Reduce clutter to reduce stress

Household clutter and stress can feed off each other in a vicious circle: Clutter induces stress, which can result in more clutter, and so on. Here are some helpful hints to stop the cycle now.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Why green tea really does make you mellow

Green tea is the richest known source in nature of theanine. This amino acid has been shown to boost alpha brain waves, which are associated with relaxation: the higher your alpha waves are, the more mellow you tend to feel.

In his book From Fatigued to Fantastic, Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D., writes: "Theanine can enhance concentration and clarity, so it actually increases mental alertness while reducing stress."

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Cell phones as virtual wallets in Japan

A service being rolled out in Tokyo lets you use your cellphone as a virtual wallet, paying for purchases via an electronic prepaid scheme or even by direct transfer from your bank account.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

The Japan Society

The Japan Society of Northern California celebrates its 100th anniversary this month.

This is the second-oldest of the 38 such societies in the United States. The oldest, founded one year earlier, is Boston's.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Scotch green tea

Last night I tried green tea with scotch. It wasn't bad. The two tastes complement each other more than you'd think. The sweetness of the scotch takes the astringent edge off the tea, and the slightly different bitterness of the tea and scotch somehow soften each other. Of course, you have to like the taste of both to appreciate this combination.

But someone's going to have to come up with a catchy name for this drink. If anyone has any suggestions, please post them as comments or send me an email.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Travel page about Aso, Japan

Here's a page about the Aso area of Japan from the Japanese government's official "Visit Japan" campaign website. Aso City is where the Nagatas live.

Note that the article says

The black volcanic soil [of Aso] gives birth to some of the finest produce in Japan.

Including green tea!

Incidentally, the place name "Aso" (阿蘇) is the name of the region (roughly bounded by the huge caldera in which it's located), the name of the county, and the name of the city, which was recently formed by the merger of Ichinomiya Town, Aso Town, and Namino Village. These names all originate in the name of the volcano that looms over the area—Mt. Aso.

—Mellow Monk

Click here to return to the Mellow Monk tea page

Green tea with a boost

In China, a drink similar in concept to Irish coffee is becoming increasingly popular: green tea and whiskey.

I wonder what it's like...

Hey, today's Friday. I'll let you know tomorrow.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Green tea and influenza

Green tea may inhibit the influenza virus, according to one study.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

An American building traditional Japanese boats

Douglas Brooks is an American boatbuilder whose work includes traditional Japanese tub boats (taraibune). He's even written a book about it, which explains, among other things, how he was the last student of Japan's last professional builder of taraibune.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Empress

It looks like after the current crown prince gets his turn, Japan's next emperor will be an empress.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

The champagne of tea, Mellow Monk

This helps explain why the Aso region is so well suited to growing green tea:

Plentiful seasonal rainwater, well-drained soil and fresh-air fog (away from the ocean, where the fog is salty) are the ideal growing conditions for tea. An overly rainy season can flush out the flavor characteristic of tea and make it weak. Too little moisture can make it weak. Too little moisture can take away key flavor nuances or make it harsher than usual. Ideally tea is grown at an altitude of 3,000-5,000 feet on a 45-degree slope, where the water won't pool and foggy mornings keep the leaves and the roots moist.

From "Champagne of Tea," by John and Kerry Laird (www.pacificbaycoffee.com)

By the way, the above is a description of the Darjeeling area of India—explaining why the black tea grown there is widely considered the "champagne of tea"—but it applies word-for-word to the Aso area, where Mellow Monk tea is grown.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Going to the well

Old-fashioned water wells with hand-operated pumps are making a comeback in Japanese urban planning—as a backup water supply in the event of an earthquake or other disaster.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

I left my heart in San Fran Jell-O

Here's something you don't see everyday: a model of San Francisco rendered in Jell-O.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

And on his farm he had ... self-milking cows?

Is it a kinder, gentler dairy farm or "the ultimate in factory farming"?

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Streaming video of Japan

This site has free stream video and photo galleries of various sights in Japan, including video of yabusame (archery demonstrations by archers on horseback) and subtitled interviews with real-life, modern-day geisha.

This site is a nice way to take a mellow break from your day.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Nissan's blast from the past: the new Skyline GTR

At the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show, Nissan unvieled the Skyline GT-R Proto.

With Frenchman Carlos Ghosn at the helm, Nissan has been working to rebuild the company. Bringing back the iconic Skyline seems to be part of that effort. Hmm... Bringing back nostalgic cars of the past... Where have I heard that before?

(Previous posts about the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show here.)

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Kumamoto Castle

Here is a page of nice photos of Kumamoto Castle, located in Kumamoto City. (The city is the capital of the prefecture of which Aso City is a part.)

The castle was built in 1407 but almost completely burned down in 1877 during the Satsuma Rebellion (which was the "inspiration" for the film Last Samurai). Expect plenty of festivities in Kumamoto when the castle turns 400 in 2007.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Crankshaft

For all you motorheads out there: Kobe Steel (a.k.a. Kobelco) has a photo of a really huge crankshaft that the company makes for ships. There's also a cool illustration of how the crankshaft works in a ship's drive system. This would be a good illustration to show kids how engines work.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

The official British standard for making tea (no joke!)

You gotta love the British. The British Standards Institution actually has a six-page standard (BS-6008) on how to make a proper cup of tea. (You can view the standard in PDF form here).

There's an abbreviated version here.

I posted this information to good-naturedly contrast it to the Mellow Monk philosophy of tea, which holds that you shouldn't use scales, measuring cups, or thermometers or obsess about water temperature or any other variable. Brewing tea is an art, not a science, and a time for relaxation, not precise measurement.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Photo of Saturn's moon Dione

A beautiful photo to mellow out by: of Dione, one of Saturn's seven moons.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)Saturn

Dustup continues over disputed islands

Until Prime Minister Koizumi dissolved the Diet's lower house on August 8 and called a snap election, one of the biggest news stories in Japan this past summer was the South Korean navy's launching of a new troop carrier/landing ship.

This ship bigger than its counterpart in the Japanese navy, and in fact is the largest of its kind in Asia. But most provocative of all to Japan is the ship's name: the LPX Dokdo. "Dokdo" is the Korean name for islets in the Sea of Japan that are clamed by both South Korea and Japan. (The islets are known in English as Liancourt Rocks and in Japanese as Takeshima [竹島].)

This was simply the most recent (but a very in-your-face) resurfacing of a dispute that goes back centuries. The dispute has less to do with the islands themselves, which are essentially uninhabitable, than with the oil and natural-gas desposits under the sea floor around the islands.

Here's another article about the LPX Dokdo, and a picture-filled (and slow-loading) page here.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

War-shrine visits, part 1

When Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's made his fifth visit to the Yasukuni shrine, where Japan's war dead—including World War II war criminals—my first reaction was to think, "Why does he keep visiting that place?"

Every time he does, China and Korea, which suffered atrocities at the hands of those war criminals, do things like call off official visits, raising tensions all over the Asian Pacific.

And it's not like those war criminals are enshrined in the sense of being part of a blanket enshrinement of all war dead. Their names are actually listed in the shrines "book of souls." Not only that, they are listed in there as martyrs.

More on this in another post.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Lack of sleep linked to obesity and other health problems

To the list of health problems linked to lack of sleep, add greater risk of obesity.

In my case, it's also because the later I stay up, the greater the chance is that I'll have a late-night snack.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

San Francisco sketches done "all over coffee"

Artist Paul Madonna has a column in the San Francisco Chronicle called "All Over Coffee," which consists of his sketches—done while drinking coffee—of the architecture of San Francisco.

These sketches are the perfect thing to mellow out with ... over green tea.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

In Japan: iPods at Seven-Eleven

In Japan, Apple plans to sell its iPods at Seven-Eleven.

The convenience store chain may sound like an unlikely venue for iPods, but in Japan, not only does Seven-Eleven have a slightly, ahem, more upscale image, but the stores also offer services beyond what they do in the U.S.--things like photocopying, bill paying, and even paying for and picking up items bought over the Internet.

Prospective iPod buyers will get to see display models in the store. If they decide to buy, they order the item there and pick it up after it arrives.

One category of products sold by Seven-Elevens in America that their counterparts in Japan don't: over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. There, even drugs like aspirin and antacid can only be sold by a licensed pharmacist. This isn't just job security for pharmacists; it apparently has to do with keeping up the price of OTC drugs.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

"Retired husband syndrome" in Japan

"Retired husband syndrome" is the English translation of a term coined by medical professionals in Japan who have treated women suffering from the stress and strain of suddenly having to live 24/7 with a husband who was hardly ever home when he was working.

This now-widespread issue was portended for years in the Japanese language by the words that women in such circumstances have used to describe retired husbands: sodaigomi (oversized garbage) and nureochiba (wet fallen leaf—as in hard to sweep away).

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Putting rickshaw drivers out of business?

On display at the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show was a one-person vehicle obviously inspired by the rickshaw:





And just when old-fashioned rickshaws were making a comeback!

Seriously, though, rickshaw drivers aren't likely to become victims of automation anytime soon. In the few cities in Japan where they still shuttle tourists around, rickshaws are as much personal guides to the city as they are a means of transportation. A good rickshaw driver will point out all the trendy places to visit, so that his (or her) passengers can visit them at their leisure later on.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Green cars at the Tokyo Motor Show

Eco-friendly cars are grabbing the limelight at the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show.

This article has some cool interactive features, such as one illustrating the internal workings of internal combustion, diesel, and fuel cell cars.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Hidden camera at a bank ATM

At a bank in Tokyo, an employee found a wireless hidden camera planted at eye level at the ATM—most likely to record people entering their bank account PINs.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Koizumi's electoral victory, part 3

As promised, here is the conclusion to parts one and two about Japanese Prime Minister's resounding victory in last month's election.

Regardless of what you think of Koizumi or Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LPD), whose majority control over Japan’s Diet has been almost continuously unbroken since the 1950s, you have to admit that his strategy in last month’s snap election was a masterstroke: he focused public attention on a single issue--privatizing Japan’s postal system--and convinced voters of two things that would ordinarily seem mutually exclusive: (1) that the LDP was better capable of pulling off reform than the opposition and (2) that voters should reject anyone in the LDP he didn’t endorse.

In other words, he had the political genius to formulate this strategy and the charisma to convince the majority of his own party and the electorate.

Focusing on postal reform was perhaps a way to simplify the whole reform issue for voters while also co-opting the opposition party (the Democratic Party of Japan), which was (and still is) calling for much more sweeping reform.

Koizumi’s political genius is also evident in how he pulled off the second goal: purging his party of “renegades” by hand-picking prominent non-politicians to run against them. These candidates, called “assassins” by the press, prominently included a group of modern, assertive women dubbed--what else?--the lipstick ninja--a term sure to be used in future editions of the Japanese version of Trivia Pursuit or Jeopardy (“I’ll take ‘Early Aught Politics’ for ¥10,000, Kenji”).

At any rate, Koizumi’s victory is also a good example of a political party “cleaning house”—ridding itself of a small but stubborn element that was doing the party more harm than good. In other words, Koizumi’s victory shows that a political party must reform itself before it can go on to reform the country.

But perhaps the most important effect of Koizumi's success is the confidence it has inspired in Japan's political system. This is a double-edged sword: Japanese voters are likely to have more faith in their political system in getting things done--and less patience when some promised reform doesn't proceed the way politicians had initially promised.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Japan's "Country "Gold" revisited

In a previous posting I talked about Japan's country-music superstar Charlie Nagatani and "Country Gold," Japan's biggest (and only) country-music festival, which takes place in Aso, Japan (where Mellow Monk tea is from).

Well, here's an on-the-scence story about Country Gold 2002, offering a first-hand account of Japan's country-music subculture. A fascinating read.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

What Nicholas Perricone says about green tea and weight loss

Browsing at the local bookstore today, I came across Nicholas Perricone's The Perricone Weight-Loss Diet (link to Amazon.com page). On page 34 of the book, he discusses getting a client to switch from coffee to green tea as part of a custom diet he designed for her. He writes:

Green tea will not only help her burn fat, but will also give her a feeling of well-being.

Lose weight, and enjoy a feeling of well-being? Sounds good to me!

By the way, that "feeling of well-being" is exactly what the "Mellow" in "Mellow Monk" is about.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Bloodsucking spiders

It seems there are jumping spiders in Africa that specifically target mosquitoes engorged on human blood.

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)

Doctors who breathalyze

Some day soon, your doctor may breathalyze you as part of a routine checkup. (Registration at the New York Times is required but free.)

—Mellow Monk

Go to the Mellow Monk tea page
Bookmark this blog
Subscribe to the blog feed (RSS)