Welcome!!!!
My new blog has launched! Thanks very much to Snoskred for all the work she has done setting this site up…..I am so happy. So if you are thinking of switching to wordpress on your own domain send that girl an email!
From now on all my posts will be here…the typepad blog will be up for another couple of weeks but everything has been transferred over here now so anything you want should be here!
Thanks to all who have followed me over!
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Lately Shumpei and I have been talking about marriage and getting engaged a lot more. We plan to get engaged sometime this year .I think we could just do it now but he wants to wait until we are in Australia (A lot of it has to do with asking my father for permission…and part of it is that he is worried that is is not a good idea for us to get engaged until he can speak English…I am not really worried about this at all but I think what worries him also is that if I go back to Australia I might want to stay while he would want to return to Japan. The thing is, I want to come back to Japan….and he knows this but is still worried a little I guess)
With Nay, talking about her wedding plans and Sara talking about signing the papers this year but waiting for 2010 for the marriage ceremony it has given me a lot to think about. Nay, Sara and I are all of similar ages and in similar situations. We are all in serious relationships or engaged to Japanese men and planning on living in Japan after we are married. Nay will be having her ceremony in Australia (In Brisbane actually, where I am from!) while I think Sarah plans to have it here in Japan. Nay will also have a small Japanese ceremony in Japan at a later date. We keep in contact via email, facebook and our blogs and while none of us have ever met I know that we feel a connection due to our circumstances….We were hoping to meet up before Nay headed back to Australia to finish her studies but we have left the planning a little late….However I hope to meet Sara later in the year and Nay when I go back to Brisbane (Since she will be there until September, when she will get married)
Shumpei and I have tosses up the idea of getting married late next year in September or October (2009). If we were to do the ceremony here in Japan (Which has been the plan)…I know my family would fly over for it but I feel bad that so many others would be left out so there has been talk of maybe having a small party/reception type thing while we are in Australia. Plus, if we did it here it would be in Japanese meaning that my family would struggle with language and language barriers that they would have with all of the other guests.
There is a lot of things to think about. Where to file the papers for instance? In Japan or Australia, or both (Can you do both?) How much money we could afford to spend on ceremonies etc (At the moment is is close to zero)…..Also if the wedding is here in Japan what sort of wedding should it be. Traditional? I don`t think I could wear the traditional wedding kimono…..I could do it, especially if that is what Shumpei wanted but in the past when we have discussed it he has said he doesn`t necessarily want a traditional wedding….but white weddings here in chapels have fake ministers that do the ceremonies…and I am not sure I could handle that either. I think outside would be perfect…..or in a proper church with a proper priest. If it was in Japan that is…..If it was in Australia, despite being raised Catholic would I want to have a wedding in a Catholic church, especially since Shumpei is not Catholic…and has no intention of becoming Catholic.
I have never wanted a big fairytale wedding…..In fact the whole thing scares me a little because I would be so worried that after a lot of planning that the day itself would not live up to the expectations we had. I am all for garden weddings, with only a close couple of family and friends and a small reception at a restaurant. Here most of the time you can not invite so many friends to your wedding because extended family, business associates etc come higher up on the invitation list….
International weddings are a difficult thing to deal with. Most people I know have either had the weddings in their home countries or in both their home countries and Japan….Japanese weddings are absurdly expensive and I really wouldn`t want to spend that much money on one day. Shumpei and I are both young, i have no savings to speak of and Shumpei did have savings but has used a lot of it in the past couple of years by flying to Australia or for when we set up this apartment….I know he still has some but when we go to Australia later in the year he will do an English course and I will work so we will be living on one salary for a little while.
In Japan, like I said wedding are absurdly expensive….Shumpei`s brother`s wedding was so expensive it was unbelievable. And while it was really pretty, and a beautiful day…but I do not want to spend that much wedding on one day.
Are you married? What did you do for your `big day`? Are you in an international marriage…how did you please everyone? It would be interesting to hear what others did…especially those who entered or are entering kokusai kekkon themselves (International marriage)!
There is so much to think about and it is hard to know where to start!
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Our apartment is a mess. I am not much of a housekeeper….Shumpei and I always clean the place together on Sunday afternoons…we spend about an hour doing it and that it is. Problem is it is in dire need of a HUGE clean-up. But instead of doing it I am blogging about it instead. I was going to take a photo but am just too embarrassed (plus my mother would kill me if she saw the state it was in!)
I had a list of things I wanted to do this weekend…there were 15 things on the list and I have only done 2 of them….Most of them were to do with cleaning the apartment. I thought if I wrote them down then maybe they would happen….I guess it doesn`t work that way!
Is housekeeping something you learn? Or do you have to be born good at it. I am a relatively clean person…I always kept my room fairly tidy in Australia and even our old apartment was pretty clean most of the time because it was so tiny…and easy to clean.
I am hoping with age my house keeping skills will get better….I keep telling myself it is ok because I work and when I come home I still cook dinner and sometimes (not very often ) will put a load of washing on.
How do you keep on top of the mess? Do you clean every day? Is it something you have gotten better at with age? Better yet do you know a cheap cleaner that will come and clean my apartment for me?
I hope so…
Am off to surf the internet before I hang out the second load of washing (Even though the fridge is calling my name to be cleaned as is the bathroom!)
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Today is Australia day (January 26th)…and I am listening to the Triple J hottest 100 as I write this because I know that this is what most of my friends back in Australia are doing right now! Although they are probably also drinking copious amounts of beer, wine and spirits and swimming…..while I am still in my pajamas!
Recently I joined the
Aussie Bloggers Forum
which started at the end of last year and already has over 250 members (In less than a month!) but it would be great to see more bloggers joining up because already I have found it to be a very welcoming and helpful community!
It has even inspired me to move my blog over to wordpress since so many people rave about it and updating my blog was on my life list which means I will finally be making a start on it! So I am in the process of switching it over now (Well Snoskred is doing most of the work!!! Thanks!) and it should be up sometime in February!
Earlier this week they launched the Aussie Bloggers Blog which I advice everyone, not just Australians, to check out because it is set to be filled with lots of great information for anyone blogging!
I started blogging to keep in contact with people back home, but most people that read my blog now were strangers until I started. But this blog, even though it doesn`t create much traffic, nor do I have many readers, has helped me make friends all over! I have blogging friends I always catch up with in Australia, I have other foreign friends who blog here in Japan and I even had one friend who blogs out of Canberra come visit me here in Tokyo while she was traveling around Japan (Hi Enny!!!!). I am sure this year will bring many more meetings between blogging friends!
I hope everyone, where ever they are are having a good weekend! Even if you are not out there celebrating Australia day!!!!
Happy Australia Day 2008!
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One of my goldfish died. Tilly died a couple of days ago and Shumpei made me take it out and dispose of her/him (When we bought them they couldn`t tell me what sex they were so I named them Tilly and Jo…Tilly was black and Jo is orange)
I didn`t know what to do. So I flushed her…We don`t have a garden so I couldn`t bury her, they are really strict about garbage in this country and I didn`t want to put her in the wrong section then have her returned to my door the next day saying that I should of put it in with another type of garbage. So putting her in the bin was out.
This left the toilet. So I flushed her….now I am afraid to go the toilet in case she comes back up when I flush….
Is this a strange fear to have? I think it is guilt…I am sure she died because of something I did or something I didn`t do.
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It snowed in Tokyo today….It was snowing when I woke up just before 8am and was still snowing in Kichijoji at 2pm until it turned to rain…
I am not sure when the sight of snow will stop turning me giddy with excitement but being an Aussie girl from QLD who had not seen snow until 19 it just feels I have a lot of snow viewing to catch up on!
Tokyo rarely sees snow even in the height of winter…and some years it will not snow at all!
Shumpei had my camera….for a work project which meant I couldn`t take any photos…BUT i did take the following on the school camera (Actually Ai took the first one)
School garden- Probably the only time this year it will be covered in snow (This was taken at 10am too, there was a lot more snow on it by 2pm)
Girly girls checking out the yard
The girl in the middle and the girl on the end with the white jacket whose face you can`t see speak English very well….with mini Australian accents. They also call each other sweetie since I tend to call them that
Conversation from the other day
`Asuka, can you pick up the blue one sweetie`
`Sure sweetie`
`Thanks sweetie`
They might be taking it a little bit far!
Since it snowed or rained all day we couldn`t take the kids outside to plan in it (Since no child in Tokyo really wears water proof snow gear to school) so we put some in a container from outside so that they could play with it on top of the tables in the craft room. There were mini snow ball fights, snowman and one girl who put some on the floor, took off her inside shoes and socks and walked on it `To see what it felt like….The kids loved it! The snow will all be gone by morning due to the rain and 3 degree temps.
I would not be surprised if we don`t see any more snow for the rest of winter!
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Discovered a new blog yesterday by a young girl named Laura called twenty five days to make a difference…..if you have not heard of this blog then you need to go check it out now. Put her banner up on your blog also to help her reach her goals…..It is always inspiring to see somebody trying to make a difference as Laura is, but even more so to see it in somebody so young. Basically each month she chooses a different organization to help and tries to raise money to donate to them.
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At the beginning of December I signed up for the Japanese Literature Challenge organized by Dolce Bellezza and you can read my post about it here (Ok the link for some reason will not work…Go to my Dec 4th post). The aim was to read three books by Japanese authors during December and January. I am happy to say i have now completed the challenge (I actually finished my final book on my return flight to Japan)
The three books I read were
The bells of Nagasaki- Takashi Nagai (Dec)
Snow Country- Kasunari Kawabata (Jan)
Kitchen- Banana Yoshimoto (Jan)
All three books were good and I think I read a good choice because one was N.F, one was more current fiction (well in the last 20 yrs), and an older fiction.
My favourite was definitely Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto. It was a short book and it is hard to believe it was written by somebody so young. Most Japanese fiction that I have read has always been a little weird (You just need to look at Murakami`s books!) and this was no different. The book dealt mainly with loss and grief..with the main character losing her grandmother and then the other character losing his transsexual father to murder (so she was now his mother…if that makes sense). It discussed what it felt like to be left alone in the world. I also felt that the translation of this book was really good. Whenever I read translated Japanese fiction I feel that I am probably losing a lot of the meaning….but the person that translated this done an excellent job because I feel I finished the book with the message that you were meant to get from it…I will definitely be picking up another Banana Yoshimoto book soon!
Snow Country by Kasunari Kawabata was a beautiful book about a man that has a love affair with a local geisha in a mountain town (I just read that the town was at the base of the mountains i between Gunma and Niigata). When I finished it my first feeling was that I needed to read it again because I felt I missed something….I will definitely have to re-read it. I felt it a Little hard to follow at times but I think this had a lot to do with the translations….Kawabata is famous for the way in which he writes as it is said to be like poetry and I guess a lot of this was lost in the translation. Geisha in these provincial towns were a lot more like prostitutes than the geisha of big cities (Who are more like entertainers/ hostess`s). That said the scenes described in the book were beautiful. I can`t really comment on much more on this because I still feel as if I need to re-read it. Perhaps I will understand it more next time.
The bells of Nagasaki was a non-fiction book written by a doctor who later died to to radiation poisoning. It is his story of the day the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and the days that followed. I have never been directly involved in war or directly affected by it so the bomb raids and deaths of war that are described by Nagai are sometimes hard for me to comprehend but the way he wrote made it seem like the readers were there with him. My history, especially Japanese history, is not great and reading books such as this that touch on such an important part of Japanese history always make me want to pick up a history book and get cracking. Anybody living in Japan or with an interest in Japanese history should read this book. I have never been to Nagasaki but I went to Hiroshima several years ago and my experiences there will always stay with me.
I am the worst book reviewer ever but thought I should do a wrap-up of the books I read so that others in the challenge can see what I thought of the books! I enjoyed all the books I read for this challenge and would recommend them to anyone. My only note is that if you were to read Snow Country make sure you read it in one or two sittings because I read it in short bursts over several days and I think this is one of the main reasons I had trouble understanding it.
Oh and in other news I have finished 6 or the 60 books I put down for m 888 challenge! Only 56 to go for the rest of the year!!!!
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Shumpei and I met three years ago today (yesterday) and I hate to say it but it was love (or at least lust) at first sight! For gods sake I still remember what he and I were both wearing when we met. We take the 15th of Jan as our anniversary because while we technically started dating a week later we met on th 15th and for us it seems to ring truer as an anniversary (That said for the first year I think we thought of it as the 14th before we realized that we must of definitely met after midnight…..I know this because I went to watch a soccer game an ebisu pub with some friends which would of been playing later…..and we went to another bar before heading back to where we lived at the time…..and Shumpei was at a party at the dorm I was living in at the time)…..I remember walking into the room (third floor kaikan kitchen) and thinking ” My god that boy is hot!”….My gay friend (which whom I have very similar taste) also took a liking to Shumpei….and I will never forget the conversation where he tried to tell him he might be gay! (I am serious about my friend and I having similar taste….his old bf was sooooo hot…….and he had seen pictures of some of my ex`s and had fallen in love by looking at their pictures…A little freaky deshou?)
I worked late tonight because I had a private lesson. I bought a bottle of wine on the way home before getting in about 8:30…..we had tea in the apartment and it was nothing real special but here is a pic
And our wine “乾杯！” （Cheers!)to celebrate our three years
Oh and lets not forget the happy couple (By the way it is hard to look happy and half decent when you have worked 8 hours plus done a 2 hour private lesson, cooked dinner and not eaten until 10pm)
Love you Shun! Here is to many years to come!!!!
Lost of kisses and hugs!
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The expresion `I didn`t sleep a wink` now applies to me. Last night I went to bed at 12:30, got out of bed at 7am and hadn`t slept a wink. I would of got up and done something productive but I kept hoping sleep would come and when it didn`t I decided to stay in bed just because it was too cold to get out of it.
Now I have to go to work. Technically it is my first day back for 3 and a half weeks. I had to use a lot of concealer under my eyes so that the parents don`t think I am a zombie…
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I am just an Aussie girl living in Tokyo (Now Brisbane until June 2009) with my Japanese fiance trying to make sense of the crazy but fun Japanese and Australian worlds I live in!
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