Toutes Directions

A recent article in the NY Times said that marital happiness is often connected to how much the spouses help each other discover new things. I think this is especially true of B and me because we have different interests and skills, but share them with each other.

For example, B has become an avid amateur photographer, and sent me this cool link of photos of the Paris Metro. I don't know much about the photographer, but he's an anglophone who didn't know much about Paris yet had a lot of time to stay there and run around the metro tunnels. I'm guessing he's British? The pictures are great in and of themselves, and the story around them is really cool too. Anyone in Paris heard about some of the 'secret' Metro stops he photographed?

B is also really interested in Japan and Japanese culture. I'd never thought much about Japan before knowing him, but now I can say I'm curious and like learning more. Kanpai is a French site dedicated to Japanese culture. There's a significant amount of video game or tech info, but if you click on the Japon red button under the banner, you'll just have the cultural posts. One of the recent ones is about Toqué de Tokyo, a documentary by Antoine de Caunes. I highly recommend the documentary because it presents a number of different aspects of Japanese culture in a funny but respectful manner. And apparently Antoine de Caunes is famous?....

Being a fan of Japan means watching NoLife of course, and that's how we discovered Japan in Motion. If I understand correctly, they're a production company specialized in shows made for foreigners to introduce them to Japanese culture. It would appear that they sell most of they videos almost exclusively to NoLife, but I'm not clear on that. On the bottom of the home page you can navigate among the pages of videos, but if the title is in Japanese, that means there are no subtitles. If you click on the tag 'sightseeing' there are a number of different clips.

Speaking of which, I think I'll go watch some more!