Cherry Blossom Adventures

• Went clubbing last night for the first time in about a year to celebrate Tomoko`s 24th birthday. I have never been a big clubbing person, and I almost always want to bail by 2 or 3am but I am happy to say I lasted til we left the club at 4:30! Then I caught a taxi home and slept until 4pm. I forgot how much fun it is to have a night out dancing with friends…
• Have been out a computer now for over six months…been using Shuns everyday but realize it is now time for me to buy a new laptop. Question is should I go with windows (A dell most likely) or a Macbook? I have never owned a mac before but have used before in my old job. Everyone says it depends on what I use it for…which is listening to music, downloading, internet and photo storage basically. I need advice?
• My dad is coming to Japan on December 26th. It will be his first time here! I am so excited. I am not going back to Australia for Christmas this year either…Will hopefully go back for Christmas 2008 though! Dad and I will travel to Hiroshima while he is here since he has always wanted to see it….will stop at himeji on the way (Somewhere I have always wanted to visit) and then spend the rest of the 10 days here in Tokyo. Will spend New Years at Shun`s parents house again.
• Have had very little patience with my kids at school this week……I am losing my touch.
• A typhoon hit Tokyo on Thursday night, the first one in Tokyo in awhile I think…Wasn`t as bad as they expected though I think….Today it is blue skies without a cloud to be seen. I should really go outside but I don`t see it happening…
• I spend way too much time on facebook, but I must admit it has been really good to get in contact with people i haven`t seen or spoken to in ages, some of which has been 5 years or so. I can not believe it has been 5 years since I left Lourdes…It doesn`t feel like that long ago….
• Shun is in Okinawa for the weekend so I am home alone.

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I missed my grandmothers (From here on refereed to as kiwi Nana) birthday on July 21st…she turned 83. I feel bad that I didn`t send a card so I am hoping to print some photos for her and send her a letter sometime soon. I will definitely remember next year as I have put a note in my phone already for ten days before so that I won`t forget! That reminder will be in there for at least another 20 years too because I know my kiwi Nana is waiting for her letter from the queen at 100, and she will make it too (Her mother made it to 97 if I remember correctly…Granny Foy!). She is my last surviving grandparent.

Why kiwi Nana you might ask? Well you see my mother was born in New Zealand and so while I grew up in Australia I had one set of grandparents in New Zealand and another set in Brisbane. The Australian grandparents were always nanny and poppy and the New Zealand set were always kiwi Nana and grand-pop. I do not know who originally gave her this name, it might have been me or it might have been my mum. But she has always been kiwi Nana….and when I post letters to her I address them to kiwi Nana on the envelope and everything.

I learned three very important life skills from my kiwi Nana (Among many other things!)

1. How to make awesome pikelets/pancakes. I still have the recipe written down in the back of one my childhood recipe books at home in Australia

2. How to knit (Although I am a bit rusty…although I do have an olive green scarf started last winter)

3. Lastly, how to lipread.

I was talking to a friend on Friday night about this because I have recently discovered that i can also lipread Japanese. My kiwi Nana is deaf, she went deaf at 18 and has lip read ever since. My mum can lip read and for some reason it is something that I can do too (Although I am not as proficient as my mum, and certainly not as proficient as my Nana). Apparently as a young child, even when I was as young as a year, I knew that to speak to my kiwi Nana that I had to tap her arm to get her attention before speaking…I also know that my mum and her used to speak to each other without talking so that my grandfather wouldn`t here or whoever else might have been trying to overhear their conversation…I guess that is how I picked up my lipreading skills.

You would be surprised how handy the skill lipreading is. I think that with my knitting, pikelet making and lipreading skills that I would make an excellent international spy!!!

Anyway, Happy Birthday Kiwi Nana! I am sorry it is late but I do hope you had a good one!I hope you are doing well! I will be sure to pass on my knitting skills, pikelet making talents and lipreading ability on to my children, your grandchildren, just like you passed them down to mum and me! Although I am sure you will be around to teach them yourself…

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