HShinkai: His Comment/what I recommend today 1999

Hisaaki SHINKAI Homepage

His Comments (English version/99)


table of contents
1996 Japanese
1997 Japanese | English
1998 Japanese | English
1999 Japanese | English


(f^^) His Comments (@_<) ---------------- January 1, 1999

Top 10 News in 1998

A friend of mine sent to me his top 10 news in 1998. Here is my reply to him. You might change your impression to me, but ...

[1] Starr's report on Miss. Monica Lewinsky online
[2] Disappearance of the homepage of Miss. Croi Marie McNamara
[3] Marriage of Actress Hiroko Grace
[4] Naked Ice Skater Katarina Witt.
[5] Pregnant supermodel Elle Macpherson
[6] Swimsuit Daily calendar for 1999 from Sports Illustrated.
[7] Kids' idol Gachapin went to space as the 6th Japanese
[8] Undergrad of Tokyo Univ. became Miss Japan
[9] Viagra 70, while Sosa 66.
[10] Death of Prince Diana

Oh, yes, all these are none of your business, and some are wrong.
Every year I gave up using daily calendar, but I try again. My wife gave me the above swimsuit calendar. What an excellent wife I have.

Go to Japanese version | top | table of contents


(f^^) His Comments (@_<) ---------------- January 5, 1999

Snow Snow Snow

Now, under translation.

Go to Japanese version | top | table of contents


(f^^) His Comments (@_<) ---------------- March 14, 1999

Feeling the distance

Now, under translation.

Go to Japanese version | top | table of contents


(f^^) His Comments (@_<) ---------------- March 18, 1999

Form 1040

Now, under translation.

Go to Japanese version | top | table of contents


(f^^) His Comments (@_<) ---------------- April 4, 1999

Parking lot at Disney World

Now, under translation.

Go to Japanese version | top | table of contents


(f^^) His Comments (@_<) ---------------- May 26, 1999

Airport which has only several arrivals a day

Now, under translation.

Go to Japanese version | top | table of contents


(f^^) His Comments (@_<) ---------------- June 18, 1999

Revisiting Holland

Now, under translation.

Go to Japanese version | top | table of contents


(f^^) His Comments (@_<) ---------------- July 30, 1999

Japanese trend period

Now, under translation.

Go to Japanese version | top | table of contents


(f^^) His Comments (@_<) ---------------- August 22, 1999

Summarizing St. Louis life (Researches)

Now, under translation.

Go to Japanese version | top | table of contents


(f^^) His Comments (@_<) ---------------- September 6, 1999

Summarizing St. Louis life (Daily Life)

Now, under translation.

Go to Japanese version | top | table of contents


(f^^) His Comments (@_<) ---------------- December 12, 1999

Review of the year 1999

One of the memorable events in my family is our moving from St. Louis, Missouri to State College, Pennsylvania in August. That was, from a medium-size city to a small college town, from the Mid-west plain to the Appalachian mountains. We spent a few days by car but a mover arrived here two weeks later than the scheduled date. Such a thing is unpredictable in Japan, so we began to meet a kind of culture shocks here as if we moved to US directly from Japan.
Because each state has its own laws, we were puzzled quite often. For example, we can buy beer only in a bottle shop, while wine only in a wine shop. Several restaurants are not allowed to provide alcoholic beverages, so that they say bring your own bottles. We have to get a new driver's license, and registration of our vehicle in Pennsylvania. Our application for the license plate "1-STEIN" that was the one we used in Missouri was rejected here, and the license office sent us back a plate with "SHINKAI". Since here in State College we rarely find personalized license plates, we feel all the worse for the plate.
As I changed my research sponsor, I have to renew my visa for staying US. My family have to apply visas individually, because our case is a kind of exceptional. Due to the lack of information and misunderstanding, we got the final visas and staying approval only after we submitted our applications four times to the American embassy at Tokyo and twice to the Immigration and Naturalization Service office. To tell the truth, I had to apply visa one more time at the US embassy at Amsterdam in the Netherlands, when I was refused to ride an airplane for US because of the expiration of my valid visa. That happened to me in June when I came back from the workshop in Germany, and I made an extra three-days sight-seeing there. Therefore, I may say that I dedicated myself to obtain a visa for this full year.
The people in my new research group are all very kind, and quite active for their researches, which cover wide topics in general relativity. Such an environment stimulates me to further study in good directions. During the coming two years I feel confident that I will deepen and widen my research fields than before.
The other day we went to New York to buy some foodstuffs for Japanese dishes for the first time. We found a huge Japanese grocery supermarket and bookstore, and turned out we can get everything we need if we don't mind driving around five hours. Kids enjoyed Japanese traditional foods and sweets, and urged their parents to buy them.
I hear that winter is severe here, but it seems to be a mild winter till now this year. We rent a small house at reasonable price, which has a fireplace. So we are ready to Y2K. Good view of pastures and farms are available within a couple of minutes driving, and Amishıs villages, too. Please stop by if you have a chance. Have a good new year!

Go to Japanese version | top | table of contents

Go back to the top page of or
My current Email address is


Last Updated: February 16, 2000 / Last Updated: December 12, 1999