My husband does not often bow to me. But when I announce that I am off to meet the renowned scholar and translator of Japanese literature Edward Seidensticker, Significant Other is so impressed he near bends in half and instantly offers up half a dozen questions he himself would like to ask.

Edward, now 84, still moves around his beloved Tokyo with the ease of familiarity. Physically age is conspiring against him, and he enters the lobby of the Imperial Hotel heavily dependent on a cane. The problem, he says, is not arthritic, but is compounded by any number of accidents -- falls in particular. "Much as I hate it, getting old is a fact of life."

Tokyo is less beloved than it used to be, but still he cannot keep away. Despite being granted residency here a few years ago, he spends half the year in the U.S. mainland (where he has friends rather than family; "everyone is dead") and Hawaii, where he has an apartment in Honolulu close by the beach. "Why I spend summers in Japan is no mystery. I'm simply a creature of habit."