Dog monuments around the world

I'm sure there are more, but in my time I've found three monuments to loyal dogs. Man, these stories can warm the heart of an Orc...

1) At Shibuya Station in Tokyo is a statue honoring Hachiko, the faithful Akita that waited for a University of Tokyo professor every day...even for years after the guy died.

2) In Edinburgh, Scotland, a sculpture of Greyfriars Bobby honors a terrier that stayed every night at the grave of his lost pal.

3) Locally in Inglewood there's an easy-to-miss fountain in the median across from the old post office. On top is a tiny tribute to Rex, the collie that followed the letter carrier from 1926 until her death in 1939. The neighbors along the route rallied together and raised enough funds to buy a metal casket and tribute to their favorite dog. Over 2,000 fans showed up for the dedication of the monument!

Let there be landmarked homes

My parents started their own cross-country drive today. We caught up with them in Arcadia, where we ate lunch at Din Tai Fung (can you believe they have an Ikebukuro location in Tokyo?) and had that damn-good black rice in coconut dessert at Phoenix.

To get them in the spirit of all the historic sites they'll hit up, we swung by the Upton Sinclair house in Monrovia...for sale now for $1,300,000...

Ikebukuro

I have a hard time with these Japanese keyboards, so I will have to forget about grammatical niceties such as contractions.

We are back "home" after a night out with our local friends Kumiko, Yuki, and Dave, who treated us to a tasty dinner at an Italian restaurant in Ikebukuro called Salvatore Cuomo and Bar. I am no Italian food expert, but that was some good eating. Thank again! Funny thing...we met up at the new Krispy Kreme near the train station.

I think the scary typhoon has passed, so unfortunately we are flying out of Japan tomorrow.

Tokyo Times

Tokyo!!!

Great day...browsing Tokyu Hands in Ikebukuro, pasta lunch, Harajuku/Omotesando/Aoyama/Shibuya strolling with our friend Kyoko, fantastic David Choe/James Jean art opening with free stuff, okonomiyaki dinner, tiny jazz bar in Shinjuku for drinks, and back at our cozy hotel.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Tokyo...gotta make it good!

Japanagain

We're about halfway into our Japan vacation. It's our first trip back since we worked here in '98-'99. Great being a tourist.

We worked our way up from Tokyo through Matsumoto (castle town), Kamikochi (Japan Alps park), Takayama (nicely preserved town), Shirakawa-go (farmhouse town), and now we're resting up in Kanazawa. Six days, six cities...yeah!

The clumsy score is even...I bonked my head a couple nights ago on a not-so-overhead beam, and EzraPounded walked into the storefront window of a jewelry store yesterday. Who will prevail?

Coma como en el D.F.

The OC Weekly has a good read about Santa Ana's taco trucks. Check out the postings from Los Hermanos Lonchera sin Frontera at twitter.com/loshermanosLSF. They've certainly taken their cue from the Kogi folks.

I lived in Japan for a year in the '90s, and I spent an inordinate amount of Tokyo time searching for a half-decent burrito. The best I found was at a restaurant called El Sol in the Umejima district, but the most interesting was from a beaten up roach coach in Shibuya. The owner had decorated the green truck with Don't Mess with Texas stickers, and he was quick to warn me that "Japanese no like beans," so naturally the burrito was beanless. I'll have to dig up my photo and post it up, but in the meantime the photo above is from Garden Grove's Korean District.