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ushidoux · 4 years ago

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November Baby - Ushijima x Reader

Summary: Wakatoshi offers you a little more than just chocolate and flowers on Valentine’s Day. (~2.7k words)

Warnings: breeding kink, pregnancy talk, cisfem!reader, nsfw

A/N: Breeding kink and big one-track minded boy just go hand in hand. This is for @prettysetterbaby’s Valentine’s Day collab!

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Wakatoshi never told you directly that he wanted children, but he signaled so in every possible way.

It was initially subtle - of course, he’d always loved your hips, but his eyes and hands started to rest on them more often, and soon your belly became his favorite place to plant soft kisses, and his fingers started to favor the dip in your waist and the smoothness of your hips.

In the evenings when you washed up for the night, his eyes seemed to hone in on your facial features more than usual, and while he stood beside you at the bathroom sink to get ready of his own accord as you brushed your teeth and swiped toner on your face and neck, you could see him perform a sort of math in his head, adding and subtracting from the elements that comprised the two of you.

You took note of all these behaviors, but you declined to pick his brain because your Toshi was always direct, and you knew that if he was quiet now, it was only because he was still coming up with the proper words to express what he was feeling.

But he let you know all right, in the middle of a crowded department store in the heart of Warsaw that looked like it had been ransacked by Cupid’s battalion many times over.

“Is Poland just really into Valentines’ Day or is it this store?” You joked, as you followed your husband leisurely pushing a shopping cart you’d overloaded with essentially useless trinkets and decorative items. You’d moved into your new home just a couple of weeks ago, and still were engrossed with the task of filling the empty spaces between comfy furniture and elegant fixtures.

You were now trekking through the realm of cribs and diapers and couldn’t help but stifle a laugh at the frankly quite excessive marketing. Red and pink hearts were everywhere, as were flowers, huge balloons, chubby angels and red crossbows, you name it.

“Oh my God, even the baby section is Valentine’s Day themed??? No wonder everyone I know is born in November!”

You were busy laughing at your own joke, but instead, he looked at you with the slightest bit of caution in his hazel eyes, leaning over the cart as it rolled to a stop and gripping the handles carefully.

“Let’s have a November baby, too,” he said, abruptly enough to stun you for a split second.

Your eyes grew slightly wide, your face growing hot at his clear and concise statement, and you quickly looked around to see if anyone else had picked up his distinct baritone. You knew in your heart of hearts he was completely serious, and flustered, you bumped him slightly on the hip.

“Why would you say it right now?” You hissed.

“Does it matter where I say it?” He asked, with a slight raise of his eyebrows. You pouted, fingers tightening on the handles of the shopping cart as well. His eyes were still on you, again, gauging your reaction, worried if he was too forward and if he had somehow made you upset with his suggestion.

“Only if you want to of course, my love,” he reassured again, his hand now covering yours. His smile was understanding, even if there was a hint of lingering hope.

The warmth was fading from your face, your heartbeat that had sped up due to embarrassment now settling with the stroke of his thumb over the back of your hand.

It didn’t take you long to think because the thought had already crossed your mind. Being heavy with his child, then eventually coming to this very store with a small little one that looked like the two of you…

It was a delightful thought, actually.

“Wine and dine me first,” you teased, kissing him quickly on the nose, “and then we can consider having a Valentine’s Day baby.”

He grinned, the slightest bit of mischief in his glance.

“I’ll have you pregnant by the end of the night.”

---

Dumping your pill pack into the trash was a surprisingly simple ordeal and you were very thankful it was mainly used for birth control over anything else. But out of an abundance of caution, you’d decided to shoot a message to your primary care doctor earlier that morning anyway and gotten the green light to start immediately, which was reassuring if not embarrassing. While you knew she didn’t take it this way, part of you felt like you’d essentially disrupted her life to say by the way, my husband’s gonna fuck me into oblivion until i pee positive on a stick, any objections?

Ushijima seemed to be taking this ordeal very seriously as he was prone to do, his diet even more regimented than usual despite being off-season and adding an extra ten minutes to his morning jog, a protein-heavy green smoothie in hand. While that was cute, what wasn’t cute was the fact that he hadn’t touched you in the past week.

When you rolled over to him in the middle of the night, slipping your hand down his boxers to try to get him to give you what he wanted, he responded with a kiss on the lips before gently removing your hand off of him and intertwining his fingers with that hand instead.

“If I’m going to breed you, it’s gonna be special,” he murmured almost directly into your ear, a tinge of slumber in his voice making his voice even more seductive.

Breed? The thought itself had your heart racing but not as much when he added,

“I’m saving up to fill you with the biggest load possible, sweetheart.”

With that, he patted you on the head before whispering for you to go to sleep and anchoring an arm around your midsection to snuggle with you, but the thought of what he would do to you had you wide, wide awake.

---

The fact that you were so focused on the main event made it easier for Ushijima to surprise you with the rest of the activities he had planned for Valentine’s Day.

It wasn’t the first since you’d been married, but he’d absolutely put even greater efforts into this one, starting with waking you up (after letting you sleep almost into noon) to an oversized box of chocolates and bouquet of roses and a handmade card with a haiku written in his neat script. If that weren’t enough, he’d brought you brunch to enjoy together, cozied up in bed, and topped off morning kisses with the revelation of a tennis bracelet to go with your engagement ring.

“Toshi, it’s perfect…,” you all but blubbered out, ready to burst into tears. He treated you so well.

“Not as perfect as you,” he said with a smile, welcoming you to bury yourself in his chest.

Dinner warranted more of an effort from you, and so you dressed up in your finest attire for the upscale restaurant, armed with the complete awareness that your husband planned to rip every inch of fabric off of you tonight. It didn’t help that while your meal was pleasant, you could see Ushijima grow impatient with time, adjusting and readjusting the sleeves of his blazer as night approached.

When you finally returned to the front door of your home, you were stuffed but not to bursting, and that very little bit of space left in your belly seemed to fill with new butterflies, especially with Ushijima’s hand resting at the small of your back as he opened the door.

Why were you so nervous? You’d had sex before, many times over, but something about today felt… different? Maybe it was the looming idea of purpose, and Ushijima knew purpose very well.

When the door clicked shut, he wasn’t on you immediately as you expected, but he was still ready, as were you. He leaned down to plant yet another kiss on your lips that seemed to whisk the nervousness away - again he was your Toshi, and you were his, and you were going to create life.

“Baby?” He asked, tentatively.

“Baby,” you agreed, wrapping your arms around his neck to start another kiss anew. He carried you effortlessly, keeping his lips pressed to yours as he pulled off your high heels and tossed them haphazardly, leading you back into the bedroom where a smattering of rose petals along the shag carpet and in the center of the bed greeted you, along with a lightly diffused essential oil blend with heavy notes of ylang-ylang and cedarwood.

Laying you carefully on your back, his eyes shifted from soft to focused, practically to match the level of intensity you saw when he was on the court, and your pulse started to pick up again. While he didn’t exactly tear the clothes off of you as you had anticipated, your dress was pulled over your body quite hastily to reveal all of you. Inches of skin to mark, a beautiful body to fill.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured again, leaning into your neck for soft bites and kisses. He was still mostly fully clothed, and you could feel his swollen length press against your pubis, thick and heavy.

He let out a sigh, and climbed off the bed to undress.

“Don’t move,” he ordered as he pulled off tie, shirt, pants, in that order, and you couldn’t tell if you were more distracted by the sculpted muscles of his shoulders, arms, chest and abs, flexing and relaxing with every minute movement or the swell of his fat cock at attention, anxious to bury itself inside you.

You gulped. You knew this was a ridiculous thought, but for a moment, you wondered if it was somehow bigger today?

Before you even realized what you were saying, you were already pleading, “Toshi… please be gentle…”

Ushijima smirked at your wide-eyed look, then shifted back to taking in your splayed out body with his eyes, as though mapping out his strategy while he idly fisted his length.

“Of course, love. I would never dream of hurting the mother of my kids.”

Yet, he was absolutely going to have his way with you.

It didn’t take him long to make a decision on how to attack, anyway, because he quickly resumed position hovering over you, taking a moment to appreciate the sight of anticipating, open lips, slightly knit eyebrows over a curious gaze. His lower half pressed against you closely enough that again, you could feel the entirety of his warm, girthy length pressing against the bottom of your quickly wetting cunt to your abdomen.

The sheer span of his cock reminded you that he was basically designed to do this.

The fact that he started moving first, rubbing his length across your belly as if trying out the course before he dove in also reminded you how much your body craved him always.

His fingers entered you hastily, and he reveled in the way your cunt already made the lewdest of noises, soft audible squishes with every pump of his fingers as he prepped you.

“So eager… so sloppy, waiting to receive all of my cum, aren’t you?” He teased, withdrawing his fingers to show you some of your slick. “You’re receptive,” he added, pulling his two fingers apart to show you the stringiness of your arousal.

“I-I want this too, you know,” your face growing hot from the tease, hotter still when he sucked your wetness right off his fingers.

“What do you want?” He said, raising an eyebrow, still moving painfully slowly on top of you, but angling his body so that he was just running the entire base of his cock against your wet slit, killing you with every second he wasn’t immediately filling you up.

“Your babies, Toshi...”

That made him smile, and you earned the slight entry of his cockhead into you, forcing a slight moan out of your throat. The stretch was intense, as always, but the fact that he slowed had you squirming for more, as fast as possible.

“T-Toshi… please, more,” you moaned as you raised your legs to slide down further on his cock, and he held them, pressing both firmly along his side.

“How much cum can you take in this little body of yours?” he asked, pressing right at your umbilicus with one hand, as he pushed in a mere additional inch.

You let out something between a moan and a scream from the overwhelming sensation of being stretched with so many inches to spare.

“Just fill me!!! Please, just put everything inside me,” you whined.

“As you wish, darling.”

His arms hoisted your legs above his shoulders and he did you the service of thrusting all remaining inches inside you, forcing tears from your eyes from the too full sensation, kissing your ankles beside his head as he gave you time to breathe and adjust. Once you’d settled from the sound of your whimpers slowing, he reached for the headboard behind you before he started his onslaught.

Thrust after thrust after savage thrust, you could hear his groans deepen as he plowed the grounds for his seed, his hands tightening firmly against the wood of your headboard as it creaked for mercy.

He felt so good, so perfect, so fitting, stretching you out like this to make room for his kin.

Your fingers etched desire into his back, as you choked up a demand for more sensation, more him, more closeness..

“More, daddy!”

“Daddy is quite correct,” he mused, his hands moving from the headboard to quiet instead the jostle of your breasts, palming them gently.

They were so pretty to him, he couldn’t wait to see them swell.

He leaned down again to swallow your moans in a kiss, then opted to flip you above him instead, before he continued to snap his hips, bouncing you into the air.

“T-Toshi, you’re ah- too fast!” You shrieked, barely able to stand upright, the ride too rocky and intense for you. Palming his abdomen to walk your way up despite your movement, he brought you back down flush against his chest again, holding you tightly.

“Let me do the work,” he whispered, kissing you, making your head swim to distract from the fact that he really was rearranging your guts. “I’ll do at least this much, since you’ll be carrying our child.”

And to that promise, you came almost instantly, an impulse of shock traveling from your slippery cunt up that you could almost feel in the tips of your fingers that made your body clench, your toes curl and the sound that came out of your throat less dainty and more primal, coming from so far deep inside you, even you were afraid.

As if on cue, his fingers dug into the flesh of your waist, holding you steady as he pounded into you even further, faster, pushing past fluttering walls and soundless cries coming from your lips, until he finally came with a shudder, spurting thick, hot gobs of liquid that you could feel hitting your cervix.

And it kept coming; he held you tighter, so desperately you thought you might break under his touch, burying his face in your chest - you could feel yourself still clenching around him, so greedy, trying to milk him for even more than the generous amount he was giving you.

It would be a miracle if you weren’t pregnant.

When it finally stopped, he left an arm around your back pressing you close to him, letting out a soft, pleased sigh with lowered eyelids. You stayed against him for longer, cockwarming him, your hands languidly coming to rest on both sides of his face.

Your darling Wakatoshi…

He stayed hard inside you, slowly giving you just one more stroke to atone for the small amount of semen that was already threatening to leak out around him, then laid you on your back.

“You’re doing so well already…” he encouraged, scooping up drops of him spilling out of you. “Keep it all in,” he said breathily, a warm palm pressing on your opening.

“I will, baby,” you nodded, and he gave you another peck on the lips, then moved to one of your mounds to take a pert nipple in his mouth and suck softly.

His hand lingered on your hot cunt, warm and dripping; he instead focused on stimulating your nipples with the other hand and his lips, forcing another orgasm out of you with time and dedication.

He’d obviously read somewhere orgasms themselves made pregnancy more likely. Always so thorough.

“You... f-feel so good,” you mewled, your back arching with pleasure as he used a thumb to stimulate your clit gently as he kept his semen inside you.

He smiled, stroking his already re-hardening cock in his hand, preparing for the next round.

“Anything for my Valentine.”

With that was implied, the love of his life, and the mother of his kids.

#ushijima x reader #ushijima #ushijima wakatoshi x reader #ushijima wakatoshi #not sfw #ushijima smut #haikyuu smut #haikyuu x reader #mae.writing #fic: november baby

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ashesandhackles · 3 years ago

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Ron for the ask game!

I don't talk about Ron enough, even though he is in my Top 5 HP characters (Harry, Sirius, Snape, Ron, Remus - in that order). So thank you for the opportunity!

• favorite thing about them

I have talked about Harry's bravery, but can we talk about Ron? He went into a forest full of spiders, his worst fear, at the age of 12. The movie treated this comedically, but the book took his fear lot more seriously. He was unable to speak, and was white and staring. And yet he went with Harry anyway! And at 13, this boy stands up on broken leg to defend Harry from who he thinks is a mass murderer. Ron is awesome and is not appreciated enough. I love him so much.

Added moment: the time he throws crocodile heart at Draco to stop him from imitating Harry fainting. King this boy is.

• least favorite thing about them

The least favorite thing about him is something I find completely understandable and have empathy for? His envy. It's hard quality for people to understand if they haven't experienced it - but you know, the one thing that is not talked about enough, Ron returned to Harry and Hermione despite having those fears and insecurities. He camped out in the open for days, looking for them and it's only addressed after he destroys the locket.

• favorite line

So many! He is so funny. But the one I have special place in my heart for is him yelling at Voldemort, "He beat you!"

This the boy who could not speak the man's name. Look at him, screaming about his best friend right to his face. <3

• brOTP

Harry! :)

• OTP

Hermione. Romione was among my first ships.

• nOTP

Idk - maybe Draco or something? I dont know. I haven't thought about it.

• random headcanon

He joined the joke shop both to support George as well as pay more attention to his family life, while Hermione works her way up at the Ministry. He is the parent who gets all the letters from Hogwarts, while Hermione is the parents who will buy toys to bribe her kids to forget she isn't at home often.

• unpopular opinion

I found the Romione drama of HBP extremely entertaining and funny. This was me when Ron and Hermione were being petty with each other:

• song i associate with them

Warsaw Village Band - Chassidic Dance

youtube

• favorite picture of them

Hillymine has my favourite Ron art. But here is my favourite (suggestive) Romione

#asks #ron weasley

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scandinaviacroatiaengbergs · 6 years ago

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Monday and Tuesday: Stockholm to Gothenburg (with a few extra nice words about the Stockholm Central Station!)

Wow! I am so behind on these posts! We’ve been having such full days, with the kids going to bed later than usual, that I haven’t had time to write a post in the evening on many days. OK, so after we successfully woke up on the Baltic Princess to disembark by 6:10, we got off the ship with little fanfare and found ourselves in the chilly Stockholm morning. It was the first time the weather on this trip has been chilly at all (but it warmed up in the daytime, considerably, during our two daytimes there). The kids and I actually waited inside for our Uber. We got to our hotel, the Nordic Light, by 7 a.m. and miraculously, they were able to check us in. We were so glad. Now, this hotel is one of the last things we booked for the trip (actually, we still have two things to book: our rental car in Croatia and a night back in Gothenburg in a week). Finding lodging in Stockholm was *so hard.* I mean, I felt totally rejected because I seriously put booking attempts in at about 7 Airbnbs and was declined on all of them. We have an extensive Airbnb track record with a good set of reviews ourselves, so I couldn’t figure out what the deal was! And all of the places were *so* expensive! We had similar trouble in Oslo and Copenhagen, trouble like I’ve never had booking something anywhere we’ve traveled. Rejection after rejection. So, for Copenhagen, I selected “instant book” and got something, and in Oslo, one guy finally accepted our request (I am writing this from Oslo now and the place is totally awesome). Anyway, back to the Nordic Light, it is actually a very good thing we booked a hotel rather than an Airbnb because we were able to check in early, which would’ve been very unlikely for an Airbnb. It was a really cool-looking hotel, just recently updated and kind of on a main drag, right adjacent to the train station, which I will come back to. We got ourselves collected, after the kids watched some show on National Geographic about extreme truck/equipment repairs in Alaska, and we walked first to the Old Town and, en route, we passed a wonderful shopping street, and I noticed two stores I had to return to later (and did): Paper Tiger (which is based in Copenhagen and I’d noticed two years ago in Warsaw) and Villervalla children’s clothing. It looked *totally* cute. When I went back later that day, I got the kids new sun-protecting long-sleeved swim one-pieces. So cute. OK, so on our walk to the Old Town, we passed Parliament and then the royal palace, and once we were on the other side of the royal palace, we actually saw two horse-and-carriages go by. The kids were pretty into that. Once we were kind of on the outskirts of the Old Town, we stopped to eat and the kids got quiche and a waffle with ice cream—yes, ice cream at breakfast time. This was Eric’s choice and he chose carrot cake ice cream, and Cece and he gobbled it up, and Rowan actually turned it down! It was crazy! The boy has been asking for ice cream like multiple times daily, and then we have it for *breakfast* and he’s like, no thanks! So, after going through the Old Town, we went along one of the rivers (Stockholm is comprised of multiple islands so there are rivers –or inlets, whatever—everywhere and bridges everywhere) and visited the Vasa Museum. It was recommended to us by our friend Ethan, whose brother lived in Stockholm for a long time. Anyway, the Vasa was a 17th century multi-use transport/war ship (it had a ton of cannons) which, on its maiden voyage, sunk in Stockholm harbor. We learned that a lot of ships are lying in the muck at the bottom of the harbor, as capsizing was not uncommon. What is unique about this ship is that, a) it was brand new, so it was kind of state-of-the-art at the time and loaded with provisions that reflected the times, and b) it sunk in just the right kind of mud and in water of just the right kind of brackishness, so it was excellently preserved. Its sinking had gone down in lore with people searching for it from time to time, and then, in the 1960s, a private citizen decided to organize an effort to locate it (which he did) and then galvanized the interest of the citizenry and government to undertake the huge project of lifting it out of the sea. So, the whole museum is about the ship being brought back up out of the muck and its restoration and then all about it: its history, its crew, its back-story, what life was like in Sweden in the late 1600s, etc. It was really interesting, but the kids were not as engaged as would’ve been ideal for parental enjoyment ;) Walking home from the Vasa, we took a meandering route, and that took us to a high-end shopping era and to the central market, something we always love to check out in new cities. From there, we went back to the hotel for naptime, which is when I went out and did a spot of shopping. Afterwards, I took the kids to the Abba Museum and Eric went for a run. The Abba Museum was so, so, so amazing!!!! I can’t even do it justice with a brief explanation here, so I am going to spare you all my attempt. I love Abba, and even if you’re not a huge fan, I think it’s really engaging and fun. Cece was luke-warm about it, calling it “too boring” from time to time, but Rowan and I were into it ;)

After our museum time, we all went out and managed find a restaurant to eat in before I lost my mind from exhaustion, hunger, overall crankiness, and an aching body, haha. We actually ate at an Italian restaurant (I think we’ve done pretty good work at eating Scandinavian delicacies, well some, so having a comfort/familiar meal was fine, especially for the kids). My mood really improved after dinner and we actually walked some more. We didn’t tarry too long this time, and got home and the kids went right to bed (after their first actual bath in quite some time; they’ve had irregular showers on other days) and then I managed to get to bed by 11-ish and the next morning when my alarm went off at 8:45, I was like, whoa, wait, where am I? I hadn’t stirred or anything that whole time; I slept like log.

Tuesday morning we had breakfast at the Nordic Light and I put Cece in some new black-and-white Marimekko pants I’d gotten on sale for her at the outlet. Let me tell you, a four-year-old in black-and-white pants and mixed berry compote do not get along well together. Within ten minutes of her getting dressed—and seriously, don’t judge me, because I also *knew* this was likely but was looking on the bright side that, for once, it might not—she had red splotched all down the leg of one pant. I quickly swooped the child and her pants upstairs and did some quick internet research and let me tell you, if you need to get berry stains out, flush them out with boiling water. It totally worked! I was amazed! Anyway, we went back down and finished breakfast and then were on our way to our next adventure: to the Swedish Center for Architecture and Design! It goes by ArkDes for short and it shared a building with the modern art museum. What a great few hours we had there. Rowan says he wants to be an architect and general contractor when he grows up and Cece wants to be a cat doctor (veterinarian) and a variety of other things when she grows up. Both kids were really pretty interested in ArkDes! Rowan loved looking at all of the models and seeing all of the different architectural styles. We went over to the modern art side and it was really incredible. So many really interesting paintings, multi-media works, audio installations, and so much more. We actually had very little time there, but Rowan was interested the whole time (and Cece was not quite as interested and I think she was really getting tired). Rowan loved this mixed-media large format painting/sculpture by Yves Klein, and we took a picture of him in front of it. There were some Jackson Pollock painting and Picassos and other folks I recognized, even though I am not the most hip to all the important artists, though I can kind of hang ;) We scooched on back to our hotel to collect our bags (passing by the “pink carpet” that was going to be used that night at the Grand Hotel for the Polar Music Prize, Sweden’s biggest award, funded by the royal family). Bags in hand, we walked around the corner to the Central Station for our 2:32 p.m train to Gothenburg on SJ. We’d bought our tickets online that day and we had plenty of time. So, the train station is so crazy convenient. I think of big-city train stations like London’s Euston or Victoria – you know, insane, busy, lots of tracks and platforms, etc. So, this was also a pretty big situation, but imagine that if you walked into an airport from the curb and approached the ticket counter and the *track* was where the luggage conveyer belt is behind the ticket agent. It was like so convenient and unexpectedly nearby! There were taxis that were pulled up literally *at* the platform! Eric and I were both totally thrown off by it, but it seemed great and very convenient. We had a very smooth and pleasant three-hour ride to Gothenburg. Cece slept for an hour and I managed to get a grant application submitted, which was due in three days, so it was a big relief to get that off my plate. More about our Volvo adventure in Gothenburg in the next post!

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jesusintheleast · 4 years ago

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My Athens Adventure and the Least

10/9/2017

Previously, I explained about my wife Sandy’s and I’s trip to visit our son Jon, his wife Ola, and our 1-year-old granddaughter Frania in Warsaw, Poland. We had a great time visiting with Ola’s family, and I had an interesting afternoon meeting a few of the least in downtown Warsaw.

But our visit was just getting started. Jon and Ola had graciously offered to take us to a nice resort on the Greek coastline for a week. It was one of those “all-inclusive package deals.” You know, where you pay one flat fee which includes your roundtrip airfare, the tour bus trip to and from your destination, your lodging, and three fabulous buffet-style meals each day.

Needless to say, it was a week filled with beauty, rest, relaxation, and fun times with our family. And it also included a trip to Athens to see the Acropolis and the Parthenon. But there was one catch. The only group that was scheduled to take the Athens tour was a Polish speaking tour-led group.

My daughter-in-law Ola was happy to help me get signed up for the tour. But she did voice her “opinion” that she thought I was a little “crazy” since I wouldn’t understand a word that was being spoken and how could I enjoy it. And there was also her concern for the heat that particular day. It was forecasted to be in the high 90’s. And she knew the trek up the mount where the Acropolis and Parthenon sit would not be a cake-walk.

Of course, she could not deter me. My way of thinking went like this, “Hey, I don’t exactly get to Greece very often (like never!) and if my only “shot” to see a bit of Athens and the historic ruins was with a Polish-led speaking group in “very hot” weather well then I was going to take it.” (Sandy had made the choice to stay back at the resort.)

Anyways, our tour guide, Kate, did speak fairly good English, and she was happy to direct and inform me (on the side) as to what I needed to be aware of so that I would know to expect at each stop on the tour.

Everything went along without any glitches for the most part. I just followed along with the group, but I was mostly off to the side of the group, trying to find any English “captions” that would explain the history of the “ruins” we were looking at in the Acropolis museum. And when we started our accent up the hill towards the pathway up the mount to the Acropolis, I spotted one of the least pushing her “dolly” loaded with her belongings. I made an attempt to communicate with her briefly… with not much transpiring.

Next, I ran into this fascinating gentleman hawking “Greek” flags to the tourists that ambled on by. I was happy to purchase a flag for only 1 Euro (a little more than $1.00 U.S.) And he was happy to receive a card advertising my book and website.

Soon we were trekking up the mount to the Acropolis on a very rugged and rough pathway. And we were delighted whenever we’d encountered a patch of small trees along the route. A bit of shade offered a few minutes relief from the blazing sunlight.

And wouldn’t you know it but I ran into a serious “Cubs fan” on the way up. Nothing like a small world.

The Acropolis and the Parthenon are truly impressive. It is absolutely mind-boggling how these massive structures were built on such a high mount overlooking the entire the city of Athens. But then you stop and think for a moment (as Jon and Ola later pointed out), “Oh yeah, slave labor…and lots of it!”

After a while our group went down the mount into the market square. There, we were told that we had about 2 free hours to shop and explore on our own…but that we needed to meet back at the designated spot to regroup and then hike a few blocks to rendezvous with our bus.

I had a good time shopping and exploring … but it did seem to pass far too quickly. I met a couple of the least hanging outside the metro station. One was named Mohammed, standing by the garbage. And the other wrote out his name in Greek, but that didn’t tell me much.

As my free time was heading towards expiration I encountered this one shop that was run by the friendliest little 86 year old lady and her granddaughter. She was extremely helpful (without being overly pushy) in assisting me to find a few souvenir, gift type items to purchase.

I made it to the designated spot where our group was to meet. And Kate simply informed the group (and me) that we would be making our way through the heart of Athens to re-board our bus back to our resort. Kate carried a 10 ft. pole with our “Rainbow” group flag waving in the heat, and she started out leading the way. All the group had to do was to simply follow along, and not lose sight of the flag.

All was well, as we ventured through a few blocks of downtown Athens. I soon noticed that many of the members of our group were spread out along the sidewalks as much as 40 -50 yards. This was because our group was simply a few folks amongst a bustling downtown Athens crowd. Still, all we had to do was keep that flag in sight.

I’d occasionally get distracted by some of the least along the route. But I knew this wasn’t the time for casual talk. So I kept up with the group for the most part, but I was definitely on the tail end.

And then it happened. I became enthralled with this “homeless” couple sitting on a park bench. I just had to go over and check them out. I hurried right over to where they were sitting and introduced myself and told them that I worked with the homeless in Chicago. They weren’t overly impressed (I don’t blame them!) and I talked with them a little more, and asked if I might take their picture.

“Sure, why not?” the man responded.

“Ok, thanks,” I said. “Can I give you a little change for your time?”

“No, don’t worry about it,” he said.

I was then confronted by another soul who made it known that he would be happy to accept any change I might offer.

The man on the bench quickly consented, “Yeah, give him the money.”

“Ok,” I responded. “Thanks for your time. I’ve got to catch up with my group.” And with that, I turned to look for the flag, but it was nowhere in sight.

I began to panic thinking, “Oh no, how could I let myself get so distracted with this couple?” But then I got a hold of myself (or so I thought).

I was in middle of this “park square,” and I was noticing that there were only three “probable” directions the group could have gone. I hurried along one side of the park, not seeing our group or any “flag.” And then I noticed some stairs leading down to a metro stop.

“Now, could they have gone this way?” I reasoned. “I mean, didn’t I hear Kate say that we might have to take a metro to get to our tour bus?”

I raced down the stairs anxiously looking for any “flags” or any familiar looking folks from our group. I started to scan the many folks, which included many tourists, in hopes of spotting someone I recognized. But no such luck…

I “toyed” momentarily with the thought of getting on the train. Then I thought better of that.

So I turned and ran back up the stairs out of the metro station. I was really beginning to panic now. I was thinking, “Oh man, now I’ve really done it. I’ve really messed up. I might actually be “lost,” and I’d never be able to live this one down.”

And what was worse I’d have to admit that my daughter-in-law, Ola, was justified in her reservations about me going on this tour by myself. She knew that it could be easy---especially for a guy like me---to get lost amongst all these Polish-speaking folks.

But I did have my last option. It was to go up another set of stairs. I went up the stairs and then I noticed what I thought was a government building that I had seen earlier in the tour directly across the street.

This was a welcome sight. And as I turned to the right I began to notice a number of other sightseeing/tour buses lined up across the street. Still, I did not see “ours” at first. But then I looked down the line of buses and spotted a big, white one just like the one we had come in. And it did look like it had the big “Rainbow” group sign in the bus’s front right windshield. But I couldn’t be sure. It was too far away.

So I crossed the street, running as fast as I could (not very fast), and along the crowded sidewalk towards the bus when I was met by Kate about 25 yards from the bus. She had a “relieved” look on her face.

“I’m so glad to see you, “ she said. “I was beginning to think we’d lost you. Where was it that you lost us?”

“Oh, it was when you were going up the stairs and to the right,” I humbly conceded.

“Oh well, you’re here now, “ she said.

“Yeah, “ I responded.

I then hurried onto the bus and sank into my bus seat, feeling like a 1,000 lbs. had been lifted off me. I had made it… just. Just barely.

And just think if I didn’t make it, I might have to spend the night in Athens with the least. Then I’d really have something to write about!

But seriously, I hope you enjoyed my adventures in Athens. And please say a prayer for the least in Athens. As with any large city in our world, there’s more than a few.

And oh yeah, you can always do more than pray.

Be blessed

- Chris

P.S. Sandy and I had great time with our family in Vrachati, Greece. We were truly blessed. And we thank Jon and Ola and Frania for taking us on an extra special trip. My only question is, “Where to next?”

Wherever “it” might be, I hope I remember to keep that “flag” in sight!

#greece #debrief #christianblog

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libertariantaoist · 8 years ago

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I can understand why the ruling elite, broadly conceived to include the intel bureaucracy and military-industrial complex, has an interest in positing Russia as our enemy. The reasons are obvious enough. What I can’t understand is why common Americans would fall for it. They have everything to lose and nothing to gain from swallowing this line.

After all, the stakes are extremely high. The United States and Russia have thousands of nuclear warheads pointed at each other, and their forces are in close proximity in Syria. Yet major bipartisan elements of the U.S. government, including the intelligence bureaucracy, persist in aggravating tensions. The public is led to believe that the reason for the problems is the Russian attempt to interfere in the presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump. But that remains an allegation for which no evidence has been produced. It also doesn’t pass the smell test. For example, it is said that the diabolically clever Russians left their digital fingerprints all over the crime scene. It has also been “reported” that Russian President Vladimir Putin expected Hillary Clinton to win the election, but he interfered anyway so he could damage her presidency as payback for her having impugned the legitimacy of his own election. Think about that for a few minutes.

The absurdity of the election story has not stopped American politicians from recklessly charging the Russians with an “act of war.” Do these people realize what they are saying? (Considering the U.S. government’s record of interfering with other countries’ political systems, the politicians’ self-righteousness is downright laughable.)

Not coincidentally, Trump made cooperation with Russia a campaign theme. Such cooperation, of course, would be costly for civilian and military bureaucrats and government contractors. Yet even if Trump has corrupt business motives for favoring detente, it is still a good idea for the American people and the world.

So, are we witnessing what is being called a “soft coup” against the Trump administration? The thought is not so outlandish. Nor would it be the first time the intelligence bureaucracy has tried to interfere with East-West detente.

At the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union, a spokesman for Mikhail Gorbachev told some reporters from the West, “We have done the cruelest thing to you that we could possibly have done. We have deprived you of an enemy.” That insight explains a lot of what has happened ever since the Warsaw Pact dissolved in 1989 and the Soviet Union closed shop in 1991. It explains why, despite the historic collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, American presidents expanded NATO to Russia’s border, interfered with its political-economic system, and meddled in neighboring countries politically and militarily. America has 60,000 troops in Europe and it is placing military equipment on Russia’s border, while German and other NATO troops engage in war simulations. (Such actions were decried by George Kennan, the Russia scholar and diplomat, and Jack F. Matlock Jr., who was ambassador to the Soviet Union under Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.)

I found that quote from Gennadi Gerasimov in an extraordinary 2016 article by conservative English journalist Peter Hitchens, “The Cold War Is Over.” It’s an article that ought to be read by all Americans, especially those who give any credence to what their (mis)leaders, (mis)representatives, and public (self-)servants — not to mention the news media — tell them daily. (I had the pleasure in the 1990s of dining with Hitchens at the Washington, D.C. home of his late brother, Christopher.)

Peter Hitchens was posted to Moscow for two years beginning in 1990, so he witnessed the remarkable transition toward normalcy. He is no fan of Vladimir Putin, and no advocate of a police state. He writes:

I view him [Putin] as a sinister tyrant. The rule of law is more or less absent under his rule. He operates a cunning and cynical policy toward the press. Criticism of the government is perfectly possible in small-circulation magazines and obscure radio stations, but quashed whenever it threatens the state and its controlled media. Several of the most serious allegations against Putin — alleged murders of journalists and politicians — have not been proven. Yet crimes like the death in prison (from horrible neglect) of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer and auditor who charged Russian officials with corruption, can be traced directly to Putin’s government, and are appalling enough by themselves.

His distaste for the police state, including armed cops, is displayed in his blog post “The First Casualty of Terrorism is Thought,” which he wrote in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks in London. To wit: “Here we go again, responding to events with emotion rather than reason. UKIP [UK Independent Party] chieftains talk of internment. Columnists suggest the closing of mosques. Yet at the same time we praise ourselves for not panicking. Well, one or the other, but not both.” And: “It is still my view that unarmed officers, patrolling alone, always did and would now do more in the long run to protect us from crime and disorder of all kinds happening in the first place, than phalanxes of armed and armoured officers, loaded with weapons.”

So Hitchens’s advice about how to regard Russia can be taken seriously without suspecting an affinity for Putin or a Trump-style police state. He is simply someone who knows the difference between Russia and the Soviet Union and sees no point in a new Cold War.

About the West’s attitude toward Putin, Hitchens says what needs to be said over and over:

Western diplomats, politicians, and media are highly selective about tyranny. Boris Yeltsin’s state was not much superior to Vladimir Putin’s. Yeltsin used tanks to shell his own parliament. He waged a barbaric war in Chechnya. He blatantly rigged his own re-election with the aid of foreign cash. He practically sold the entire country. Russians, accustomed to corruption as a way of life, gasped at its extent under Yeltsin’s rule. Yet he was counted a friend of the West, and went largely uncriticized. Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who locks up many more journalists than does Mr. Putin, who kills his own people when they demonstrate against him, and who has described democracy as a tram which you ride as far as you can get on it before getting off, has for many years enjoyed the warm endorsement of the West. His country’s illegal occupation of northern Cyprus, which has many parallels to Russia’s occupation of Crimea, goes unpunished. Turkey remains a member of NATO, wooed by the E.U.

As for Saudi Arabia and China, countries much fawned upon by the Western nations, the failure to criticize these for their internal despotism is so enormous that the mind simply refuses to take it in. But I need not go on. The current attitude toward the Putin state is selective and cynical, not based upon any real principle.

Selective, indeed. Hitchens could have gone just a bit further back in history and found many more examples of American and British enabling of bloody tyrants. But, some will say, those other tyrants were not expansionists like Putin and therefore a threat to the West. Let’s see what Hitchens has to say about that.

The experience of living in that sad and handsome place brought me to love Russia and its stoical people, to learn some of what they had suffered [under Soviet rule] and see what they had regained. And so, as all around me rage against the supposed aggression and wickedness of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, I cannot join in. Despite the fact that Moscow has abandoned control of immense areas of Europe and Asia, self-appointed experts insist that Russia is an expansionist power. Oddly, this “expansion” only seems to be occurring in zones that Moscow once controlled, into which the E.U. and NATO, supported by the U.S., have sought to extend their influence.

The comparison of today’s Russia to yesterday’s U.S.S.R. is baseless. I know this, and rage inwardly at my inability to convey my understanding to others….

He then drives the point home.

Nobody who has seen these things [I have seen] could possibly compare the old Soviet Union with the new Russia. The trouble is, almost nobody has seen them. Nor, it seems, has anyone noticed the withdrawal of Moscow’s power from 700,000 square miles of territory which it once held down with boots and tanks and secret policemen. Somehow or other this unprecedented peaceful withdrawal of a power undefeated in war is being portrayed as “expansionism.” Nobody who understands history, geography, or, come to that, arithmetic can possibly accept this portrayal. There is much to criticize in Russia’s foreign policy, especially if one is a Ukrainian nationalist, but the repossession of Crimea does not signal a revival of the Warsaw Pact. It is instead a limited and minor action in the context of this conquered and reconquered stretch of soil, the ugly but unexceptional act of a regional power.

Hitchens winds down by reminding us that “Russia is invaded all the time — by the Tatars, the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Swedes, the French, us British, the Germans, the Japanese, the Germans again: They keep coming. Nor are these invasions remote history.” He then asks Americans to imagine how they would feel if just a small fraction of what the West has been doing to Russia were happening on America’s borders: “I cannot see the U.S. sitting about doing nothing, especially if it had repeatedly warned in major diplomatic forums against this expansion of Russian power on its frontiers, and been repeatedly ignored over fifteen years or so.”

He closes with a plea for understanding and a concern for peace: “Out of utopian misery has come the prospect of rebirth. It is as yet incipient. But I see great possibilities in it, in the many once-blighted churches now open and loved and full again, in the reappearance of symbols of pre-Bolshevik Russia, in the growth of a generation not stunted and pitted by poisoned air and food, nor twisted by Communist ethics….. Why then, when so much of what we hoped for in the long Soviet period has come to pass, do we so actively seek their enmity?”

#sheldon richman #libertarian institute #tgif_the goal is freedom #american empire #cold war #nato #peter hitchens #russia #soviet union

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lawfultruth · 7 years ago

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Tokyo

Imperial Palace and Nijubashi Bridge

The D&O Diary is on assignment in Asia this week, with the first stop for meetings in Tokyo, Japan’s capital city. Tokyo is such an amazing place. With a population of 13.8 million in the city itself and a total of 37.8 million in the Tokyo prefecture, it is by some measures the most populous city in the world. It is also a fascinating place. It is such a study in contrast, between the traditional and the modern, and between incredible organization and the disorder of its massive crowds.

It was great to visit Tokyo but I was unfortunate in the timing of visit, because I arrived during of a long stretch of consistently rainy days. The sun didn’t shine at all until the day I left. The majority of the time the rain was coming down in a steady drenching downpour. Even with an umbrella and a raincoat, I got soaked. (A weather system that was basically the outer edge of a typhoon that hit China apparently was responsible for all of the rain.) The damp and dreary weather did put a little bit of a damper on the visit, but I nevertheless managed to see a great deal of the city as well.

How much rain fell? This is a screen shot of a Nippon Professional Baseball League game on Sunday night between Hanshin Tigers and Yokahama DeNA BayStars . It isn’t the best picture, but you can see that the infield is basically a lake. As I said, it rained a lot. The teams finished out the game despite the conditions because of the tight playoff schedule.

Imperial Palace East Garden

I stayed in a hotel in the center city, near the Tokyo Station and close to the Imperial Palace. The palace itself is not open to visitors, but I did have a chance to take a hike around the palace’s beautiful gardens. The Edo-era Shogun palace is almost entirely gone and most of the palace buildings today were rebuilt either after the 1923 earthquake or after World War II. The gardens cover areas where the Shogun palaces stood. The picture at the top of the post shows the Nijibashi Bridge and a portion of the Imperial Palace that is visible from the public park.

One of the few remaining Yagauras (watchtowers) from the Shognate’s Edo Castle.

The steady rain was not altogether a bad thing. For example, because it was absolutely pouring rain the morning I went to visit Koishikawa Korakuren Garden, I had the place to myself. As the pictures below show, even in the rain, the park was beautiful. It is hard to believe that this oasis of calm exist in the heart of such a massive city.

Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens

Engetsukyo, the Full Moon Bridge

I wasn’t entirely alone in the Gardens, I did have this heron to keep me company

The city’s beautiful parks are such a contrast with the rest of the hectic city. For example, on Saturday, on my way back to the subway after a stroll through Ueno Park in the northern part of the city, I walked through the Ameya Yokocho street market (Candy Story Alley, pictured below), which on Saturday afternoon was crowded with shoppers buying fruits and vegetables, clothing, and electronic goods.

Amaya Yokocho, near the Ueno subway station

Later, I visited the Harijuku district, in the Shibuya section of the city. Harijuku is an area of shops and cafes famous for its youth fashion and the street scene. I enjoyed walking around Harijuku and people-watching. I was at least twice the age of everyone else there. OK, more than twice the age.

Takeshita-dori, the busy hub of Harijuku

Harijuku “fashion”

Harijuku is such an interesting contrast to Tokyo’s much more famous high-end shopping district, Ginza. Ginza is, by contrast to Harijuku, clean, orderly, and seriously glitzy. The stores are for the same luxury brands you see in every major city in the world these days. I was there late on Saturday afternoon when one of the main streets was closed off to vehicle traffic, which at least made it pleasant to walk around.

Ginza on Saturday, with the main street closed to vehicle traffic

On Sunday, I traveled on the Ginza subway line to the Senso-ji , a Buddhist temple in the Asakusa district. The approach to the temple is along a narrow alleyway lined with shops, a vestige of the times when pilgrims would arrive from long distances to visit the temple. When I was there, the alleyway was mobbed with visitors, despite the steady rainfall. The temple itself was crowded as well although the gardens surrounding the temple were quiet and calm. The temple is also near the Sumida River, a busy waterway spanned by numerous bridges.

The Senso-ji Temple

Nakamise-dori, the long alleyway that leads up to the Senso-ji temple

Because Tokyo is so huge, its subway system is massive as well. It is also incredibly well organized. I was able to naviagte the subway without difficulty. It helps that the sign-posting and announcements are in English as well as in Japanese. Each subway line is color-coded and designated by a letter. Each subway stop on each line is designated by the subway line’s color and letter and by a number. The numbers run sequentially along each line, which makes it easy to identify stations and also to figure out the direction in which a train is traveling. All of that is not to say that using the system doesn’t have its challenges. The subway stations are enormous and sprawling with numerous exits. Trying to find the correct exit proved to be a challenging exercise at times. There was something about the Shinjuku train station. I was there several different times and each time I managed to get lost trying to find my way through the station. (Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it is the world’s busiest train station.)

In addition to mastering the subway, trying to figure out how and where to eat was also a challenge for me, at least on the days when I was on my own. Most restaurants only had menus printed in Japanese (not that it made much of a difference in many cases, as I am sure that I would not know what many of the offerings were even in English.) Many of the restaurants helpfully displayed plastic renderings of their meal offerings; this actually had a counterproductive effect on me, as the plastic models looked singularly unappealing to me. I generally aimed toward noodle dishes and I preferred restaurants whose menus allowed me just to point at the pictures. One afternoon, I did have an excellent sushi meal, at the Standing Sushi Bar (yes, you stand while eating your sushi), in the Shinjuku neighborhood.

Wheat noodles with boiled pork and greens

The sushi on the left was more or less familiar; I have no idea what several of the others were. I ate it anyway. It was good.

I also had some excellent meals when I had local help choosing the restaurant and navigating the menu.

A traditional Japanese lunch with sliced Mackerel, steamed vegetables, and sesame sauce.

Shabu-shabu, with thinly sliced meat for dipping in the boiling water

There was of course no shortage of things in Tokyo to baffle me, but one completely unexpected confounding thing was how early it got dark there. Japan does not use daylight savings time, and Tokyo is pretty far east in its time zone (Japan Standard time). So it started to get dark around 4 and the sun set just after 5 pm. The jet lag was bad enough, but the early sunset compounded my disorientation. Trying to find your way around a massive city like Tokyo in the dark is a struggle (and the rainy conditions didn’t help either). I tended to end my evenings early.

Japan has a national election coming up on Sunday, October 22. There were political posters on the subway trains and election coverage dominated the local news on TV. I didn’t follow all of the issues under discussion in the Japanese election but one issue that did get my attention is the proposal to amend Japan’s post-war Peace Constitution, to alter the document’s war-renouncing Article 9 in order to recognize Japan’s Self-Defense forces as its military.

Shinzo Abe, the current Prime Minister of Japan and head of the incumbent Liberal Democratic Party

Yuriko Koike, Tokyo’s mayor, whose upstart candidacy as the head of the newly formed Party of Hope has made the election a lot more interesting

Even if Japan’s war legacies were not an issue in the current election, it would have been impossible for me not to think about Japan’s complicated 20th century history while I was in Tokyo. Many of the major tourist sites in Tokyo — including, for example, the Imperial Gardens and the Meiji Temple – are associated with the imperial family. The question of Hirohito’s role in the country’s right-wing militarism before the war has long been controversial. In touring the city, there are constant reminders of the destruction the war wrought. Almost all of the historical tourist sites, including in particular the places associated with the imperial family, are reconstructions built after the war. Very few pre-war buildings remain.

I didn’t purposefully set out this year to visit so many sites of severe World War II destruction, but somehow during 2017 I visited Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin, Warsaw, Tallinn, and now Tokyo, all cities that experienced varying degrees of severe damage from the war. It has now been over 70 years since the war’s end, and the cities have all been mostly rebuilt, although in Berlin, for example, it is still an ongoing process. Cities like Tokyo and Berlin paid a terrible price for their country’s involvement in the war. Now that the cities are rebuilt and the terrible events are a couple of generations in the past, the remaining issue now is what the war means today.

I thought about these issues as I made my way through the crowds on Tokyo’s streets. Because of the language barrier, I didn’t get to talk to as many people as I would have liked. I will say, the Japanese are unfailingly polite and uniformly friendly, at least in a formal way. Everyone I met was nice to me and helpful. Walking around this busy modern city, the thought that our countries fought such a terrible and destructive only a short time ago seemed unfathomable.

Where I ended up with these thoughts is that even if we now live in a time of peace that was unthinkable then, we can’t forget what came before, as unimaginable as it all seems now. Better to live a world where we can visit each other’s countries and experience each other’s culture. I feel as if my first encounter with Japan’s culture enriched me and expanded my horizon. I will have to come back (when the weather is nicer, I hope), to try to meet some more of the country’s people.

More Pictures from Tokyo:

Here is a picture taken at a great lunch that I enjoyed with Alexander Reus of the DRRT law firm and Hiroki Ohashi of AIG.

This awesome Torii is at the park entrance to the Meiji Shrine

This is a statue of Hachiko, the most loyal dog in the world. He would go to the station to meet his master every day — until one day his master died while at work. The dog still continued to come to the station and wait for his master every day, for nine years, nine months, and fifteen days after his master’s death.

Japan is a modern society and it has come up with some things that I think we should adopt. Like, for example, a vending machine for beer.

The post Tokyo appeared first on The D&O Diary.

Tokyo syndicated from http://ift.tt/2qyreAv

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golicit · 7 years ago

Text

Tokyo

Imperial Palace and Nijubashi Bridge

Imperial Palace East Garden

One of the few remaining Yagauras (watchtowers) from the Shognate’s Edo Castle.

Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens

Engetsukyo, the Full Moon Bridge

I wasn’t entirely alone in the Gardens, I did have this heron to keep me company

Amaya Yokocho, near the Ueno subway station

Takeshita-dori, the busy hub of Harijuku

Harijuku “fashion”

Ginza on Saturday, with the main street closed to vehicle traffic

The Senso-ji Temple

Nakamise-dori, the long alleyway that leads up to the Senso-ji temple

Wheat noodles with boiled pork and greens

The sushi on the left was more or less familiar; I have no idea what several of the others were. I ate it anyway. It was good.

I also had some excellent meals when I had local help choosing the restaurant and navigating the menu.

A traditional Japanese lunch with sliced Mackerel, steamed vegetables, and sesame sauce.

Shabu-shabu, with thinly sliced meat for dipping in the boiling water

Shinzo Abe, the current Prime Minister of Japan and head of the incumbent Liberal Democratic Party

Yuriko Koike, Tokyo’s mayor, whose upstart candidacy as the head of the newly formed Party of Hope has made the election a lot more interesting

More Pictures from Tokyo:

Here is a picture taken at a great lunch that I enjoyed with Alexander Reus of the DRRT law firm and Hiroki Ohashi of AIG.

This awesome Torii is at the park entrance to the Meiji Shrine

Japan is a modern society and it has come up with some things that I think we should adopt. Like, for example, a vending machine for beer.

The post Tokyo appeared first on The D&O Diary.

Tokyo published first on

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simonconsultancypage · 7 years ago

Text

Tokyo

Imperial Palace and Nijubashi Bridge

Imperial Palace East Garden

One of the few remaining Yagauras (watchtowers) from the Shognate’s Edo Castle.

Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens

Engetsukyo, the Full Moon Bridge

I wasn’t entirely alone in the Gardens, I did have this heron to keep me company

Amaya Yokocho, near the Ueno subway station

Takeshita-dori, the busy hub of Harijuku

Harijuku “fashion”

Ginza on Saturday, with the main street closed to vehicle traffic

The Senso-ji Temple

Nakamise-dori, the long alleyway that leads up to the Senso-ji temple

Wheat noodles with boiled pork and greens

The sushi on the left was more or less familiar; I have no idea what several of the others were. I ate it anyway. It was good.

I also had some excellent meals when I had local help choosing the restaurant and navigating the menu.

A traditional Japanese lunch with sliced Mackerel, steamed vegetables, and sesame sauce.

Shabu-shabu, with thinly sliced meat for dipping in the boiling water

Shinzo Abe, the current Prime Minister of Japan and head of the incumbent Liberal Democratic Party

Yuriko Koike, Tokyo’s mayor, whose upstart candidacy as the head of the newly formed Party of Hope has made the election a lot more interesting

More Pictures from Tokyo:

Here is a picture taken at a great lunch that I enjoyed with Alexander Reus of the DRRT law firm and Hiroki Ohashi of AIG.

This awesome Torii is at the park entrance to the Meiji Shrine

Japan is a modern society and it has come up with some things that I think we should adopt. Like, for example, a vending machine for beer.

The post Tokyo appeared first on The D&O Diary.

Tokyo published first on http://ift.tt/2kTPCwo

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