Good-bye Japan...

...and hello USofA. Yes, we finally made it, and are now spending our first night in an apartment here in Kansas (one state below my home of Nebraska).

More notes once things have settled down a bit. I made it over with most of my stamp albums but had to leave one in Japan at the last minute, will bring it over next time I am in Japan.

leaving Japan

Less than two weeks left in Japan, and every day seems to get shorter (and the list of things to do gets longer!).

We sent 115 boxes by surface mail out of Yokohama but should have sent more. We are now sending the few remaining boxes via Japan Post. I saw these recent stamp releases at the local post office. I am looking forward to finding collectors in the US who want Japanese stamps.

Don't forget 節水 !!

I love this stamp, from a while back in Taiwan, encouraging people to reduce both water and electric usage. Save our natural resources!

Here in Japan, because of the threat of power blackouts from Tokyo's over-reliance on the nuclear plant which was damaged by a tsunami which followed the March 11 earthquake, everyone has become quite conscious about saving electricity.

That is great and I am happy to see so many examples in everyday life. But I think that feeling will fade soon. It is always good to conserve electricity, not just due to a temporary threat of black-out. And the same with water.

Shinjuku stamp center

it was so close all these years and I only just discovered it. I stumbled upon a small stamp shop in Nakano Broadway amid all the manga and anime and characters and such. Not much there for me, but the attendant was quite nice and drew me a map to Shinjuku Stamp Center.

Made it there within a week. Several small dealers all gathered in one space, too much to take in on my short visit. But I found the sold-by-weight Japanese commemoratives featured in the last post.....

stamps by weight

I love this idea -- buying postage stamps in bulk by weight, rather than by number. Nothing valuable in the bag, but hundreds and hundreds of commemoratives, good for trading with people from other countries. The only problem, of course, is time, the time needed to soak the stamps off the paper / envelopes.

I just finished the last 100 or so in the bag, so I'll be heading to 新宿切手センター again before long.

trading postage stamps (2)

I have weekly English lessons with a wonderful Japanese grandmother. She lives near one of the US military bases in town and took lessons for years from the wives of US military men. We have studied together about two years.

About a year ago, the subject of collecting used postage stamps came up. It turns out her husband (like many Japanese men of his generation) was an amateur collector years back. She told her grandson about my collection and he seemed interested. So I started giving her stamps to give to them each lesson. It is just my overstock, extra copies, and I give two of each stamp -- that way grandfather and grandson won't argue over who gets each stamp.

A little while back, the grandson (at grandmother's urging, no doubt) made a small gift for me -- he drew this on a hand-held fan and I quite liked it. For English-language readers, it basically says "thanks for the stamps. I especially like stamps with animals on them".

Unfortunately, most of my extras are boring pictures (for kids): boring dead people, boring buildings. But I am trying to slip in an animal or two among the buildings and portraits.

viva la france!

Had meant to post this one on or near July 14 for Bastille Day but it slipped through the cracks (work work work).

I received a nice assortment of older French stamps from an American with whom I trade stamps. I have a strange feeling all the time, as I have many older stamps in my collection from when I was a child, and that collection is buried in my father's basement in the US. Now I am getting a second collection going, all over here in Japan. I am waiting for the day when I can finally unite these two collections.

日本語 hints:

slip through the cracks = fall by the wayside - something I thought about doing but never accomplished

strange hobbies

The number of martial artists who collect postage stamps is surely quite small. I am one of those few. It was a childhood hobby (stamp collecting) which I resurrected about three decades later when my daughter seemed interested.

Oh, she was quite interested....for a few months. She still likes to sift through the new arrivals and pick out the best ones, but that is as far as it goes. So her interest has faded, but I am continuing.

Japanese hints (sorry, no kanji -- my japanese character input seems to have temporarily quit.....)

martial artist = budoka, (budo-baka may be more accurate), bujutsuka

resurrected = brought back to life or, more loosely, started again

decade = 10 years

sift through = sort through, pick and choose from among a large group

62 yen stamps

Had a sudden deluge of 62-yen stamps, a short-lived series in Japanese stamp history. As usual, nothing rare, but certainly some of them were uncommon for amateur collectors like me.

Anybody who wants to do some stamp trading, please get in touch with me!!

little time for stamps

Not much has changed since last post. Tokyo life is about the same after the earthquake and tsunami - supplies of various goods go up and down but it is generally easier to find almost everything. The focus is still on areas that are having real hardship -- as it should be.

Meanwhile I set aside a few minutes here and there to work on the stamps. But right now, there are too many other pressing projects.

There is no special meaning to the bird stamps. Nor did I set out to start a bird-based collection. These are just a group I put together by chance.

日本語 hints:
easy vocabulary this time, the only hard word might be "pressing"
pressing - in this context, the meaning is "very important, something I need to do right now"

no time for stamps

These are hard days with no time for stamps. I am finding a couple here and there but right now, everyone is focused on returning to normal lives after the earthquake / tsunami / radiation.

We have it easy in Tokyo where the damage was light. We only have to deal with inconvenience here, trying to buy things for everyday life.

Meanwhile, I will offer a few vocabulary words related to earthquakes:

日本語 hints:

放射能 radiation, radioactivity
震源地 epicenter
余震 aftershock

earthquake

Of course everyone knows about the terrible earthquake that struck Japan last week, and the damage from the tsunami which followed. And now we are all worried about nuclear radiation or fallout.

Last Sunday we met some friends and I got a few new stamps, birds from Hong Kong, and they have become a kind of symbol of hope for me. Let's all hope the situation improves soon and that more people can be saved.

日本語 hints
an earthquake strikes - this is the usual collocation, noun + verb
震源地　= epicenter
余震　　= aftershock

no time, no time!!

so many stamps calling out for my attention, but no time to give them the attention they deserve. Why didn't I spend more time with my collection when I was much younger, and had so much more time?

This picture is from a couple months back. I was sorting out duplicates, searching for things to send out to people in trade. If you know anyone who might like to trade used postage stamps with me, help us get in touch!

日本語 hints:
duplicates = extra copies

old French stamps

Just a short post today -

Here is a selection of old French stamps I received in trade for a set of (mostly) Japanese stamps. Of course the bright colors and interesting designs of modern stamps are interesting, but sometimes I prefer the simple - perhaps elegant? - designs of older stamps.

日本語 hints:

elegant - most people know this word, but be careful about pronunciation: elegant vs. arrogant. "Elegant" = 上品、優雅、and so on -- very positive. But "arrogant" has very negative connotations: 横柄、無礼 and so on. So be careful when saying something like "The French are elegant"!!

fami-resu

My family enjoyed the three-day holiday or long weekend very much.

One day we walked to a nearby "family restaurant" in the snow, which was quite nice. It may have been a little selfish, but I worked on stamps while there. On a prior visit, my daughter and I worked on our collections separately, but this time only I was doing the stamps. And though I should have talked with my daughter more, I have to admit that I made some big steps, bringing a small measure of order into my massive pile of Japanese postage stamps waiting to be put in albums.

日本語の hints:

ファミレス...I have no idea how to translate this. Short for family restaurant, of course (no one says "fami-resu" outside of Japan). But I have never used the phrase "family restaurant" in my life. We just give the name of a big chain, like "Denny's" or "iHOP" or "Perkins".

連休 Notice this can be "long weekend" or "3-day holiday", but the "day" is singular. We cannot say "3-days holiday", even though it seems natural since it is plural.

Too Many Stamps????

Maybe Japan issues more stamps than any other country. That is fine for me for now, because I am still in the stage of simply collecting everything, no specialization yet.

But the sheer number of stamps can be overwhelming. Especially the 記念 or anniversary stamps – they really seem endless. And sometimes the events they commemorate seem a bit…trivial.

Here are two of my favorites. The 9th Annual Congress on Edible Mushrooms??? The Kagoshima Int’l Conference on Volcanoes is a bit more understandable. But still, you have to wonder who makes the decision: Hey, let’s make a stamp for the 9th Annual Congress on Edible Mushrooms???

This is not a complaint – I love living in a country so full of stamps. But it is hard keeping up with the endless releases of new stamps.

日本語 hints
overwhelming = 圧倒的, too much
commemorate = 記念する
trivial = small and unimportant, maybe ささいな or ありふれた??
edible = can eat it, 毒性がなくて、食べられる
complaint = 不満、愚痴

still at it

My daughter's renewed interested in working on her stamp collection continues, much to my relief and happiness.

Today is a national holiday and tomorrow it is finally back to work for real. I had a few light days last week, but things get busy as usual from tomorrow.

We got quite a lot of stamp work done over the long holidays. But as usual, I find myself wishing for just one more day.

日本語 hints:
renewed - something started again. This is an easy word to recognize when reading, but not to use as output in conversation.

starting again

After a several-month hiatus, my daughter has decided she wants to work on her stamp collection again.

Of course, she has been gathering stamps all along (pilfering from among my new arrivals). But now we are going back to the beginning and re-organizing her album, complete with new artwork and categories.

日本語 hints:

hiatus = a period of no activity, 交渉、仕事などの中断、休止

pilfer = steal, ちょろまかす、くすねる

Most definitions taken or altered from my Canon wordtank v90