November 1997 Letters Home
Kent is the featured writer this month, since I spent a couple of weeks in the U.S. and then came home to writer's block and a lot of article assignments.
Nov. 3: Halloween, sorta; Volleyball news; pilot's progress
Nov 16: Kent's update on his birthday and a week w/o Theresa
Nov 17: The kids miss Mom but send a shopping list anyway.
Nov 18: Blue Laser announced!!!
Nov 22: A turkey of a drive and 50th Anniversary Greetings.
Nov 30: Thanksgiving in Tokyo.
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11/4, 1AM … so it still counts as 11/3, right?
Greetings, sports fans! It's coming up on 1AM, but I'm suffering from writer's high, which happens after finishing up a couple of back-to-back deadlines. I have one more article to write this week while packing up for my trip to the U.S. Whew.Last week seemed to fly by. I did a lot of zooming around as well as work on the two articles just completed, and played "single mom" for the week while Kent was in the U.S. His group's blue laser announcement is pretty exciting and should be made public next week.
Kate and Colleen had Friday off from school, which was an interesting solution to the Halloween problem for Seisen. They used to have a Halloween party, but this year opted to have an in-service training day on 10/31 instead. From what I've seen of past years, some kids (and their parents) pulled out all the stops and put together fabulous costumes, while other kids weren't able to do anything very fancy. So they punted this time around and avoided the entire problem by just not having school that day. Kate spent Thursday night at Tessa's house; Nishimachi was closed down last week while the third through ninth grades moved into a new building. Kate and Tessa spent all day Friday together, then went trick-or-treating in the neighborhood around Nishimachi. That's a good place to go; there are so many gaijin families around that area that the pickings are pretty good. We didn't get a single trick-or-treater at our house, though there was a group going around up the hill closer to St. Mary's. Some of the moms proposed coming down to our house, and I was prepared with a huge pile of M&Ms and Skittles, but the prospect of walking back up the hill with a passle of tired-out kids was daunting enough that nobody stopped by. Sniff. Sort of reminds me of our first year or two on Fife -- few kids ventured down that long driveway for years and years!
The Seisen "A" middle school volleyball team participated in the Kanto Plains tournament on Saturday, which was held at ASIJ (American School in Japan). The four of us showed up at Seisen at 7:29 AM for a bus ride to ASIJ that left at 7:30. It took about 1.25 hours for the drive out to ASIJ; traffic was pretty bad. The ASIJ campus is quite nice and spacious. They have almost three times the number of students as Seisen (plus it's co-ed) and they also have quite a bit of outdoor running-around space. There's a middle school gym and a high school gym; the other international schools I've seen have only one gym.
Because of the facilities, the tournament moved along quickly. There were three games going on at a time in the double elimination tournament. Seisen dispatched Zama quickly during their first match, then had a short break before facing St. Maur. Colleen came in off the bench during the second game of the Zama matched and served two aces. Those two serves were the fastest moving serves I saw all day -- when Colleen puts it all together, her serves are almost unreturnable. St. Maur had just come off a difficult win over Japan International School, so they were a little tired. Colleen would have had a chance to play in this match, but she twisted her ankle during warm-ups and took herself out of the game. Seisen took care of St. Maur in two quick games as well. These two wins put Seisen in the tournament championship game and gave the kids a nice long lunch break too.
So we had lunch and watched the match that would determine Seisen's opponent -- the winner of the ASIJ vs. Christian Academy of Japan (CAJ) match. CAJ was very weak when Seisen played them in mid-September, but they've improved significantly since then. They won a three-game match over ASIJ, to my surprise; I thought ASIJ was really the better team, but they kept having mental breakdowns and committing unforced errors. We had another hour to kill before the championship match.
I went outside with Kate and Kent to help burn some of Kate's energy off; we'd brought a soccer ball and bonked it around a bit. After a few minutes, I heard the familiar sound of a Cessna engine overhead and looked up to see a plane configured for landing. It turned base, then turned final practically over my head so I knew there had to be an airport very near by. I kicked the ball back to Kate and said, "I'm going to find that airport -- I'll be back before the match!" and took off. I tramped down unfamiliar streets and finally found the airport after making a short cut through an orchard, jumping two fences along the way. There's a Toshiba flying club at the Chofu Airfield, for that's where I found myself, and I managed to ask about their membership policies. In "Japanglish" I found out that their club was full, and the manager called another club at a different airport (I'm still not sure where it is) and asked them to mail me some information. The info arrived today, all in Japanese, so I'll ask Kent's admin to translate it for me. Anyway, it was great to see an airport again -- the last one I saw was Narita on 20 August!! I can't wait to get back in the left seat of an airplane.
I avoided trespassing on my way back to the ASIJ gym, and got there in time for the last bit of warmups. Seisen took the first game handily against CAJ, and it looked like the match wouldn't take long. But then a group of kids who looked a lot like our Seisen team, but who played like total beginners, managed to lose the second game, mostly through a series of unforced errors and serves that didn't make it over the net. Seisen got behind in the third game, but then suddenly remembered what game they were playing and that they were pretty good at it, and came back to win it. So Colleen's team won the Kanto Plains championship -- this is Seisen's third year in a row winning the big trophy! Colleen has a break now from early morning practices, and Kent and I have a break from hauling her to Seisen by 7AM ... until basketball season starts.
Kent got home Friday evening while I was in town picking Kate up at Tessa's after trick-or-treating. He had his big bag, filled with items from the shopping list and a huge order from Land's End, shipped to the house from the airport. That's a much better thing to do than schlepping it all the way from the airport from train to bus to foot. The bag arrived while we were at ASIJ on Saturday afternoon and it was fun to unpack it when we got home. Kinda like Christmas. Today a big shipment arrived from the Foreign Buyers Club, full of heavy things like soft drinks and cranberry sauce and chicken broth. I felt like the people in Music Man singing, "Oh, the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin' down the street, I wish I wish I knew what it could be!"
Monday (today) was a Japanese holiday, Culture Day. We were supposed to be out appreciating all the many fine cultures, I guess, but what we did instead was go to Kent's office and work (Kent) or scan in photos for the web page (Me). The visit to the office was preceded by a great tempura lunch at a restaurant at the top of the Marui department store in Mizunokuchi. We sat at the counter and were very entertained by the tempura chef who tossed delectable bits into the batter and then flipped them out into the oil. I think one of the things I ate was eel but I'm not entirely certain. The shrimp was fantastic and it was interesting to watch the chef sort of straighten the shrimp out before dunking it in the batter. I learned a few trade secrets sitting there watching!
Enough for now ... writer's cramp is setting in and I should try to get some sleep. Evensong and Japanese lesson coming up tomorrow -- I'm almost all the way through Book I of "Japanese for Busy People." My sieve of a brain is a failure when it comes to retaining all these vocabulary words though. I have to come up with some way to plug all those leaks!
Talk to you all soon ... see some of you very soon!!
Love,-- T.
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11/16/97, 8:30PM
Howdy,
Well, the girls, Hershey and I just finished most of our first week on our own in Japan. We miss Theresa but have been getting along OK.
I have been trying to get home as early as possible all week. Some days I am able to get home before Colleen and Kate, like Monday when they have late piano lessons. Other days they have spent an hour or less at home by themselves starting dinner. On Friday they actually called to have me stay late at work so they could finish a project they were working on for my birthday.
This morning the woke up early and made a card and wrapped there presents . They came in and sang happy birthday to me at about 7:30 AM and had me op en the presents. They bought me a wooden airplane, a wooden egg and a plaque, each of which they painted. The plane has a red propeller and purple wings. The egg is gold with a silver heart on it. Colleen also made me breakfast (she heated up a frozen waffle and some syrup) before heading out for Aikido.
We have begun to make a habit at the dinner table of counting up firsts. Each of us tries to think of the things we did or learned for the first time today. See if you can find all the firsts in the following events.
After the girls finished their Saturday morning Aikido lessons, we had so me lunch and then decided to drive to the dentists office. This was an adventure because in the past we always took the train there (start counting). It only took about 15 minutes by car while it was more like 4 0 minutes by train. There was a parking place on the street near the dentists office. By parking place I mean that I could park and two-way traffic could get by one direction at a time. There were others parked near me, so I was hopeful I would not get a ticket.
Kate was very excited because today was the day she got her braces off and Colleen came along as well to have her teeth cleaned. Of course, when Dr . Kondo took a look at Colleen she said immediately that Colleen’s front teeth are developing a space again. She offered to bring them back together by attaching two braces to the back of Colleen’s front teeth. Dr. Kondo said that Colleen needs to continue wearing her bottom retainer until her back molars finish coming in and she should stop wearing her to p retainer because it no longer fits now that her top back molars are coming in. So Kate went in with braces and came out with retainers while Colleen went in for a cleaning and came out with mini braces.
On the way home we decided to stop by the Blockbuster video which I discovered last week not too far from our house. I rode my bike there last week but today I discovered that they have one of the rarest commodities in Tokyo, a parking lot. Kate rented "Back to the Future 3" (she talked back to the movie non-stop during the scene near the end with the speeding train) and Colleen rented a movie called "Rent-a-Kid."
When we got home there was a nice note from Dad who tried to get a hold o f us toward the end of the La Mesa Dr. pizza party for Theresa. He missed us by a little less than an hour. Thanks for the birthday wishes.
I am a little confused about my birthday this year. The question is do I celebrate it on Nov. 15 here or wait until it is Nov. 15 in California, where I was born. Rather than resolve the dilemma I have opted to celebrate both days <grin>.
I came up with 10 firsts for today for Colleen, Kate and myself. Let me know if you found more.
Hope you are all having a great weekend.
Mata ato de,
Kent
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11/17/97, 8:40PM
We just finished dinner on Monday evening (pasta with gorgonzola and string beans with garlic and butter) and are sitting in the kitchen. Kate just finished her homework and is sitting
on my lap reading this message out loud as am I typing it. Colleen is sitting in the next chair doing her English homework having just finished her math homework. She is feeling perky because her geography test was postponed until Wednesday.
Kate says, "We’re sorry the title is ‘Hi from Japan’ but Colleen didn’t think this was our home so she made it ‘Hi from Japan’ (instead of ‘Hi from Home’ as Daddy suggested). As you know, I got my braces off on Saturday and now I have a pink retainer top & bottom. At school I showed my retainer to the girls at my table. Colleen has braces on the back of her 2 front teeth because she had a gap. Next time she goes we think she will get the X-rays and pictures and you know how that feels (I’m not sure about that says Kent). Colleen told me to tell you the list of things I wanted from America.
Toothpaste, bubble gum flavor
Lucky Charms (I’m on the last box now)
A movie or two
A kid’s book
You!!!!!!!!!
And now I will say my goodbye until the next letter. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, kiss, kiss, kiss, hug, hug, hug... Here’s Colleen."
Colleen says, "Dear Mum (to be read with a proper English accent), I love thee. I love you. I will die for you. Dai suki desu ka? My teeth hurt. Mother (to be said melodramatically) why aren’t you here with me at this very moment. It’s just so sad, this house without you. Every time I think of this house with you in it tears come to my eyes and roll down my fluffy pink cheeks. You’re the best mother I’ve ever had. (To be read in a Mexican accent) I love chuu. I would die for chuu. Mother come back to me. Chuu are sooo beeauuutiful. (Back to melodramatic) Where have you gone my sweet, my lovely mommy. Hershey has done his business again on my rug. This is the third time. Will you bring me [excessive giggling throughout by Colleen and Kate]
A book
Some lovely mint toothpaste (Colgate)
Kid’s Choice Cookie Instant Oatmeal
A lovely movie that you think I would love (or two)
But, most of all, (to be read crying) the thing I’ve want since Sunday, Y O U ! ! ! Melodramatic, AGAIN) When will you come back to me. When, when? Well, I must do my homework now (sniffle, sniffle, sniffle). It was nice dictating to you. XOXOXO and (Mexican accent) I LOVE C H U U ! ! ! ! ! !! ! ! ! Goodbye now, mother (sob, sob, weep, weep, weep)."
I hope you enjoy this as much as we enjoyed writing it. We just let Hershey back in after he spent about half an hour outside for "doing his business" on Colleen’s rug. We have not yet figured out why he prefers Colleen’s room, but Kate and I are relieved (heh, heh) at his choice. Kate is practicing the three pieces she needs to learn for the Christmas piano concert.
I had a nice visit with Prof. Muller of UC Berkeley today. He gave a talk to my group and listened to some of our work and then we went for lunch atthe Japanese restaurant in the KSP hotel (we have not been there together yet). He was wearing his blue and gold tie with bears on it, of course. He reminded me that this year’s Big Game is number 100. He is visiting Waseda University tomorrow and heading to Nara tomorrow night for a conference.
Tomorrow Alfred Maute from Germany is coming to visit on his way to the same conference. Alfred is from Waldbronn. I visited his group in Germany when we went to visit Paul in Germany and later when we visited Glen. Later in the day I have two more visitors, Gerd and Regina (RE GEE NA) Mueller from HP Labs. They are on their way to another conference in Nagoya. Wednesday’s visit from Ron Moon and George Craford (you saw George at the Century Hyatt on his last trip here in June) has been cancelled because they lined up another visit to a Japanese company. Maybe I’ll see them tomorrow night, but I’ll probably not see them this trip.
Kent
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18 November 1997
Howdy,
For those of you who are wondering what I’ve been up to over here in Japan, attached is a press release on my group’s latest results. It’s all true except for the part about HP putting it’s best researchers on this project, but I still plan to show my boss this quote at raise time since he said it <grin>. For those of you with web links from your e-mail, you ca n click on the icon at the bottom to see the web page assuming that it has not scrolled off the Yahoo server.
Colleen, Kate, Hershey and I are making do without Teri while she parti.. .. er works in Las Vegas this week, but we all miss her very much and are looking forward to having her back home on Tuesday next week. The weather is cool but sunny.
Hope you are all doing well.
Kent
**************************************************************
Tuesday November 18, 10:59 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
HP Labs Demonstrates Blue Laser
Breakthrough Seen Key to Future Printing, Display, Storage Technologies
PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 18, 1997-- Hewlett-Packard Compa ny today announced it has demonstrated a blue laser, a technology that is expected to lead to major advances in laser pri nters, computer storage devices and displays. The breakthrough is the result of a collaboration between researchers at HP Labs Japan, Professor Isamu Akasaki’s group at Meijo University in Nagoya, Japan, and scientists at the Communications and Optics Research Laborato ry at HP Labs in Palo Alto.
The lasing occurred Oct. 26, when researchers at HP Labs Japan demonstrated a room-temperature, pulsed-operation blue-laser diode with a wavelength o f 413 nanometers. Compared with today’s lasers, which typically use infrared light (780 to 850 nanometers) or red light (650 to 670 nanometers), blue lasers operate at a shorter wavelength (typically 460 to 410 nanometers). Their shorter wavelength means that blue lasers can focus to a smaller spot size, which a laser printer could use to print more dots per inch for higher resolution and which a digital video disc could use to store more bits in the same amount of space.
"Because of the tremendous potential of blue lasers, we have some of our best researchers working in this area," said Waguih Ishak, director of the Communications and Optics Research Laboratory at HP Labs in Palo Alto. "Now that we’ve achieved this milestone, we will continue to press ahead with this important work."
The laser is built on layers of gallium nitride grown on a sapphire substrate. The differential external quantum efficiency of the laser is 8 percent; the peak output power reaches more than 80 milliwatts.
HP Labs is HP’s central research organization and one of the world’s leading industrial research laboratories. With 1,400 employees at research facilities in Palo Alto, Calif.; Bristol, England; Tokyo; and Haifa, Israel, HP Labs helps HP remain successful in current businesses while creating new business opportunities through technology inn ovation. Learn more about HP Labs at
www.hpl.hp.com .
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11/22/97, 10PM
Mom and Dad,
Happy 50th Anniversary!! I am sorry we could not get connected by phone on the actual day. I hope I’ll be able to talk with you tomorrow. I tried to get through several times, but the cell phone was not working as you already know. Colleen, Kate and I were thinking about you and the family celebrating in Calistoga and wishing we could be there with you.
Yesterday afternoon Colleen and Kate did not have any after school activities to keep them busy until I got home from work. So, I decided to give them each an extra 500 yen on top of their allowance so they could go shopping. They had so much fun shopping that I beat them home by about 10 minutes when I arrived home at 6:20 PM.
For the first time since Teri left, we decided to go out to dinner. Even though it was a little cool outside, we decided to eat at Dogwood Plaza, a small shopping area near the train station. There are 4 or 5 restaurants there to buy food from and thirty or so outside tables. Colleen and Kate had food from Taco Time and I got the mixed Tandoori Grill from Cafe Moti . We sat at the table just outside the Cafe Moti window where the cook is working, so Kate could watch my dinner being prepared. At the next table the Caster family was eating dinner but without Colleen‘s buddy Lauren. She was spending the night at a friend’s house. We visited a little during dinner and invited them to go to the Karaoke place with us after dinner. Even though it was a cool evening the kids insisted on getting some Dippin’ Dots. Dippin’ Dots are little BB-sized balls of ice cream which are frozen to dry ice temperature. Like the old M&M commercial touted, they "melt in your mouth, not in your hand."
Mike had been to a Karaoke place before, but Sue and the boys had not. The kids were just happy to be able to yell into the microphones. The songs were almost secondary. We spent most of the time looking for songs that the kids would know. We did "Circle of Life" from the "Lion King," "Over the Rainbow," "Surfin’ USA" and, of course, "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls, Colleen and Kate’s current favorite. The hour went by very quickly. We walked home by 9 PM. After the girls got ready for bed we all sat on our bed and watched "Airplane."
This morning the girls had Aikido. Teri called just as Kate, Jessica, Hershey and I were starting to walk up to St. Mary’s where the lessons are so Kate chatted with her for a moment while I was getting Hershey’s leash on and getting out the door.
Our main assignment for today was to pick up the free turkey at the Tokyo American Club. Teri signed up to host two Air Force or Navy pilots for Thanksgiving and found out later they come with a free turkey. As it turned out, the Army and Air Force are on "lock down" whatever that means, so only about half the families who signed up as hosts will get servicemen this year. We are not getting any, but we get the free 20 lb. frozen turkey.
Rather than wrestle the 20 lb. turkey home on the subway I decided to take the car. Going someplace in Tokyo by car for the first time can be quite an adventure as those of you know who have be reading our earlier notes.As it turns out, the main highway near our house, highway 246, runs quite near the American Club, so it looked pretty easy. Jessica decided to come with us. We made arrangements to visit Kate’s friend, Tessa, for lunch at her house before going to the American Club since they live nearby.
The first hour went well in terms of directions, but the traffic going in to downtown Tokyo was terrible. It took us a full hour to go about 8 km. After we passed the Shibuya train station, the traffic was much lighter, but it was very difficult to find the turn I was looking for. I passed it once, came back and passed it again and finally got headed in the right direction on the third try. Even then I was not sure where I was, so after some minutes of studying the map I found a young man who helped me locate where we were on the map. As it turns out, we were just at the bottom of the hill that the Opperman’s live on. At the top of the hill I recognized where we were and finally cruised into their driveway. I was very happy to be there as there were times I was not sure we were going to make it. Ghislaine made a very nice chicken, potato and salad dinner for us. I was expecting some sandwiches. It was really quite nice. After eating, the girls settled down to watch "Airplane" again (we had it in the car) while Ghislaine acted as my local guide to help me find the American Club. We grabbed the turkey and then went back and hung out at the Opperman’s until about 4 PM.
We stopped by National Azabu (the International Supermarket with lots of American and other foreign foods at premium prices) and picked up some items for a spaghetti dinner. On the way home, we started to run into more traffic. As Kate said, "All those cars who came in earlier are going back home now." So, we decided to spring for the 700 yen to take the elevated toll road starting at Shibuya. That cut the trip to about 1 hour from the 1.5 hours it took to get there. Next time I think we will take the toll road for more of the trip.
Jessica stayed for the spaghetti, garlic bread and salad dinner, then we dropped her off at the Kaminoge train station on our way to Blockbuster Video at little after 8 PM. We rented "Twins," "Beetlejuice," and "The Rock." The girls decided to start with "Twins" tonight because "Beetlejuice" might be too scary to watch while it’s dark out. Sounds like good logic to me <grin>.
Hope everyone had the chance to get relaxed in Calistoga. Did Clay and Stephanie do the mud bath thing, too? We are looking forward to having Teri home soon.
Again, Happy 50th Anniversary and Go Bears,
Kent
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11/30/97
Howdy,
It was nice talking to several of you at your Thanksgiving celebrations. Sorry we could not be there to join you.
Before I describe our T-day experience, I wanted to relate a story that made me smile the other morning. This story may give you more of a feeling about the differences in driving between the U.S. and Tokyo. It was Tuesday morning. Usually the kids walk up the hill on their own to take the bus, but this morning I needed to have them show me where one of their friend’s house was so that I would know where to pick up Kate after work. (Colleen was to be busy with a volleyball team dinner, so her friend Lauren volunteered to walk Kate over to her house after Kate finished ballet since Teri was not expected home from the U.S. until 7:30 PM or so.)
I pull out of our driveway and head down the street. At the bottom of the hill I turn right. Remember that here a right turn is like a left turn in the U.S., you must cross traffic to complete the turn. As I was completing the turn I was slowed by a young man walking on the side of the road as the road is very narrow. When the man stopped at a vending machine on the side of the road to buy a pack of cigarettes, I had to stop and wait until he was finished. This kept me from completing my turn, so I was blocking the lane of traffic going the opposite direction. We only held up traffic for a few seconds, but I had to laugh at the fact that a man using a vending machine could completely stop all traffic on a two lane road!
That night I picked up Kate and we put together a welcome home dinner for Teri. She arrived home a little after 7:30 PM and just one train ahead of Colleen. She was tired and her arms hurt from hauling her wine-laden carry on bag, but otherwise OK.
Wednesday we spent at the school getting the reports on Kate and Colleen. Both kids are doing well academically and seem to be adjusting well after some emotional rough spots early on. Colleen’s math and science teachers admitted to having trouble keeping her challenged in class. Kate is also doing well in math and has a great vocabulary and prolific writing, but needs to work on reading aloud and spelling. I also talked with some of the computer teachers about what I might be able to do to help improve the Seisen computer network.
Due to scheduling problems for some of our guests, we decided to move our T-day celebration to Friday night. Colleen and Kate had Wed. - Fri. off but I had to work as did most of our friends. We had Chris, Marge and Kelly Van Woerkem (an HP family from Colorado) and Ken, Jane, James and Emma Symmington (an IBM family from Australia) over. Kelly and Emma are both in third grade and James is in 6th grade. Kelly and Emma spent the night and all the girls made beds in Colleen’s room. We fit all 11 of us around the table for dinner and then the adults chatted at the table until after 11:30 PM while the kids played upstairs. We went through several bottles of wine and some port during the evening and had a great time getting to know each other better. Everyone walked or took a bus here so they did not need to worry about driving home. From time to time we could hear a large thud overhead, so the kids must have been having fun, too
Yesterday it rained most of the day, so we mostly hung around the house reading and watching movies. In the afternoon we took Colleen, Kate and Teri to visit the orthodontist and then stopped by Blockbuster Video on the way home.
Today the weather looks better, so we are planning an outing to Asakusa to visit the temple there and the many shops nearby. I have been there many times in the past, but Teri has not been for 12 years and Colleen and Kate have not been yet.
Hope you all had a good 4 day weekend. Looking forward to seeing some of you in a few days.
Kent
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