Tomorrow my husband and I are leaving for our much-awaited Christmas present (from him to us): two weeks in Japan! We’ll spend a few days in bustling Tokyo (shopping, shopping, shopping), a few in Okinawa, (beaches and snorkeling and kayaking), and a few around Nagoya (friends and hopefully a little rural side trip).

My internet access will be a little spotty, but I hope to update the blog with yummy Japan things as often as possible.

To kick off an exciting two weeks, here are a few randomly selected favorites from past rising-sun-land experiences:

Manga: Avant-garde publication Garo from the 1960s – discovered in the Shibuya Mandarake.

Movie: Densha Otoko (“Train Man”) – a silly otaku-themed romantic hit that I saw at the reserved-seating Roppongi Hills movie theater.

Music: Glay concert my friend took me to in Nagoya in 2005 – crazy coordinated participatory arm gestures for 3 hours straight!

Craft: An old knitting magazine I picked up at a flea market – check out those charming choppers.

This looks like trouble….

Don’t be alarmed! Mischievous Mouse is just playing with his friend Sleepy Snake.

You do have permission to be alarmed, however, by the terrible toupees both are wearing.

This past weekend, I took a trip to Washington, D.C. to visit some friends. It was great – the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, and the weather couldn’t have been better. Today, I took a trip to Whole Foods. That was a more miserable experience, so I’m choosing to write about getting groceries instead of our national capital.

What can I say about Whole Foods? At least in New York, it must be a love/hate relationship for most of us – go to Dagostino’s and get smelly, spoiled produce, or go to Whole Foods and get high prices and… where do the keep the mayonnaise? Near the adzuki beans, or is it the unrefined sea salt? Do they even carry mayonnaise? (For the record, yes, they do, but who’s brave enough to try organic mayonnaise? Not me.)

I think my husband really captured the feeling we both get as we descend the escalator to the Whole Foods in the Shops at Columbus Circle mall: “it’s like visiting your rich, hippie cousin,” he says, “Everything seems so nice and beautiful, until you ask to use the bathroom and they show you to their cold, smelly ‘natural’ outhouse.” This is the plight of those of us who enjoy both crisp apples and Lucky Charms – it’s one or the other, kiddo.

And then there’s the crowds. We thought we were really clever today for going to buy our groceries two hours ahead of the rush today, at 3:30 in the afternoon. But we quickly discovered that there is about the same number of people wandering around Whole Foods in the middle of the afternoon as in the evening hours – it’s just an older crowd. Older, and slower.