Four Years in Japan … and now Three Years in London

Sorry …  This should have been posted 2 months ago… but is still true now. At seven months living as an expat in Tokyo… it is all true.. It is still the same.

After five months living here in Tokyo, I have to say that I really do love it here — most of the time. I am enjoying learning about this country, and the people and the culture here. There are days — yes — that are a struggle, and some things that frustrate me. The language barrier has been the biggest struggle for us, but the Japanese people have been so kind and patient and eager (for the most part, anyway) to help, that it really hasn’t been that much of a problem. Our Japanese teacher told us that we really could get by here without learning the language, and I know for a fact that many expats do just that. I personally don’t want to do it that way. I want to learn the language and be able to converse with people here. I am learning Japanese, but I am no where near able to understand or speak it yet.  I know it will take time.

Today as I walked into the “su-pa-” (supermarket) an employee started talking to me in Japanese and handed me the store’s loyalty card.  All the supermarkets and convenience stores (“con-bi-ni”) around here have them. The fact that he targeted me to give me the card was what really gave me pause.  I shop at this store probably 3 or 4 times per week.  I am sure that by now all the employees have noticed me.  I mean…  there aren’t that many non-Asian-looking people here in Shibaura. I am sure that I stick out like a sore thumb, but sometimes I forget how different I must look to them. But… lol…  this is the first time anyone has actually approached me to “speak” to me. Unfortunately…  I couldn’t speak Japanese,and he couldn’t speak English.  We were still at an impasse with the language, but everyone was so friendly trying to help. I was just trying to find out how to register the card so that I could actually use it. Finally, I told them in broken  Japanese that I would have my Nihongo (Japanese language) sensei (teacher) help me with it. *Phew*… what an ordeal!

When I got to the check-out, the girl waved the same loyalty card at me and I showed her that I already had one. She took it from my hand and peeled it off the cardboard card and swiped it…  And I think she said something to the effect that I could get credit for the purchase before I had the card registered.  Hey…  all the better! As I accrue points, I can get discounts… I’ll take that! Groceries here are kind of expensive!

When I walk through my neighborhood back in Georgia, I always speak to the people I meet. Here in Tokyo, they rarely do that. Everyone is in their personal bubble, and tries not to interfere with anyone else. It is that “Meiwaku” thing. (See previous post about Meiwaku.) I used to think it was because I am a foreigner, but they treat everyone the same way. But then, when we went hiking at Mt. Takao last weekend, just about everyone we met along the trail said “Konnichiwa” (hello/good day.) Sometimes the little kids (who are learning English in school) practice their English on us. We will get the occasional “hello” or “hi” from them. Sometimes in this isolation of not knowing the language, I start to feel like I am unwelcome here, but I really don’t think it is true at all. When I have had the opportunity to actually interact with them, I have found nothing but kind and friendly people, as eager to understand and learn about me as I am about them.

The point — and I have trouble explaining this — is that it isn’t just about the language. The language is a hurdle, but I can learn words. This experience living in Japan is also helping me to understand about the attitudes and the culture, and the history that produced this culture. It is all so different… so unique… so fascinatingly diverse. We need to embrace this diversity… Love it. Nurture it. Internalize it. Be it.

 

Summertime in Japan means lots and lots of festivals. I mean, every weekend is an excuse for a get-together, right? Like weekend BBQ’s and pool parties in the US, weekend festivals are everywhere here in Japan. Right now — mid-August — is the height of the summer vacation season, with the school holidays winding down toward the new school year.

 

In recent weeks — here in Tokyo — we have been to a paper lantern festival in Odaiba, a Hanabi (fireworks) festival in Asakusa, a Mikoshi (portable shrine) festival also in Asakusa, and another Mikoshi festival in Fukagawa at the Tomioka Hachiman Shrine. Every weekend there are fireworks, beer gardens, food festivals, and children’s festivals at various locations all around Tokyo. Some, like the Mikoshi festivals, are associated with the Shinto religion, some are Buddhist, and some… just for the fun of summertime.

At all of these festivals there are crowds of people, lots of activities, plenty of amazing Japanese street food (future blog post!!), and beer gardens. The summer in Tokyo is hot and steamy. The weather at times can be sweltering-ly miserable. I don’t really recommend a visit here during the summertime… except that there are so many great activities and festivals to attend. So much to see, so much to do… and everyone has a good time!

Coming up this week…  and into the weekend… is the Obon Festival. The Buddhist tradition of honoring one’s ancestors. Something like a combination of Memorial Day and All Saint’s Day/Halloween in the US. Here is a Wikipedia link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon_Festival

 

I took this photo of a cormorant along the canal this morning. I was walking to the spouse’s Japanese class at the company where my husband is working here in Tokyo. The water birds like to gather here in this spot under the monorail track…  and apparently have for quite awhile since the city has provided nesting and perching boxes and floats on the canal for them.

Despite all the heavy rains we have had the past few days, the canal was really low — the tide was out — and the water was almost flat calm. Hardly a ripple. No wind, and the humidity hung in the air. this guy had his wings spread to try to dry them. If you know about cormorants, they don’t have the same oily coating on their feathers that other water birds do, and they sit really low in the water… with usually only their head and neck above water. When they get out of the water, they have trouble getting their wings dry again. That is why they stand like this. I imagine he was having a really hard time getting dry with this humidity.

The baby ducks  — actually they have grown to be “teenage” ducks at this location in the canal — were swimming around, feeding around the float. They still hang together in a group, and mama duck just sits on the float and watches them now. There seems to have been a Spot-bill Duck population explosion here this summer. Baby ducks and half grown ducks are everywhere on the canals around our apartment. They are so cute, and so fun to watch. We have actually made casual acquaintance with a Japanese man who also watches the ducks on a nearby canal. He stops and talks to us now and then. Thankfully, his English is much better than our Japanese.

As I walked along the canal this morning the cicadas were droning, “see-see-see-see-see.” I have noticed that their sounds change during the course of the day. They make different sounds in the mornings and evenings. As I walked home from the supermarket this afternoon, their sounds had changed to “we-o-we-o-we-o.” Weird, huh? I never noticed this before…  and I have been listening to cicadas all my life!

I saw a little girl walking along the canal. She couldn’t have been more than 6 years old… she was missing her two front teeth… and as she walked along all by herself, she chattered excitedly on her cell phone. This struck me strange for two reasons…  Number one that she was so young (and alone!!) and already so caught up with her cell phone! Number two… that she was talking out loud on that cell phone!

The Japanese people are very private people, and you rarely see (or hear) them actually talking on their phones in public. They are almost always staring at their phones… texting on their phones, but they don’t speak on them very often in public. In fact,  there are very prominent signs on the trains and buses telling people to silence or turn off their phones. It is something of a cultural faux pas to talk on your phone on the subway, and I have heard that bus drivers will tell patrons to stop using their phones on the buses.

Walking around Tokyo, hardly anyone makes eye contact. Everyone walks around in a bubble, and there is rarely any interaction. It used to bother me… thinking that in some way they were rejecting me because I was a foreigner. But it is completely different when you get away from Tokyo. When we hike at Mt. Takao, everyone we meet greets us with “Konnichiwa!” (Hello!) And sometimes — especially the kids — will greet us in English! lol. It is a constant string of greeting all the way up and down the mountain.

Anyway… I know this is a bit of a rambling post, but… I just wanted to talk about my day. This place…  I am constantly amazed at what I see and hear and experience.

Bicycles are everywhere here in Tokyo. In the US, most people ride bicycles purely for recreation, but here in Tokyo, bicycles are an important means of transportation. Sure, there are still actual lycra-clad “cyclists” on “road bikes” like at home, but most of the bicycles here are the ordinary, practical type — equipped with baskets and/or kid seats. And… these bicycles travel around on the sidewalks, not on the streets. I cannot tell you how many times I have nearly been side-swiped by a bicycle as I have walked along the sidewalks.

I am fascinated by these bicycles, and can’t help but watch them. I am amazed when I see a young mother — usually in a skirt and heels — with an infant strapped to her chest, a toddler in the front baby seat, and an older child in the back seat. I am shocked when I see people riding their bikes in the rain holding an umbrella overhead. I laugh when I see the women riding with their small dogs in the front basket. And… I carefully move to the side when I see someone “texting and riding” on the sidewalk…  lol. Maybe they are chasing Pokemon! Who knows…

It is often a family affair of bicycles on the weekends… Father riding in the front, followed my a mother with a young child, and then older children on their own bicycles trailing behind them. Men in suits ride bicycles. Delivery people ride bicycles. Meter readers and city workers ride bicycles. It is a very practical and cost effective way to travel around this small area of urban Tokyo. The only traffic problems are with the pedestrian-crowded sidewalks. They weave expertly in and out among the walkers and runners and older ladies dragging their shopping baskets.

Some of these “commuter bicycles” actually have a power-assist feature that kicks in when they press hard on the pedals. That would seem to be a desired feature for some of these tiny, young mothers with multiple children in tow, and baskets full of groceries.

One day as I passed the convenience store (“kon-bi-ni”), I saw a bicycle parked on the sidewalk with a toddler strapped into the baby seat…  Mama was apparently inside the shop. No…  that would probably never happen in the US, but here it is ok. Mama no doubt had her eye on the child from inside, and no one walking by bothered the child. The young child was sitting contentedly, waiting for mama. He was not trying to climb out, or crying or fussing. Just waiting patiently.

I saw a bicycle with a dog in the front basket parked outside the supermarket. The dog looked somewhat anxious, but still… sat obediently in the basket waiting. He did not bark, or offer to jump out of the basket. I am just amazed at this phenomenon of transportation.

Parking fees for cars here at the apartment buildings are really high. It is very expensive to have a car in central Tokyo.  But every apartment building has free parking areas for bicycles. Racks and racks of bicycles, and they are almost never locked up. Our apartment building — one of the smaller apartment high-rises on Shibaura — has 240 apartments, and a large bicycle parking area in the basement… with a dedicated elevator to take your bicycle to the street level exit. Much more convenient than getting a car out of the underground parking area.

I know using bicycles for transportation in the US would not be very practical, but this mode of transportation works well here…  with the added bonus of getting a little bit more healthy exercise into the day.

 

This is the “he” part of the blog team. My wife has made the last several posts. I haven’t been contributing my share. Working to be more regular with my posts going forward.

We have now passed our sixth month of living in Japan. Looking back, we’ve done a lot…and the time has flown by.

I have been very pleased with my job here. The company I work for is truly multi-national. In a typical day in my office, I work with Koreans, Pakistanis, Indians, Russians, Chinese, Spanish, British, Japanese…and even another American. Throughout the worldwide organization, there are others, all communicating with various levels of proficiency in our company’s official language, English. At first, I found all the accents and unusual pronunciations very difficult. Six months in, it is getting easier…although I still occasionally have to ask someone to repeat what they said so that I can decipher it.

Since moving here, I’ve had an opportunity to travel more than I have ever done before. My job has taken me to Argentina, Germany, Korea, Russia, United Kingdom, and the United States. I find that I love to be in other places, but getting there – the travel part – can be a real pain.

Life in Tokyo has been great. The people here are so friendly, even though I can’t communicate well with my rudimentary Japanese language skills. We live in a tiny apartment, about the size of our family room in the United States. Yet strangely, this little place now seems like home. Someplace I look forward to being every day.

What I didn’t expect is the odd feeling I have when going back to the US. We are very fortunate that our daughter is leasing our house, so we have a place to go when we return. But that’s part of the oddity of returning. We go to our house, which contains all the possessions we’ve accumulated over 30-plus years of marriage. Our daughter is doing a great job of taking care of the place. But when we go there now, it is different. Now…for the next year and a half, at least…it isn’t our home. It’s an oddly disorienting feeling, that I find I really can’t describe.

So, six months in, am I glad I took this opportunity? You bet! It isn’t always comfortable, and some things are downright frustrating. But it really is the opportunity of a lifetime. We’ll see what the next year and a half has to bring. Right now, I’m enjoying the experience, and look forward to all it has to offer.

Rainbow Bridge over Tokyo Bay

It is summer in Tokyo, and there is always so much to do and see. Every weekend there are gatherings and festivals in the parks, shrines to visit, Tokyo Tower, Skytree, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Asakusa, Meiji, Senso-ji… and everywhere is the wonderful Japanese food and drink. Beer gardens open in the parks, tourists are everywhere, and the schools will soon let out for summer holidays. The city is big and beautiful, and always busy.

And… summer in Tokyo brings sweltering hot weather. With temperatures in the 80’s and wickedly high humidity, the heat index is often in the high 90’s and low hundreds. The sunshine can be intense, and the sweat begins to pour as soon as you walk out the door. Seeking shade is important, and the Japanese often wear hats and long sleeves and walk under sun umbrellas to protect themselves from the heat and sun. Almost everyone carries a little washcloth to wipe the sweat… little sweat towels are sold in all the stores.

The weather can also be very unpredictable. June and July are considered the “rainy season,” and rainstorms and showers can pop up suddenly. It is always a good idea to have an umbrella handy. Despite the rain, everyone is out and about. Life goes on… even in the rain. Men and women go to work, children go to school… dogs still have to be walked… groceries still have to be bought… even on a rainy day in Tokyo.

 

Last weekend, a walk across the Rainbow Bridge over Tokyo Bay, brought us to Odaiba and the Lantern Festival on Odaiba Beach — in honor of the Marine Day holiday (a relatively new national holiday in Japan, to show gratitude for the gifts from the sea.) Party boats (small dinner cruise boats) from all over the bay area gathered in front of Odaiba beach to watch the lighting of hundreds of colored paper lanterns arranged in elaborate designs in the sand of the beach. As darkness fell the lanterns glowed and the people milled around enjoying the surreal light. Then… sudden and unpredicted, the rain began to fall. One by one, the lanterns collapsed and went dark.  The end of the Marine Day holiday.

http://www.timeanddate.com/time/map/

The above link is for a time zone map of the world. One of the things that I am having the most trouble adjusting to here in Tokyo, is how early the sun comes up in the morning.  At this point in early summer, the sun rises at about 4:30 am. It starts getting light even earlier. Sunset is about 7 pm right now.  At home in Georgia, the sun rises about 6:30 am this time of year, and sets just before 9 pm. This difference is partly because Japan does not have daylight savings time… and partly because Tokyo sits close to the eastern edge of its time zone, while Atlanta sits near the western edge of its time zone. Whatever the reason…  I am having trouble sleeping in the morning. Once the light starts shining in the windows, I am awake. We even have light-blocking drapes on the windows, but I still wake up as soon as the light glows around the edges.

I don’t mind getting up early — I have always been an early riser — but just not this early. My body has been programmed for years to get up about 6:30 am, and go to bed about 11 pm. Now, I wake about 4 am, and still want to stay up until 11 pm… which doesn’t really allow enough time for sleep. The thing is… here in Japan, even though the sun comes up so early, most people don’t go to work until 8:30 or 9 am. My husband’s official office hours are 8:30am to 5:30 pm.  He usually goes in about 7:45 am… just to get a head start. So… he goes in early, and comes home on time. Some of his co-workers come in on time, and stay later in the evening. My question is, what do people here do in the morning between the time the sun rises, and the time they go to work? Am I the only one who can’t sleep after the sun comes up?

The logical thing, it seems to me, would be to adjust the workday to go along with the sunlight. Start the day earlier and get off work earlier. But we are so tied to clock time, that we can’t switch back to sun time. It would be a really tough thing to change. Body clock versus time clock. There is no solution here…  I will just have to get used to it. This is just an observation of the way things are here. As the days get shorter toward winter, the sun won’t rise quite so early, and I will sleep better. For now, I should get up and do something productive — like study my Japanese — instead of lying in bed worrying about why I can’t sleep.

We are back home in Tokyo again after another round of travel. My husband had a business trip to Chattanooga, so I went back with him to spend a few days at our home in Atlanta. He had to go on to another meeting in London, but I stayed in Atlanta for the Fourth of July holiday, and we met back here at Narita Airport yesterday.

All this travel seems to go in spurts…  starting with our trip to Germany in January, Russia in April, Atlanta in May, then South Korea and Atlanta again in June. We have more travel coming up in the late summer with trips back and forth to South Korea and a trip to Budapest, and late October will bring another trip to Atlanta for our daughter’s wedding. It has been interesting to be able to do all of this travel…  and I really want to take advantage of it while I can. I know that these travel opportunities will end when we move back to our “other life” in Atlanta. I enjoy traveling for the most part… packing and unpacking aren’t so much fun, and long hours on an airplane can be uncomfortable and tedious, and jet lag can be awful too… but being able to navigate myself through airports and public transit in foreign countries, and experiencing different countries and cultures has been fun!

Above are a few photos from Atlanta…  Since I was there for the Fourth of July, I was able to run the Peachtree Road Race 10K again. This is something my husband and I — and our children — have participated in for many years… I think this was my 15th time running the Peachtree. It is always a huge part of the Fourth of July celebration in Atlanta, and it is an amazing sight to see 60,000+ runners moving along Peachtree Street. This year was exceptionally hot and humid — even for Atlanta — but it was a fun way to cap off my visit “home.”

However, the hardest part of traveling back to Atlanta is having to transition between our life here in Tokyo, and our life there in the US. It is another thing that we never really considered when we moved here. It is almost like we are living two separate lives right now. We still own a home there — but our daughter is leasing it from us and taking care of it for us while we are away. So… when we go back… yes… we go “home,” but it isn’t really our home right now. It still has our furniture and most of our “stuff,” but she has moved into the master bedroom, and brought in a lot of her own stuff. We stay in a “guest” room. It is very weird — and a bit unsettling actually — to be guests in our own house. She is doing a fine job taking care of the place, and maintaining it for us… but it just doesn’t feel right to be there. I miss my home… I miss my stuff… but it isn’t really mine right now. I know this is only temporary — and it is only “stuff” after all — but it is difficult. It makes going “home” just a bit stressful for me.

Our life here in Tokyo is so different from our life there. I miss a lot of things about our life in Atlanta, but when I get back here, it is like all of those feelings go back into the closet along with my suitcase, and I don’t think about it again until the next time I go back. Our “life” here is much smaller than our “life” there. Our tiny apartment… just a fraction of our belongings… no car… We live very simply here. And I enjoy that. And as much as I enjoyed being “home” in Atlanta, and seeing family and celebrating a holiday, I was happy to get back here to our “home” in Tokyo.

 

Last week my husband had a business trip to South Korea, and he invited me to go along. From Tokyo to South Korea — we flew into Busan — is just a short two-hour flight! His meeting was in the resort city of Gyeongju, not far inland on the southeastern coast. The photo above was the view from our hotel window the first night, looking out over Lake Bumon. Gyeongju is surrounded by low mountains and is very lush and green this time of year. The lake has a walking path all around the 6 km perimeter.It was such a beautiful path, I walked (or ran) around it every day I was there.

I called it my “Zen Walk” because every other street lamp along this beautiful path had a speaker playing relaxing music — all the way around the lake! The music played from 7 am to 10 pm… we could hear it from our hotel room when we opened the balcony doors. Nice!

Since my husband was there on business, and I didn’t have transportation, I spent the week just wandering around the lake resort area. There are many historical sites around Gyeongju, but they are quite a ways away from the area where we were staying. He will be having more meetings in Gyeongju in the coming months, so I am sure I will see the historical sites later.

And the food! Korean food is wonderful…  if you have never tried it. The first night we took a taxi to a traditional Korean “hot pot” restaurant and had sundubu — a tofu hot pot dish made with freshly made tofu. They have many meat dishes and fish available as well. We liked this restaurant so much, that we went back again later in the week. They start out bringing lots of small dishes — we had a whole grilled fish (delicious, even though it was staring blindly up at me as I ate it), several kinds of kimchi, and other vegetable dishes. Then they brought the hot pot. We tried the seafood hot pot as well. They brought it boiling to the table and cracked a raw egg into it. You stir in the egg, and eat the stew with rice. Yum.

This is a bronze sculpture of Queen Seondeok at a council meeting during the Silla Dynasty. This sculpture sits along the lakeside and is lit at night. they have created a very inviting “photo zone” around the sculpture…

Our last night in South Korea, we went back to Busan so that we could be close to the airport for our flight out the next day. Busan is a much larger city than Gyeongju, and is built in the valleys between the mountains. It is the second largest city in South Korea.

Street food vendors set up their carts in the little side streets around the hotel. Great food… and lots of beer and soju!

And the beautiful lights of Busan at night…

I apologize for not keeping up this blog better these past few weeks. Before we came here, I had planned to try to write something every day. Living in Japan would be so different, I presumed, that I would have endless topics to write about, right? Well… and it is true… it is VERY different here, and there is so much to write about that I think sometimes I feel overwhelmed by it all, and can’t decide what to write about. Also, the business of living here gets in the way. It is a very different thing living here… as opposed to being a tourist here. Anyway… this may be a rambling post today as I attempt to catch up with what we have been doing.

Our son and his girlfriend visited a couple of weeks ago. Her parents and brother came with them. My son has been to Japan already a few times, and he has been taking Japanese classes since he was in college, so he is actually more familiar and comfortable in this culture than we are. He and his girlfriend and family had their own travel plans and schedule, so we pretty much just saw them while they were in Tokyo, and for the weekends. Our apartment being so small, they rented an AirB&B for her family, and just he and his girlfriend stayed here. It was really nice having them visit, and I hope they will visit some more while we are still living here. I look forward to having other family members visit while we are here too.

The first weekend that they were visiting, we went to Asakusa with them to a festival. Asakusa is one of the older and more traditional areas in Tokyo. If you want to see the “real” Tokyo, you have to get away from the trendy high-rise areas, and wander some of the back streets in places like Asakusa. There is just so much to see and do. Asakusa has the largest Shinto shrine in Tokyo… as well as a beautiful Buddhist pagoda… at Senso-ji. That is where the festival was, and it was beautiful and crowded, and larger-than-life that weekend! Street-food vendors were everywhere… the crowds were shoulder to shoulder. It was an amazing place to be… at least for awhile. Lol… sometimes crowds just get to be too… crowded. You know what I mean?

The next weekend, we met them in Hakone as they traveled back to Tokyo from Kyoto. Hakone is a resort area in the mountains south of Mt. Fuji. The area is known for the natural hot springs — after all Mt. Fuji is an active volcano. Hakone is filled with hotels and ryokans (traditional Japanese inns) with hot spring onsens (traditional Japanese public baths.) We stayed there at a beautiful ryokan. The onsen experience might seem a little bit weird for non-Japanese. There are separate baths for men and women, but when you go in, you are expected to remove your clothing and bathe before getting into the hot soaking bath. It is a HUGE faux pas to not bath thoroughly before getting into the soaking bath.

There are faucets along the wall, with shower sprayers. There are little wooden stools to sit on, and plenty of soap and shampoo is provided. You use your washcloth to thoroughly soap up and then rinse with the sprayer. When you are squeaky clean, then you can get into the hot bath. It is kind of like a large hot tub… but sans swimsuits, and much cleaner. Lol. The thing was,  anticipating it is much harder than actually doing it. Once I got there and started the bathing process, it was absolutely and totally relaxing… and not weird at all. This definitely should be on your to-do list if you ever come to Japan. Trust me, it is well worth it, and very enjoyable. They also provide Japanese yukata (robes…  kind of like kimono, but made out of cotton fabric.) Very comfortable, and you can wear them everywhere at the ryokan… inside, outside, to the restaurant at dinner or breakfast… Totally a pampered “spa” experience.

Ok… So the explanations for the Hakone photos, in order..

• Our train to Hakone. Japan has the most amazing trains in the world. Seriously.
• A shrine in Hakone.
• A stone lantern at the same shrine.
• Two photos of our traditional room at the ryokan. We slept on futons on the tatami mat floor. Our bedding was all rolled up in the closet.
• A traditional Japanese breakfast at the ryokan. Tattamo oishii desu.
• The gate to the ryokan.
• A stone lantern in the gardens of the ryokan.
• Another photo taken at the shrine in Hakone.