Welcome… I’m New Here! from Tokyo

[Mark B.]

Gosh, this is going to be tough with a poodle perched in my lap. Hard to type. Anyway, I'm Mark and I have lived in this large city for a long time. Born in San Francisco, raised in a nearby suburb, I am a grad of UC Davis. I worked for a few civilian ocean-going tugboat companies and the US Navy. Biggest ship: USS Saratoga, an aircraft carrier. Nearly 30 years at two Japanese newspapers as a page designer and editor. Somerset Maugham is my favorite author. Sci-Fi I like: Anne Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy, The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. Fantasy: Guy Gavriel Kay. Other stuff: The Book Thief, and Lionel Shriver's So Much for That. I have one self-published novel set in Japan on Amazon and three long short stories. I sold the stories to a Japanese weekly for serialization--a girl playing little league baseball in the Bay Area in the late 50s, and two stories set in Honolulu featuring cops and talking dogs, cats, and rats. An early version of the opening pages of my completed YA Sci-Fi novel Chasing Naomi was read on the Litopia Pop-up this week (under a fake name). I am about 60 percent done with the second in the series, Finding Allie. I love writing. And I am happy to meet you. Oops, forgot: Favorite food: Mexican.

 

[Vagabond Heart]

Hello Mark (not Jazz then? Good, cos that would get confusing).
Great entry on last weeks show.
Welcome to the group - hope you enjoy it here, glad to have you with us.
(Jonny will say Hi to you at some point, and give you lots of details for navigating the group). But I got here first, so Hi from me.
xx VH

 

[Peyton Stafford]

Gosh, this is going to be tough with a poodle perched in my lap. Hard to type. Anyway, I'm Mark and I have lived in this large city for a long time. Born in San Francisco, raised in a nearby suburb, I am a grad of UC Davis. I worked for a few civilian ocean-going tugboat companies and the US Navy. Biggest ship: USS Saratoga, an aircraft carrier. Nearly 30 years at two Japanese newspapers as a page designer and editor. Somerset Maugham is my favorite author. Sci-Fi I like: Anne Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy, The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. Fantasy: Guy Gavriel Kay. Other stuff: The Book Thief, and Lionel Shriver's So Much for That. I have one self-published novel set in Japan on Amazon and three long short stories. I sold the stories to a Japanese weekly for serialization--a girl playing little league baseball in the Bay Area in the late 50s, and two stories set in Honolulu featuring cops and talking dogs, cats, and rats. An early version of the opening pages of my completed YA Sci-Fi novel Chasing Naomi was read on the Litopia Pop-up this week (under a fake name). I am about 60 percent done with the second in the series, Finding Allie. I love writing. And I am happy to meet you. Oops, forgot: Favorite food: Mexican.

We have a book club, and Murderbot may be one of the next we try to understand. @Jason L. Welcome!

 

[RK Wallis]

Hey @Mark B.

Welcome aboard and congrats on the win

Cheers
Rachel

 

[Pamela Jo]

Hello, loved your voice. What part of Tokyo are you living in now? Another lifetime ago I met my husband there. We left in 89. Strangely enough it was Razors Edge that convinced me I had to travel. Welcome aboard. Poodle and all.

 

[Emily]

Welcome to the Colony, @Mark B.

 

[Dorm Ant]

Greetings from sunny Scotland.

I'm with you on Mexican. Black beans and chillis are two of my favourite foods.

 

[Jason L.]

Welcome, Mark! I am glad you are here! I do run the book club. It's a fun way to get to know people!

 

[JohnBertel]

Welcome!

I spend 2,5 months in Tokyo in 2019. I stayed most of the time in Ueno and came to love the park there.

 

[Mark B.]

Hello, loved your voice. What part of Tokyo are you living in now? Another lifetime ago I met my husband there. We left in 89. Strangely enough it was Razors Edge that convinced me I had to travel. Welcome aboard. Poodle and all.

Hi. We live in Toyosu in Koto-ku. It's on the eastern side, about 10 minutes from Ginza by subway. 89 was quite a year. I was helping to put out the paper the night Hirohito died, and the Berlin Wall came done. Cheers. We also have a Yorkie. I've attached a pic of my front yard during rush hour. Cheers.

 

[Mark B.]

Greetings from sunny Scotland.

I'm with you on Mexican. Black beans and chillis are two of my favourite foods.

Hi. Sadly, Japan is one of the worst countries in the world for Mexican food. I was raised in California--much better there.

 

[Mark B.]

Welcome!

I spend 2,5 months in Tokyo in 2019. I stayed most of the time in Ueno and came to love the park there.

Thanks. I used to shop in Ameyoko in Ueno. Fun. Crowded and a ton of pushing and shoving. Old Japan, and the only place I could find Tony Lama boots. Take care.

 

[izi 出久]

I lived on that side of the world for a year and a half, although not Japan. Welcome, Mark

 

[PCFrontier]

Hi I am new on Litopia. Welcome and good luck with your writing.

 

[Pamela Jo]

Welcome!

I spend 2,5 months in Tokyo in 2019. I stayed most of the time in Ueno and came to love the park there.

My husband was at Todai and had a flat near the park in Ueno. We buried 4 kittens there surreptitiously over the course of a fortnight. I have fond memories.

 

[Pamela Jo]

Thanks. I used to shop in Ameyoko in Ueno. Fun. Crowded and a ton of pushing and shoving. Old Japan, and the only place I could find Tony Lama boots. Take care.

I remember a little deli near there where you could get fresh asparagus and artichokes, even Swiss chocolate. My husband is Swiss. It figures he would find a source for the good stuff. Tony Lama boots. Score. Old Japan. That phrase makes me sad. The Tokyo I remember is the one in Midnight Diner on Netflix. I even found myself dreaming in broken Japanese after binge watching it.

Hi. We live in Toyosu in Koto-ku. It's on the eastern side, about 10 minutes from Ginza by subway. 89 was quite a year. I was helping to put out the paper the night Hirohito died, and the Berlin Wall came done. Cheers. We also have a Yorkie. I've attached a pic of my front yard during rush hour. Cheers.

I was working for NHK when I met my husband. I would get off sometime before midnight and he would lure me to his flat with potted pates, fresh baked focaccia, caviar and asparagus until the trains had stopped so of course I would have to stay over. I left in 88, but he stayed to finish his doctoral thesis. We married April 89 in Karachi where his parents were living. I flew to Tokyo from Pakistan March of 89 after a last minute wobble as to whether or not I wanted to marry. I left a designer wedding dress in the Foreign Press Correspondents Club. I hope it made someone happy eventually.

 

[Mark B.]

I knew people at NHK. The wedding dress at the FCC sounds like a story. This novel covers your time in Tokyo closely. If you give it a look you may remember some of the true stories made fiction. I wrote it in Cape Town during a sabbatical between papers--Yomiuri to Asahi. I'd give it away but Bezos won't let me. Miki vs. The Mob - Kindle edition by Bossingham, Mark. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

 

[Pamela Jo]

I knew people at NHK. The wedding dress at the FCC sounds like a story. This novel covers your time in Tokyo closely. If you give it a look you may remember some of the true stories made fiction. I wrote it in Cape Town during a sabbatical between papers--Yomiuri to Asahi. I'd give it away but Bezos won't let me. Miki vs. The Mob - Kindle edition by Bossingham, Mark. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Thank you. I actually just purchased a Kindle. I shall check it out. There is a series on at the moment called Tokyo Vice. By some whippersnapper who wrote a book after being a reporter in Tokyo? Haven't seen it yet. But I did enjoy Giri Haji. One of my mental photos is of a Yakuza cosplay near the Yauskuni Shrine. A distinguished looking older man dressed to channel Marlon Brando in Godfather I having his hand kissed by a kneeling 4 fingered man. Juerg is trying to remember where my flat was back then. All he remembers is that the station had the Kanji for turtle in the name.

 

[Mark B.]

Here? Kameido Station - Wikipedia
East Tokyo. Kameido Tenjin Shrine has the turtle kanji. There are likely others. I didn't read the book but saw the first episode of Tokyo Vice. The lead actor got on my nerves. I liked Giri Haji.

 

[Pamela Jo]

My husband was at Todai and had a flat near the park in Ueno. We buried 4 kittens there surreptitiously over the course of a fortnight. I have fond memories.

I realise that sounds creepy. We found a litter of newborn kittens in a paperbag behind a car and decided to try and hand raise them. Only one of the 5 survived.

 

[Mark B.]

Not too creepy, at least you tried. The buried them "over a fortnight" had a serial killer ring to it til I figured they must have died over time, not all at once. I hope the survivor found a good home.

 

[Ancora Imparo]

Hello @Mark B. and welcome. Good to see you're making yourself at home. Work commitments mean I'm missing most of the PopUps these days, so I'm sorry I missed your piece. I'll look out for it when I do a binge catch-up. I'm sure you, and the poodle, will be very happy here!

 

[Jonny]

A very warm welcome to the colony, @Mark B.

Nice to have you here. Hope you enjoy Litopia and do get involved as soon as you’re ready to.

This is a good place to check out (How-to guide) to see a lot of what goes on in the colony.

If anything is unclear do please contact me and I’ll be happy to assist if I can.