Enjoy the journey.

Author: enroutetoawesome (Page 2 of 6)

Fuss and Budgets

By Gem

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Enroute is having money worries! Saving for a house has seen us put away a respectable stash, but now we’re soon to leave our jobs, leave the country and start taking some very big chances…… and that means we’re nervously facing the fact that our savings are likely to take a kicking over the rest of 2014. There are tough times ahead, we’re a little anxious, but we know it’s time to make some hard decisions.

So we spent lots of money and bought a camera!

You WHAT?

When we were young, Kin and I both had our own special ways of being terrible with money. In our defence, please note that we’ve always paid our rent and bills and never had our phones cut off. But once these essentials were out of the way, our spending habits were atrocious.

Bad Spending – Gem-Style

My dreadful money method was to meticulously plan where absolutely every dollar should go and to deny myself pretty much anything I wanted, pretty much all of the time. This allowed me to accumulate some savings… which were then decimated at intervals when the rigid discipline became too much and I went temporarily buy-crazy.

Result? Despite the constant threat of nest-egg annihilation, I never seemed to obtain anything I wanted. (Buy-crazy shopping is not well-considered shopping.)

Bad Spending – Kin-Style

Kin, on the other hand, would frantically spend anything he earned or received as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, he never thought very hard about what to spend it on, so his money would just evaporate, leaving him with nothing between pays.

Result?  No savings mean a person has very little money at a time; and that means that Kin never got much that he wanted either! To make things worse, he also ran up some emergency debt (although not very much, thankfully; one of the good things about being in a low income bracket in your twenties is no-one wants to lend you money!)

So. Neither of us had much money (although I had slightly more than Kin) and neither of us were able to have nice things (although Kin had slightly more than me). Day to day, life was okay, but we were both just treading water; neither of us were ever in a position to improve things for ourselves.

Then, one day, we met, we moved in together and we combined our finances. And we combined our opposing ideas on how to manage those finances.  And together, we developed our most important household rule:

Budget Luxuries FIRST

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This isn’t the disaster it sounds like! The key words here are different for each of us, but the rule helps us both.

For me, the keywords are “Luxuries FIRST”. I like a good fait accompli and am happy to simply sit on money I don’t yet have a purpose for, so I will stick to a spending plan, even if it means having to scrape every last coin out of the couch, make scratch meals out of pantry scraps and home-grown vegetables and wash the dishes with soap. Because of that, it’s actually quite easy for me to sacrifice after the fact, especially since I already have my lovely indulgences to make me happy!

For Kin, who could happily get through the lot, the keywords are “Budget FIRST”. This means that before he spends any money in a pay period he has to think about what he actually wants, not just this month, but in the short and long term future. Actually setting aside physical containers to hold money for different purposes can be helpful for this sort of person. For example, you might have one envelope with money for restaurant meals, another with money for a new mattress, and so on. Doing things this way means that there is no large pool of cash for you to draw from to dilute the sacrifice; every time you spend, you will have to decide which area is going to take the hit. Watching your holiday, bicycle or pretty dress dribble away a few dollars at a time is a wonderful way to focus your attention on unnecessary spending.

If you don’t like keeping cash in the house, having separate bank accounts for your different kinds of spending can work (this guy has a lot to say on that topic, if you can avoid the advertising) but you really need to stay on top of fees and taxation.

But please remember: We budget luxuries first out of our household SPENDING money. We do NOT prioritise them over our rent, bills or savings. If you or your partner just flat-out can’t be trusted right now, this would be a terrible idea for you (you need to think about more basic goals, like these or these). There are also a lot of low-cost ways to obtain your pleasures, and I’m looking forward to talking about them later on!

Where do you fit luxury into your life? Where are you prepared to sacrifice and where do you indulge?

Happy (frugal) hedonism!

Gem

XX

May Was…

Adventure time!

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Or in other words: Our last chance to run out and about, without any worrying about packing, posting or looking for jobs back home!

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Long walks (at Fushimi Inari in Kyoto)

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The return of outdoor life.

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In more than one environment!

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Happy times for Gem in her pots.

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And for other gardners as well! (Wisteria festival, Shiga)

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A return to green fields.

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And outdoor living. And it’s always time for tea!

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May was also a long, long time ago now! We’re sorry for our longish silence; as you may have guessed, June has thus far been very, very busy! May was outside-the-house time and a sudden jump from “Soon it will be warm enough to wear kimono” weather to “Good God, it’s far too hot to wear kimono” weather. May was also busy-time at work, so our jobs and our running around meant we’re both a bit disgusted with ourselves: not much drawing time for Kin (although he did lots of pottery!) and not much writing or music time for Gem.

Most importantly, May was Kin’s birthday! His brand new birthday-gift travel bag, helped make our May the runaround time it was. May was also time for long train trips, with all the time for thinking, planning and talking things out that they allow. You’ll see some of the results in June and July!

Kin and Gem

XX

 

Look Who Came to Visit!

Contemplative frog

It’s spring alright! The rice fields are green and full of joy (for frogs) and the nights are dark and full of lurve… also for frogs. As well as having bats to watch, every evening we can also listen to the chorus of croaking from all directions.

Of course, all of this activity means that other creatures are becoming active too, including this fellow:

Snake I, swimming

This is a Japanese rat snake (Elaphe climacophora) that I spotted while watering the beans. It seemed pretty determined to work its way up the canal, so we figured it was heading out to the big rice fields to find frogs like the one above. Being Australian, I immediately yelled for Kin to grab his camera and he raced up the canal in pursuit.

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Unfortunately, his model did NOT feel cooperative. Rat snakes are quite timid (and, apparently, very bitey) so it decided to try and pretend that it wasn’t there and wait for the camera to go away.

Kin was a little disappointed but, as it turns out, he didn’t need to be! When I went for a run along the same canal, I found another friend for him to photograph!

Snake II; full length

Another rat snake! They must be everywhere at the moment! This one seemed a little less timid than the first and allowed Kin and his camera to get quite close. It was proceeding in the same direction as the other fellow, so there must be something attractive (to snakes) in that part of town.

Snake II, head, higher angle

Hello, snake II!

It seems that Japanese people respond to rat snakes much the same way as Australians do to carpet pythons, so our friends should have a safe journey, wherever they’re going. It was lovely to see these beauties and we wish them well on their travels. It’s also fun giving our U.S. friends the screaming heebie-jeebies with these photos!

Is anyone interesting out and about in your area? Have they come to say hello?

We’ve just made a Flickr account, so I’m gradually uploading our photos there (including our Facebook albums). If you want to see more snake pictures or others (soon), please come and visit us!

Gem,

XX

Mother’s Day

By Gem

Overwhelmed little one

Mother’s Day is an unusual event in our family. We don’t see Kin’s mother, courtesy of a serial restraining order that makes us grateful every day, despite the sadness. That means that, for both of us, my mother is it. So when this Mother’s Day was such a special day for her, the two of us were also very happy.

And it has been such a special day. Although neither my sister nor I could be with our mother, she was definitely not forgotten. We sent parcels and photographs, we chatted and sang and our gifts and attention were welcomed with the appreciation that only mothers (and grandmothers) can offer. This year, though, our mother is experiencing a joy that has nothing to do with either of us.

This year, there are bigger things to be grateful for than presents and perfumes or conversations on Skype. Things like universal health care, advances in surgery and the ultimate generosity of a stranger and the family who loved that person most. Because, thanks to all of those things, our mother is more than a mother this Mother’s Day. Our mother is also a sister.

On Friday, my critically ill uncle underwent a double-lung transplant at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. Today, he was moved from intensive care into an ordinary ward. In less than a month, he’ll be at home, preparing to resume his life.

Wow.

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The Australian year is moving to a slower period right now. Mother’s Day is one of the signs that autumn is beginning to tip over into winter. But no matter what the calendar says, it’s spring where my family are, with new life and second chances on everyone’s mind.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you wonderful mothers out there. Thank you, not just for ourselves, but for the brothers and sisters you gave us as well. They will remain precious to us every day that we live; my own mother shows me that.

Gem

XX

Golden Week

By Gem

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It’s Sunday night of a lovely long weekend here in Nagahama, and we’ve been spending it doing things we like best!

Yesterday, we finished everything that needed finishing (housework, shopping and the final co-op missions of Halo 4) and we’re off to have adventures in the south on Monday and Tuesday, so we’ve spent this Sunday having a lovely, gentle time.

A sleep-in for Kin, while I made a morning visit to friends in Kinomoto, then home to a simple lunch, scavenged from the contents of the fridge (I told you it’s good to keep soup and salad dressing in there!)

Kin then headed out to do some pottery in Kurokabe, while I baked bread, puttered around in my pots and studied for an hour or two. When he got home, we enjoyed afternoon tea together; you may notice we’re eating some of the same banana bread at both lunch and afternoon tea. That banana bread is actually a bit of an accident…

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A few weeks ago, my sister inspired me to make a nice, big batch of dulce de leche and, when I noticed our bananas were beginning to look a little sad in their bowl, I thought that I was being provided with a wonderful opportunity to transform my ingredients into a delicious banoffee pie for us to enjoy over the weekend. A little chocolate, a little cream, a drizzle of toffee sauce…. Subarashii!

What actually happened was that I got home on Friday evening, opened the last container of dulce de leche, tasted it to be sure it was still okay and then grew canines, howled at the moon and devoured the lot with a soup spoon.

(I wasn’t really in a fit state to observe myself, you understand, but I’m pretty certain this version of events is pretty close to being true.)

At any rate, I was left with the situation of having a bunch of sick-looking bananas and no caramel, so banana bread was a fairly obvious choice; cold slices for snacks and hot chunks with custard for desserts. Combined with the bread Oinky and I baked, this treat has made our apartment smell absolutely lovely. Outside, the air still carries a fairly heavy chill, but inside, everything is warm and clean and wonderfully fragrant. Life is good.

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The indoor refugees don’t seem to be phased by the cold; they’re so happy to be outdoors, they’re shooting up like rockets. The cold, gusty wind is giving my poor snow peas some trouble though. Every time they try to get a grip on the balcony railing, they’re blown off! After this photo was taken, I tethered them with a bit of hundred yen crochet cotton (Kin says the balcony looks like a spider web now!) and that seems to be helping them hang on a bit better.

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And now, I’m preparing dinner and listening to Kin sigh while he sketches. I’m so proud of him at the moment, I could explode!

Kin has just completed the Betty Edwards drawing program for the second time, and the results have been phenomenal. You can see his previous “Before” and “After” self portraits here (seriously, go look at them, I want you to see how awesome this is).

Now have a look at this:

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That was his latest “After” portrait. Isn’t he amazing?

It’s lovely when we can combine peacefulness and productivity this way. We’re looking forward to exciting times over the next few days of Golden Week, but we’re both very glad we had a little stretch to work and recuperate first.

However you’re spending your week, we hope you enjoy it! Don’t forget to take some downtime.

(For a calorie count of my caramel orgy, or a look at more of Kin’s photos, please check out our Facebook page!)

Best wishes,

Gem

XX

April was…

Sweets

April sweets.

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And an April Fool (we won’t see Shallow again until August).

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Very important preparations being made.

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By Kin as well! He’ll be studying again in August and is making sure that he’s ready.

 

Hikiyama matsuri

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Hikiyama Matsuri (one of Nagahama’s most famous festivals).


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Time to resume our Lake Biwa adventures!

 

April was short days, long bike rides and genuine joy at being outdoors. It was time for both of us to shake off our winter blues and get back to work on our drawing, studying and just straight making; food, ceramics and music.

We’re looking forward to a period of rest and focus in May, before we really start to get ready for Australia!

Kin and Gem

XX

 

RIP, My Lovely Scarf

By Gem

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I didn’t write a post yesterday, because I had a HORRIBLE afternoon. I’m tired and lurgy, so I was in no mood to go to my Tea Ceremony lesson, but I decided to be stern with myself (it’s a few hours out of my afternoon, it’s not that demanding an activity, the serene atmosphere would make me feel better, etc). So, when work ended, I wrapped myself in my scarf and coat, trudged to the station and plonked onto the Kinomoto train, where I sat in an unhappy daze with my scarf beside me… until I stood up and left it on the train!

And it was THAT scarf! My soft blue, lamb’s wool scarf that Kin chose the yarn for. My second-ever knitting project! I only finished it a few weeks ago, on the way back from Tokyo and it’s already gone.

I actually DID remember my scarf before the train got away, so I raced back along the platform with a JR employee and scoured the carriages for it, but some rotten sod had whipped it in the time it took us to get back there! I hoped so much that they’d simply picked it up to hand in to lost property, but it was not to be.

Tea Ceremony was a sad experience that day. Not only had it cost me my lovely scarf, lugging my bag around had given me a headache and I was far too wooly-headed and unhappy to actually learn anything. By seven, I decided that the day was a write-off, so I bid my sensei farewell and left early to catch the seven thirty train.

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…and missed it. So I had an hour to sit scarfless in the cold, reflecting on how much nicer everything would be right then if I’d been less strong willed and had just gone home when I wanted to. Now I wasn’t going to be home until nine AND I still had to make dinner and wash my hair. As far as first-world problems go, I was suffering badly last night.

Kin, thankfully, knows how to put me back together, so I didn’t have time to take off my coat before he bundled me off for steak and cheap wine at the imitation Italian joint down the road (bless him). A decanter of dodgy white is generally all it takes to improve my outlook (not to mention my headache) so I felt much better about the world before very long at all.

So what was the take-away from my unhappy evening (since “wine makes everything better!” is probably not a good moral)?

While I was still shivering in the dark, I thought that the moral to this story was that if you really, really don’t want to do something, you’re a lot better off not doing it. Revived by steak and sauvignon blanc, I still broadly agreed with that point of view, but could remember what that tired, chilly Gem could not; that the whole reason I’d dragged myself out was because I’ve been not-doing far too much lately! So maybe the lesson is really that it’s important to determine and maintain acceptable levels of activity, so that you don’t have to force yourself to do things when it genuinely is a bad time for you.

I actually like the second moral, even if it’s not very catchy, but I thought of an even better one today. I was really very, very sad about my scarf; I treasure my clothes and homewares, because I don’t have a lot of money to spend on that sort of thing. When that’s the case, and something happens to one of your possessions, it’s something of a tragedy. This time is different. I loved my scarf; it was lovely, soft and expensive, but…

I can make another one.

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A good scarf is bloody hard to find. Actual wool scarves cost a fortune and even finding a decently pretty acrylic is a matter of waiting until a shop finally has what you want and snapping it up the second it goes on sale (if it does). And if you lose it or stain it, it’s gone. You can’t have that scarf again. You have to resume waiting for the next pretty thing to turn up and hope that you have the money for it.

But my scarf wasn’t irreplaceable. Hours went into making it, but I was learning the entire time and now I know I can make it again; much, MUCH faster. I no longer have to wait for someone to design and produce a scarf for me at a price I can afford. It might not seem like much, but it shows how important it can be to an individual to develop a bit of independence in the production process.

(I’m trying to avoid the “teach a man to fish” parable here, but it just keeps seeming more appropriate with every word.)

This has made me more determined than ever to beg Beans for sewing lessons, stock up on crochet hooks and practice my knitting. Back when everyone could make things, I suppose store-bought items were a luxurious option. Now, though, we’re uncomfortably reliant on them; and the quality is dropping. Otherwise, why can no woman in the world find a blouse that is the right size for her knockers AND her waist? Not to mention opaque enough not to show her bra?

I don’t think we should all stop buying things; humans have always produced and traded goods, even when we were just doing it within our own villages. Our village is a lot larger now, but I love our interconnected world and I have no wish at all to shut myself away from it. I just think that it’s important for individuals (and communities) to keep their options open. In this case, if we had a little more independence when it came to making our own basic clothing, the products on the market would probably reflect the change.

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Now think: If a certain amount of independence is important for luxuries like pretty clothing, how much more important must it be for things like housing and food? And how capable are you of separating yourself from the marketplace for both?

I’m not, very. When we’re in Australia, I produce a lot of the vegetables we eat, but when it comes to grains, meat and fruit, we’re totally reliant on outside providers. And I’m a fairly accomplished cook, so foodwise, we’re more independent than most.

I don’t actually mind buying most of my food; I’m pretty sure the dude who made the best flint tools traded for a lot of his as well. But I’m very glad that I don’t need to depend on anyone else to turn those raw materials into meals for me. And it worries me how much other people my age DO seem to need it.

But when it comes to housing, I am hopeless. Both of my parents are competent with their hands, but I’m utterly useless. Carpentry is something I’ve desperately wanted to learn for years, just not desperately enough to do more about than search for local courses a few times a year and give up when I don’t find any. I should have bought a book, gone to open days at Bunnings or hired a carpenter to teach me some of the basics. When I get home, I will do those things, or whatever else needs to be done, and when I hire a specialist, it will be for a specialist job.

I plan on being a lot more independent in future. I will still work within my profession and  make money. And with that money, I will still participate in the world’s trading. But I’ll have the ability to be a lot more particular about what I’m buying.

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THAT is what my carelessness on the train has taught me. I feel stronger when I think of what I’ve already learned and I feel very, very good about the new things that I will learn and the new independence that will grow from it.

(….but… Oh! My lovely scarf!)

Are you growing, making or otherwise trying to keep a bit of distance between yourself and the markets of the world? How are you working on it?

 

Gem

XX

On the Boil: The Awesomeness of Soup

 

By Gem
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Now Australia is beginning to settle into autumn, and the spring days here in Japan maintain their chill… Now, it is time to sing the song of soup.

O Soup, the nourishing
Soup, the tasty
O, Soup, ye friend of the poor and saviour of the lazy…

… not to mention, Soup, the best way I know of getting rid of whatever’s going leggy in the garden, or leaky in the fridge. Or, Soup, how you can get five serves of vegetables into one meal, let alone one day. Or even Soup, a really good way of impressing lunch guests without really doing anything. 

But none of those really rhyme so well, do they?

Soup and Scheduling

I’ve spoken before about the importance of planning when you’re trying to keep your diet properly balanced. If you’re generally lazy (I am!), busy (I am!), or just someone who can’t always be trusted to make decisions like a grownup (I am!), but you still want to keep everyone properly fed during the week, then you need to organise your kitchen ahead of time.

Soup is central to my day-to-day organisation. If you always keep a jug of soup and a bottle of salad dressing in the fridge, you will always have a lovely, vege-ful meal half organised before you even get home from work.

This is great for those days when you just plain don’t feel like cooking or discover you have unexpected guests on a night you were planning to make scrambled eggs on toast. With about three minutes extra work, your scrambled eggs become an omelette, and you have soup, salad and toast ready to go with it! Salads and soups travel quite happily to work with you and will turn your lunchtime sandwich into a real meal. It also helps you feel better about those days when you haven’t prepared, but you’re already exhausted and just buy a barbequed chicken and some bread rolls on your way home from work. You’re still giving everyone a decent, balanced meal, you’re just not killing yourself to do it at a time when you just don’t have the energy.

Soup is also another arrow in my quiver against the Healthy-Food-Costs-More brigade.

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Getting Organised

Soup and salad dressing are both very simple to make. I shake up my salad dressing in an old squeezy-top mustard bottle that Kin washes out each time we empty it (about every month or so) and store it in the fridge. Just find an old jar, dump in a couple of tablespoons of a nice vinegar (we like a very acidic red wine vinegar), about double that of oil, salt, pepper and any additives that take your fancy (I often add about a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, crushed garlic or some parmesan shavings), shake it up and boom; vinaigrette dressing ready whenever you want it. Just give it another shake when it’s time to squoodge some out.

(Here are some rather more precise recipes if you’re nervous about that sort of thing. Or you can simply buy a nice, low kilojoule salad dressing to keep on hand).

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On the whole, though, it’s even easier to construct a soup than it is to make a salad dressing, and it’s a lot more impressive to visitors.

Basic Soup No 1: Green Velvet

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This soup is Kin’s favourite; it’s also the easiest soup I know! A basic soup like this just needs vegetables and stock. I usually use a liquid chicken stock for my soups, but there are no real rules when it comes to soup. If you are vegetarian, use vegetable stock. If you can’t make liquid stock (I’m not very good at it, either) or afford to buy it, use cubes from the supermarket. Don’t fret too much about getting things right; it’s soup. Soup will forgive you for just about anything.

Ingredients:

1 head of broccoli, divided into small florets, stem chopped
1 bunch of spinach, washed
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped
2 largeish potatoes, peeled and chopped into cubes
1.2 litres of stock (or whatever. If you like a thicker soup, use less. If thinner, use more)
Splash of olive oil
Herbs or seasonings (see variation). Today’s herbs for us are oregano, thyme and rosemary.

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Method:

Heat the oil in a saucepan and brown the onion and garlic over a low-medium heat until softened (probably more than five minutes, probably less than ten. Again, it’s soup; don’t worry so much). Add the potato and stir fry for 2-3 minutes (if adding dried herbs, this is a good time. This is also when I add hard herbs like rosemary), then pour in the stock. Bring to the boil, and then simmer for about fifteen minutes, or until the potato is tender. Add the broccoli (and any other fresh herbs), simmer for about four minutes or until broccoli is tender, then add spinach. Stir through and turn off heat.

Liquify soup using a stick blender, food processor, or whatever you have on hand. If you don’t have any of those things, go to an op shop or a pawn shop and buy one. I don’t care how broke you are. Being able to make soup is going to save you more money than a second-hand stick blender could possibly cost you.

Pour soup into bowls and serve, or into containers to store in the fridge. I sometimes pop a swirl of cream in each bowl, but it isn’t necessary. This soup reheats quite happily in the microwave and keeps for over a week in the fridge.

Variation: Leave out the herbs and instead add half a teaspoon of cumin at the end of cooking. Serve each bowl with a blob of natural yoghurtIMG_8409

This soup can also be made with any sort of vegies you have lying around, like carrot, beans, zucchini and any sort of leafy greens. Just simmer hard veg for longer and add leafy veg toward the end of cooking time. If you like a thick soup, add more potato. If you like a thin soup, add more stock. However you make it, it will always be delicious. It will also be cheap and give you a hefty serve of vitamins and fibre with every verdant bowlful.

What other sort of soup recipes would you like to see? Or does anyone have a good recipe of their own? I’ll be back in my garden soon and I’ll be on the lookout for nice ones.

Happy souping!

Gem

XX

Temporary Living

 

By Gem


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Spring is here and before the end of summer, we’ll be gone. It feels so strange to be living out our normal Nagahama rhythms, while at the same time, preparing ourselves to up sticks and leave in just a few months.

For someone like me, this is very hard. My talk about planning ahead and setting goals might seem to imply that I’m a very future focused person, but the truth is, I really don’t live in a linear world. Past, present and future all have my attention and all are important to the ways in which I manage things.

There are anchors that tie past, present and future together, in the form of stitches that become scarves, of seeds that become plants and then meals and of practice that becomes skill and muscle. Time isn’t a flowing river, where the past moves on to the future and is left behind. Time is a pool where I swim in gentle circles, checking how big the lettuce are getting, if we need soap, what sort of spending we’ve been doing or might do and whether I need to stretch again that day. It’s a restful but efficient way to live and very conducive to evaluation.

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Now, though, our imminent departure has put a great big rock in my peaceful little pond and I can’t make a full circle without bumping my head on it! I can’t plant summer flowers; without water, they’ll die before the next person arrives to take care of them. I can’t shop the way I normally do; bulk-buying items like flour and spices is pointless when I won’t be here to use them. I can’t keep gifts or make many things; only so much weight can come back to Australia with us. My current crop may well be my final one; no sense replanting vegetables that will meet the same fate as the flowers.

I’m excited about my future, but right now it’s really interfering with my present!

Don’t worry, I’m not really complaining…. No, I AM really complaining, but I don’t really mean it, so it’s safe to ignore me. I’m looking forward to taking up my Australian life again (binge-reading Jackie French and scheming about suburban livestock is taking up a lot of my free time at present). But living in limbo is making me CRANKY!

Kin is feeling it too, if his complaints about claustrophobia are anything to go by. Spring is a TERRIBLE time to be stuck in a holding pattern; it’s a time for planting, for exciting new projects and setting the foundations for the year, not for trudging along, ignoring the year’s cycle.

Soon, at least, we’ll be able to start packing up some of our belongings and do things like (gulp) dusting off our resumes. In the meantime, though, we’re just waiting…..

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What’s a good way to cheer yourself up when you can’t make, plant or buy anything? If you don’t feel like making a suggestion here, feel free to drop by our Facebook page.

Impatiently,

Gem

(No kisses today;  I’m cranky, so I may end up biting someone)

Tokyo: A Youtube Adventure

By Gem

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It seems that all the great cities of the world have been nicknamed. Chicago is the Windy City, Paris is the City of Love and Venice is beautifully known as the Bride of the Sea. Once a city reaches a certain age and size, it seems natural for its people to give it another name, one based on the culture and the character that place has developed.

All except Tokyo.

Tokyo is undoubtedly a great city, boasting the largest metropolitan economy in the world. It is a populous city, with around thirteen million permanent residents and a huge population of commuters from the surrounding countryside. And it is an old city (once called Edo) which has been the de facto capital of Japan for more than four hundred years. Yet for some reason, Tokyo has thus far evaded nicknaming. Is the culture not strong enough? Does the city lack personality?

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Quite, quite the opposite. Tokyo, in fact, has an excess of personality. Multiple personalities, if you will. Outside minds may have given the area one name, but to the residents, it’s never stopped being a collection of small (yet insanely densely populated) villages, each existing as its own mad little world and each certain that the next quake will be The Big One. What can you call a place like that? Bedlam? Godzilla’s Playground?

“Don’t EVER live in Tokyo for more than two years at a time,” insisted my Japanese teacher back in Oz. “You’ll go insane; and you won’t notice.”

This is a man whose racing bike has more than once whizzed by me doing forty km on a downhill run despite being declared LEGALLY BLIND more than a decade ago.

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He lived in Tokyo for six years.

Crazytown

Japan, overall, can be mad. But even among Japanese people, it’s accepted that Tokyo is much, much madder.

For one thing, the city is constantly changing. In the warmer days of spring, Japanese birds construct nests and Japanese builders hurl down and fling up buildings all over the country. But in Tokyo, they’re busy all year round, making buildings appear and vanish like mushrooms. Stores and advertisements are also constructed or painted on large vehicles (like the flatbed truck bearing massive-breasted, topless, singing battle robots that rolled by during our last visit to Kabukicho) which then move around the city playing deafening music at passers-by. Even without Godzilla or the Next Big Quake, everything is huge, but nothing feels permanent.

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Did I say everything was huge? That’s just the outside of the buildings. In their interiors and on the streets, Tokyo tries to pack as much of itself into the smallest spaces it can. That means low ceilings, narrow paths, tiny furniture and constantly touching at least three other people at once. The scale and density of Tokyo causes a low-grade mental pressure that takes genuine effort to resist.

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The major issue, though, is not really how much genuinely bizarre stuff (like the topless robots) is actually floating around the city, but how quickly you get used to it. The human brain is resilient and will absorb and adapt to any amount of bizarre stimuli, so in a place where so much is abnormal, your sense of normality becomes extremely unreliable.

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When you add the city’s multiple personalities to that mix and the bizarre ways in which they interact, more than anything, walking around in Tokyo is like a real-life version of those nights you find yourself in the weird part of Youtube. You see something, it looks interesting, you click on it, it leads to something else, you click on that, you keep clicking…. and before you know it, it’s three in the morning and you’re watching a man feed his underpants to a goat.

Fortunately, in Tokyo your service provider isn’t gathering any information on you.

What Happens in Tokyo….

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Ours would have had plenty on us before we even left our Akihabara hotel.

Although the manager had rented us tiny rooms with tinier ensuites, most of the hotel’s business actually comes from capsule rentals to drunk and weary salary men. Two thousand yen (about twenty dollars) grants them access to a large shared bathroom with lockers and a small, coffin-like space in the wall with just enough room for one sleeper and a porn magazine.

Does this seem strange? What’s stranger is that it only took about ten minutes before we were totally accustomed to the idea of going to sleep each night and waking up each morning knowing that there were a hundred businessmen sealed into the walls like wasp larvae.

If we leaned out of the window, we could see the local Pachinko Parlour, where an animated (and adorable) adventurer tugged on a jungle princess’ leopard-skin bikini top. Below, the taxi-drivers, neon-lit trucks and scooter daredevils played their terrifying game of dodgems, while sirens screamed all around, yet never arrested anyone. We could also watch tired office workers step onto the balcony for a cigarette and a moment to think, without ever noticing any of the frenzied activity around them.

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In Tokyo, the people are like islands.

Becoming an Island

Despite our inauspicious beginning, we fell into our Tokyo routine (and our island status) fairly quickly.

In the morning, I would wake up, give the wall (and its load of snoring businessmen) an affectionate pat and wander into the corridor to heat water for tea. When it was ready, the three of us would step out onto the tiny “balcony” to watch the dodgem game, the suited abseiler on the opposite building and, one morning, a procession of neon-decorated trucks blaring pop music to advertise the new Idolmaster Game (which will be released in May if you’re into that sort of thing. Please don’t tell me if you are.)

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After that, it was time for us to decide what to do with our day.

We visited Akihabara, of course; our anime-nerd leanings and our hotel’s location by Dentown made this an obvious choice. While we initially had a wonderful time, cramming ourselves between overstacked shelves of figurines, clothing and art books, we gradually started to notice that Akihabara seems to be morphing into something a lot more seedy and a lot less fun. I don’t know if the art has changed, or the current generation of nerds are a creepier breed, but it had a particularly bad effect on the guys, both of whom declared themselves finished with the place and in desperate need of a bath. And, after accidently catching the tail-end of an AKB-48 show, I couldn’t blame them. It makes me cringe to think that our students could potentially attend concerts in the same building as those sweating, tracksuit-wearing otaku waving their glow sticks at fifteen year olds dancing in ruffle skirts.

(Akihabara still has plenty to offer the nerdy traveller, but you might be more likely these days to just get in, buy it and get the hell back out without enjoying your time as much as you used to.)

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Ueno, mixing more of the old Japan with the new was much gentler on the guys’ bruised sensibilities and we spent quite a bit of time recuperating under the cherry blossoms in Ueno Park and in the Ueno markets. Asakasa, though crowded, is also a fairly relaxed place by Tokyo standards and is popular with backpackers and older Japanese tourists. Our objective was Sensou-ji, a holy site devoted to the bodhisattva Kannon, where people have been visiting and buying (actually quite reasonably priced) souvenirs for almost fifteen centuries. (I really love that about Japan; instead of trying to avoid the tourist traps and really connect with the ancient culture of an area, visiting the tourist traps is HOW you connect!)

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We skipped Shinjuku and Roppongi this time and very quickly zipped through Ginza, but Kin and Shallow indulged me and allowed me a lot of time in Shibuya.

I adore Shibuya; I could spend all day there, just watching people and walking around. This area is a bit of an artistic and fashion centre, not just for designers and multinationals, but also for the kids who stitch, paint or hammer together their own looks and styles and, when they get a little older, even open little shops of their own, which are immediately graffitied by their younger colleagues. (They do it so nicely, though that no-one minds.)

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Really, Shibuya is far too cool for me, but it’s generous enough to let me hang out there anyway.

Most of our trekking was done on foot, although we did hop onto the subway sometimes. As we were generally travelling outside rush hours, Kin and Shallow were permitted to travel in purdah with me, in the “Ladies Only” section of the train (set aside to protect women travellers from sexual assault). Only some of our stations had installed suicide-prevention barriers or calming blue lights, but all played a happy jingle as each train approached, which some claim is another preventative measure.

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Personally, I found this ingenious creation much more cheery and engaging than yet another obnoxious noise on the Japanese subway.

Harajuku was so crowded, the tide of people almost washed us away. Shallow’s height became an advantage for the first time since he’d arrived in Tokyo (normally he just bumped his head on things) and he could keep an eye on Kin’s red hat bobbing away on the current. I just became flotsam and grabbed hold of whatever bits I could reach of either Shallow or Kin whenever the flow brought us close together. We saw a few examples of Harajuku fashion on people (and many more in the shops!) but if you really want to see Harajuku girls, visit Jingu Bashi, the Harajuku bridge, on Sunday afternoon. Right over the bridge is a peaceful Meiji Shrine and also Yoyogi Park, where we met with a friend and unexpectedly became part of a cherry-blossom viewing party with the staff of a Shinjuku publishing company.

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The park was so covered in eskies and picnic blankets that parties combined like slime mould, forming one ultra-party whose participants cheerfully shared their food and sake and posed for group photographs with strangers.

Islands can join very quickly, if sake is involved.

Much later, and a little unsteady, our whole cherry-blossom party was carolling about being fireworks in the karaoke booth where we’d had dinner. Our merry trek from Harajuku had gone past decorated trucks (each with a pair of feet pressed on the windscreen), night markets, outdoor raves and a woman quietly walking her meerkats through Shibuya.

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Just another night in Crazytown.

 

Gem

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