the qualia journal

We were originally bound for Washington D.C. Then, at Narita airport, the ANA receptionist told us that air traffic was expected to be disru...

I am bound for Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A. today. It is on a great lake, and is characterized by freezing weather in winter, or so I hear. I hav...

The Japanese economy is experiencing a prolonged period of depression, starting from the bust of the bubble economy. Some have even called t...

When I was hearing the NHK radio this morning, the news reader said that the Vancouver Olympics was just nine days away. Then I suddenly rea...

At one time in my life, I quite liked the color orange. To me then, the color seemed to represent vivacity and free thinking. I actually wor...

Here are some of my recent tweets. When your time is up and you fall, you can become a nurse log, and protect and nurture life at large. In ...

So one day in my twenties, I finally made it to Prince Edward Island. If I remember correctly, I flew from Montreal, and had to land twice b...

When I was a senior high school student, I was influenced by the German culture a lot. I loved to (and still love to) listen to the works of...

I have several weaknesses in life. One of them is that when I eat ramen noodles, I invariably go for the miso flavor. I know there are other...

During my stay in Vancouver, I went to the Langara college to take English lessons. I used to take the bus, and would ask for "transfer...

One of the things that I really enjoyed doing in British Columbia was blueberry picking. Verna took me to the Richmond Nature Park, which wa...

When you are young you do incredibly stupid things from time to time. Incredibly stupid seen with the benefit of hindsight, that is. When I ...

After my initial sojourn in Canada, I repeated the visit several times, and learned to love British Columbia and the surrounding areas. Life...

When your English is still clumsy, and you have a small vocabulary, you have a hard time among the native speakers. The most trying is when ...

t was the summer of 1978. I was a freshman at the senior high, and I was being bombarded by Trevor and Randy with English every day. I somet...

When I was 15, I traveled to Vancouver. It was summer. That was the first time that I ever went abroad. Although I had by then studied Engli...

When I was young I used to have many objections against the so-called blockbuster films from Hollywood. I liked films by Yasujiro Ozu, Andre...

The other day, walking along a Tokyo street, I noticed that a plum tree had started to bloom. While my mind was being deeply shrouded in the...

People talk a lot nowadays about cloud computing. When put in the strictly algorithmic context, there may be many targets and obstacles, sti...

I had a chat with my philosopher friend Ken Shiotani over lunch. He was lecturing in Hosei University, and I caught him as he was waiting fo...