Today is the National Foundation Day, a holiday in Japan.
Katya and I woke up at 7 PM in the morning. Katya was going to the Russian embassy in Tokyo for the renewal of her passport.
When we saw outside, it was snowing as forecast.
Katya had a cup of coffee, and I took her to Kofu station. I left her and went back home.
I took Maya-san out for a walk. Then I went to my office to fetch my homeworks. The institute was covered with snow.
I worked with my laptop. Maya-san took a nap by me.
In the afternoon, I went out with a car.
First I went to Ogino supermarket to get groceries for lunch; I bought mandarins for Katya, bread,a piece of fried chicken, a pork cutlet, and a pack of sliced vegetables for salad.
I used a Delta card for miles. I am an Ogino member, so I had points put on an Ogino point card, too.
Then I went to a gas station to fill up the tank.
I used a Delta card again. Stamps were put on a station card, which can be later used for car washing.
Then I headed for TSUTAYA DVD shop for exchanging House #4-6, Season 1 to House #4-6, Season 2 (I had made a mistake). Parking lot was full of cars of people who were reasonably planning to watch DVDs on a snowy day.
Last time, they gave us a book coupon for putting T-points, changeable to miles, five times more (Now you see I am very keen in collecting points). I remembered I have not made a home page for our businesses, and I bought a ｂook of HTML to build a home page, using the coupon.
And of course, I used a Delta card.
I drove back home.
I arrived home and made sandwiches for lunch.
I was eating and watching “The Eagles” history on TV, when Katya sent me the arrival time by e-mail.
Maya-san and I went to Kofu station to pick up Katya.
Katya’s passport will be ready in a month. She told me she enjoyed a walk in Omote-sando. It was a pity it snowed in Tokyo, too.
Katya did not eat much in Tokyo, so we had an early dinner in a Nepalese restaurant, New Mahal.
Katya took a book of Chekhov‘s, one of the few books she brought from Russia. I advised her not to bring it any more because she could recall any phrases by heart. I told her about a movie, in which people are not allowed to possess books, so each memorizes his/her own book. She told me she has not seen the French movie, but that she had read the book “Fahrenheit 451” in Russia. In her apartment in Russia, she said, they had a series of science fictions and fantasies. She enjoyed Asimov, Clarke, and so on.
She naturally knew Stanislaw Lem and Karel Čapek, so she has a fundamental knowledge of science fiction (although, she did not know the word “robot” was first used by Čapek (:-)). I knew she was a reader, but I did not know she read that much!
We went back home with our stomachs full.
I took a nap. Maya-san stepped on me.
Maya-san needed to take a quick walk, even for a while on a snowy night.
She put a sweater on to prevent coldness.
After the walk, I was finishing this article until suddenly it disappeared. So I am writing it again.
Great post!
I love snow – so your pictures of the snow (following your spring post) were especially nice. I know it’s most probably not as enjoyable for those that are there.
Fahrenheit 451 was one of my favourite books growing up… Although I always thought the ending a little too constructed – that mankind’s history could be remembered through it’s literary works and used to re-build the world after it’s destruction (without reflecting the societal cancers that lead to its destruction) was interesting but always left me thinking there was a lot missing…
It’s interesting that the eastern european sci writers are not that well known (or well read) here in Australia – at least from my experience. I think one of the advantages of a country like Japan is that there is less cultural baggage that tends to bias where books/movies come from. So there’s a much broader influence base. Arthur C Clarke and Asimov (or even E.E. “Doc” Smith) are my early sci fi books. It’s getting very hard to find good sci fi these days however… did Bradbury’s theory of mass-media killing of literature come true (at least for sci fi)?
BTW – according to Wikipedia, it was Čapek’s brother who originally came up with the name robot… either way, I never knew that.
Yes, it is fun having snow in Kofu, but in Hokkaido, it could be a different story. If Katya is completely recovered from her cold, we could go skiing tomorrow.
In Japan, intellectual people used to be (?)/ have been favorably disposed toward socialism; it is said that eastern Europe and Russian literatures were translated more in Japan than in many other countries.
I liked Skylark but did not read Lensman. I was not a great fun of Space Opera except Captain Future, all the series of which I read.
I think it is cyberpunk that killed science fiction, loosing all the fun and sense of wonder.