mayhem22

I'd say 10-15% is fine. And if you can afford to travel all the way to another country, stay there for a while without working and eat out every meal (there are always grocery stores and rooms with kitchens), can't you afford to pay a bit extra if that's what's expected? As for bad service, leaving 10% is silly in my opinion. Leave nothing.

It's been nice and cool here all summer so far! I still have to sleep with the blanket on, and I'm loving it...I agree with soubs - grey skies and rain is good.

me too! in fact it's the only restaurant other than freshness burger i go to when i go to Sendai. YUM! back on topic, i also miss grass from home...both kinds. together!

really good salads with nuts and seeds and sprouts and cheese and yummy strange dressings...at restaurants, i mean health food store peanut butter; the kind that you make yourself +1 for mexican food soubs - there is an excellent indian restaurant in sendai - Namaskar...you should try it. it's about a five minute walk from the station.

i've always had a thing for redheads. my first boyfriend was a redhead and i've dated two others, one of whom i'm still with. he definitely has the fiery temper, but also the passion and room-filling fun presence. let's ginger loving!

when i was a kid we went to bonaire one winter, and i made friends with one of the waitresses at the restaurant. every morning she would give me 3 or 4 loaves of stale bread and i would jump in the water with my snorkelling gear...it was awesome! i'd be completely surrounded by parrot fish, seargent majors, needle fish, and a bunch of others i forget the names of. right off the beach there was a drop-off too, where if you dove down deep enough, 12-15 feet, you could see blowfish, angelfish, and once, scarily enough, a barracuda! i love snorkelling.

Oops! I was way behind. I was only on page one! so, looks like you clarified then! Good

I agree with AK. Maybe, Oyuki, like you and some others have said, your girlfriend's definition of feminism is really the issue here? Did you ask her what she thinks "feminism" means? I know a lot of women even at home who are reluctant to label themselves feminists as such, but would be quick to assert their right to live their lives the way they want, without any dictation from society/the men in their lives as to how they should go about it. Maybe your girlfriend equates feminism with aggressiveness and lack of femininity? I think that's a common misconception about what feminism reall

mmmmm mojito! and pina coladas are yummy too. a well-made bloody caesar is always delicious as well.

Well, that does make sense doesn't it?

Hmmmm...I don't have a TV so don't watch the news. But I agree - I don't like it...I don't mind the light showers and the mist in the mountains, but I definitely don't like the buckets and buckets of rain and the mold in my cupboards!

In Miyagi, it seems like the older generation, without fail, says "middle of June" while the younger generation says it's started now because it's quite humid and rainy. I agree with Soub - in Miyagi at least it's by the calendar, for the traditionalists anyway. Similar to the national turning on and off of heaters and air conditioners possibly?

they are scrumptious. i actually like them better than mos burger...don't really understand the hype about mos burger - freshness is really good though, i think.

A friend of mine imported two purebred Siberian Huskies (about 20 man each) from Australia last summer, and has since decided that two dogs are too much I'd really like to take him but my voice of reason has won out in this situation. Not ready for the responsibility having a dog entails. So, I thought that since there are a lot of outdoors-type people posting here, and many of you who are in Japan for good, that someone might be interested? Details (sorry no pics at the mo): - 6 month old male - neutered - name is Switch - house-trained - 'spunky' personality -

i know i am, soubriquet(in Miyagi)...that's my point; today was the first "real" day of summer in onagawa (where, i might mention, the ocean breeze does help a lot) and it wasn't even that hot. i'm built for the cold. and being immersed in water good to know that you guys don't mind a little healthy sweat. the man in my life tells me the same thing - says a nice sheen of sweat is, well, nice

a little bit of sweet followed by a lot of savoury. repeat at leisure. to much sweet stuff makes my mouth feel funny after a while. but i do have that proverbial tooth.

when the same person, upon arrival at work every day, points out to me in this 100 degree weather and 1000% humidity that i'm sweating. like i couldn't feel it crawling down my back and beading under my hair. oh, and then proceeds to tell me - every day - that japanese women don't sweat. which seems to be infuriatlingly true.

damn...so transparent. gotta work on that.

thanks fjef. that does sound like a good plan. hadn't even crossed my mind.

nicole - thanks. boy, do i feel like a ditz. misorano - i wasn't until today, when i attempted to solve the history problem by unistalling and reinstalling mozilla...and when it reinstalled it was with the google toolbar. and also, strangely enough, (cookies or something maybe?), it was as though nothing had changed - all my old bookmarks, search history, everything was still there...

on pain of revealing what an ignoramus i am when it comes to computers, i need some help please! how do i clear my google search history? so that when i type the first letter of what i'm looking for, it doesn't immediately suggest what i've looked for in the past? is this my computer doing this, or google? i'm about to start sharing my computer with someone i don't know very well, and i want my privacy... so, have at 'er!! please.

those dark cherries that are in season in the summer at home - i can't stop eating those. "bing" cherries maybe? watermelon doesn't really do it for me either. unless of course it's been injected with vodka and left to sit for a while . then it's yummy.

i did that exclamation thing just to bug all you guys...

nice and cool on the east coast of Miyagi!!

anyone else in Tohoku (or anywhere else for that matter) feel the strongish one this morning at around 8? smack in the middle of June 28 and July 3 - how did that one escape his astrological radar? i do agree with Veronica though; I have enjoyed reading his predictions, purely out of curiosity.