obama jay-z nas blueprint soho*

It was a fine day. Lovely weather. We tried to take the metro at what we hoped was the end of rush hour. It looked a bit too busy for a toddler + stroller + bag of toddler’s things. So a slight detour to Sakuramon and we entered the outer Imperial gardens. Just as we turned a corner, I noticed a line of people across the stone path. We reached the line and seconds later a car with flashing lights appeared. Then the horses. An open palm wave through a carriage door. After the passing of the Canadian ambassador, we turned down the road to the train station. Rush hour was over.

When we got off the metro at Iriya station, I turned the map about 10 times. Walked one way. Then the other. Eventually, a woman on a bike probably wondering what we were doing on this back alleyway asked if she could help up. She gave a push in the right direction, admitting she couldn’t see well enough to read the map. Twists and turns down the road later, an older man on a bike smiled at us and asked Otorisama? YES! He gave us impeccable directions in Japanese which I couldn’t understand but the hand signals were enough.

Soon we were wandering down the stalls at the Otori shrine for the Festival of the Rooster (Tori no Ichi).

It’s very possible that I’m having the time of my life yet I’m not sure what that means.

*so it looks like obama can be added onto the list of random associations that foreign people make when coming across us black folk outside of our native land. guess that’s change.

The first and only time I was in Tokyo we stayed at a quite strangely 70’s styled hotel. The furniture looked like rejected props from the original Star Trek set. For this trip, I was looking forward to exploring a bit more of Tokyo and finding a family-friendly side. I clicked on the hotel link a few days ago and felt a bit of deja vu. Never heard of this hotel. Feeling dismissed.

With my shiny new bilingual atlas and Google maps, I started looking up things we may need to find to make Tokyo life a bit easier with a toddler. Eventually we entered the hotel we stayed in last time and somehow it came up with the same address as the current hotel. The confusion was cleared up when we realized the hotel had been bought by another hotel group, name changed. And somehow out of all the hotels in all of Tokyo we will be staying exactly where we were in 2005. Hopefully there will be no sheep involved.

photo by swamibu

Yesterday I took on two recommendations. 1) from Bowleserised, Moti Mahal – for coconut oil 2) from a native Kreuzberger and good friend, the Yamashina Japan bookstore in Charlottenburg.

At Moti Mahal, all was in a bustle at around 10am on a Saturday. Vacuuming, little kids running around offering assistance, tidying up. It was probably almost exactly on the dot 10 AM. Just maybe and just by chance. We were probably the first sale of the day but it made me feel bad. One of the bleary-eyed workers had to open the store across the street just for us to sell us this bottle of hair oil. Most of the food products I think we could score at the Afro-Asia-Latino place on Gneisenaustr. in the neighborhood (if it was wheelchair and therefore stroller accessible – another post coming). However, this little bottle will make life that much nicer during our short stay in Berlin.

Over in Charlottenburg, 30 minutes later. I found myself staring through a grate into a dark bookstore. The sign on the front door stated: Sa ca. 10:00. This may be one of the first times an opening hours sign has made me laugh out loud. I looked at my watch and thought that 10:30 is approximately 10 AM. So where’s the dude? I looked down the street in each direction for any Japanese bookstore owners. None. I came back later in the afternoon, which could also be considered approximately 10 AM, I guess. Copped a bilingual atlas for Tokyo. Very expensive but I couldn’t find this particular one on the net so it must have been worth it. Or something like that.

I’m not sure whether these experiences made me feel more faux German or more real American (c) Wagner pizza commercial. But I did kind of expect these stores to be open and ready for business on a Saturday morning. Living next to the new, snazzy open til midnight Kaiser’s raises expectations.

Moti Mahal, Potsdamer Str. 98
Yamashina Japan Buchhandlung, Pestalozzistr. 67

I’m trying to think of something Berlin-related to recommend.

Baraka, expanded since the last time I was here, is still rocking tagines. I noticed a white person serving and couldn’t decide what I thought about that. I’ve read about people opening ethnic cuisine restaurants and having trouble getting authorization for non-Germans due to laws which require to prove that the job has some necessary component that a German cannot do. So I wondered whether a server position at Baraka would get the same treatment as a server position at Creperie Bretonne. Regardless, the food is still great and cheap. Bonus points: new floor seating areas and you no longer have to sit in the creepy yet charming cave section if you don’t want to. Lausitzer Platz 6.

The “raskal trippin” days were the height of my affair with blogging, I think. From here on out, it’s probably all downhill.

No time to blog with a newborn. No time to blog during 1L. Now that Mausi is a toddler and I’m on leave, I have… no wait I don’t really have any more hours in the day. I’ve already wasted a precious toddler-free morning on the net. Damn you, Facebook.

I started this blog thinking I’d be blogging through my year in Berlin. Except now, the year will only be a couple of months. No Berlinale, no Kreuzberg jazzt. All the links are probably outdated. It’s quite a travesty. I need to revamp and refocus. A new subtitle, maybe? My Trip to Japan or Healthcare: Where does it suck more? US or Canada or My toddler Mausi, the integrationskind or MILS(Mother in Law School): Do you actually have to show up to graduate? Either way, probably too convoluted to keep anyone’s interest. Not even mine.

ANYWAY
Some fresh to def new new links:

2009 African Blogger Conference in Nairobi, Kenya via Black Looks

German blogs I currently read: Blacks in NRW and BLACKprint

can get you a house in Zehlendorf!

The (Barcomi) Friedmans didn’t share the purchase price with the faithful readers of the New York Times’ daily Berlin coverage.

My poor neighborhood.

A friend tipped me off as to what is happening to the post office on Marheinekeplatz. It looks like the post office and bank are just expanding (which wouldn’t make much sense). B-71 is the developer for this project. A freaking office building?!? According to the floor plans, the post office entrance will move to the Bergmannstrasse side, making room for a cafe (another one? great!). I’d imagine the website may be dated. God knows we need another biomarkt as much as we need Tarantino and film crews.

Food for thought – According to B71, Kreuzberg is fast becoming Berlin’s Notting Hill. Be a part of it.

Insert sad face here.

this bilingual thing is quite messy but fun!
some of mausi’s favorite words at 19 months
thanks to wordle

My perennial one-sided and unnoticed struggle with the NYC Board of Elections continues. I got this card in the mail. The only mark on it is the stamp from the Absentee Department. Everything else is blank. Surprise, surprise. Maybe I’ll get someone else’s ballot again.

photo by ankor2

The guestbook at Creperie Bretonne has comments like: Finally, real crepes from Brittany here in Berlin! Maybe I’m not alone in this but I wasn’t particularly ever saddened by not finding real crepes from Brittany in Berlin. In fact, I’d never looked. During the past few weeks of checking out what’s new (or at least new to me), I did take note of Manouche, another crepe place near the Landwehrkanal. Filed away for future non-use. Apparently, I did not know what I’d been missing.

Rare night out (thanks to Oma and Opa). Dinner at Kantina von Hugo (a Kreuzkoelln fave?). Dessert at the Creperie.

The amusing part of the whole crepe experience was that German was not the language of choice.  The older I get, the more problems I have with speed in language recognition with the languages I know. So when we were greeted, I couldn’t figure out what language it was. But then it just kept going and going. Service is French immersion style.  It’s like a little neo-colonized swatch of Frenchiness as soon as you walk in the door. I don’t know how that works in practice. In our group, 3 out of 4 people actually spoke French. In theory, it’s awesome.

I tried to imagine the same dining philosophy with pick-an-ethnicity-without-an-accent-which-average-Germans-find-adorable-and-an-enduring-tradition-of-a-language-academy cuisine. It probably wouldn’t work greeting guests with Merhaba and expecting the guests to play along. People would protest. Integrationspolitik would be criticized. The downfall of Western society would be evoked and rights of cartoonists stridently defended. And no one would get to the food.

Crepes! That’s what this post was about. They were good. Very good. 5 stars. Would go back again, if only to try the creme de marron crepe. And the service is lovely if you can understand what they are saying. The person making the crepes was actually from Bretagne (Rennes). We chatted about Transmusicales. So go check them out. If Reichenberger Strasse finally gets its isht together and finishes the ridiculous construction, I’d go any and every time I ever wanted a crepe made by someone else.

Kantina von Hugo Friedelstr. 31

Creperie Bretonne Reichenberger Strasse 30

I’m not exactly sure where I’m living.

Old: Kaiser’s flanked by drunken homeless folks and recycling bins, dark and dingy indoor market under construction replaced by outdoor stalls, Turkish families, cheap flammekuechen, the smaller version of Barcomi’s, the swingers’ spot, Andy’s diner, a big hole in the ground on Bergmannstrasse, BeBop Bar

New: Kaiser’s replaced by Rossmann, hole in the ground replaced by a 24hr Kaiser’s with delivery service and garage in the new Health Center, even more cafes on Bergmannstrasse, Italian buskers on Marheinekeplatz, lots of signs in windows that say “Business Space To Rent,” Foodorama, an expanded Barcomi’s, a bright and wide-aisled indoor market with tourists galore, and 1001 new young families who looked like they’ve migrated from Prenzlauerberg, Bugaboos in tow.

The BeBop Bar is a pretty unfortunate loss. I figured if I ever made it out again that would be my first, close-to-home, stop.

Mostly a thumbs-down for the neighbourhood. Thumbs-up for real estate ?

How’d all that happen in 12 months?

In other news, Escobar turns 10. When I was going to Escobar, Bohannon didn’t exist and I had to walk 20 miles in the snow barefoot and then take a tram and a bus and pay in marks and… Ok. I’m old.