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driven by rain (to a genuine izakaya)

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2011.08.20

It rained all day at the cottage, so we decided by early afternoon to just head home.

I took the laundry to a new (to me) laundromat I'd spotted in the village, and then we made our way under spotty rain and steady wind. Mari struck upon the idea of heading to "J Village", a Japanese pedestrian shopping mall she knew of way up on the Toronto/Markham border. We veered off the highway at some point and threaded through the Oak Ridges moraine on Kennedy Road. It had finally cleared up (though briefly) for part of that drive and we really enjoyed the ups and downs. An added bonus - the best view of the city I've ever seen from land. Really the *only* view I've seen outside of a plane or one of the city centre's tall buildings.

When we got to "J Village" it was mostly closed but an izakaya was open. My first genuine hokke and tsukune and "grapefruit sour" since I left Japan. Sniff.

rand()m quote

It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.

—John Steinbeck, Cannery Row