya , a Japanese department store in New York I'd roundly ignored prior to my recent 5 weeks in Singapore and Japan . I'd already cased out Pearl River and Sunrise Japanese grocery on landing, despite putting my back out in Tokyo, discovering that most of what I'd lugged home is readily available here in NYC. There is generally nothing in department stores that I really want, especially ones like Henri Bendel

Japan on a Friday: Minutiae on overdrive

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Last post I wrote something "a society with a fascination with the minutiae of life is one you will never cease discovering." This is one example of minutiae. I found this miniaturized "curry rice meal" at Kid Robot in Soho, NY, day after getting back from my 3 week Japan trip. Oh how I wish I'd made it to geek central, Akihibara , where you can find wierd stuff like this and more. That's a definite for next time. It struck a chord because I learned curry rice is a staple of Japanese urban families - basically a just-add-water flavor cube of riotously tasty curry paste, that you team with veges, meat and rice in no time flat. I ate this at Richard and Haruyo's house in Nagoya. And on the United flight coming over. The little red pot has a real wooden knob. The lid fits perfectly and has a certain weight to it despite this whole thing being about an inch diameter. The ladle 'scoops' the curry nicely. You can remove the ladle from the sco