Right, time to stop eating all this junk, these adulterated foreign appropriations of real Chinese, Thai, Japanese food, and start accumulating gustatory libido, for a triumphant orgasm come June. AF mentioned a new Paolo e Judie satellite. AE has promised to take me to his secret hawker-food hangouts. J claims his cousin's rogan josh is "brilliant," though I would take issue with applying that adjective to food.

In Tokyo I will retrace the steps of my youth, when I looked like "a Slam Dunk protagonist," when I went pinecone-picking, when I had a horde of Japanese action figurines (a red falconheaded, yellow lionheaded, blue dolphinheaded, a huge turquoise whale that opened up to become a stronghold, literally armed to the teeth, a portly metal Doraemon with a cavernous abdomen, a stomach-niche, flipping open to reveal hidden prizes, surprises), when I visited post-industrial theme parks (Robert Venturi: "Tokyo is the exemplary city of our time...valid chaos, not minimalist order") -- derelict junkyards of construction vehicles for children to climb on and into, when I visited wonderlands of fish and vegetable markets (yeah, this stuff needs to be hammered into you formatively), when I briefly fancied myself a sumo-wrestler, when I lived in a house of architectural éclat (featured in a coffee-table book that we found on a shelf as part of the incumbent furnishings)...

I will track down the two teachers I still remember, although what are the odds that they will still be marooned at an elementary school after 15 years?