Cherry Blossom Adventures

Tommorrow I morning I am off to Okinawa!!!! So excited because I have never been before and it will be such a nice relaxing weekend (I hope). It will also be Shumpei and my first trip away together in Japan (he visited me in Australia last year and we went to Sydney and to the North Coast but this is different) So I am getting our stuff ready to go. Togs, CHECK, Towel, CHECK, Sarong CHECK, Camera CHECK, All the drugs the doctor gave me yesterday CHECK!

Recently a lot of the blogs I have being reading have being so inspiring. People are really doing stuff with their lives and are acheiving their goals whether it is moving on with their life after a bad relationship, losing weight or even starting to study again or more overseas. I am getting quite addicted to blogging, reading and writing, and I probably spend way to much time stalking everyone!!

But it has inspired me to list three things I want to acheive and I will be starting next week after Okinawa (Oh I will be absent from blogging world for a couple of days…hope you don’t miss me too much)

1. Save money- I know it sounds kind of like something that should automatically be happening but it isn’t. I am living pay to pay and it is NOT good. Especially if i want to continue travelling (even if i base myself here in Tokyo) I don’t want to continue to have to call my mum and say “hey can you send me some money please” because I chose to move away and live here and I really should be managing by myself. I need to set a budget and stick to it (as best I can!) even if it means staying home for one weekend a month.

2. Actually do Japanese study and pass my next proficiency test- I started doing a lot of study at the beggining of summer but got over it very quickly. Even though I live with Shun, and we speak in Japanese 95% of the time I do not feel like my Japanese is getting any better and I am no where near being fluent. Plus I have my next test in December and have 1000 kanji to learn and well, that is not going so well. I need to actually make time each night to do at least half an hour (but more like an hour and a half!) and work on improving my Japanese because at this moment it all seems to crap.

3. Lose 8-10 kilos- This is going to be the hardest I think (Although sticking to a budget and saving money has never really worked for me before either!). I always put on weight when I am in Japan and i blame it on the bread and booze (bread because I have to eat bread for breakfast yet the bread here is sugary and full of fat and not good for you at all…and while you can buy brown bread it is much the same) and booze, well because living here is such a social thing and you can not get drinks with diet soda (I don’t think?). The first time I was in Japan I put on 12 kilos in 12 months, and then I lost 8 kilos within 8 weeks of been back in Australia. I didn’t do anything it just kind of fell off. Now this time I am back in Japan and I weight 63 kilos when I left in January and now i weigh 73 (I swear i weight 74 the other day though???) That is a lot of weight to put on in such a short time. I want to say though I don’t really look fat (nor do I think I am overly fat) but my body shape has changed and I am unhappy with that and the way that my clothes fit (basically they don’t) and living here surrounded by skinny people is kind of depressing.

But now it is time for it to come off, the extra kilos at least. I have started excersising (well walking/jogging in the park!) but I need to work out more of a routine (because I can’t join a gym…see point 1) I have lost weight counting WW points before but I don’t have the book with me and a lot of weight watchers foods that help you stick to points are not available here in Japan (because frankly most Japanese people should put on weight not concentrate on losing it). So I will have to figure out a way of counting points or calories here. (ANY HELP MUCH APPRECIATED!!!Please give lots of advice!). The goal is to lose the weight by end of January. My mother has struggled with her weight most of her life (although now she looks great. She is chipping away at it and looked fantastic when I last saw her!) and she has always worried that I will end up like her. I am lucky in the sence that i got my fathers height (I am 5″7 and a bit) while mum is 5″3 so when I do put on weight it doesn’t show so much but I want to get into healthy habits now, especially some kind of excersise routine because I do not do nearly enough.

Shumpei has also put on weight since we started living together (granted he also gave up smoking) and he will eat the food I cook so hopefully he will lose a little too (not too much I hope, he already ways a little bit less than me!).

So yes they are my three goals. I figure writing them down will help keep me on track. I will try and blog occasionly about how they are all going but please give advice (or send money to help my savings!!!) because i really would appreciate it!

Well I better finish packing for Okinawa!!!

PS; Thanks to Michiyo at flickr because I stole her photo from Okinawa. Go check her photos out though because they are really cool, much better than mine and show a great side of Japan.

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I took the below from some kind of law thing in English. I can not beleive the guy that killed those two children will probably only get 5 years in jail…

Shouldn’t it be manslaughter?

Professional Negligence: Under Japanese law, every licensed motor vehicle operator is a

professional driver. Therefore, drivers must exercise an extremely high degree of care. Drivers

must, in effect prove that there was no way they could have avoided the accident or injury. If you

are found guilty of professional negligence, the maximum punishment is five years in prison or a

fine of not more than ¥500,000.

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Thought since I will not be able to post this weekend that I should aim to actually do posts two days in a row. Problem is I have nothing intresting to write. I am exhausted. But I impressed myself. I got home at 9:45 (about 15 minutes after Shumpei…I hardly ever get home after Shumpei) and had dinner ready by 10:15. We had tandoori beef and flavoured couscous. It was actually ok, if i can say so myself. ( Can you say food you cooked was actually ok? or delicious even?)

I almost got run over by a yakiimo truck on the way from the station to the apartment…I don’t know how since you can usually hear the music/noise from ages away….YAKIIIMOUUU YAKIIIMOUUU YAKIIMOUUU. For those not in the know, the yakiimo truck sells BBQ sweet potato. Yep, and that is all it sells. It is like the Aussie icecream truck, but smells funny and makes a hell of a lot of noise.

I just asked Shumpei if people actually buy it* and he said “mochiron, sugu taberareru jyan” (oh course, you can eat it quickly!) I am not sure exactley what I should take from that… * I have actually eaten it before but not from the unhygenic truck. I ate it from a unhygenic festival food stall instead. Wasn’t bad but not worth having a truck selling it at 10pm at night.

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Cat and James’ Birthday bash went really well on Saturday night. The 58th floor of Sunshine Building in Ikebukuro is amazing and the food and drinks as well as the view were fab!

Happy birthday for Cat last week and for James this weekend (and to my dad who is also this weekend and my brother who was last week…Paul you should get my present by the end of the week!)

To see a collection of photos from the night see here but for now a couple of my favourites

Other random stuff (cos I am lazy and won’t do seperate posts)

On my walk through the park last night…I counted 39 couples (I don’t think I counted any twice) the oldest would of been in their early 60’s and the youngest would of been about 14 or 15. I can’t go for a walk tonight because it is raining here in Tokyo but if the weather is OK i will go again tomorrow!!

I also want to say that there were two nursery school kids that were killed yesterday in Saitama prefecture after a guy not paying any attention ran into the 33 children and 5 teachers walking along the side of the road on their way to the park. Often kindergartens and schools don’t have outside play areas in their schools so it is normal to see kindergarten aged children walking along the side of the road often holding onto this special rope with space for their hands. A lot of times there are sidewalks or protective railings but often there is not. Yesterday there wasn’t either. I know when I worked in International kindergartens here going to the park was a daily ritual. The driver admitted to not paying attention and was arrested for professional negligence but I am not sure what sort of penalty this involves.

I feel so sorry for the families who lost their young children(aged 4 and 3) and also for the other children who were there because it would of been such a horrific thing to see. At last news report two other children were still in critical condition. I hope that now only will drivers start paying more attention but also that schools will also think twice before taking their students along the road especially when there is not guard rails or footpaths available.

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Inokashira Park is less than a five minute walk from my apartment. Anybody that has lived in West Tokyo would probably have heard of it especially since during hanami (cherry blossom viewing) season it is one of the best spots in Tokyo to have a beer and see the sakura. The above photo was taken during sakura season earlier this year but it was a gloomy day and I am a crap photographer so in real life the park is 100 times better!

When i go for my walk/jog (I can say “my walk/jog” now since it has actually happened more than once this week!) I head down the street to the park. The first time I went Shumpei came with me to suss out whether it would be safe enough to go there by myself after 9pm (first night it was about 11pm). We came to the conclusion that because there is a police box on the edge of the park and if I have my phone that the chances of something bad happening are pretty slim (I told him that before we went….the park is still packed that time of night anyway). It is perfect for a walk/jog because there are paths going around the park, and the paths are wide enough for more than once person. There is a shrine in there, you have the lake, music coming from the cafe, bridges ( I love mini bridges) plus all the intresting people to see!

Some of the things in the park on a Friday night between 9pm and 10pm

-dog walkers

-joggers/walkers (like me!)

-couples, couples and more couples. Even girls wearing high heeled shoes and carrying gucci bags were walking through the park. Older couples going home. Couples making out.

- Friends sitting and catching up on their weeks.

- some uni students spray painting “staff” amoung other things and drying them on

- a couple of muscians practising together

- Kichijojis homeless

- Nomikais (drinking parties)

- People playing on the playground equipment like swings and slides.

It is a popular place for couples…even on Wednesday & Thursday nights there were couples everywhere making out, studying together, sitting and talking, drinking wine. Last night there were even more. I do hope they were not on their first date (It is bad luck to go to inokashira park on a first date…there is some kind of legend…I have heard different versions but it is especially bad if you go on a weekend and ride in one of the row boats or swans)

After last night as I was doing my rounds I came up with a brilliant idea. My friends & I haven’t had a drinking party/picnic in the park for a couple of months (the last one was in yoyogi too!) so three weeks from today on the saturday afternoon/night I will be hosting a party in Inokashira park and it will be great weather, too soon to need a coat but cool enough so that the ice keeping your drinks cold doesn’t melt quickly. Anybody welcome!!

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D’Jen has inspired me to do something about my hair since I hate it at the moment and she took the plunge and cut hers again and it looks bloody fantastic. And Enny has given me a way to find out what I should do. I am asking you fellow bloggers! I am copying!

I have put six photos from the last couple of years that show my hair in different styles/stages/colours/countries in a folder on flickr here and I want to know which was good or what I should do with my hair. Suggestions welcome. I got it cut in Australia recently and didn’t like it. For more recent shots see here or look at my other flickr shots.

They are crap photos but I don’t really have many photos that show my hair as such…so the photos in there are VERY random.

Let me know what you all think!! Please! I want to cut it or do something before BB’s wedding in a couple of weeks.

Vote & give lots of advice!

ps: thanks to Jen’s helpful advice I put notes on the photos so everyone will know which one is me! Although I am not shy about showing my face on my blog so most people already know!!

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Even though I went to work today I have nothing exciting to write or photos to show since I wasn’t even there a full day. But yesterday when I had a little bit more energy I went through the archives of some of my favourite blogs and It was interesting to learn more about people and stuff that happened to them before they started their blog and since their blog began so I thought I’d do a bit of backgrounder also!!!

I am very open on my blog because I originally started it after seeing a work friend’s blog and reading Dooce and also because my mum was always requesting photos and emailing me so it seemed like a good idea to cut down on some emails while it was also a bit like adding colour to the existing emails. Since then it has gone a little bit off track from that I suppose but I still enjoy keeping it and recently there are a lot of new readers, why I don’t know but thanks for coming!!! If you don’t fall asleep while reading congratulations!

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My grammar and spelling is always atrocious, I don’t always make much sense but it is fun and I love reading what everyone else is up to on their blogs. My favourites list is growing especially in the Aussie section!! I am fairly open, I use names, I post photos and talk openly about the area I live and while it probably wasn’t the best idea it is too late to turn back now.

So I thought I would share a little bit more about me, things that aren’t written in the profile but is still stuff people might want to know. Email me anytime if you have any questions. I apologise to the people who read that actually know me in RL since well, you will probably know some, if not all, of this stuff anyway. Warning: There will probably be more dot points!!!

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Firstly, I noticed a meme that has appeared on a lot of other blogs. Five weird habits.

1. I can eat raw carrot but not cooked carrot. I will pick it out and put it on the side of the plate unless it is too small for me to see.
2. I must have clean feet. I detest having dirty feet. I could come home from clubbing and not bother to have a shower before climbing into bed but I will wash my face, clean my teeth and at least rinse my feet. Camping does not agree with me because of this. Sand is also a pet peeve.
3. I overuse dot points and exclamation marks even in note making and list making. If you look at all the titles to my posts they end in dot points…Not sure how this happened, and didn’t notice I did if for the first month of blogging or so.
4. I must close the closet/cupboard door before I sleep because when I was younger I used to think an Red Indian lady used to live in there despite having now moved several times and being over older I still must close the cupboard/closet to sleep.
5. I hate the soap in public bathrooms (even nice department stores). It smells like throw-up so while I wash my hands I will not use the soap because it stays on your hands and is disgusting (But I carry disinfectant wet wipes with me in a small packet)

Ok, share your weird habits if you wish! I want to point out weird habits are not bad habits. I have those also! But won’t mention them now.

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I do not know my blood type and this confuses Japanese people and Shumpei is afraid I will be dying and won’t be able to tell the ambo people what my blood type is….I tried to tell him the test for it is fairly instant and I am sure I could wait the minute it takes but he is still concerned. Does anyone that know their own blood type? I will find out eventually I suppose….

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I do not have a best friend as such. I have best friends I suppose but not one in particular. I have had them over the years but I have kind of given up now… I think it is fairly standard to have a primary school BF and a high school BF. I had both and I am still friends with both Mandy & Clare and they are awesome!! I do envy those who have that though…I have to ask though isn’t it putting a lot of faith in one person? I suppose we do that with our BF/GF (and if I am honest I guess Shun is also a best mate) but still……. I think a lot of adults have different best friends. Like a highschool one and an adult one. Or a non-mother and a mother. Or so on. Can you actually say best friends then? I do but is it actually correct or is it a personal thing?

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I am one of those people that smiles and says hello to people at the cash registers or on the street (I don’t mean people walking on the street as such more like people outside their shops or servicing the community in some way). My mum does it as well and I used to hate it when she did it but now I am glad she taught me to as it is nice and polite even if the people you do it to think you are weird. I do a head nod to the bike men everyday near our house (I call them bike men because they man the big bike shed near the station where people can park their bikes) and also to the lady that directs traffic around the road works along my street which I think will be there forever. The lady nods back. The bike men, after six months, still do nothing. I am thinking I will start saying good morning to see what happens….

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I love music. I used to play piano, violin and I used to sing (not very well!). I still love music but I don’t play anymore and while I still listen to a lot of music for some reason I never know the words. This is embarrassing and I should rectify it. Thank god I used to do most of my signing to songs in the car, alone. I love Aussie bands!! Also at a pub or bar I love it when they have live music, no matter what it is. (I am a bar girl more than a club girl). And, I love old music. This has come from my parents who have old records and because growing up they got to choose the radio station which was mainly 4KQ. I love playing records and 50’s, 60’s and 70’s music is still around now which shows you how good it really was!!

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In terms of sport, well I am bad at it. But I used to be a state runner. It all started in preschool when the gun went to signal the start of our 70m race (might have been less) and I ran really fast, lost my hat, ran back got it and still won by like 15 meters. This continued all through primary school (without losing my hat and the margin was not always 15 meters) and for the first couple years of high school….it was some kind of freaky gift that I don’t think was meant to be given to me but it was. It was like a fairy took it away or something though as I am certainly not that little running machine anymore. I remember I loved it but I can not stand it anymore. Due to injury I gave up for good at about age 15 or 16…I played soccer for a bit after that but injuries and lack of motivation and lack of ball skills put an end to that also. I remember my mum telling me before my first race in high school that I had to remember that I had come from a small primary school and even though I used to get only BLUE first ribbons there that it probably wouldn’t be the case at my high school. I think I shocked myself when I won as well as everyone else because I did not look sporty and I had not mentioned to anyone really that I did Little Athletics and was a runner. I was so happy our school ribbons for first were purple though. So much better than the 50 blue ones I had (I know I sound conceited but believe me, running was my only talent and I am not good at it anymore so it doesn’t even really count!!!) I do remember in primary school, during training that the teacher would use me like the rabbit they have in greyhound races to make the boys run faster since if he put me in front of them it made them more determined to run faster and beat me. I don’t remember if it worked but thanks a lot Mr Gilroy because now when I think about it it wasn’t a very nice thing to do to me because they all hated me and would challenge me to races after school. By the time I was 11 and 12 and boys were getting interesting they had already all been turned against me.

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Religion. I went to catholic schools. I was baptised and I consider myself to be catholic, albeit, non-practicing. So really I guess I consider myself to be more Christian. If I have kids (and if they are half Japanese) they will be brought up as Christian Buddhists….with some Shinto thrown in for good measure and if they want to be religious they can be. It will be their choice. We had prayer time as kids (my brother & I) with my dad every night and we said the same two prayers (Now I lay me down to sleep & I see the moon the moon sees me) and then we would sing songs. I was the only 6 year old to know all the words to Imagine by John Lennon, There is a Kind of Hush by Hermans Hermits (I am not sure if they were the original band that did it), One More Frozen Orange Juice by Peter Sarsdedt, Running Bear by Johnny Preston and Oh When the Saints. This was our religion!!

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My first part time job was in a news agency and I thought I would love it but in the end I hated it because my boss was a jerk that gave me nightmares. I have no idea why I was so scared of him but I was 14 and it took me years after I quit being able to step inside the news agency again even though it was the local one. I have also worked part-time for K-Mart, as secretary in a property management rental office, as a semi permanent temp for different government jobs, in a Nepalese restaurant, in a Irish bar/café and as a teacher in an international school and as an English teacher ( have also done concreting for my father a time or two)

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I can be very very moody and temperamental but I am usually very generous and I try to be very honest. So if you know me in real life you know that putting up with me is USUALLY worth it…but not always perhaps. I also talk too much, write too much (since I can can not do either in a succinct fashion) and go off track when doing both…

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For some reason I had a dream about writing a post like this last night. Which is another reason why I wrote it today. Sorry it is long winded and boring but I no longer have a paper journal!!! I will look into installing a skip button on my blog for future long and boring posts…….

** the stars are for paragraphs since typepad keeps deleting the spaces

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Too sick to do a real post and am loving everyone elses dot points recently so here goes.

• Next three weekends very busy. Next week C & J’s birthday party on the 58th floor of Sunshine tower with great view of Tokyo. The following weekend going away with Shumpei to Okinawa. Following weekend is Shumpei’s brothers wedding
• I think it might actually be possible to cough up parts of your own lung.
• Shumpei made me some dinner for sick people last night. Included some chicken nuggets from macdonalds, half a peach, a grated apple (that was a bit like apple sauce) and half a bagle with vegimite. Oh and lemon C.
• Shumpei bought 15 small bottles of lemon C drink and I have drank half of them
• I am afraid that Kat-tun will turn into the next SMAP and be all over the TV and if I am in Japan still in 10 years time they will be all i see.
• I did a quick google search for Enny for online sellers of tofu cushions had no luck BUT i can not beleive how many Japanese people have blogged about them
• I am thinking about getting my drivers license for here. I used to have an international one but it expired and apparently for aussies it is easy to get. I just have to get a translation of my aussie one and don’t have to do a test of anything. ( I am watching fast and the furious and this has inspired my desire to drive)
• It will be my first time to go to Okinawa so am so excited. Does anyone have any hints on what to see, do and where to eat?
• So happy to now have health insurance. It means if i get hit by another car or anything I don’t have to worry because I can go straight to the doctor and it is so cheap!!!
• I love our Nintendo DS. I am a nerd.
• I have being receiving crafty things in my swaps like i requested so i actually need to get inspired and make stuff. Any ideas?
• I used to have a diary but would be so disapointed in myself if i missed a day. Is it the same for blogs?

Ok enough dot points. Apolgise for bad spelling and crap grammar…it is always bad but more so when sick.

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Sorry no posts recently. Got really sick. Still really sick. But at least today I have enough energy to sit in front of the computer for 5 minutes and update you all quickly on what is going on.

What I thought was just Asthma turned out to be a chest, throat & ear infection. Luckily I now have national health insurance! YAY! So when I went to the doctor on Friday I had a chest x-ray, a consultation and was given four types of drugs to take over the next 10 days, all for less than 20 aussie dollars. What a bargain hey?

Temperature has being going up and down, and so far the highest has been 39.7. I was slightly crazy at that time.

Now after sitting here for 5 minutes I am exhasted and need to have another sleep. Might be able to write more later.

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When I lived in Japan originally a couple of years ago I didn’t watch much TV. Mainly because I didn’t understand it & it always seemed to be about food. So i/we rented a lot of videos and American dramas (Watching 15 hours of 24 in a day was a past time of the people that lived in my dorm especially on rainy days!)

Anyone that has lived in Japan will have something to say about Japanese TV. My first impression of it wasn’t good but it is growing on me and that is kind of scary because I never thought it would. In fact there are now shows I feel I have to watch and I am prepared to miss Friday night drinks (not every week though!) to see them. Crazy variety shows are beggining to make sence and I actually sit down and watch shows about food in case I learn something?!

Now we have a TV in our apartment & last night I got home from work a little early so the TV was on from 7pm until about 1am while I was doing other things like blog, email, cook dinner and clean the apartment. That is a lot of crazy TV viewing time to be had in that time.

First was channel 10’s Q-sama. This show has no point really but I guess it is kind of funny (If you had asked me 6 months ago I would never have said it was “funny”) and from what I can tell they have a set of regular people on that do silly stuff like they take them to the top of a 10m diving board blind folded then take off the blind folds and time how long it takes them to jump off. Japanese people tend not to like hights. Other have included bowling competitions with drama actors or making them run around a field with a fast man chasing them? So you can understand my disgust now that I actually watch this right? There really is no point….

Next up was Sapuri on channel 8, the drama in the 9pm Monday night slot for this summer. This is the most prestigious drama showing of the week and if you drama makes it in there your laughing. It is a good drama and I have watched it most weeks and it is nearly coming to an end. I really like this drama but I have become slightly Japanese drama obsessed this summer and I tell myself it is to improve my Japanese so that I don’t have to study from books! The only thing that really bothers me about this is the male lead, one of the young boys from boy band Kat-tun, Kamenashi Kazuya, well his eyebrows are strange. The have been shaped and then put in with an eyebrow pencil. Dude why did you let them do this to you?

Now this next show I am almost ashamed to say i watch. Who knows the band SMAP? Well there is a show on Monday nights, channel 8, called Smap x Smap. I only know the name of one of the guys, Kimura Takuya (”Kimutaku”). Basically another celebrity comes onto the show and they cook for that person or people….last night Sato Koichi the celebrity on requested they make something with SPAM? What was he thinking? Last night another guy also came on and they played pool. Some times they do skits. I am so surprised really (despite the fact I watched it) that Japan airs this kind of stuff? I mean really? There is no point. I have to say though i love the Gatsby ad that Kimura is in at the moment despite the fact that the song stays in your head for days. I think i just love the fact that I know him dancing there playing with his hair will sell the product in Japan……Shumpei uses it.

Last but not least was ainori. I love this show and I can understand why it is shown in Japan, what I can’t understand that it is only shown once a week for half an hour despite the idea behind it being awesome. It is a reality show, and basically there is a pink bus with seven people, men 7 women, who travel around the world in this bus until they fall in love with someone on board and request tickets home. It is great. You go on to find true love!!! One of Shumpei’s best mates works late and can’t always watch it (his dream despite having the same gf for last 3 or 4 years is to go on ainori…he can’t apply while he has a girlfriend) so i send him updates if he is not home in time.

I am slightly worried about my sanity…what will happen to me if i continue to watch Japanese TV? I never thought i would see the day that i watched this much Japanese tv, and actually looked forward to watching some programs. OMG…It is pulling me in…

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