Japanory

To Drive or Not to Drive...?

We finally have the car. Hurray! Just in time for the half term holidays coming up.

But I'm too terrified to drive in Tokyo just now, so Tim uses it to get to work while Rhiannon and I take the bus as it is so easy.

Why am I terrified? Well, I learnt to drive in Devon, many, many years ago. Lovely, gentle Devon where there is little traffic to negotiate, tiny single-track lanes lined with soft grassy hedges and easy, simple roads with no roundabouts. I am a dab-hand at reversing quickly and adeptly to a passing place; I can wait patiently while a herd of cows or flock of sheep bustle past me; emergency braking when confronted with a combine harvester on a blind corner is no problem and passing tractors on a bend road was a risk I was willing to take.

And then I moved to London. This was in 1988, just as the "hot-hatch" problem arose (I had an XR2 at the time). From costing around £300 to insure in Devon, the cost suddenly shot up to astronomical regions. And that was with the only two insurance companies willing to quote for someone under the age of 25. Insuring it would have cost more than the car was worth, so I reluctantly sold it (for more than I paid for it, hee hee!) and went onto permanent public transport for the next 12 years.

I lived next to two train stations so it wasn't a problem. Well, that's a misnomer as we're talking about London public transport, but I'm sure you know what I mean.

Then I met Tim, and moved to Northampton where I was forced back into driving again as I had to get from home to the train station, 7 miles away, usually at 6am, for my commute to London. My nerve deserted me and I found I was really scared of driving! How ridiculous. In my defence, the area was littered with far too many roundabouts than are necessary or healthy, and filter lanes which I had never used before. Plus I have no sense of direction and can get lost just crossing a road.

Tim bought me a GPS / SatNav system which helped me no end. But it took a long time for me to feel comfortable driving again.

So Tokyo's notorious traffic, multi-laned roads and complicated road signs are somewhat daunting to me at the moment.

I will overcome, of course.

Party Girl

[Random date – before the last few posts anyway!]

Rhiannon has been invited to a birthday party. The birthday girl is the daughter of one of Tim's colleagues and a year or two older than Rhiannon, but so sweet for my girl to be included.

She is SO happy about this as you can see from her photo! A chance for my little diva to get all dressed up and mix with some new people.

Sadly, she's been finding it hard to settle in school, having missed out on so much schooling during and after our move. The level of teaching is far above that of her school in the UK so she is lagging behind significantly, despite our efforts to help at home. She's a stubborn little soul. There are also peer problems.

Even at reception age, little girls can be bitchy, which is quite shocking really. Rhiannon desperately wants to be friends with the "alpha" girl, who knows how to play a mean game: one day she's all friendly, the next she doesn't want to speak to Rhiannon. My poor girl cannot understand this at all and I find it heartbreaking to see her try desperately hard to work out why people are like this. I try to tell her to find someone else to play with, but she's set on this girl.

Another issue is the "fitting in" aspect that I guess all young children want. Many of the girls in class are of Asian origin, with dark hair and eyes. Rhiannon, being blonde and blue-eyed stands out and occasionally says she wants to look like everyone else.

Plus she's in a class with a particularly disruptive boy. And the teacher spends more time keeping this one lad in order than looking out for the other pupils. He seems to thrive on one-to-one with the teacher and knows that misbehaviour is the way to get it. Every day there is some sort of altercation to report, but even though I've tried talking with the teachers, nothing is done. Apparently, this particular boy has "known issues": on Rhiannon's first day of school he punched her in the chest, hard, for no known reason. I've spent hours advising her on how to deal with him, ending up with telling her to stand up to him, rather than run off crying to the teacher. She's very kind hearted and one day, while the lad was picking on someone else, Rhiannon stepped in and did just that – stood up to him. He backed off and some weeks later, they became firm friends, culminating in mutual playdates.

But I digress...

Perhaps this party will help her feel wanted by her sort-of peers and it's always good to have an older friend at school.

The party was held in a room above the Hard Rock Café and she had an absolutely fantastic time with games, plenty of food and the obligatory goody bag. They played bingo, which she needed help with as she's not au-fait with the game.

It's good to see Rhiannon smiling properly again.

In Which I Go Out For Dinner

7^th February 2007

It appears that a ritual with this school is that the mums regularly organise girls' nights out. How lovely!

I haven't been out much these days. Well, by "these days" I mean about 5 years. Since moving to Northampton and having a child, I've become rather a hermit due to circumstances such as nowhere to go, nobody to go with, and no babysitter. It looks like life is finally about to change: I love being back in a city!

So, this night-out has been planned. I'm going. Tim is staying at home with Rhiannon who is most put out that Mummy is actually going somewhere without her...

The restaurant has been booked for around 20 ladies and directions given, but apparently "it's quite hard to find unless you can read Japanese". Interesting.

But all was well. A couple of ladies I recognised were standing outside the building to direct lost gaijin.

The interior of the Toriyoshi Restaurant was exceptionally sophisticated yet somehow traditional. I was escorted through to the reserved room where most people were already seated. I was looking forward to chatting properly with some of the other mothers from Rhiannon's class. But something was amiss...

The long table was occupied mostly at one end only, at the other, empty end sat M who immediately collared me to sit with her. I couldn't refuse; besides, her true personality hadn't revealed itself to me by this stage. But I should have noticed the alignment of people, i.e. everyone else was sitting away from her... and I was effectively barred from chatting to anyone else.

However, food and drink was soon served so I metaphorically shrugged and tucked in. This was my very first taste of Japanese food! I'm embarrassed to admit that even though we've been here over two months, it's true.

The set menu had been pre-booked and the food just kept on coming and coming. Just about coping with my chopsticks, I tasted my first sashimi – and found it to be absolutely delicious, and drank various different types of sake. M told me all sorts of in-depth information about the different types of sake, but unfortunately I cannot remember a word of it.

I also had something called silken tofu, which was not delicious. I didn't like it, the taste wasn't pleasant and the texture was repulsive to me, which was just as well as I couldn't pick it up with chopsticks at all: it has the consistency of soft blancmange.

The only time the other ladies took notice of M was when a shabu-shabu arrived. Maria is apparently an expert on all things Japanese so she cooked it for us. It's basically a pot of boiling liquid on top of a burner where you cook your own food, a mix of meat, vegetables, tofu and other items. The mushrooms were more like the kind of fungi found growing on rotten trees in the UK, but tasted fine.

Then a big bowl of something odd arrived. At first glance it looked like chips, but on closer inspection was something covered in batter. It looked appetising so I grabbed some but when I bit into one I couldn't believe what I was eating! It was deep-fried tendons!! Yes, the triangular pieces of gristle from a chicken. However, the batter tasted scrumptious, so I just ate that and left the rest.

Meanwhile the sake had been substituted for champagne and even though I didn't get to know any of the other ladies it was a very good night. From what I remember...!

We Have Wheels!

Unbounded joy! Tim has found us a car!!

Second-hand cars here are very cheap compared to the UK and we never buy new anyway. And we also don't follow the crowd of other expats who buy the biggest people carriers they can find then wonder why they can't negotiate the tiny streets without dinging the bodywork. However, they do have some fancy gadgets in them including a rear-view camera with alarms that go off when they reverse too close to something.

So, we will soon have a little pale-gold coloured Toyota. The British name for it is the Corolla Verso while here it's known as a Spacio.

Happy, happy, happy!

There is the small matter of a large pile of paperwork first, so that has been completely delegated to Tim to deal with. All the driving licence stuff has been completed as you will have seen from a previous post.

To own a car in Japan you also have to prove you have a parking space! What a brilliant idea – something for the UK to think about, in my opinion.

Transfer of ownership forms have to be completed for used cars, mandatory and optional insurance bought, and the number plate to be re-registered in our name. The optional insurance is actually compulsory if you want full coverage. Nice little ploy.

Luckily, being diplomats, we are exempt from car tax and the compulsory shaken, Japan's version of the MOT. Pronounced 'shah-ken' (which is a shame, as the spelling pronounced in English is more apt) this is a very expensive and compulsory inspection; which is why most people don't buy second-hand cars, preferring instead to get a new vehicle every couple of years. I believe a shaken costs around £1200-£1500!

Further driving costs are toll roads, which can add quite a considerable outlay to your journey, but petrol is really cheap. At the time (early 2007) the cost of a litre of fuel was about .50p. Plus we get this duty free due to our diplomatic status. We are indeed privileged.

Sorry to all readers in the UK who have to pay exorbitant rates for your petrol.

Hopefully none of this will take too long and we can get out and explore Japan

Stone Lanterns and Other Wonderful Things

6^th February 2007

What a fabulous day! I went on a trip with a few other mums from school, organised by a fabulously capable lady called Connie.

All neatly sandwiched between school hours and very slickly organised with regards to train times and connections, about ten of us went to a place selling Japanese stone lanterns and other gorgeous items. A mega-shopping trip!

From Shibuya station, we caught two trains and after an hour ended up at a place in the country called Zushi, which was even further away than Kamakura. At Zushi station, the son of the shop owner met us with a minibus and drove us to his father's small workshop set beside a narrow road.

What heaven! Already deeply admiring Japanese culture of most kinds, I had done a little research into these special ornaments and decided to treat myself to a small lantern. It has to be small as our shipping allowance wouldn't permit transporting many extras on our next trip, either back to the UK or to another country.

But the choice was overwhelming and with more than just lanterns to choose from, we all found it very hard to make a decision.

I was astounded at all the other women being unable to make a decision without their husbands' approval. They were all taking photos of various items, then sending them via phone for hubby's opinion. Tim wouldn't have been at all impressed if I kept bugging him like this, and besides, he knows my taste is far superior to his!

It still took us all 2 hours to choose which of the beautiful, hand-carved stonework we would buy for our gardens. There were so many delightful styles to choose from, and what I really wanted wouldn't fit into my tiny garden. At one point, the son came out with cups of hot orange juice for us. Delicious and unexpected, it turns out that this is a particular type of Japanese orange called Mikan which grows in abundance here.

I chose a small dark-coloured granite lantern, and couldn't resist also purchasing a tsukubai, a little granite bowl traditionally used to rinse your hands before partaking of the tea ceremony. Eventually, we had all made our choices and arranged delivery, paid and rather dizzily drifted back onto the street.

However, the owner then kindly invited us back to his home for tea. Well, he had made rather an incredible profit that day – one lady alone had bought four huge lanterns. We were more than happy to accept, although some people made their own way back to the station rather than be sociable.

What an experience! This was my first sight of a 'real' Japanese home, both inside and out, all paper walls, tatami matting on the floors and a sunken fire pit called a hibachi. Hanging over the fire was a large iron kettle attached to a magnificent hook carved in the design of a fish. The lady of the house welcomed us with open arms and directed us to cushions placed around the hibachi. Kindly, she advised that she didn't mind if we didn't kneel as she understood it was hard for gaijin to do this! She served us delicious green tea and biscuits while her husband told us that the stone masonry is his 'side job'... his real job is moving Japanese houses. Yes, this is actually what he does - he moves the ENTIRE house, with all the contents in situ, including, (as he said) the fish in their tank. He somehow does it by piling the whole house onto pallets and moving it inch by inch. Not sure on the actual technique but apparently he is one of the last people in Japan who can do this.

They also kindly allowed us to look around their home. The windows had sliding shutters designed to present a perfectly framed view of the carefully manicured garden dependent on the time of year. Each ornament was striking in its beauty and strategically placed. Little alcoves displaying scrolls and special treasures adorned the immaculate rooms. It was an interior designer's heaven, yet normal life for these lovely people.

Sadly we didn't have much time there as we had to catch a train back to make it back to Tokyo in time to collect our children from school. And unfortunately, I hadn't thought to take my real camera with me, so these are taken with my phone and not great quality. Incidentally, those are reflections across his highly polished and gorgeous table, not smears on the lens.

Note to self - ALWAYS carry a real camera!