It finally snowed in Tokyo this winter!  Monday night to be exact.  Jun called me from work to ask if it was snowing…must have heard the weather report or something.   But it wasn’t. 

Then in the middle of preparing dinner, it started to snow.  I got all excited and stopped cooking to run out into the garden with Janae just to experience the snowflakes fall on us. 

More pictures taken later that night. 

The snow was still there the next morning. 

Janae rushed home after school to make a snowman or snow something or other in the garden.

In other news, I received my JLPT Level 4 test results yesterday…I passed! Yay!  Even managed a perfect score for the writing / vocabulary paper.

It’s sad, but I’ve been here for over three years already and my Japanese still sucks.  Progress has been very slow and I’ve been feeling quite demoralised. 

I stopped going for classes in Kichijoji because it was a bit of a pain to get to from Tama, and it was really too expensive.  Then I tried the classes held by volunteers in my city.  But I always found myself in a group of students from China.  This should not have been a problem.  It’s just that being a beginner like me with limited vocabulary, sensei used to try to explain things to them using kanji characters, very advanced kanji to get basic meanings across.  Of course, I was always at a loss and sensei was not as helpful to me mainly because she has an aversion to using English.  So, I stopped going and decided to study on my own. Even more demoralising!

I was also quite laid back and begining to think that I should just give up and get by on my limited Japanese.  I just needed to be able to shop and order food from restaurants, right?  All my friends speak English, and we only speak English at home.  But if I am going to be here for the long haul, I knew this was not going to be good for me.  So, I decided to do the test so that I would be more serious with learning the language  and boy did it give me some much needed impetus. I also signed on for Kumon distance learning, but there is hardly any teaching involved, just practice paper after practice paper, but it’s really helpful where learning kanji is concerned.  

I am now more motivated than ever to continue Japanese classes …once I find a school that charges reasonable rates and is convenient for me to get to.  Perhaps my next ’The decade that was’  post in 2020 will be in Japanese

I read some very interesting posts this morning about how some housewives in Japan went about budgeting and managing their households.  It got me to look at how I was doing this very important shufu function…

When we were married and living in Singapore, Jun handled all the finances.  I was too busy working and truth be told, I am awful with money.   I can’t get my head around figures and it depresses me to count money…especially when most of it is used to pay bill upon bill upon bill…it was very expensive living in Singapore : (

But I have no choice now that I am a shufu.  And after three years of handling the cash in the house, I got used to it and Jun is now total rubbish when it comes to keeping to a budget so I keep him on a pretty tight leash!

Anyway, I tried spreadsheet programs, and stuff you get online.  But I found it much easier and more fun to keep a record that I have to input manually (gosh, so technical-sounding).  Well, technical I am not, here’s a cutesy housekeeping book I got for myself last year.

But cute or not, I found it easier to just use plain unlined paper and so I got me this from Muji.

Because I so prefer scribbling and drawing balloons and bubbles and boxes like this..

But this year, I thought I’d get a little more serious and at least use a book with lines. 

I’ve continued using envelopes for keeping money from the different household categories, like groceries, eating-out, pets, utilities, etc.  Compartmentalising like this works well for me.  I’ve stopped mentally adding and subtracting and use a calculator instead … because while it was fun and entertaining doing mental gymnastics, I ended up thinking I had more money than I actually had…hahaha!  Blue box there is for left-over money…I consider it my secret stash (shhhh!)

I prefer not to have money debited automatically from our bank account to pay bills.  I feel like if I don’t see or touch the money, it’s not real.  I can be really unimaginative like that.  Maybe I have control issues…who knows.  Anyway, there are some things that can’t be helped, but where possible, I take the trouble to go to the various combinis here to make cash payments, then I file the bills and it feels very, very good to know I paid it off

I didn’t use to record my spending or keep track of my receipts individually, and that was one of the reasons why I always thought I’d had more money than I actually did.  So, I started recording our spending daily (as of Monday, 25 January - 1st payday of the year!).  I think it will pay off, what with the envelopes, calculator,  notebook with lines, and balloons and bubbles

We celebrated the new year very quietly this year.  Spent the eve at home, watching Kouhaku on NHK.  This is the first time we’ve watched it from start to finish.  Didn’t feel like cooking so made very simple and quick to prepare meals - mushroom and fennel pasta for lunch, and lamb chops and stir-fried vegetables for dinner with strawberries and condensed milk for dessert.

On new year’s day, we ordered in sushi for lunch.

Then we gathered around the kotatsu  and reviewed the previous year’s goals.  We managed to realise about 75% of our goals…which were simple ones actually.  And that made us feel very good and grateful for everything we had achieved so far.  We shared our dreams  for the future and then decided on our goals for 2010.  This is something we started when we moved to Tama City.  We had a new home, a new life and we felt that we should take the time to look back and appreciate what we’ve been through, and make plans for the future together. 

On Tuesday, we decided to have a nice meal out, the first one in 2010.  We went for a buffet lunch at the Imperial Hotel’s Viking Sal.

After lunch, we took a walk in Hibiya Park, just across the road from the hotel.

Photo below courtesy of a drunken salaryman at the park who kindly offered to take a family photo of us

Have been taking things slow so far.  Taking walks over the weekend and walking to our favourite breakfast places as an incentive to make an early start in the morning…anytime before 9 am is early for us.

One of our newer favourite places for breakfast is Denny’s.  It’s a longer walk than our other favourite haunt – Canadian House Cafe.  But it’s well worth the exercise when we feel like bacon and eggs and I don’t feel like making it at home.

On the way home from our morning walk yesterday, we had the opportunity to witness a Dondo Yaki.  From what I understand, this is when residents place all their past year lucky charms, daruma dolls and new year decorations in a straw house or teepee-like structure and set them alight.  It’s a way of moving forward, getting rid of the old to make way for the new.

After sprinkling  some salt and sake on the structure, they set it alight.  The fire spread almost immediately and everthing started to burn at once.  Lots of smoke and ash started to blow in our direction, and small pops like mini explosions could be heard, so we moved away to watch cowardly from afar

It’s been a slow and somewhat relaxed start to the new year so far.  I hope things gain momentum and take off somewhat soon.  But even if they don’t, I don’t think I’ll have anything to complain about

I wanted to review my 2009, but I saw this on some of the blogs I read (thanks Kelly and Nooh) and thought this would be a lot more fun to write about.  I hope my memory holds up though.  Anyway, here goes…

2000

Was lecturing at a polytechnic in Singapore.  After working in the local TV and PR industries for a few years, decided to teach what I knew and take myself out of the rat race.  Was already married and living in my own home, which I paid for all by myself.  My husband was a kept man, back then   Anyway, that was the year we decided we were ready for children and decided to try to get pregnant.

2001

Had Janae in April of that year. 

Jun changed jobs and started working for a company which would later be responsible for our move to Japan.  I was alone at home with my baby the entire duration of my maternity leave.  Eventhough I had family in the same country, everyone worked, including my parents.  So, the first three months were very difficult for me.  Luckily, my career -woman mum retired a few months later and came to stay with me during the weekdays to look after Janae. 

2002

Both my sisters had babies this year, so my mum left to help them out.  I sent Janae to full day childcare at such an early age and I felt very, very guilty, but we needed two incomes so I continued to work. 

2003

 

Decided to get a dog so that Janae would have a playmate.  So, Jules, our cocker spaniel joined us.  Later in the year, Tashio, our chihuahua came to live with us (his baby photos are in a box somewhere in the loft, so no pic for now). 

My mum had a brain tumour and had to undergo an operation to remove it.  Luckily, it was benign, but she continued to work just as hard, looking after my sister’s kids and not relaxing and taking things easy as she should.  Point of contention there between me and my mum, she just wouldn’t slow down.  Started to study part-time for a MA in Mass Communication as I was the only lecturer in my section without one.

2004

Nothing much, everything was pretty much status quo….work, work, work…life was mechanical.  The only thing we looked forward to were our end of year trips to Japan to visit the inlaws.  It was at this point that we considered moving to Japan.  We always thought we would retire in Japan.  I have always dreamed of living somewhere in the mountains of Nagano…Karuizawa would be nice   But this time around we started thinking that maybe we’d relocate a little sooner than that.  We wanted Janae to be able to speak Japanese and communicate with her Japanese grandparents.  Also, the prospect of living in Singapore was getting more bleak…life was boring, mechanical, expensive, competitive, stifling…So, maybe after Janae completed primary (elementary) school in Singapore?  Okay, maybe after that.

Inspite of  this, we still contemplated trying for a second child, but my husband was getting a little freaked out again…he was in the delivery room when I had Janae and while he was elated with the event and even cut the umbilical cord, he confided in me later that he was actually very scared he would lose me and told me that it was okay if I didn’t want to go through that again.  Actually, I had an easy labour…6 hours long, had an epidural, so pain was totally absent.  But he was freaking out anyway.  Also, was so caught up with work, that I delayed thinking more seriously about having another child.  Was also busy with my masters programme and finally completed it. 

Thinking we would be around for a while longer, we refurbished our home, plonking down a substantial amount of cash to create a totally new kitchen and bathrooms and bedrooms. 

2005

Jun changed jobs and got paid a whole lot more…..I left my job and stayed home to  look after Janae, something I had been seriously considering for a while, but was afraid to do so, because of financial concerns.  But although Jun’s job paid very well, he was always away on business trips…and this was not what we wanted afterall.  So, luckily, one of his colleagues from his former company contacted him about a job opening in Japan and we jumped at the opportunity.  There were of course rounds of interviews to go for, but we were so sure this was going to happen for us and it did!  So, I broke the news to my family that we were moving to Japan.  My mum was pretty upset.  She was already upset that I had left my job, thought it was a waste of my education hahaha!  I really don’t see it that way.  And now she felt that she was going to lose a daughter and grand-daughter…

So, spent the rest of the year preparing for our new life in Japan…had the dogs and quarantine issues to settle, got myself  TESOL and Teaching Phonics and Speech certifications, looked for tenants for my condo, packed, packed an packed, got rid of a hell of alot of stuff!  Started looking for a place to stay in Japan.  Decided on a little house in Chofu.

2006

Jun left for his new job in Japan in April.  Janae and I were still in Singapore, mainly because the dogs had to get vaccinations and there was a waiting period for them.  I didn’t want ot put them in quarantine in Japan.  Had a nice holiday in Thailand in May when we reunited with Jun in Bangkok who was there for a company retreat.  Then it was back to Singapore for us while Jun returned to Japan.   Agent I trusted with handling the importation of my dogs f*cked up with the timing of the vaccinations.  And I had to redo the second round of vaccinations and wait again …..but fortunately, I discovered the mistake a little earlier and had 4 months left of waiting again instead of 6, but we had to leave for Japan as I had rented out my place and Janae was missing her daddy…so, we left as planned, in Sept and I had to quarantine my dogs in Narita.  We visited them every weekend and they were very well taken care of.  I won’t even mention how much that mistake cost us.  Let’s just say, we still have no plans to leave the country for a holiday anytime soon

But, we were all in the same country now.  Janae started yochien.  Surprisingly, most of the mums at the yochien could speak English and I made friends pretty quickly.  My neighbours were kind and some could even speak a little English.  Life was good, but I did have a few dark days, months, questioning my decision to move.  It was all so different.  I finally decided it was good different, and things got so much better. 

2007

My mum had another brain tumour.  Again, she had it removed, went for radiation treatment.  My dad got stomach cancer and went in for an emergency operation.  I didn’t know anything.  My sister would just call and tell me, okay, this happened, now she’s in surgery, will call you again after that to let you know how it went.  And I would freak out until the second call.  Same thing happened when it was my dad’s turn. 

Had friends, and my sister and her son up for a visit.  That was nice.  Was taking Japanese classes at Kichijoji.  Was reunited with my dogs in February.  Was going for regular coffee and shopping mornings with the Japanese mums from my daughter’s yochien.  All good.

2008

Janae was going to start elementary school in April of this year, so we thought long and hard about where we really wanted to stay.  It’s difficult to rent in Japan when you have dogs, and the rental payments on the house in that part of Tokyo was really exhorbitant.  We realised it would be cheaper to buy a place.  So, after much searching, we decided to move to Tama city.  House was bigger, school was nearer, vet nearby, dog groomers, shopping centers, train stations - all within walking distance.  So we moved in summer of that year. 

And I lost all the friends I had made earlier.  It turned out that my friends were very practical people.  It didn’t make sense anymore to be friendly with someone who lived a few train stations away when we all lived along the same street before, it wasn’t useful to be friendly with someone whose child was going to a different elementary school.  I guess they felt we  had nothing in common anymore and so we lost touch, inspite of the numerous promises to visit and meet for lunch.  I was a little disappointed that one of my closer friends, someone I was there for when she thought she had breast cancer, and then received the all clear, also blew me off

Tama was different.  It was as if I didn’t exist.  The mothers here didn’t even dare look at me.  You would think they were afraid of turning into a pillar of salt if they so much as had eye contact with me.  So, I joined a book club and met several like-minded single Japanese women, who are still my friends

Started teaching English from my home and met some really nice people who became my friends, and who I still teach.  Except for one lady (from Saitama!).  She is now recovering from breast cancer and has stopped lessons.  But we still keep in touch.

2009

Still teaching.  Stopped Japanese classes, but do Kumon distance learning now.  I study on my own and I prefer it that way.  Sat for my JLPT this year too!  Joined a foreign wives group, went for a coffee morning.  Felt it wasn’t for me and didn’t renew my membership. 

Tashio needed emergency surgery this year, and I got acquainted with Kawasaki city as that was where the specialist vet hospital was located.  Well, that makes it another few years more we won’t be going overseas for a holiday haha!  Cost us about SGD5000!  But they did a very good job and care was excellent, so I can’t complain.  We just changed vets and got a more competent one who won’t be referring us to specialists to get out of doing complicated surgeries.

Sister visited me again, so did my dad who came on his own.  Another friend and her family dropped by on her way back to Singapore from Canada.  One of the first people we met and made friends with in Tama was someone from my husband’s company.  He passed away in December

Am ready to start a new decade now!  I’ve decided that I want to put my teaching skills to better use and have designed a literacy programme for children.  Will launch it this year.  Am comfortable and feeling well settled.  Am more independent and confident after 3 years here.  Am looking forward to 2010!

I had the TV on while making dinner last night. This is the conversation that followed…

Janae :  Mummmm!

Me:  What is it?

Janae:  Can I watch the “sex” show? It looks interesting.

Me:  (running out of the kitchen)  What’s that?!

Janae:  On Discovery Channel…look, it’s all about how crocodiles have sex.  I want to know how they get baby crocodiles.

Me:  (momentarily speechless)

Janae:  Don’t worry, mum, I’ve seen grasshoppers co-operate.

Me:  (nervous laughter…)  Co-operate?  You mean copulate?

Janae:  Yes, that’s right…co-pu-late….that means to have sex right?

Me:  How did you know that?  Where did you get that word from in the first place?

Janae:  TV.  Discovery Channel…what does it mean to have sex?

Me:  (oh, no, is it already time for the birds and the bees talk?  But she’s just 8!!!)  Well,  (trying to be all nonchalant and matter-of-fact, wouldn’t want her to get all weirded out about sex and such things)  it’s when the sperm of the male of a species fertilisers the egg of the female of the species….(okay, that was enough to weird her out in a way I did not not expect)

Janae:  Nevermind mum,  I’ll just watch it on TV.  See, they’ve pictures and all…

Phew! I just watched the programme with her…dinner could wait. 

Janae was right, it was actually a very interesting programme…..I found out that sharks have penises, and had fun trying to speculate how 40-tonne dinosaurs had sex.

Now this is what I call synchronicity…

I’m taking a break (from JLPT study), having some cookies a student recentlygave me from Hokkaido…am reading some blogs…and then I realise I’m eating the exact same thing I was reading about in a blog post! http://tastyjapan.blogspot.com/2009/11/ishiya-shiroi-koibito.html

As you can see, I’ve eaten half the box already.  So, anyway, back to the books…..goodbye sweet distractions

Seems we have a new Japanese word

…inspired by Prez Obama

http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/obamu/?emc=eta1

I notice a lot of interesting things in my neighbourhood while I’m out walking my dogs. 

For one, eventhough I live in the suburbs of west Tokyo, and it’s hardly the inaka, there are plots of land that are farmed by…oh, I don’t know who.  They must come out and tend these plots very early in the morning, or perhaps not at all, because I’ve never seen anyone around. 

There are several patches of land that grow persimmons, which are all over the place now that it’s autumn.

I just love the bright yellow, orange and almost red colours that dot the landsdcape.

There’s also eggplant or nasu…small purplish-black ones.

They’re pretty small, and my cell phone camera’s not very good….

Tried zooming in…this is the best I can do

Then, there’s even the odd grape vine or two…

These are not tended to, a few of them can be found around the edges of some plots…it’s like some bird pooped out grape seeds and they grew into a grape plant? hahaha…grape vine?

And then, there’s field of  negi (I think)  with taro in the back.

And chestnuts (brown piles in the photo).  Someone swept them neatly under the chestnut trees.

These little fields are located within a kilometer radius of my home.   Jun told me that the city rents out plots of land to people who want to grow their own produce.   How cool is that?!

Janae needed a bento for lunch today.  She’s going to a traffic safety training class and won’t be back to school in time for the daily lunch.  So, eventhough I’m not used to cooking in the morning, and dreaded waking earlier than I usually do, I managed to have some fun putting the lunch box together…

Menu :

Ume and Shiso Leaf Onigiri

Shirasu Onigiri

Brocolli and Carrot

Tamagoyaki

Tsukune (from yakitori shop)

And there you have it, a bento for Janae

Went grocery shopping today at our favourite supermarket, Odakyu OX.  This is what  we bought for dinners for the next three nights…

Since we had some shopping vouchers courtesy of our new cellphone service provider, we bought a few things for Janae.

It’s fun to shop for clothes when you have a daughter!  Janae and I had a lot of fun looking around and trying on stuff, but I think I tired her out because she was too tired to model the clothes for me once we got home.  So, I decided to do a fashion spread on the tatami mats.  Actually it’s a good idea to take photos of stuff you buy because once you put them away, you forget what you bought in the first place (well, I do).  I may do this more often