Words for Wednesday - 17. January

The Words for Wednesday in January will be found at Letting the Words Escape. Today's (or rather tomorrow's) words are:

birthday
robbery
earthquake
execution
Pooh
Paris

and/or

Hepburn
ferry
murder
rolling
ledger
and oops Tobruk, which I did not see - I have not included it into the story.

For my birthday last year, I received a book on the Hepburn romanization of Japanese writing. My interest in Japanese took wings after the big earthquake, noticing the houses rolling with the quake instead of tumbling down, like the houses here in Paris would have done.
I sat on the ferry feeling the wind in my long hair. It was a wonderful day to be alive sailing down the Seine. I closed my eyes against the glare, and began memorizing the rules for transcription of long vowels. I felt a bit like the Pooh Bear reciting foreign poetry.
Next I tried my hand at the Japanese text, I was supposed to be able to read tomorrow in class, but I lost my way in the meandering, beautiful kanji. I wondered why the poor fellow in the text suddenly had to be executed for murder. I dug up my word list for the relevant chapter, and realized that Yamamoto-san was accused of robbery and falsifying the ledger, he was not a murderer.
Reaching this comparatively happy end, I closed my books, determined to enjoy the rest of the trip.