Tokyo

Two Weeks in Japan and Vietnam

Posted on by Seniye Groff

I just returned from a fabulous trip in Japan and Vietnam.  I am posting the two countries separately for easier reading.  The two countries could not be further apart in experiences.  Both countries are great and incredibly different.  Japan is orderly, polite, clean and very interesting.  I visited Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka.  The trains are super efficient (and very reasonably priced).  They take their toilets pretty seriously (check out the photo of the control panel).  And although Japan has a reputation for being very expensive it is pretty easy to eat on a budget and most tourist attractions are no cost.  A week in Japan is certainly not enough time but was enough to whet my appetite for a return visit!

Narita airport, Tokyo

Image posted on by Seniye Groff

photo 3photo 2IMG_0635My husband has been to Tokyo several times and every time he goes, he sends back the coolest pictures.  These came from his most recent trip.  It is an oragami store.  He said it was so amazing and there was even an oragami that you needed to use microscope to see it.  Definitely, Tokyo is on my list as a “must see”.

1Q84

Posted on by Seniye Groff

I finished 1Q84 yesterday.  There were times I loved the book and other times I asked myself,  “Why am I reading this?!”   Oftentimes, my head was spinning while I was trying to keep track of all the details…details that were excruciatingly painful at the beginning of the book. It took me about 300 pages before I was hooked  by the combination of mystery, fantasy and surprising love story of sorts.    Below is a  synopsis of the story.  I have submitted my review to Portland Book Review and the editor will take it from there.

Murakami’s book opens with Aomame walking down an emergency exit on a busy Tokyo expressway.  This unusual exit leads her to a parallel world that is not immediately evident until she notices some strange events, including two moons in the sky.  1984 becomes 1Q84 (with the Q signifying Question).  Aomame is a sports instructor by day but a one night stand, crazed assassin by night. Aomame is financially supported by a reclusive, rich dowager with her own need for revenge.  The story also introduces us to Tengo, a math instructor and part-time fiction writer.  Tengo experiences his own oddities when he works with a 17 year old that runs away from a cult that her parents lead.  Tension and danger builds as Tengo and the 17 year old write and publish a novel that reveals too much for the cult’s comfort.  Mysteriously, Aomame and Tengo are linked from the fifth grade and must meet again to return to 1984.