Japanory

Another one of those quick round ups…

First three of weeks of September 2007.

After surviving the Typhoon, it was time to get on with the minutiae of everyday life.

I registered for some classes again at the TUCWS, managed to get Rhiannon to her gymnastics classes at stupid o'clock each Friday and had lovely coffee mornings on Tuesdays with my friends. Rhiannon's still really enjoying Aikido and has signed up for more extra classes on Saturday mornings. 

Tuesday has been marked as my "day off". My helper comes on Tuesdays and I find it hard to work while someone's around. It's also a day when one of my favourite shops is closed, so I won't be tempted to end our coffee morning with a shopping spree! This shop is full of stunning Japanese arts and crafts. Some are antiques which are way out my price range, but the modern articles are gorgeous. I've already bought a number of tea cups, sake sets and other bits and pieces and am eyeing up a real Japanese screen. One day…

Tim and I have an evening out - to a school-organised "meet the parents and teachers" do. It was memorable for the dreadful food and the fact that we swore never to attend another one.

Rhiannon's class are holding an assembly which we are expected to attend, and do so willingly, of course...!

Coming so soon after starting back at school, the children  must have worked very hard to learn their parts. Parents sit on miniature chairs at one end of the hall; the teachers sit around the sides and all the other classes troop in and sit on the floor. As you can see, Rhiannon was pretty nervous, although in my opinion she did extremely well. How scary is it to stand up in front of loads of people and say your piece? Many adults couldn't handle this, but Rhiannon's voice was clear, unwavering and easily heard.

A couple of playdates, a couple of birthday parties for Rhiannon to attend and that's about it for the day to day life in September.

Some more interesting things coming up in later posts though!

Typhoon!

6^th - 7^th September 2007

[From Wikipedia - A Pacific typhoon or tropical storm is a tropical cyclone that develops in the northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean between 180° and 100°E.]
In other places it's called a hurricane.

Basically it's Weather with a capital W.

Well, here's a new experience. It appears Tokyo is in the path of a rather nasty typhoon. Apparently it is due to hit between 6pm and midnight and is likely to be rather bad....
Meaning that school may well be cancelled tomorrow as well as all the other activities we have planned. All sorts of horror stories are being imparted to me about houses being blown over and so on.

At least with earthquakes you have no warning (I never thought I'd ever say that with relief!). Having this warning makes it more worrying as I have time to think about it! The current prediction is for approx 110 mph winds. Eek!

So, hopefully this has all been blown out of all proportion and I will be around as normal, or... goodbye and thanks for all the fish!

Later that day I sent a message - "It's very windy and pouring with rain, but nothing out of the ordinary yet."

Abridged from a local news source on the day:

Japan issued warnings for high waves, strong winds and flooding, and more than 140 flights were cancelled as Typhoon Fitow approached Tokyo with gusts as high as 198 kilometers an hour (123 miles per hour).

The eye of Fitow was about 250 kilometers south of Tokyo at 8:50 p.m. Japan time today, according to the latest advisory on the Web site of the Japan Meteorological Agency.

The storm was moving north at 15 kilometers per hour. The eye of Fitow is forecast to make landfall on the Izu peninsula, southwest of Tokyo, at about 10 p.m. and pass over the western outskirts of the capital a few hours later.

The agency issued warnings for high waves, heavy rain and flooding for Tokyo and surrounding prefectures because of the typhoon, which is classified as 'strong'. The storm is expected to dump 50 centimeters (20 inches) of rain on Tokyo and adjacent areas.

Another message I sent: "It's now 1130pm and I'm still here! The name of the Typhoon - Fitow - means "beautiful fragrant flower", seriously! It's only got a name because it originated in Micronesia. The Japanese Met Office, being unsentimental souls have given it a number – 0709.

By the next morning it had all "blown over" with us waking intact in our own beds and not in the middle of the adjacent park as expected

The main problems appear to have been out of the centre of Tokyo.

Again, an update from a local news source: Heavy rain and strong winds lashed Tokyo on Friday as a typhoon neared the capital after killing one person, injuring at least 35 and cutting power to tens of thousands of homes. (a tree fell on the man, and other injuries were people being blown over or having car windscreens smashed) In Tokyo, train service was disrupted and pedestrians struggled to hold onto umbrellas. (sorry, but this made me laugh!)

Some kids didn't go to school but all the non-Japanese went in as normal. The British amongst us were puzzled as to why a little rain and wind would stop people doing normal things!

Back to School!

Tuesday 28^th August 2007

Oh yeah! At last, the long summer holidays are over and Rhiannon goes back to school. Now she's in Year 1 and is thrilled to have the fabulous Mr B as her teacher this year. This is the fun-loving guy mentioned in the post about Japanese Day who dressed up as a lady…

All the children adore him as well as all the parents, so we are very happy for Rhiannon. The only sad thing is that this school deliberately separates friends each new school year, so Rhiannon is upset that she won't be with her special friends. This "policy" thinks it's a good idea to split friends up regularly so the children get used to the peripatetic nature of expat life… That may be a good move, but it's painful to see your own child upset like this.

"The Girls" - my little group of special friends are still together though! We drop our children at school, have a quick nose around the class and swiftly make out way to Starbucks for a long gossip. We vow to make this a regular Tuesday meet. For me especially, this is much appreciated as a work-from-home-mum, I rarely get to talk to adults. Well, apart from Tim, that is!

Another fantastic option now that Rhiannon is in year 1 is something called "drop off". Rather than me having to find a parking place near the school and walk her to the school door or fetch her after school, I can drive by and drop her off in the morning. After school, I drive by again and collect her.

This isn't quite as straightforward as it sounds because there are hundreds of other cars doing the same thing in a narrow one-way system. Naturally, most of the expat cars are enormous people carriers driven by women with an overinflated sense of entitlement and an underwhelming knowledge of driving protocol. Meet one of them in the only two way road and there is no way they will reverse or move out the way. They probably can't reverse their monstrous cars; even with the built in reversing camera they all seem to come with. Some even feel it's their right to drive the wrong way down the one way street. Very annoying.

Later in the week we get a list of classes and clubs the kids can join. Rhiannon wants to sign up for Gymnastics and Rainbows, so that's OK: apart from the gymnastics starting at a ridiculous 7.30 am in the morning. There's also an out of school class where she can learn Japanese, so I sign her up for a trial run there. With all the work I'm doing now, I can use any extra hour in the day I can get.

She's also desperate to play the violin so we will reluctantly look into that. She's been talking about playing the violin for over a year now and even asked Santa for one for Christmas… He gave her a toy Hello Kitty one. She was disgusted. Oh dear!

I didn't have the chance to try all these things as a child, so if she wants to, I'm right behind her.