Everyone is saying goodbye to Jen, although most people will get to see her again in June. Yesterday was her big farewell with her friend Madoka; Madoka is going to work in Bali next month so it was their last meeting for an undefined period of time. Things are a little melancholy around the house despite the fact that she is coming back. I'm sad too... May is gonna be a fun month for me, but without Jen's moral support (and help) it's going to be overwhelming, too.

In other "ending" news, our favourite restaurant in the Sendai area, Namaskar, is closing down. Well, not quite: it's been bought out, and the new management are firing everyone, despite the fact that they bought it because it's a successful restaurant, and are restarting it next month under the same name but with a wholly new menu and staff. So Namaskar is closing down, but the name and location will still cover an Indian restaurant. Very uncool. If I was independently wealthy I'd found a new restaurant called the Original Namaskar or something and hire on the original staff. Bleh. This, coupled with a lot of other recent changes - such as the famous Date Masamune statue in Sendai Station being shipped out to some backwater station, leaving a big boring empty space where a landmark used to be - make it feel almost as if Japan is changing itself so that we feel more comfortable leaving. Thanks for the effort, Japan! However, I'd prefer to have cool things still here to come back to!

Not much other news to report. As usual I have dozens of fun ideas burbling in my head, in the typical cycle such things tend to come in. I've been thinking of making a blog section for blurting down random potentially interesting ideas when I think about them. Who knows, maybe I will. I doubt many of them are of interest to anyone but me though.