We passed Monash University, home base of Jim Breen, who has (via his dictionary) generously and unknowingly (!) supplied hundreds of sample sentences to this blog. How I wish I’d been able to meet him!
Kayoko-san, a massage therapist studying in Sydney, gave me a long massage. We spoke mostly in Japanese, and that went better than usual.
I stopped in at the Sydney Kinokuniya—a big, beautiful bookstore that far surpasses its California siblings—and at Foreign Language Bookshop in Melbourne. At the latter store, I picked up two more installments in the Read Real Japanese series, and I continue to like it, though I find the layout of the new essay book a little frustrating.
I also made significant progress on a story by Mishima in another annotated Japanese reader. I’ve been chipping away at that book for more than two years. For some reason, I read it only on long flights. I’ll likely reach the end in another three or four international trips, tops!
Oh, and one more thing. I walked around cities taking photos of any kanji I saw. (I even did this in the San Francisco airport, where I got reprimanded for it! Who knew that taking photos of kanji could jeopardize security?) The photos will be part of a big new kanji project that I’ll launch in 2010. I can’t wait to get it going! That project will define not only my 2010 but also the whole next decade and beyond! I’ll tell you more as the launch date draws near.
