Cleaning Up Canada

Well, the long (and much awaited) winter holiday is upon us. Last week was the peak of the season for me, with a couple 13-hour working days, all day spent working on Dec. 23 (Emperor's Birthday), all day on Christmas Eve, even a little work on Christmas day itself - generally unthinkable in North America / Europe / etc.

Anyway, now it's time to catch up on a lot of unfinished business. It may have been a full year ago - I bought a few bags full of Canadian stamps (all unsoaked, ugh). I did a lot of work with them right away and have been trading off the extras over the past year -- but hundreds more have been waiting for some attention.

I finally got them all sorted and prepared the extras for trading, and feel great relief at getting caught up at last.

Other stamps news: my daughter and I made it to the stamp museum on their last business day of the year, just before closing time, quite nice. And today she surprised me by asking to work on stamps - it has been awhile since she showed much interest.

日本語 hints
13-hour working days: notice it is not 13-hourS working days, because the phrase "13-hour" is treated as a single word, modifying the noun. I worked 13 hours, but it was a 13-hour working day.

Emperor - note that 天皇 is Emperor (the person himself), not Imperial (related to the person)

two scary guys

Quite a deluge of stamps coming lately, and a drought of posts in this blog.

They continue to come in small batches from friends, acquaintances, co-workers past and present - once again, thank you all.

And sometimes they come in larger batches - two letters full of stamps awaiting my return from work tonight, one from the US (french stamps), and one from Australia.

I foresee much stamp work over the coming New Year's holidays....

日本語 hints:

deluge = a very large amount (usually a liquid)

drought = an extreme shortage (usually of water) 物の不足、欠乏、湿気不足

foresee = forecast, anticipate, 予感、予見、見越す

dinner and stamps

Earlier this week, my daughter and I went to a so-called "Family Restaurant" for dinner. She worked on her homework and I worked on stamps.

Actually, I worked on my Starbucks coffee mug. I had a few stamps in the old one. I took them out, rearranged, and added many more stamps.

I love the idea of a reusable / refillable coffee mug, but I think Starbucks should give more than a 20-yen discount when you bring it in.

two cats

I have never been a fan of Hello Kitty. But who couldn't like this stamp?

Recently I have been getting used postage stamps from more and more people - it seems the word is spreading, and more people are taking that extra moment to snip a stamp off an envelope and save it for me (big thanks to all of you!!).

Someday I will move back to the US from Japan, and I will really miss this feeling. Of course I want the stamps, but it is also good talk with people. And this can be a perfect conversation starter.

日本語 hints:

be a fan of = like (are you a fan of this blog?)

the word is spreading = more people know about something (i.e. that I am collection used postage stamps)

snip = cut off, 切り取る

from friends of a friend

There I was in the park, practicing praying mantis fist gong fu, when stamps appeared before me.

My friend had received small packages on behalf of another person in his "guest house" here in Tokyo and was good enough to rescue the stamps after giving her the contents.

After that, a praying mantis appeared before me. It was pretty wild. I was practicing a mantis form when I noticed something drop to the ground from the trees high above. Sure enough, it was a praying mantis. We communed a while, then I returned her to the tree trunk and she scurried away upward.

What a fine day of unexpected happenings.

日本語 hints:

praying mantis gong fu =　蟷螂拳

commune = 親しく語り合う

tree trunk = 木のから

scurry = あわてて走る

Those crazy Chinese comments...

Every blogger wants their blog to be read, I suppose, but we don't really know how many people are reading it. Or thinking about what is written. So comments are always welcome.

I don't get many comments on this blog (hint! hint!), so I get pretty excited when the Blogger Dashboard tells me there is a new comment waiting.

I got one a little while back. It was written in Chinese so I put my budding translation skills to the test. It didn't seem to relate directly to the post, but I was happy for some comment action.

Then I got another, and another - a couple dozen, all in Chinese, none apparently directly commenting on the posts in the blog. Hmmmm. I was suspicious of some kind of spam so I put them on the back burner. Later, I found that at least one of them had a link to an unsavory site. Also, truth be told, I found that my translation skills were not yet up to the task.

I have finally cornered a couple friends and asked for their help, and they all deserve big thanks. You'll soon be reading my very rough translations of this sudden flood of Chinese comments, with great thanks to those who offered their translations. In some cases, I will be modifying theirs slightly, rather than attempting my own.

Here is the bottom line: all comments are welcome, in whatever language, so long as they have some actual bearing on the posted material in the blog and are not solicitations to other websites / blogs.