Japanory

IT'S CHRIIIISTMAASSSSSS!!!

Our first Christmas in Tokyo started early, as can be expected with an over-excited 5 year old.

But not with the happy sounds one would normally hear. Rhiannon marched into our room at 5.30am, crying her eyes out!

Between her sobbing she cried "Santa hasn't been to see me and I have been good, mostly". 

Bless her, she was so bleary that she'd stepped right over her stocking without noticing it. So I took her back to her room to "see if Santa had hidden it" (rather amazed I was on the ball at that time in the morning...)

Cue one very happy child!

After breakfast, the doorbell rang. We'd forgotten that it was a normal working day here, and the postman was delivering. Along with a number of Christmas cards, he brought a large and heavy parcel from Tim.

How wonderful! He'd got me a breadmaker!! Now, this isn't normally something I would get happy about receiving for Christmas, and ordinarily would contribute to considering divorce proceedings. But bread here tastes horrible and costs around £3 for half a dozen slices, so it was a welcome gift.

This was a well-travelled breadmaker apparently. It was ordered from the States as the electricity here is only 100V rather than the 240V in the UK (which is why I hadn't shipped mine from there). American electrical goods work here, whereas UK machines need a huge, clumsy transformer. But I digress: the breadmaker had travelled to Jamaica (a computer operator error, I guess, as Jamaica is just above Japan on the standard list of countries), then back to Kentucky and then up the coast to Alaska where it got stuck in a snowstorm. But fortuitously arrived on Christmas Day.

Lunch was a success. Apart from the lack of Christmas pudding and the fact that the mysterious "cakes" I'd brought were completely disgusting! I think they were made from rice and contained red-bean paste. An acquired taste, that none of us will acquire any time soon.

Standard after-lunch constitutional around the gardens again, then for more exploring up the little alleyways surrounding our house. We discovered a tiny shrine not far away, which is very picturesque.

What a lovely day, wonderful gifts, lovely family and no miserable British weather. In the evening, once Rhiannon had finally been packed off to bed, we were able to relax with a good film and no boring BBC TV repeats.

Heaven!

Backtracking a little...

This is the drawback of not keeping a diary! I've forgotten to include details of our luggage arriving a couple of days before Mum reached Tokyo... so...

 

Finally! Our main shipment of luggage has been released from customs and a large red lorry arrived one fine morning. Something to keep us occupied at last.

With extreme efficiency and skill, the driver somehow reversed the lorry up our tiny road and a gang of men managed to unload what seemed to be hundreds of boxes in record time.

Even though they offered to unpack everything, I preferred to do this myself. So they just put the boxes in the relevant rooms and left me to get on with it. I set Rhiannon to task to unpack her million soft toys while I hurried through the remaining boxes to find the Christmas gifts while I had the chance to hide them.

Much joy was experienced when I discovered our box of necessities like tea and biscuits. As I mentioned previously, it's amazing how something so mundane becomes exciting.

I didn't disctract myself for too long in this box, but it was a little like Christmas already. However, most of the time I thought to myself "why on earth did we think it was important to bring this?"

This is something that commonly occurs when you've lived without the 'normal' home-comforts for a while. You become used to living a minimalist life, so when suddenly all sorts of extra items arrive, however familar and missed they are, you feel overwhelmed with possessions. 

Priorities change, but it's all here now and we can't send it back.

Rhiannon is completely over the moon with her re-discovery of much missed toys, so I guess that makes it all worthwhile.

Christmas Eve 2006

In the evening, I joyfully announced to my friends online in the UK that I’d be having Christmas before them and then settled down to wrapping presents. Not as easy a job as expected as Japan does not seem to have wrapping paper of any kind, let alone any of the size we’re used to. And certainly not any Christmas paper. We forgot the Japanese don’t celebrate Christmas.

Rhiannon has received her letter from Santa, complete with reindeer food and a special key so that he can find his way in without a chimney! We have used this fabulous place every year so far, and cannot fault them in any way www.specialletters.com. The wonderful people here (especially Sharon) work so hard to make each year’s letter very special and personal. It’s wonderful to be able to keep the magic alive in this way – I wonder how long Rhiannon will continue to believe?

 So, Christmas Eve is over, food has finally been found for tomorrow, wine is chilling in the fridge, Mum is doing sudokus, Tim is grumpy - all is normal!

Rhiannon has put the special reindeer food out on the doorstep (apparently it glows once she’s asleep, so guiding Rudolph and friends to the correct house) along with a can of beer and a snack for Santa! She’s trotted happily off to bed with her stocking.

Due to her light sleeping habits (grrr!) she has to leave her stocking outside her room, which does make it easier to fill, but has drawbacks if (or more usually, when) she gets up during the night. If the stocking is filled too early, none of us will get any sleep at all. So we have to drop it off in the early hours of the morning, just in case...

18th December 2006 or thereabouts...

Grumpiness...

Oh, I can’t wait for school to start! Rhiannon is becoming stir crazy and driving me up the wall. She doesn’t like walking anywhere (can't say I blame her there, to be honest!); she doesn’t want to do this or that, just stay in playing PC games, watching TV or worse, playing Barbies’! Of course, with Mum here, I am obliged to show her the sights, and, with Tim at work, this means my whinging daughter has to come too. Counting the days to the start of the school term in January...

In emails to friends, my words were “She is being a right royal pain in the ass”, so, even though I cannot remember exactly what she was doing, she was obviously being rather annoying.

I can’t even escape to the PC in the evenings as Tim’s on there all night while I entertain Mum until she finally goes to bed at midnight. Whatever happened to her jetlag?

Still, Mum’s been wonderful – her stamina is as incredible as usual and I end up totally exhausted after traipsing around showing her the few places we've  discovered so far. We went to Tokyo Hands a couple of times, where Mum was in her element with all the craft stuff. I also bought a few more Christmas decorations to show willing: I'm a bit "Bah, Humbug!" about Christmas.

And she kindly bought me a whole load of houseplants so I'm finally beginning to feel that this house is home now. Getting them back was interesting on the Metro and we had to have one large tree delivered. I’m still not entirely sure how I managed to do that with no Japanese language skills at all. But sure enough, it arrived later that day - how wonderful!

At this point I still had no idea what we are going to have for Christmas dinner! None of us fancied the epic trek to Nissin, and the local supermarket doesn’t stock any meat larger than a chicken leg.

Then, a revelation! On one of our exploratory trips around Shibuya, we discovered that the department stores have food halls in their basements! Usually running over 2 floors, with one floor housing a supermarket while the other has all kinds of unusual and tasty looking ready meals.

The supermarket we found was like Harrods Food Hall on steroids. It had the most amazing items on sale and we managed to find, of all things, Marmite!

Meat is still extremely expensive but we did find a nice big chicken, so that’s what we will be having for Christmas Day. It was the only recognisable and affordable thing. Half a kilo of stewing steak was £20... so I'd better make sure I make THE most fabulous stew! Luckily we don't like turkey, anyway.

 

We spent more time gazing at the unusual foods on display than actual shopping. Some of the fish was incredible and the veggies totally mindblowing in their unusualness. And as for the mushrooms... well, they look like the things Mum always said not to eat in her garden because they're poisonous.

 

 

A giant fish-head gazing up at us through its dead eyes made us jump. I guess it was a tuna but the size just blew me away – easily the size of two human adult heads. There was also a slice of fish that cost approximately £500 for something the size of a lamb chop. Again, I have no idea what it was, but the price was seriously impressive.

Also incredible were the number and size of “gift fruit” – melons the size of footballs selling for £100. Apples twice the size of the ones we’re used to in Britain for £10 each and luscious peaches of similar proportions and prices. Each were lovingly wrapped and presented.

We bought the “ordinary” ones.

Sadly we were unable to find a Christmas Pudding, so we will forgo that tradition this year, and instead buy a typically Japanese Christmas Cake instead. A beautiful (yet very un-Christmassy) confection of cream, sponge and strawberries.

 

We've also got blue crisps (!) and something completely unknown as an experiment. I don't know whether it's sweet or savoury so that should be fun. They are little pink cakey looking items, tastefully decorated.

I feel slightly more relaxed now that I know what we are going to eat for our first Christmas dinner in Japan.

 

An International Supermarket!

It's amazing how something so mundane can become exciting and adventurous!

Some friends took us to an international supermarket called Nissin where we are assured we will be able to get all kinds of necessary groceries. Hooray!!

However, this involved numerous and complex changes on the Metro and a lot of walking. Not very practical.

The first floor is a general supermarket, and the top floor is just full to the brim with alcohol: I have never seen so many bottles of booze in one place - not even at the parties I used to attend in my 'youth'!

We managed to buy some recognisable items, including some small joints of meat and cereals, so we are now set for the next week or so. I have to pretend to mum that we eat properly, of course!

But the struggle to carry all the shopping bags home was totally exhausting, so I can't see us doing that very often. We literally walked miles.

Our First Visitor

Mum’s arrived!

I had been dreadfully worried about her as, just before we left the UK, she confessed that her blood pressure was dangerously high, and I can’t help feeling that our move was contributing to this. She’d been hiding the fact as "she didn't want to worry me", even telling my brother not to tell me - some hope, he never calls anyway. 

This is typical of Mum: many years after the event she eventually got around to telling me about her heart attack.  Parents can be such a worry: I thought it was supposed to be the other way around.

We also lost a good family friend last month after a long and painful deterioration. Gordon had been a massive influence to me and, together with my darling dad, introduced me to the marvellous hobbies of conservation, wildlife and bird-watching, and I will remember him fondly. And console myself with the thought of him and Dad happy in "heaven" searching for afterlife wildlife.

But, back to Mum...

She stepped out of the taxi from the airport looking absolutely fabulous and healthy! I’m sure the enforced 12 hours of sitting on a plane with her feet up did wonders for her. She isn't one for taking a rest so I was much relieved. It's only been a few weeks since I last saw her, but it seems like a lifetime ago.

Our house appears to be very difficult to find, even with state-of-the art GPS systems. I'd posted her a photo of the front aspect so she could show the driver, but we haven't found a map yet. However, it worked, after a few missed turnings, and the driver was very pleased with himself, grinning broadly and giving us the thumbs up.

After a reviving cup of coffee we set off to counteract her jetlag and show her the neighbouring Shinjuku Gyoen Garden. The perfect antidote for a tired and exhausted botanical artist and nature lover like mum!

At only 200yen to enter (less than £1), this is a cheap and beautiful place to spend time, and Rhiannon and I have spent a lot of time here since arriving. The Autumn colours are particularly spectacular in the brilliant blue sky and clear sunshine. Ginko trees are still bright yellow, and the acers are an almost unbelievable shade of red. Rhiannon has fun running through the fallen leaves, like generations of children before her. We did laugh though, when she jumped into a particularly thick and crunch-looking pile... and disappeared up to her waist!http://www.env.go.jp/garden/shinjukugyoen/english/index.html

It was hard to get Mum away from the garden and, being so close to home, she is already planning a sketching visit later during her stay.

 

Shake, Rattle and Roll

Something strange happened this evening. Rhiannon was in bed and Tim and I were pottering around when suddenly there was a loud “whump” which rattled the large, French windows in our dining room.

To me, this sounded a lot like the wind I heard as a child growing up on the edge of Dartmoor, so I took little notice of it, apart from wondering what the weather was doing.

Minutes later, another “whump” sounded and the ground shook, and carried on shaking for, ooh, all of a few seconds. But it felt a lot longer than that. Our first earthquakes! Luckily, it didn’t wake Rhiannon up.

Although fully aware of the high seismic activity in Japan I had taken the ostrich approach and had neglected to find out what we were supposed to do when “the Big One” hit.  So, somewhat nervously I started googling.

I found a website http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Maps/region/Asia.php which gives details of the strength of the tremor and discovered this one measured a mere 4.6 on the Richter Scale – a minor earthquake. Minor in geological terms, maybe, but pretty major for me! I am not looking forward to experiencing anything larger than that. I was shaking long after the ground had stopped.

Sometimes it is really not a good idea to google.

I had a very sleepless night and resolved to buy myself some pyjamas.

Christmas Concert

Once again, we braved the trip to school. This involves a 15 minute walk to our nearest Metro station, two stops in the wrong direction, then change lines to head in the right direction.

The change of lines involves walking nearly a kilometre.

Neither Rhiannon, nor I, enjoy this one little bit. We are both inherently lazy.

Once at Shibuya, I consult Tim's wonderful map and we make  our way to the correct exit. Another 15 minutes walk and we are finally at the school. All this with a complaining 5 year old.

And then all the way back again in the afternoon. There must be an easier way?!

Anyway, we are directed to the concert hall where we are regaled with the most fabulous school concert I have ever seen! It's a real theatre, with a stage and proper seating. Although it was so packed that we ended up moving seats several times before ending up sitting on the steps in the aisle. Not good for my poor back.

First up are the young Taiko drummers, a crescendo of sound that sends the hairs on the back of my neck into overdrive. Next are the Reception classes, all dressed up in shiny, colourful costumes and fully confident of their part in the little skit they are performing.

As I’m sat there, with tears in my eyes (and they aren’t even MY children!) proudly imagining my daughter up on stage next year, Rhiannon looks completely horrified and loudly states “I am NEVER going up there!”

The rest of the concert was equally impressive and I was left with a feeling of relief that my daughter would be attending such a progressive and interesting school.

Apart from the nightmare school-run, that is.

17 Days into our New Life

10^th December 2006 and a few days after that...

 We've had to borrow someone's laptop as all our urgent stuff still hasn't arrived. Hopefully it shouldn't be much longer before I get my proper PC up and running and I can get back in touch with my online world of work. And of course, all the Winter clothes and Christmas presents, so carefully bought and concealed, are still not here.

We've now been in Tokyo for 17days and it already feels just like home in some ways. We've been out and about every day, just wandering around to get our bearings, so now we feel that we've got some kind of idea where we are in relation to everwhere. Travel is easy by Metro, but finding a particular address or store is nigh on impossible. Luckily people are very kind and helpful, and will approach a lost looking gaijin to assist. One young man even walked with us to the shop we were looking for, It is very easy to get lost, with streets wandering off in all directions.

Raymi is moping around constantly looking for his brother. It tugs on the heartstrings to see him looking so forlorn. And quite strange as they never really seemed to be that close. Raymi doesn't miaow, he just squeaks occassionally, but he's developed an endearing "chirrup" whenever he sees me, as if to say "Hello, you're still here. That's good. But where's Inti?"

  

It has suddenly struck me that it’s nearly Christmas! Help!!

Mum will be arriving from the UK soon and there are still boxes piled up all around. I have no presents. I have no idea what we will have for Christmas dinner. In fact, I have very little idea on anything very much.

What a bit of luck that Rhiannon has a couple of inset mornings at school planned. We’ve tried the public transport school run several times but it takes so long, the prospect seems pretty daunting. However, we bravely set out and, thanks to Tim’s comprehensive map of Shibuya station, we make it to school pretty much on time. She’s only there for the morning as her class is practising for the Xmas concert.

It hardly seems worth me trekking all the way back home again, so I take myself off for a little exploring session.

I found the most useful store for souvenirs – Oriental Bazaar – and stocked up an a ridiculous number of items for presents, just in case our luggage doesn't arrive in time.

When I picked Rhiannon up at lunchtime, she happily presented me with a box of freshly made peppermint creams packaged in a little box she’d made and decorated herself. All this in one morning at her new school. That’s more than she achieved in an entire term at the school in England!

Tomorrow, we are invited to the school’s Christmas Concert to be held in a “real” theatre”!

Back home, I make progress on the unpacking and life is shaping up nicely. Only another twenty boxes to go!!

 

Apologies for the Delay

Sorry for not updating this - we've just come to the end of the nine-week summer holidays. That's right - NINE weeks!

"Normal" service will be resumed in a few days.

Meanwhile, I've added a little bit of info About My Life Before Japan.

How a Child Copes with Becoming an Expat

It’s all a big change for a small child - moving to a completely different country - yet Rhiannon is coping brilliantly on the whole.

Apart from a few moments when she becomes overwhelmed missing her friends in the UK, she has settled into her new life remarkably well. She has had a lot of time off school though. She left her first school in the UK early in November and a place won't be available here until January, so this means we are spending a lot of time together. Maybe this is helping her get used to the whole new life ahead of her.

However, I am very much looking forward to being able to visit the shops on my own when she has her two acclimatisation days at school... I need some 'me time'!

Overall, Rhiannon has taken to city life like a duck to water; she hops on and off the Metro like a seasoned commuter and isn’t fazed by the crowds and noise at all, which is quite surprising as she hated loud noises in the UK.

One difficulty we’ve encountered is the incredibly dry air in Tokyo at this time of year, which is compounded by our hot air heating system. Two problems this has caused are flyaway hair (Rhiannon) and a huge static build-up (me).

Rhiannon’s long, fine hair is completely unmanageable and the cat won’t come near me due to the sharp shock he receives through his nose on contact. A friend kindly suggested I fit an earthing strip to either myself or the cat!

As this wasn’t entirely practical, and Rhiannon won’t allow her hair to be cut, we bought some humidifiers which helped not a jot. I guess we’ll get used to it.

Unfortunately, the dryness also proved too much for Rhiannon’s delicate nasal membranes and the poor girl succumbed to frequent severe nosebleeds which upset her considerably. Her nosebleeds occur almost every night around 3am. Mercifully, we eventually found a remedy; she rubs Vaseline in her nostrils each night and this has solved the problem.

Another predicament is Rhiannon’s fear of the ‘shower toilets’ found in most stores. She was startled by her first experience in one when an automatic ‘running water’ sound turned on automatically, and is absolutely terrified by the wires and buttons attached to the seat. Logic will not prevail in this case. She is just about OK with the heated seats, but would much rather use the Japanese style facilities.

Something to keep working on!

 

Life goes on

To keep ourselves occupied, Rhiannon and I visit the school she’ll be attending from January. This involves a walk to the Metro, two trains and then the impossible task of trying to find the right exit at Shibuya Station, probably the most complicated station on the planet.

There are several floors, not escalators or lifts and numerous exits. Not one of them is marked in English and they all lead to radically different parts of this hectic and complicated area.

Once outside, you are greeted by an incredible number of people crossing a massive interchange striped with many pedestrian crossings at angles to the road.

This YouTube video gives you an idea of what it’s like http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ThaPhSf67Ds

It took us twenty five minutes to get from home to Shibuya and a further hour and a half to find the school! We spent a very long time being lost. Needless to say, neither of us took in much information about the school, but Rhiannon does have the opportunity to join her class for a couple of mornings later this week. We are also invited to the school’s Christmas Show.

The following day we tried again, using a different station. This time it only took us an hour to find the school. Oh dear.

The thought of this school run twice a day is daunting and depressing. So Tim went out one evening and drew us a beautifully precise map of how to get out and where to go.

It would become my lifeline for some weeks until I got to grips with the route.

 

Tragedy

Sunday 3^rd December 2006

We returned home this evening, after a day out, to be met by the awful sight of my cat, Inti, dragging himself pitifully across the floor while Raymi fussed around him looking anxious.

Rhiannon was in hysterics and I wasn’t far off. We had no idea what had happened, but his back legs were completely paralysed and a strange smell emanated from him. Tim’s precious wooden carving from the South Pacific was in two pieces on the floor having originally been placed on the top of the bookshelf. So, our first thought was that Inti had been injured by the falling statue or some other mishap.

Not being useful in any traumatic situation, I immediately panicked and telephoned the first person I could think of, our liaison helper. But she was unable to find out where a vet would be at this time of night, on a Sunday.

Then I had a brainwave and sent Tim to our neighbours, who speak both English and Japanese, for help. They were fantastic; found a vet and offered to drive me and the cat over there immediately. By this time it was about 9pm.

We had trouble finding the vet, then trouble parking. But we made it in the end. A lot of paperwork had to be completed, in Japanese – there is no way I could have done this on my own, and I will be forever grateful to our neighbours. Finally, Inti was taken into be examined and I was asked to pay several thousand yen up front. We were told to go home and come back later after they had done numerous tests – it really didn’t sound very hopeful.

At 11pm our neighbours received a call for us to go back.

It was very bad news indeed. Inti had a grossly enlarged heart – cardiomyopathy – probably from birth and there was not enough room in the ventricles to make it work properly. He should never have been cleared to fly over here. (The vet was really quite judgmental of me and made me feel worse than I already did, but my vet in the UK had said absolutely nothing to me about this, so how could I have known?)

The paralysis was caused by a massive blood clot in the artery leading to his back legs and the odd smell was his body shutting down. Inti was in an incubator with drips and so on in order to assist him and I was invited in to see him. Heartbreakingly, he purred and licked my hand as he normally does. I kept the British stiff-upper-lip as my neighbours were watching, but I think the vet thought I was heartless.

I asked for a prognosis. If he survived the night, Inti would never walk again, and must be kept quiet and indoors for the rest of his life, which would probably span only another six months at best. He would require daily injections and medication. This is no life for a two-year old cat, especially one who loved life and was particularly playful and spirited.

So I did what I believe many people would do – I requested that he be put to sleep.

I certainly did not expect the reaction I got from the Japanese vet. It was as if I was asking her to kill my child! “We do not euthanase”, she snapped, “We are doctors who make our animal children better”.

There was no point in arguing; to do so would have put my neighbours in a very awkward position and I was too stressed to think straight at this stage. So we went home.

The next day, I took a taxi to the vet to see how Inti was doing. I had to take Rhiannon too, which made the whole situation harder than it already was. He was alive, but incredibly ill. Once again he greeted me with purrs and licks. This was tortuous: he had no life ahead of him and the kindest thing to do would be to “euthanase” him, but this was hard to get across to the vet without Rhiannon hearing the conversation. Once again the vet refused.

Such a painful day: Rhiannon asked constant questions requiring in-depth medical information as well as asking distressing things like “would Inti die and be with Grandad”. I told her yes, Inti will die as his heart wasn’t well, but I didn’t know when.

Another 24 hours passed, Inti was not recovering and the vets refused to put him out of his misery.

In the end I had to get the “fixer” at Tim’s work to call them and make it happen. But even this didn’t go according to plan, as I had to visit once again to “say goodbye” and to sign some papers. And the deed was finally done the following day.

The vets asked if I “wanted a bone”. This puzzled and upset me, but apparently is common practise here. After the body is cremated (humans too) a vertebra is kept as a memento.

I refused.

And cried a lot.

Tokyu Hands

1^st December 2006

We discovered the most amazing shop today called Tokyu Hands. 

It sells everything you could ever want and a lot of things you couldn’t imagine owning, ever. From acupuncture needles to aquariums, piano wire to paper, kitchenware to kitten toys, chopsticks to chemistry equipment, it’s all here. I foresee many happy hours spent in this shop.

It also sold some Christmas trees and decorations, hurray!

So, we now have a Christmas tree (fake), but upon returning home I remembered that one of the few things I hadn’t shipped over from the UK was… Christmas decorations. Oops! The reason I hadn’t sent them was that I was bored with them and thought, incorrectly as it turned out, that I would be able to get much nicer ones here. So we will be having a minimalist Christmas this year, which pleases me after the chaos of the unpacking yesterday after the lovely empty space of the previous weeks.

We also bought a load of picture hangers so Tim was able to put up our many pictures and make the house seem more like a home. It’s amazing the difference that one job made.

The walls appear to be made of cardboard and large pictures have to be hung from wires suspended from a rail around the top of the walls. I suspect this has something to do with earthquakes, a subject I am trying hard to ignore for now. Smaller pictures go up with just a pushpin holding them.

Being British, I feel I have to mention the weather. The only grey day was the one on which we arrived, and since then the weather has been glorious. Brilliant blue sky, sunny, crisp and cold, each and every day. The trees are turning, showing brilliant reds, oranges and yellow. Ginko trees are dropping their bright yellow leaves like snow and there are many pretty little birds bouncing and chirping in the hedges outside. I need to get a bird book, but I believe they are White Eyes and a Japanese version of a Great Tit, although this one is pinker than the British yellow version.

Luggage at Last!

30th November 2006

Finally! Our non-urgent luggage has arrived! Ah well, better than nothing, I suppose.

Somehow a large lorry reversed up the very narrow lane to our house and a large gang of men unloaded the boxes. They were all prepared to unpack it all for us too, but I wanted to do it myself.

It was like having an early Christmas, discovering things we hadn’t seen for so long. English tea! Green and Black’s chocolate!! How clever I was to remember to pack those.

Soon, the house was a complete tip. We set about filling shelves and cabinets and wondering, once again, why had we packed all these random items? Why on earth had I bought a box of old pens? Why hadn’t we left more of Rhiannon’s toys behind? She hadn’t missed them and we could have taken the opportunity to pass them on.

I wonder when our "urgent" luggage will get here? Christmas presents, my PC, our winter clothes and so on?

Eventually we found a home for everything and a very kind person gave us their old TV. So, for the first time, we were able to connect our video and DVD system and sit down with a nice cup of tea and watch a film or two.

The house seems much smaller now with all our things around.

Last Week of November – roughly!

Tim has gone away on business and our luggage still hasn’t arrived! We know that it reached Japan on 31^st October, so it’s just being held up in customs.

What is slightly worrying is that I am beginning to like not having loads of stuff around and, although I do miss my books, I could easily live in this minimalist way. For those of you who actually know me, you will find this extremely hard to believe. Rest assured, I am back to my normal, cluttered self!

Rhiannon has been playing computer games (educational, of course!) and hasn’t missed TV at all. But she is anxious about her toys, "I hope nobody plays with my toys before they get delivered to me", she frets.

She hasn’t got a place in school until the new term starts in January so we are able to spend some time together exploring and so on. It’s hard to know where to go when we don’t actually have anyone who can show us. Tim is busy settling into work and we don’t know any other families with children.

Rhiannon’s school in the UK kindly gave us some workbooks so my intention was to do some home tuition in the meantime. So we have been playing “schools”, but she doesn’t understand quite grasp the intention and wants to be the teacher while I play the child.

Instead, we spend a lot of time searching for food. Me = hunter-gatherer!

The supermarket is within walking distance, but not quite close enough to make it easy to carry enough shopping for more than a couple of days. But Rhiannon and I do enjoy looking at the wares even if we have no idea what they are or how to eat them.  I'm sure I've seen krill in packets and some small white worms, with eyes! These are the same things we have found in the cat food… Oddly, none of the cat food contains meat – just fish. I was under the impression that cats HAD to have meat. Anyway, Inti and Raymi aren’t too impressed, but they’ll eat when they are hungry enough.

We have also found "Asparagus Biscuits", hmmm, and various green items that appear to be green tea flavoured. Not very appetising.

No 'real' meat (that's affordable) and many things that look like bits of an animal us Westerners just don't recognise anymore. And as for the mushrooms! My word, I never knew there were so many edible types. I am sure some of them are the things my mother said never to touch!

All the food we like is expensive; for example, a loaf of sliced bread (the only type available) costs about £3 for 8 slices! So I have ordered a breadmaker from the States. I couldn't bring any electronic goods with me as the voltage here is just 100V so nothing would work without a transformer. Also saw a slice of fish, about the size of a small beef steak. It was the equivalent of £75! Wow!!

I've even taken to haunting expat food websites and for a while I was actually believing it might be nice to spend £60 to have some teabags sent to me!

Even though there are lots of Christmas lights up and trees twinkling with fairy lights everywhere, Christmas isn't celebrated here and the day itself is a normal working day. Piped Christmas Carols entertain us in the stores but they are 'poppy' rather than choral.

One of our frequent expeditions is to find Christmas decorations and general bits and pieces. I was terribly organised and sent my cards before we left the UK and also bought Rhiannon's gifts - which haven't arrived yet... But we need a tree and some extra decorations.

We've also been doing a lot of walking. I cannot believe just how many stairs there are in the Metro stations and some of the distances to walk between changes are incredible. The Japanese must be very fit. I am just exhausted.

A lot of this is to do with getting very lost most of the time, but we always get home eventually.

 

Our Cats Have Arrived!

24th November 2006

Inti and Raymi, our gorgeous two-year-old tabby boys were delivered straight to the door from the airport. What a horrible trip for them, poor things! At least we knew what to expect and why. Raymi is fine, if a little exhausted, but Inti is very twitchy, nervous and just not himself. We feed them treats and make a huge fuss of them and they soon settle down enough to explore their new home.

The top of the empty bookshelves is considered to be the safest place to be for now, so there they perch while Rhiannon practises her skipping - in the house! The cats are eminently sensible.

Then some of our luggage arrived!!

Tim started work today, leaving me to do all the unpacking - quite a good move on his part, I thought.

My meticulous packing plan involved shipping our unimportant goods, such as summer clothes and general knick-knacks (aka 'stuff'), two months before our departure from the UK, with the intention of them arriving a couple of weeks after our arrival in Japan.

Our urgent possessions were flown over so that they would arrive first.

You can guess what actually happened, can’t you?

Summer clothes arrived first and our urgent goods were to be delayed in customs for over a week. We survive by borrowing bedding, crockery and, my greatest necessity, a laptop, from friends. As my mother was due to arrive before Christmas, I threw a good deal of the 'stuff' randomly into cupboards intending to sort it out in the New Year. I look at it and think "why on earth did I bring that?!"

I still haven’t found time to do this and I fear I'm now stuck with my lack of organisation.

 

Time to explore our environs again!

What a wonderful discovery! A National Garden is right on our doorstep: Shinjuku Gyoen Garden is a large, beautiful, green space with plenty of space for a super-active child to run off some energy chasing fallen leaves. And for a rather stressed and jet-lagged Mum to find some tranquility and fresh air. I think I will be spending a lot of time here.

The Japanese touches are perfect; huge stone lanterns, a magnificent tea-house and massive carp in the many lakes. There was even an enormous greenhouse that we shall investigate another day. At least my mother will have somewhere green to go - she's not a fan of cities, preferring to explore wilder regions hunting for unusual plants to paint.

A Japanese gentleman insisted on taking our photos and, once again, Rhiannon was treated to lots of "kawaii" comments. She really must get used to it!

Jet lag is really kicking in now. I've never really experienced it before as whenever I've been due to have it I've been on an adreneline 'high' due either to work or excitement on holidays. The way it's affecting me this time is a general 'spaced-out' feeling, and waking at 3am absolutely starving yet too tired to get up and eat. Unfortunately, it does not seem to affect Rhiannon at all and she awakes as normal in her 6am-full-speed-ahead mode. Not fun for Mum.

 

Our First (Very) Full Day

The following day was a Public Holiday so some friends could take us sightseeing. They showed us how to use the Metro and we quickly got the hang of getting around, but the stations themselves are challenging. Finding the right exit was initially done by trial and error - usually error - but luckily we discovered the many maps with "you are here" written in English. Also gratifying was the way that many people took pity on these poor gaijin looking lost and many times we were approached with offers of help.

Having lived in London for many years, I am used to the crowds and navigating underground railways, but Tim and Rhiannon were wide-eyed at it all. We find the Metro incredibly cheap, immaculately clean and exceptionally efficient. The large pot plants that adorn the stations amaze and cheer us, and our most used phrase about nearly all aspects of Tokyo is, "can you imagine this in the UK?!" The plants would be stolen and / or vandalised within minutes.

Despite spending her entire life deep in the suburbs of an East Midlands town, Rhiannon seems to be a natural city-girl and experienced no qualms about the crowds or the Metro, which was advantageous because our first excursion was to Shibuya; what a baptism of fire! The busiest place in Tokyo on a normal day: on a Public Holiday it was incredible. Hachiko crossing was a sea of people ambling across at less than normal walking speed.

As a blue-eyed blondie, Rhiannon gets masses of attention when we are out and about. We hear "kawaii!" (cute!) a lot and someone even told her she looked like "a doll"! She was not amused. Initially, she became cross and embarrassed about it all but soon started to enjoy the interest with a shy smile.

Our next excursion was to Asakusa, which gave us a taste of a slightly more traditional Japan, with its rows of wooden stalls leading to the Sensoji Temple. Again it was incredibly busy so we didn't stay long - just enough time to get a taste for the area and to see the famous Philippe Starck Asahi Brewery building with its golden 'flame', or 'golden poo', as it was soon christened... The building to the left represents a glass of golden beer with a foaming head.

On the way home we made our first foray to our local supermarket. We have been blessed with a nearby Marusho and didn't discover the expat essentials of Costco and Nissin for several weeks. Rhiannon expressed a desire for fish-fingers and baked beans, bless her! The look on her face was an absolute picture when she saw the extensive fish displays in Marusho. Fish fingers were quickly forgotten and she decided she wanted an octopus and some of the "pretty jewels" (glistening red salmon eggs). I had to refuse as I have no idea how to deal with an octopus and we finally settled on chicken and vegetables for the time being.

I decided to buy something unfamiliar on each shopping trip, but this hasn't been successful. The baps I bought were filled with azuki - red bean paste, which was a surprise, and not a taste we are accustomed to. Rhiannon chose something she thought were packets of sherbet that turned out to be furikake, a mix of seaweed and seeds. Surprisingly, she didn't like it - such English tastes will soon change, I'm sure.

Arriving in Tokyo

22nd NOVEMBER 2006

Three exhausted and jet-lagged individuals arrived in Tokyo on a grey Wednesday at the end of November 2006.

Nobody had slept during the twelve hour flight from London to Tokyo. Our incredibly excited and talkative daughter kept us (and everyone else on the flight) awake with her incessant chattering about our impending new life. However, her five-year-old logic didn’t quite understand the concept of the distance from England, because she kept asking, “can my friends come for a sleepover tomorrow?”

Our first view of Japan was through the windows of the plane – Mount Fuji emerged above the clouds looking every bit as magnificent as expected.

Moving through the airport was a joy compared with the maze of incompetence that is Heathrow and we soon reached ‘the outside’ where we were collected by car for the final leg of our trip to our new home in Tokyo. Gazing out the window on the way from Narita to Tokyo, I was in a kind of sleep-deprived limbo so recall little of the journey. However, I do remember expecting to see glamorous skyscrapers, similar to Hong Kong’s spectacular architecture, and being slightly disappointed at the expanse of bland, grey concrete greeting me out of a layer of smog. But I remained open minded and was pleasantly rewarded. Most obvious was the exceptional cleanliness of Japan, with teams of cleaners on every street corner sweeping up the falling autumn leaves. Tokyo was greener than I was led to believe, with tree-lined streets and a profusion of potted plants outside most homes and businesses.

Even the driver’s state-of-the-art GPS had problems finding our new house – I never expected there to be such narrow side roads in the city! By the time we stepped inside, Tim and I were almost comatose with tiredness but still Rhiannon didn’t take a breather! She zoomed at top speed through the house, immediately laid claim to her new bedroom and proceeded to plan exactly how it should look. Amazingly she chose the smallest room, which was fine with us. With wonderful forethought, a colleague had left some life-savers at the house: tea, milk, food and a large pack of colouring paraphernalia which finally kept Rhiannon happily and quietly occupied while we sorted ourselves out by drinking tea and getting our bags unpacked.

Somewhat restored in mind, spirit and body, we explored our immediate neighbourhood with its one-car-width streets, little shrines and interesting private homes. Since it was nearly December, we were pleasantly surprised to see camellias and daffodils blooming and a nearby house with grapefruits growing in the garden.

Finally, we all collapsed into bed early in the evening and managed a full and refreshing sleep before I was rudely awoken at dawn by spine-chilling screams and guttural shrieks. With relief, I soon realised this was the Japanese birds’ dawn-chorus; far more discordant than the melodious British songbirds.

Our new life was about to begin!