“Late Rick, you’re obscene!” More contemporary Japan PR traps, insomnia walks, and posting at Gaijin 50 Plus. Got up at just after half past three this morning, if I remember correctly. This morning’s task: I found an error in the letter I’d written Friday to the Narita “Satellite Branch&…

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gets --> puts

NASA Isn’t Going to Dark Side of the Moon

NYT gets a common misconception out there, but it's wrong. 27 people, prior to this week, saw the far side of the moon--not 24. People forget that Apollo 13 had to go around the moon to get home. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/06/s...

(They want you to adopt *their* tax rule, and then take the flak when it all goes bad.)

Hanging with Sora the Troll and group member Wetsver in Narita Machi, right before I disappeared for tax season!

I’ve time-stamped the exact spot where Wetsver and I show, in Kamicho in front of the Sandou Diner. I go past there, sometimes at 4:30 in the morning, and the customers are still there.…

Amamiya Shingo 雨宮真吾　works!

A Narita-based Chiba Prefecture Assemblyman was pamphleting outside JR Narita Station on one of my early insomnia walks, earlier this week. You can see him in the center of the picture on the left. I had to wait until the Nari Koku school girls passed by. (You know,…

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An ATM receipt sends me to a Narita Koban–but it’s not like it sounds!

Here is a picture of Narita New Town earlier this month, on a clear day where you can easily see Mount Tsukuba in the backgound, reigning over the inaka. The police box is the copper-green pyramid roofed building in the lower…

Hand-writing the addresses to client letters in Japan, in Kanji, humbles me and gives me writer’s cramp. Off I went to mail some.

This morning, I got off another batch of client letters. I've done this for eleven seasons in Japan. I produce a traditional, 20th century-style client letter, and I…

Thoughts about the 2026 Japanese Diet (Parliament) election.

Regular readers of me know that I was an observer to this. It's been a noisy couple weeks since the Takaichi Government announced a snap election for yesterday, February 8. I saw some party activity by what arguably *had* been the two…

When neighbors in Japan treat the delivery boxes like their own personal storage spaces.

A totally unnecessary headache. The building I've lived in for over three years is just five years old. It's very modern, and, unfortunately, has housed a sizeable number of rude people. You hear about all…

My visit to the Tomisato Tokushuukai Hospital yesterday for a private “ningen doku” (health check up).

I was lucky to have a longtime friend of mine who's an American but Japanese help me set up an appointment for a health check here in Japan. I never seem to get the municipal one offered by…

Chat GPT’s moment of brilliance this weekend: “Digital clients treat you like a vending machine.”

I push major questions through "Chat". And one I've been having recently was why *some* clients that I have almost exclusively electronic communications with just seem to pepper me with last minute…

Japan’s February 8th election season in full swing in Narita city, Chiba 10th District

I saw the signboards go up around Narita Machi and the New Town last week, and now the spaces are filling up with the candidates for the recently called-for national election. As an American, my vote is in…

A tree gets taken down at Narita-san Temple.

It might be hard to tell, but the picture to the right shows a lot of sky. To the left, there isn't. That's the missing tree. It came down sometime when I was stateside over the New Year. I've walked this path for years. My nickname for it is "Saido…

I finally went to confession at Our Mother of Perpetual Help Church in Ephrata PA, and got absolution for my sin of attending an Episcopal Church.

It was one of my stateside projects, and I achieved it on January 10th. This goes to my earlier desire to reconcile with the denomination of my birth,…

Yes! Let’s go! My mail to myself talks to me.

Since I've come back to Japan, I expected a couple of letters (ones containing payment, ehem) to come through. Now, about one week back--nothing. Makes me wonder a bit, and hesitant to send reminder messages. So I wanted to make sure my mail isn't…

I just spent fifty times that to check two items in a blood test in America. That’s after insurance.

Plane spotted ANA’s “Flying Honu” as I was going in the apartment!

What are the odds? This was a first in three years from this location in Narita! (I usually see it from the sports park or on the way to Aeon Mall.) NH 183 moments before it landed on Runway 16R (?), January 18, 2026. This one is…

ANA sends me a gift for becoming a Million Miler–even with half a million miles flown!

The remarkable airline that I just got off a flight back to Japan on, had a present waiting for me here in Narita City. Japan Post got it to me special delivery moments ago! I have looked at this luggage tag for…

US coins are 19th century and useless.

I was looking at hotel prices in Narita, Japan in dollars the other day. With the coincidental news that the second Trump Administration is finally stopping the US Mint from coining pennies (the Lincoln Cent), it had me thinking about how coin money changed…

Hearting the Comfort Hotel in Narita.

You see it there, to the left of city hall. The spring green building. The entrance is inside the alcove at the bottom. Very Japanese! It's the first hotel I stayed in, in Japan. Here it is, a little bit closer. I was chatting with someone online who is…

Six years already into a decade that started really slowwww . . .

My iPhone offered me up one of these pictures yesterday, which featured "Blonde Haired Guy" I think he was a Japanese guy, but he had blonde hair. This was the last picture I took in the 2010s. December 31, 2019 at 11:59 pm. I…

He was a European guy used to being recognized by the public . . . in Japan?

My old Pennsylvania “J-series” plate is no more.

I used to be JFE-9606. Almost thirteen years. Pennsylvania license plates nowadays are three letters, four numbers. This version is nicknamed the "Visa Logo" design. Because if you look at it, it kinda looks like the idea came from the Visa card.…

Fox on the run.

I wait until late January, and send them to stateside tax clients. They love them. Waiting allows me to know the lottery numbers. I usually have enough to send those to the children of Japan-side US tax clients. I tell them that we celebrate Chinese New Year. For most, 1st winning card ever.

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Charles Gaba - Most of you who follow United States' Affordable Care Act headlines and sabotage highjinks probably already subscribe to Gaba. He was one of the first, if not THE first, to discuss the numbers on the internet, circa 2013 (think he was first.) charlesgaba.substack.com?r=25v45&utm_...

“Royal Kingdom” is turning into a shithole country for me at Level 166.

The ANA Pocket feature turned me on to this game, which I know doesn't get me more miles. I thought this was basically Tetris. But it isn't. It's Tetris like if Tetris were a panhandler in front of the Wawa in the early 1990s.…

It was the best they could do.