"Bushido: The Soul of Japan" by Inazo Nitobe

Just finished reading "Bushido: The Soul of Japan" by Inazo Nitobe, which is written in 1900. This book explains the way of samurai to non-Japanese people. The author was a scholar in education and lived in the US for decades. Have you ever wondered why Japanese people's way of thinking is different or crooked from any other cultures? I understand the culture better after I read the history of it on this book. If you like Japanese literature or manga or anime, you'll enjoy this book.

"Kowai È (scary pictures)" by Kyoko Nakano

I so wanted to read these books!📚 Thanx to LA Library! They're Japanese books called "Kowai È (scary pictures)" by Kyoko Nakano. She is an European arts historian and she explains the scary stories on the controversial pictures which we totally missed to see.

The sufferings of my Kindle

I don't have much luck with my Kindle lately. I lost all my data on it last month, and then, when I went to a rehearsal a few days ago, my bandmate warned me to watch out for the neighbor cats dung on the alleyway. A moment later he said it, I dropped my Kindle accidentally and of course it landed right on that! Soft landing, that was. I so wanted to go to the search & destroy mission for that neighbor cat.

I Clorox-ed it and Fabreze-ed it like crazy so it should be fine, I hope 🤞

The books of Okinawa!

I started studying about Okinawa. Although I am an Okinawan sanshin player, I know almost nothing about the history and culture of Okinawa. I'm reading the books of Okinawa while I still have a time to do it!

Kindle books are gone....

Oh no! I just lost all the data on my Kindle! All the data files of more than 1000 books are gone now.

Aaaaaaaaargh!!!!! 😭😭😭

.....and of course I didn't take the back up.

I don't think I smashed it to somewhere. I don't think I overloaded the data. I don’t think I read too many adult themed books on Kindle. (It doesn’t cause data loss, right? Right?)

Today, I am going to eat like hell to ease my pain.

Got some furniture!

I found nice, used and starving-artists-friendlily priced Ikea’s sofa bed and a couple of bookshelves over Craig’s List. I rented a van from U-haul and just picked them up and brought them into my apartment by myself. Ha-ha-ha! I used to make living doing mover and handyman stuff. The bed was 82 lbs and the bookshelves are 66 lbs each. Ha! I'm so proud that I can still do this kinda stuff!

Right-O, I can finally organize piles and piles of books. Now I must find a car!

Book Off in LA!

I went to Gardena which is South of LA and there is pretty big Japanese community in there. I went there for the Japanese used book store and to look for used cars.

In Japan, there is the largest used book store chain called Book Off and they have a shop in New York City. Since there is only one shop in the biggest city in the States, I naturally thought there were no other Book Off’s in anywhere inside of the States and I thought I wouldn’t be able to buy cheap used books like I could in NYC. This is why I was getting 50+ books every time I went to NYC to bring a bulk of Japanese books to LA. After I moved to LA, I found out that there are a lot more Japanese or Japanese-American people living in LA than NYC, so there are actually not one but three Book Off’s in here! Aaaaargh!! I had been sweating so much to bring those heavy 50+ books as well as my big bass from NYC to Boston so many times! Oh well, putting aside the fact that all my efforts were totally meaningless and went right down the toilet, I am glad that I can get cheap Japanese used books in LA any time. I got 26 books today for the start. I’m sure I’m going back there in a few weeks.

Japanese things in LA!

Los Angeles is Japan.

OMG, I can pretty much find anything which I can only get in Japan in here. Sushi and ramen are very good quality and also I can get my favorite Japanese curry and pastries as well. I even found Daiso which is a big one-dollar shop chain in Japan.

The best thing I found was the LA Public Library Little Tokyo Brunch! Oh God. I thought I was going to die in joy. The place just have so many Japanese books including lots of manga! I can easily spend rest of my life in here!