my new green-curtain

thank god monday's over; I so hate mondays.
today I had to write a letter to the CEO of one of the biggest corporations (in the top 10) in the world.
how's that for a freaky start to the week!

anyway, have you heard of green curtain?
it's not a "curtain" curtain but rather a curtain made out of lush green foliage which you grow outside of your window.
apparently by growing a green curtain you can reduce the temperate inside your house by around 2 degrees.
they also look nice too and offer a bit of privacy.

after walking around my neighborhood its easy to see that they are the in thing at the moment in my little suburban tokyo neighborhood.
couldn't resist but get in one the fun so yesterday I drove to the local hardware store and purchased myself a big flower pot, some dirt, couple of stakes, a net, and some plants.
most people around here are growing goya which is a bitter gourd popular in okinawa, but I went for yorugau; moonflower, from the morning glory family only because I though the odd flower would look better than some gourd hanging outside my window.

as you can see I'm in need of some privacy so I'm looking forward to my green curtain to start winding itself up the net.

can you see kou-chan on the sofa to the right? he can now get on and off the sofa or bed by himself!

pretty pink

this weeks been a scorcher.
has been 30 degrees plus in Tokyo (we topped the 35 degree mark the other day) and gunma prefecture got up to 39 degrees. bugger that.
our office is warm to say the least with the aircon set at 28 which basically means the aircon is spewing out thick warm air that just makes the sweat run at a slower pace.
not cool (pun intended)

a few colleagues at the office bought those USB fans so the other day after work I went on the hunt for one.
well, talk about popular. the first two stores I went into were out of stock but my luck changed in the third store, where they had five left.
the last five were all in pink color.
pink...
pretty pink...
she lady at the store went on to explain that they did have them in white, black, blue, even silver and gold but all that was left was pink, and even these are selling out fast.
I spent the next 10 minutes holding the little square box containing a pink fan wondering if I should try my luck elsewhere or just be a man and buy the god dam fan.
pink...
it was then that I remembered what the new temp lady at work told me.
we were having some after 5 drinks and she said was interested in tarot card reading etc. I'm so not into that but she said if I told her my birth dates she would give me a run down on my personality.
sounds like some primary school game but it turns out that I like the number 8 (true) and my lucky color was yup, you guessed it, pink. pretty pink.
can't say it's my favorite color although I have a few pink items stashed away.
so I though bugger it, the extra luck won't go amiss, and a few cha-chings later I'm the proud owner of a pretty pink USB desk fan.
haven't got too many funny looks at the office which I'm not sure is a good thing or not but at least I'm a tad cooler.
it has two settings, low and high; so can't figure them out as the high setting doesn't seem to give off any stronger wind but just makes my desk vibrate a bit.
no doubt will start getting sone funny looks if I set it to high.

happy birthday my champ

so behind on blogging….

just a quickie to spread the word that my beautiful little kou-chan turned 1 less than a week ago.
he's now got 8 teeth and walking (albeit a bit wobbly on his feet).
man, he's been experiencing so many milestones this past month, will get to these on a later post.

so now that he’s walking we purchased his first pair of shoes; some asics; not cheap considering he will apparently have grown out of them in about 3 months, but these are designed especially for toddlers who are learning to walk. pretty important time in ones life if you ask me.




guess who turned up for kou-chan’s 1st birthday?
chi-chi and pop (the grandparents) all the way from new zealand!
talk about the power of the first grandchild!

anyway, more on that later.

tsuruya jam

boy has it been good to escape tokyo these last few weekends.

we headed up to nagano for the long weekend and had three days of delicious food, long soaks in the local onsen (hot springs), no scary aftershocks, and i even learnt how to change the tires on my car (i know… i've never had to do it before; but i had to take off my winter-tires as i was probably the last person in tokyo driving with winter-tires).
good old murphy’s law; it snowed the day after I took them off…

with all the current stuff happening in tokyo at the moment i persuaded k-chan to stay up in nagano with kou-chan.
glad they are safe(r) up there.
you've probably heard, but we were advised that it's not safe for children under one to drink the tap water here in tokyo due to the high levels of radiation detected. anyway, i’m not gonnna rant about this, instead i'm gonna introduce some jam.

if you are ever in nagano you so have to buy some locally produced tsuruya jam*; it’s seriously good!
these little jars of goodness use less sugar than other varieties and the best part is that they come in a huge range of flavors.
this time i bought four jars; walnut butter, gooseberry, rhubarb, and citrus marmalade.
all are divine!





have just left my love ones up in nagano again and returned to tokyo alone.
so if you’re in tokyo; invite me out for a drink; i'm a semi-free man!

spring's around the corner; it's gotta be good.






* can be found at any tsuruya supermarket.

panic-buying

the media is having a field day with this blimmin nuclear reactor news in fukushima.

i know it doesn’t look good, but radiation levels here in tokyo have yes, increased, but were not high enough to cause health concerns. the amount is said to be less than that of an x-ray. mmm.
still the number of people wearing masks has doubled, if not tripled; and no, i don’t think it’s due to the hay fever outbreak japan gets hit with every season.
call me a sheep if you want, but i wore a mask today too. if it calms your nerves, i say do it.

arriving at work this morning we were told to take off our coats and put them into plastic bags before entering the office… apparently radiation is a bit like pollen, it clings to your clothes.

even though i’m sure there is nothing to worry about (yet), i'm considering telling k-chan to take kou-chan back to her hometown for a few days until things settle down a bit. nagano is an extra 100 odd km further away from fukushima than tokyo is.

if things really do get out of control we may consider an unscheduled trip back to nz. if it’s ok to trust what the scientists are saying on tv, then this is probably not really necessary.


k-chan is, like us all, sick of these blimmin scary aftershocks we keep experiencing.
had another big jolt the other night at 10:30 which was a M6.4 in neighboring shizuoka (a skip and a jump from tokyo). no tsunami warning was issued and no damage to the nuclear power plant in shizuoka. i so didn’t realize, but there are over 50 nuclear power plants in japan. coming from nuclear-free nz you can imagine my hate of this kind of power…

and just after lunch yesterday chiba (tokyo’s other neighbor where tokyo disneyland is located) jolted us with a M6.0…

i work on the 12th floor and believe me, it’s not fun. ever since friday my body constantly feels like it’s swaying.



nuclear radiation, earthquakes and tsunami(s) are not the only thing we are dealing with.
like i mentioned in my previous post, panicky residents here in tokyo are panic-buying.
this is what my local supermarket currently looks like….

sold out of toilet paper!

in my search for some bread i strolled down to my local bakery. (i was planning on introducing this bakery on my blog at a later date because their bread is sooo good, but this odd introduction will have to do).

as you can see people will go to serious lengths to get their hands on some bread. all bread was sold out and this line of people (errm, housewives) were queuing to place orders for the following days batch.

i queued up with them and have hopefully secured a loaf of bread (yes, one per household).

no more bread today!

4000

4000.
four thousand.

sounds like a lot.
I guess it is when you are talking about $4000.
4000 isn't exactly loose change when talking in yen either. I mean I could buy a nice neck-tie with 4000 yen or even go out for a round or two of drinks after work.

but I'm not talking about dollars or yen, or how many times I've been on an airplane for that matter.
I'm talking about watts.
4000 watts.

if your like me and hate numbers and physics and all that, then you will probably have no idea if 4000 watts is enough to light a small light bulb or power-up a generator at a nuclear power plant.

well for your information, 4000 watts is shit all.

on leaving hong kong we had to chuck out lots of our electronic equipment as good old japan would have zapped most of our stuff.

although disappointing as it was to dispose of perfectly good equipment (we did sell some and give away others), the thought of purchasing brand spanking new, state of the art japanese electronics sent a shiver down my spine.
reality soon put a stop to that shiver as we didn’t really have the cash to shop like a Hilton offspring, although we did manage to buy some pretty cool stuff.

“cool" until plugged in I might add.

wham, our mansion (a japanese term for an apartment constructed of reinforced concrete) was thrust into pitch darkness.
wtf?!

turns out my breaker switch had tripped (mmm, do you say “tripped”?)
using the light from my mobile phone I found the big black switch and returned it to it’s ON position.
well whatta ya know, 5 minutes later and we are all sitting in darkness again because I had pressed the “cook” button on the blimmin rice cooker.
definitely not good for the computer to be unexpectedly cut off from it’s lifeline, or for my TV’s hard drive to suddenly be shut off.

apart from kou-chan (who will be 10 months tomorrow!) we were starting to get rather annoyed so I decided to give the tokyo power company a call.
in amazing japanese-style service, I had a charming old man at my doorstep in less than 2 hours!

he ever so kindly explained to the stupid foreigner that my mansion; like most mansions in tokyo, has a watt limit of 4000 watts.
there was absolutely no technical problem what so ever with my breaker but rather a slight issue with my selection of “cool” electronics (errr, not so cool now).
just by turning on our flash new oven I had already used up 1400 of my 4000 watt limit.

…

so with the oven on, the rice cooker cooking our rice, me watching TV while sitting in the warmth of the kotatsu (electric (!!) table warmer thingy), and the washing machine doing its spin, we were in other words trying to use enough electricity to power a small village.
one would think that the young dude at yamada-denki (electronic store) could have hinted that all of these power-hungry products that I was willy-nilly putting into my trolley may just be a bit too overpowering for the standard japanese home. but nope, he was all smiles and gave me an extra discount for my big purchase.

having lived back in tokyo for 2 months now, we have a few little rules in our home.
do not under any circumstance what so ever use the hairdryer while boiling water in the jug.
do not under any circumstance what so ever turn on the aircon while cooking muffins in the oven.
do not under any circumstance what so ever consider enjoying the features of our extensive range of household electronics.

thank god we have an unlimited flow of gas!

narai-juku : 奈良井宿

took ojiisan and obasan's new car for a spin on the expressway (ojiisan and obaasan were also in the car with us so i wisely set the cruise control at 100kmh...)
after a couple of nappy changes along route (for some reason kou-chan always poops when he's in his car seat) we arrived at the old town of narai-juku (奈良井宿) in shiojiri city (塩尻市).

narai-juku is basically a long-ish well preserved street which once flourished during the edo-period.
the weather was perfect for a stroll and it was a great place to pop our heads through the noren (暖簾); door-entrance curtains (??) to see what was on offer.







one shop in particular caught our eye as it had some great showa-period antiques for sale. k-chan and i fell in love with a handmade wooden bread box (the owner of the store makes them) but it was too over priced. we tried to see if they would give us a discount but nope, the price was set to stay. this is japan and not hong kong after all...
instead we bought some fairly common showa-period yunomi (湯のみ);japanese tea cups for 100 yen each.
currently unemployed this was probably a wise choice!




stopped off at another onsen deep in the mountains on the way home.
the natural spring water was great leaving our skin super smooth. shame that this onsen was so small; it felt like i was rubbing my elbows (and other body parts) with every man and his dog so to speak.
one boy (about 6 years old) pointed at me and said to his dad; "he's got strange hair". his dad turned around and looked like a deer caught in headlights when he saw me; a naked gaijin, but kindly explained to his son that yes; he has got blond hair and you have got black hair.
thank god the boy was pointed at my head and not somewhere else!