• Life

    Pigeon Baby Fever Cooling Patch from Japan – Useful If Your Child Tolerates It

    April 25, 2024 - By 

    In my most recent trip to Japan in 2023, I purchased baby cooling gel patches from Pigeon, a line of baby products made in Japan. These patches, typically used for fevers, are a somewhat popular item with Japanese mothers that can be purchased at most drugstores and some Don Quijotes. It is easy to pack away; the box is neither very expensive nor large and can be squished without issue. To further reduce weight/volume, one could consider taking out the contents— which are labeled— and trashing the box. The penguin-decorated gel patches are designed for use by babies (For those…

  • Life

    How to Clean Chocolate Off a Carpet

    April 15, 2024 - By 

    I was very disappointed when I pushed a sweater aside to discover chocolate clumped on my carpet. For one thing, my daughter should have told me that she dropped chocolate from her ice cream instead of playing with a sweater, tossing the sweater on the stain, and wandering off! (I suspect that was the sequence, because the chocolate was not on the sweater at all.) For another thing, why was she in my nice music room with a chocolate-coated ice cream bar in the first place?! Fortunately, having handled similar situations— usually because of Small Sophie— I knew what to…

  • Food - Tea Things

    Sugi Bee Garden Honey – Flavoured Honey for your Water

    April 6, 2024 - By 

    Sugi Bee Garden honey has been around for decades and presumably popular, given the number of locations they are sold at in their home country, Japan. In Taiwan, this honey seemed to be a popular souvenir gift for older people from their relatives who had stopped in Japan. I usually saw one of these containers in my grandmother’s fridge in Taiwan when I visited. To enjoy adding this to your drink, you should like honey and fruit flavours. Yuzu is the most common type you can find from other brands, so Sugi Bee Garden decided to set their honey apart…

  • Miscellaneous

    Vegetable Garden Set – Epoch Sylvanian Families / Calico Critters

    March 26, 2024 - By 

    One of the things my daughter did when she was 2 was to scold crows (real or imaginary) and tell them to go away, à la Rabbit from the Hundred Acre Wood. When I noticed the Sylvanian Families / Calico Critters Vegetable Garden Set, I imagined Small Sophie scolding the huge-in-comparison stuffed crow as it tried to enjoy vegetables belonging to the hardworking Sylvanian animals. I generally like toys that that offer more/different play opportunities and prompt usage of different vocabulary and scenarios. (Also, my only Sylvanian Families food was ice cream, so that was the main diet of the…

  • Miscellaneous

    My WordPress Site is Full of 404 Errors!

    March 14, 2024 - By 

    I was suspicious when my primary WordPress site fell to 0 revenue, but maybe everyone who visited had adblocker on. When it lasted 5 days— and when Small Sophie was not around— I took a look at my stats and was surprised to find that I also had 0 views. I checked my site. The home page worked but all the subpages, the content actually useful to the young musician or otherwise, had 404 errors. I use WordPress, and this situation is possible when the .htaccess file has issues. Since it is WordPress, there is an easy solution: I regenerated…

  • Food - Tea Things

    Afternoon Tea at the Bar Artefact / Auberge Saint-Antoine in Québec City, Canada

    March 9, 2024 - By 

    When I am in Québec City, Canada, again, I will strongly consider returning to the Bar Artefact in the Auberge Saint-Antoine for Afternoon Tea. Thé à l’anglaise, as they call it, is served on weekends between 1 and 3 PM. In 2024, the price per person was CA$49 (~US$36.40) if 13 or older, CA$29 (~US$21.54) if between the ages of 6 and 12 inclusive, and free if 5 or under. Reserving afternoon tea was very simple. We visited the front desk to ask for 1, they let us know they were full and could take me at 1:30, and I…

  • Food - Tea Things

    Afternoon Tea at Sally Lunn in Chester, NJ, USA

    March 1, 2024 - By 

    Sally Lunn’s Tea Room & Restaurant in downtown Chester, New Jersey, United States, is a small tea room with a Victorian theme and very good scones. No matter the flavor, they have a nice texture and they serve some of the nicest clotted cream I have found in the US. One important thing to note is that they are dedicated to the Victorian theme. Victorian-era people thought it was bad taste to have bare walls and tried to cover every surface with things. This restaurant tries to do that while still making it possible to run a restaurant that is…

  • Travel

    Crossing by Car Between US and Canada 2024

    February 22, 2024 - By 

    I rarely cross from the US to Canada or Mexico by car, but I recently did. All I really knew was that US citizens just need their passport and that the US-Canada land crossing has a reputation for being a lot quicker than the US-Mexico land crossing. Contrary to what I expected after reading about others’ experiences, the US agent was more friendly on our way back than the Canadian agent on our way to. United States to Canada When we crossed to Canada by Champlain, NY in 2024, it was very quick. You can look ahead to see what…

  • Travel

    Auberge Saint-Antoine in Québec City, Canada, or Archaeology Right in Your Room— If You Can Find It!

    February 13, 2024 - By 

    The Auberge Saint-Antoine in Québec, Canada is a pleasant old hotel with an archeological theme. It is located close to an old alley of Québec, the Rue du Petit-Champlain, which is a lovely little street to walk down. In 2024, I got to find out for myself how comfortably placed it was. Although only a 4-star hotel, the Auberge Saint-Antoine was cleaner and in better condition than the 5-star Fairmont Le Château Frontenac. For example, there were no discarded bandages lurking by the mattress, the bathroom was not dusty anywhere, and the only dirtiness was that the bottom of the…

  • Travel

    Cheap Suitcases in Tokyo at Ginza Karen

    February 9, 2024 - By 

    In Tokyo, Japan, you can buy cheap suitcases, as in roughly US$50 for a 28-inch, in several of the covered shopping streets. If the shopping streets are closed or you do not want to go there, Ginza Karen in particular is well-known for selling suitcases at that same price point. This shop is extremely popular with Chinese tourists and one location, in Nihonbashi, is conveniently open until midnight! Ginza Karen also sells higher-priced suitcases, but most people who go there— myself included— are looking for the ~US$50 suitcases to quickly and cheaply carry back our purchases. I have purchased from…