Tag: Japan (Page 2 of 4)

The Best Things in Life…

March 31, 2014 / enroutetoawesome / 5 Comments

Today we’re off on holiday! The plan for this post was just a couple of quick, merry little paragraphs (mostly as an excuse to show you photos!) detailing our early start, breakfast in Gion, then our cheery voyage aboard a JR highway bus, getting us to Tokyo station at about five thirty in the afternoon. A relaxed check-in, a little stroll, a pleasant dinner and then a gentle evening spent chatting, writing, sorting out the day’s photos and drinking our wine underneath the cherry blossoms in Ueno Park before hitting the frantic scramble of the city the next day. It was a good plan.

Instead, it’s rained all day, breakfast was McDonalds, our bus was late, there were landslides in the mountains, Kin was poisoned by a highly suspicious roadside Pluto Pup and, typing this at eight thirty at night, I am STILL on this goddamn bus, stuck in a traffic jam outside a city I’m HOPING is Tokyo, cramped, cold and getting crankier by the second.

Well, I was. I’m still stuck, that’s true, but I’m feeling a little more cheerful about it thanks to an even crankier email I’ve just read from a friend in Oz, detailing woes renovating, with a newly mobile baby in the house…

…And I started laughing at both of us. Honestly, there I was, grumpy about being en route to one of the most exciting cities in the world and there she was, cranky about her healthy child’s typical development and her house becoming lovely. People as lucky as we are shouldn’t feel so cranky!

Gratitude

Feeling a lot more relaxed, I settled back into my (still kind of uncomfortable) seat and started giving some thought to gratitude. Why does it make such a difference to happiness? Not to mention, why is gratitude so essential for being awesome?

Mostly, I suppose, because being grateful for good things helps you to accept how much they cost. Right now, I am fatigued, uncomfortable and getting chillier by the second… but I get an amazing trip out of it, so I’m happy. The best things in life may be free when it comes to money, but there will always be some sort of sacrifice needed, of comfort, time or other resources. Without being grateful for the rewards these sacrifices earn you, though, you’re more likely to find the costs unacceptable… and so good things will come to you less and less frequently.

Accepting the costs

Being grateful for the fun you have at a party is great; it means that you accepted the awkwardness and boredom of the first half hour. Being thankful for the daffodils is a result of your choice to go for a walk instead of being sedentary. Appreciating a good dinner helps you accept the time spent preparing it. And once you get used to these sacrifices, they become part of the joy.

See, that’s the part where I think a lot of people get the wrong idea about gratitude. They think it’s a passive thing, where you simply choose to accept with joy what the world has given you… and leave it at that. Now that’s fine, as far as it goes, (and it’s certainly better than being a miserable wanker about everything) but it’s really only a very basic first step. Gratitude isn’t passive. It’s a choice and a force. What do you do when you’re grateful to a person? You thank them and you and try to return the favour. You DO things! Gratitude is very, very active. In fact, just hanging around waiting for nice things to happen seems pretty UNgrateful to me. Simply by virtue of being when and where we are, we have been given immense opportunities for joy and growth.

Active Gratitude

Life has many gifts for us, but the gifts won’t just happen, even if you have been lucky so far. To keep on getting, you have to keep on doing. Even if it’s just making the decision to stay on top of your bad mood; you can’t be grateful for the violets near your feet if you’re scowling at rainclouds.

If you’re happy now, there are probably still things you can do to ensure your future has gifts to be appreciated (I’m thinking bone-density and financial security, ladies. Get that load-bearing exercise on and review your expenditures; it’s never too late!) If you’re not happy now, do something to be grateful for. Stand up right now, stretch as high as you can and then try to bring your chin to your knees. Hold that for twenty seconds, then straighten up (bend your knees as you straighten if you have issues with your back). Do that three more times. Feel good? Not yet? Okay, do it again tomorrow. Keep doing it for a week and I guarantee you’ll have something to be grateful for, as you recognise your increased gluteal strength and flexibility. Every time you do that simple thing, you are doing something awesome.

When Activity is Hard

If you’re depressed, never learned, or are just plain out of the habit of looking after yourself, it can be difficult to experience these everyday rewards (I’m talking mild-moderate depression here; if you’re in the middle of a serious episode, some chick talking to you on the internet probably won’t be helpful; you need to see your healthcare professionals and keep working on your plan). So, instead of telling you to look around for reasons to be grateful, I want you to look around for reasons why you’re awesome. But you can’t tell me things you are (I’m smart, I’m friendly, etc) you can only tell me things you’ve done. Five of them. Five awesome things you’ve done since you got up this morning.

And don’t tell me “Nothing”. I don’t believe you. I’ve been on this bloody bus all day, but I reckon I can still scrape out five. Yours will be much better. What have you done?

“Um… I watered the pot plants” YES! You’ve done something to ensure the continued existence of another being AND maintain your own environment’s liveliness and joy. What else? “I…. um… I let someone in ahead of me on the roundabout.” BRILLIANT! You demonstrated kindness and consideration at a particularly stressful time of day. What else have you done? Did you make breakfast? Shave? Wash the dishes? Pick best five and chuck them on your list.

“But I do that stuff every day!” So COUNT it every day! If you don’t think it’s good enough for your list, count it anyway and keep counting it until you have something else that bumps it out of the top five. THIS STUFF MATTERS.

If you’re depressed, just getting dressed might be enough to make it to your list. If you’re an alcoholic, not drinking is the best possible action you can take. We can’t measure this list against anything that other people are doing, it all has to be just us. And every day, we need to make five. I know that sometimes it can be hard to make yourself achieve anything in a day, let alone five things. But really, if you’re already miserable, then doing things won’t make you any less happy, will it? And by giving yourself things to be grateful for, you’re making happiness so, so much more likely.

My Awesome Five

I’ll admit, my mojo is kind of being hampered by this bus, but I’m still not without resources. My five things from today are:

1- I’ve stretched at each rest stop, so I wouldn’t get headaches.

2- I successfully blow-dried my hair out of its usual dead-seaweed tendencies (still a very new and unreliable skill for me) so I still look human.

3- I’ve kept my temper all day despite being sleepy and cranky, so Kin and Shallow still love me.

4- I’ve answered an email and made my cranky friend laugh (she feels much less cranky now).

5- I’ve written a blog post about doing five awesome things!

What are your five awesome things? Did you cook something? Make something? Plant something? Help someone?

Leave your awesome things in the comments. I’d love to see what you’re doing!

Gem

Edit II: If you can’t find the “Comments” box, try clicking on the heading “The Best Things In Life” so that you’re actually in the post. Then you should be able to see comments at the bottom.

It also seems that the reason some of you are PMing me your five things is that sometimes an error message comes up when you try to comment. I’ll do my best to fix it, but in the meantime, I’m told that just refreshing a couple of times should do the trick.

I really need to learn some HTML, damn it.

Edit: This was actually completed on Wednesday, and was supposed to be uploaded the same day, but issues with batteries, camera cards, hotel wifi, and the generalized insanity of Tokyo meant that it was much, MUCH easier to just wait until we were back in Shiga. Also, a more complete album of the Penis Festival is now available on our Facebook Page.

A Week of Willies

March 21, 2014 / enroutetoawesome / 3 Comments

Yes, that is exactly what it looks like. A 2.5 metre, 250 kg, giant, wooden wang.

It’s amazing, isn’t it, that when something’s on your mind, it just seems to keep cropping up? This week, from the new run of “Please do not expose yourself to other commuters,” signs on the train to an unexpected linguistic discussion (that resulted in three people chanting “dickbread dickbread, dickbread” in Portuguese for almost seven minutes), the universe just keeps coming up bellends.

Today’s post, believe it or not, has a religious theme. I give you:

Dongs of Praise

Komaki’s spring fertility festival is one of the internet’s favourite spiritual events. I’m guessing you can see why.

The festival is actually called Hounen-sai or Hounen Matsuri, but people usually just call it the Penis Festival. Again, I’m guessing you can understand.

Although a lot happens at this festival (like dancing, rice-cake throwing and traditional music) the main event is the rowdy procession bearing a giant carved phallus to its new home in Tagata Jinja, the old home of Tamahime who, along with her children, developed the area during the Yamato period. Tamahime, like many ladies of the time, did not live with her husband, but rather received him as a regular visitor in her home and… I think you’re beginning to perceive the oh-so-subtle symbolism of the festival.

In the old days, the giant penis was actually attached to the crotch of a straw samurai, borne along by the inebriated procession, which seems a lot more graphic to me. These days, it’s modestly snuggled into a portable shrine, but is much, much bigger, meaning the bearers have to struggle along with around four hundred kilos of weight on their shoulders. And not just calmly hauling the thing either, but actually bouncing, spinning and waving it around to the cheers of the intoxicated crowd. Needless to say, the bearers need to put away even more sake than the spectators to manage this feat.

At Tagata Jinja, the penis is installed in the place of honour, while last year’s model is auctioned off to local householders and businesses. (And can I just mention that this is the best tradition ever? Just think, in the living rooms and public spaces of literally hundreds of normal-seeming Aichi homes and shops lurk enormous, metres-long, polished, hardwood wangs. Hundreds. Whenever you feel sad, or start believing the world is empty of magic, just remember that.)

The long history of the shrine is why, I think you sometimes hear painfully sincere foreigners speaking earnestly about the real meaning of the festival, which is not waving genitals around on sticks, but is instead a solemn veneration of the divine generative and restorative properties of the earth and season.

Uh huh.

I think that modern city dwellers need to understand that olden-day rurals enjoyed a good metaphor as much as anyone; and enjoyed a dirty joke even more! Ensuring the blessedness of the sacred earth is important to a community making its living from the soil, it’s true. But if you can manage your religious observations while drunk and waving a willy on a stick, so much the better. If the shrines wanted to encourage solemnity of worship, they wouldn’t hand out unlimited free sake and dick-whistles. The locals have been enjoying the joke for 1500 years. You can enjoy it too.

Kin and I were actually pretty sober for this year’s festival, despite the best efforts of the shrine volunteers to fix that state. After a quick wander around the food stalls (selling a variety of phallic snacks) we made our way with Dudebro and Granita to join the throng of spectators waiting for the giant wang to wind by. The three of them found an okay spot by the road (the best thing about this festival is that, unlike many others, the procession is so long that everyone who wants to see the event gets a chance to) while I wound up on the other side, near the most horrible old lady I’ve ever met.

Seriously, she was great; she made her way to the front of the crowd by leaving a trail of the most horrible carnage behind her. I only became aware of her after she inserted one ancient and extremely pointy elbow underneath my floating rib while doing the same to the gentleman on her other side. When both of us yelled and turned slightly away from the injury, the old buzzard had enough room to reach the sake cart, snatch two cups and scurry away. I was keeping an eye out for her after that, so I got to watch her repeat that action many, many more times.

The procession was the usual wonderful spectacle of graphic banners, men in silly hats, and penises, both large and…. well, still pretty large actually.

Not to mention people handing out still more cups of sake which, after a while, I just started handing directly to the awful old lady (who received them with the same natural gratitude as a duck accepts breadcrumbs).

We then raced the procession to Tagata Jinja itself, to revisit the food stalls and view the current collection of penis-shaped items accumulated by the shrine.

Tagata Jinja is worth a visit at any time of year. Anyone in the area who finds anything even remotely penis-shaped trots off with it to the shrine and donates it to the cock-collection. Which sounds like one of the easiest and most entertaining methods of fulfilling your religious obligations that exists in the world to date. There are also a lot of carefully carved or cast penises, (including a penis-shaped shrine bell) and, while the big fellas are auctioned off these days, there are still a good many Dicks of Christmas Past (as it were) arranged within the shrine.

The Tell-Tale Dick

In rod-related revelations closer to home, it seems that the build-up to exams has infused the Dick Phantom with a fresh burst of creative energy. Kin tells me that the Phantom’s artistic sensibilities have not greatly matured during this period, but it seems that his productive output has increased significantly… to the point where he’s becoming careless.

His first slip was discovered a few weeks ago, when Kin, stacking desks after a second-year exam overturned one to reveal a lovingly-rendered, extremely veiny illustration, sketched by the master himself.

Kin, himself an accomplished phallic artist, is unwilling to expose a brother to the long arm of the law, so he continued stacking desks without trying to determine who had been sitting at this one. (I wish I were joking, by the way. He once drew an enormous, horribly graphic one on our metre-long whiteboard and I got so used to looking at the damn thing that I forgot to erase it before my grandmother came to visit.)

But then, last week, while marking the papers themselves, Kin turned a page and revealed the final clue to the Phantom’s identity… in the form of a gigantic, hairy knob scratched into the student’s completed and SIGNED examination paper.

The moment was pivotal. “Is this…a cry for help? Is the Phantom weary of life in the shadows? Does he actively seek apprehension and redemption in the light?”

“Or did the dumb little bastard just get bored and draw a dick on his exam paper like he does everything else?”

Figuring it was the second, Kin marked the paper, carefully closed it and returned it to the stack, still determined not to lose a comrade in arms.

“Fight on, Brother. Fight on.”

They are legion.

Gem

P.S. We’ll be putting up a more complete album on our Facebook page on Sunday.

P.P.S. For those who are wondering what sort of linguistic discussion could result in three people gravely intoning “dickbread” at one another for an extended period, it was a phonetics conversation about minimal pairs and meaning contrast on nasal vowels in Portuguese. Pau pão was the only sound set Granita could come up with, and it was only after we’d spent several minutes attempting to accurately reproduce the words that one of us asked about their meaning.

Pau pão : Dick, bread.

Welcome, Spring!

March 13, 2014 / enroutetoawesome / 0 Comments

By Gem

…or maybe not. That is my school this morning. What the hell, man?

To an East-coast Australian, ice is NOT a substance that occurs in nature. Ice is produced by machinery and found in drinks. There is no good reason for it to just appear all over the place and even less reason for it to hang around for months at a time, getting thicker and meaner-looking every night. And there is absolutely NO possible excuse for it to roar back again NOW, when both the plum blossoms and my spirit were just starting to unfurl some tentative blooms.

Still…

…plum blossoms are tough and there have been some signs today that I may soon get my spring; like the honest-to-goodness waterfall tumbling off the roof of the gym. This morning, it was just beginning to trickle, but it was cascading by lunchtime and now it resembles alpine thaw in a nature documentary, just before the music turns to woodwinds and a time-lapsed field of edelweiss blooms.

I can only hope.

During the relatively snow-free weekend, though, Kin and I both popped on our coats (and hats and gloves and boots and scarves and mufflers and three layers of thermal underwear) and went to meet Gecko Sensei, my Tea Ceremony teacher in a watery little town to the south of Nagahama, called Gokasho.

To Grandmother’s House

Gokasho is one of Shiga’s Omi merchant towns from the Edo Period. The Omi merchants’ business took them all over Japan, but their families and their valuables remained safely installed in exquisite (not to mention highly secure) mansions in Shiga. Omihachiman is probably the most famous of these towns, but I find Gokasho with its spectacularly laid-out gardens and population of fat, friendly carp in the canals beside the roads, far, far more charming.

In theory, we were there to see the town’s Hinamatsuri displays. Sensei is the archetypal Yamato Nadeshiko, so a visit to a girl’s festival is exactly the sort of outing she enjoys. Kin finds Hinamatsuri dolls as creepy as hell, but is fond of Sensei and doesn’t trust her wobbling around unaccompanied when she’s wearing zori (which is pretty much all of the time). I find the displays fairly interesting, but mostly want any excuse to poke around in the magnificent gardens and old family homes (not to mention tickle a carp or two, should the opportunity arise).

For all of this meticulously planned magnificence, Gokasho isn’t imposing in the way that, say, Kakunodate or Nara can be. For one thing, it’s very obviously a little country village, even if it IS a little country village built and maintained by fabulously wealthy businesspeople. For another, any family home which has lasted for more than two generations develops a really awesome “Nan’s place” vibe ESPECIALLY if that home has since been making an effort to hang onto any item of potential historical value. That means that every old box that every Omi Mum has packed away for the last several hundred years has been unpacked and displayed, including the recent ones, so that next to each other are centuries-old teakettles, exquisitely lacquered furniture, plastic elephants on wheels and shelves of things like combs, old toys and tacky seaside ornaments made from shells, glue and googly eyes.

It’s an incredibly relaxing place for somewhere so interesting. And just look at this kitchen!

I’m always drawn to kitchens, but this was a particularly beautiful example of its breed. A person could really work in a kitchen like that.

The Gokasho gardens are surrounded by high walls and each one is different from all of the others.

I’m certain that the houses and gardens were planned simultaneously, as they complement each other so perfectly and each household seems to have chosen their own aesthetic. One family constructed a fascinatingly erratic landscape with hills, cliffs and a boulder-filled river. Another produced one that was peacefully flat, rambling and flower-filled, except where it rose around the lake (which the house was constructed to showcase).

My favourite garden looks like a small, dry forest with uneven stone paths winding through it. It’s kind of hard to explain what exactly is so breathtaking about that, but somehow this garden manages to feel completely peaceful and separate from the world outside its walls.

And any way, any town where the fish follow you around has to be pretty cool.

(A more complete album of Kin’s pictures can be found on our Facebook page.)

Keeping it cool (unfortunately).

Gem

EDIT: Ugh, I’ve just seen some of the photos of Gokasho available online and they give COMPLETELY the wrong idea of the place. It may be time to buy Kin that 32mm Prime lens and let him do it right.

February was…

March 6, 2014 / enroutetoawesome / 1 Comment

The first faint stirrings of spring!

Indoors, that is.

(This is the Nagahama Bonbai Festival; a lovely collection of plum blossom bonsai.)

Frost-free cycling!

Mostly.

Warm times with friends. Indoors.

Peaceful times at home. Indoors.

The first insect of the season! Also indoors; this little guy followed us in with a load of washing and settled straight onto the indoor refugees.

Time for learning.

And practice.
(You can peek at more of Kin’s practice on our Facebook page)

And time for wine! Although much less than usual; this work with the physio is really paying off.

And time to see how other people feel the change of the season.

February was flowers, fun and frosty mornings. It was brisk walks outdoors and warm cuppas indoors, not to mention some Kansai travel with friends. It was also waiting, waiting, waiting! Waiting for the warm weather; it’s so close now, we can almost TASTE it. Waiting for the school holiday. And waiting for Shallow‘s arrival in March! February was potential; but we are oh, so ready for the actuality of March.

Let’s get this year moving!

Kin and Gem

At The Moment…

February 19, 2014 / enroutetoawesome / 0 Comments

Spring is around the corner!

…but it’s not here yet! We’re throwing off the outdoor chill along with our coats and enjoying afternoon tea together every day.

Kin is potting madly (his latest creation is a mizusashi to hold water for Gem’s tea ceremonies). This week he begins a machining course as well!

Kin is also doing a lot of drawing (since it’s too cold to play outdoors). Mostly for work, but a bit for fun as well. Keep an eye out; he will post some soon on our Facebook page.

Gem has resumed plunking at her guitar for the first time in over a decade and is playing lots of Beatles and Monkees songs.

Gem is also inspecting other people’s pots….

… and is looking forward to fixing up her own sorry specimens when the weather warms up (the indoor refugee pots are still going strong, though; they’ve kept us in herbs and salad greens all winter).

We’re braving the cold to venture outdoors in the city.

…and outside the city, too!

We are enjoying our newly tidy apartment, eating a lot of soup and drinking a lot of tea. We are only very reluctantly leaving our warm futon on weekday mornings. Gem is reading Vanity Fair (and it’s AWESOME! It’s like Jane Austen, only everyone’s evil! – Gem) and Kin is working his way through a variety of old DC cartoon series.

We’re wrapping up closing lessons, marking exam papers and scratching our heads at some of the answers we see and hear….

In Kin’s case (junior high), most questions result in roars of “It’s orange!”, “I’m sunny!” and “I like pussy!” all of which require his gentle correction: A thump on the head with a rubber hammer and “I’m sorry, the answer was Tuesday.”

Gem’s (much younger) students offer sweeter, yet infinitely more perplexing answers:

“Momoka, where do you want to go?” “I want to go to Kenya! Because, I like black people!”

We’re looking forward to better fruit, to our spring holiday and to Shallow’s visit next month!

And in the meantime….

We’re breathing deeply and waiting for the warm.

Kin and Gem

Sumo Food: Chanko Nabe

January 15, 2014 / enroutetoawesome / 2 Comments

I know! I’m late! I promised Beans this recipe ages ago, though, so I really wanted to wait for nabe night!

Vegetarian readers are also safe to stay this time! I’ll offer a few options for de-meating the dish as we go.

Those of you who are familiar with Kyuushockers will already know that our school lunches tend to be a bit light on the vegie side of things. Nabe is one of my favourite ways of making up for this; it’s an easy way to get HEAPS of vegies into yourself, without having to work very hard. Kin also approves of nabe because it doesn’t make a lot of dishes; all of the ingredients are popped into the communal stockpot, and you haul out whatever you fancy to eat, replacing ingredients as the pot empties.

Nabe ingredients differ with the season (which is a nice way of saying “with what’s on special at the supermarket/going leggy in the garden”). If you don’t have all of the ingredients in this recipe, leave them out or replace them with something else. Greens are greens, roots are roots; I would only recommend that if you’re having trouble sourcing/affording asian mushrooms, buy them dried or leave them out.

Dashi (Stock)

This is my weeknight dashi; I get a little more elaborate on the weekend. Take a piece of kombu, (dried kelp) around 20 cm by 10 cm and wipe off any white residue with a damp cloth. Soak the kombu in a litre of water for at least half an hour. Hell, leave it in there and go to work; it’ll be fine when you get home. Gently heat the water (skimming occasionally if you can be bothered; I can’t) until it is almost boiling, then whip out your kombu and discard it.

Next comes katsuo. Since it’s a weeknight, I’m using dashi granules, which are available at any asian grocery and, these days, probably at supermarkets as well. They tend to come in a blue packet and will have instructions on the side (even if the instructions are in Japanese, just look at the numbers; you’ll work it out). Mine comes in sachets to be used with 600ml of water; I’m using two and a half and adding 500ml to my kombu stock, so now I have 1500ml all up. Since I’m using dashi granules, the stock will be a little scummy on top; if that bothers you, give it a skim before you go any further.

If you are vegetarian, dried shiitakes make a gorgeous alternative to fish-based dashi; just pour boiling water over about eight of them in a saucepan and leave them to soak. You get mushrooms AND dashi! Kin and I aren’t vegetarian, but shiitake dashi is one of our favourites.

Now that your stock is prepped, you just need to pop it into your nabe pot (a big saucepan will do) and stick it on the hotplate. I then add a shake (probably about 50ml) of soy sauce and about the same of mirin. Tonight, we’re also having a dash of ponzu in there as well, just because we like it. Once it’s boiling, you’re ready to start adding ingredients!

Ingredients

Vary as desired; the dashi is the important bit.

Chicken and/or fish (or extra mushrooms and cottony tofu for the vegos!)
Tofu
Udon noodles (fresh or dried). We’re also having konnyaku noodles!
Flavourings (chopped green onion, grated ginger and garlic chives)
Sliced root vegetables (One medium carrot and about 15cm of lotus root)
Leafy greens (Pak choy, bok choy, chrysanthemum greens and about a quarter of a wombok)
Mushrooms (shiitake and enokitake)

The quantities are up to you. The first time you make it, try a bunch of each thing and see if you need more or less. The best order to pop things into your stock is:

Meat…

Then flavourings…

Then root vegies…

Then go mad and throw in whatever you’d like!

On nabe nights, cooking and eating happen simultaneously, so you’ll only need a very small bowl each, with a soup spoon and chopsticks. You’ll also need at least one slotted spoon and a ladle for scooping out your dinner! When the ingredients you fancy are ready, ladle them into your bowl, devour them, then ladle out some more. Keep topping up the pot until everyone is full. (Needless to say, meat is the ONE ingredient that absolutely cannot be added later, unless you’re going to let the soup boil by itself for a little while). If you don’t have a portable hotplate, you can also prepare your nabe on the stove.

Traditionally, rice or noodles were added at the very end of the meal and then enjoyed in the soup, but Kin and I enjoy our noodles with the rest of the ingredients, so we stick them in a few at a time and haul them back out as we fancy them.

Chanko nabe is warming, hearty winter comfort food that still manages to be extremely high in fibre and nutrients. I love it after workouts and Kin loves it any time at all, especially since he gets the leftovers for breakfast. Nabe is also cheap (because you toss in whatever you can get) and super-fun to serve to guests!

What are your go-to dishes in winter?

Gem

Settling in to 2014

January 4, 2014 / enroutetoawesome / 1 Comment

By Gem

By the end of this year, we won’t be here any more!

The start of a new year has really brought it home to us; our time in this little apartment, in this little town is going to end in 2014! This place has become so much our own it’s hard to believe that, this time next year, it will belong to someone else. Time is suddenly a limited commodity.

But the start of a new year in Japan is a difficult time to manage any sense of urgency. New Years in Japan is like Christmas in Australia; it’s the time when the whole family get together and then just kind of sit around. For a week, the country shuts down, while people eat, gossip and walk to local shrines to pray for good fortune through the year. It’s not a time for exciting trips or big projects, but for kotatsu-snuggling, cups of tea and big bowls of mandarins.

Not to mention New Year cakes!

And other lovely things!

Right now though, we’re still in Nagahama and we still have things to do. On Monday, Japan restarts itself. Our evening classes will resume, our friends will return from their home countries and we will be back at our schools, doing our best to slide some English into stubborn little skulls.

At Kin’s school, there will be a continuation of the dramatic investigation into the identity of the elusive Dick Phantom; one of the boys (we assume) has developed a taste for penis-based graffiti. The Phantom spent the final months of 2013 creating elaborate, phallic extravaganzas over every wall and piece of furniture a kid that age could reach. These works don’t show a lot of dedication to accuracy, but, particularly toward the end of the year, a real focus seems to have been given to scale. We can only imagine that his scope will expand in 2014.

I never really feel I’ve left my school, as half of it seems to live in this building. The very, very small first-grader with the very, very big eyes has finally worked up the courage to ask why I seem to spend so much time here. Her eyes got even bigger when I told her this is where I live!

Although Kin and I enjoyed the Japanese-style New Year, in time-honoured Western fashion, we have made a resolution or two; or rather, have reviewed how our Tanabata wishes and our everyday goals are going.

This is one of Kin’s tanabata goals… or sort of. He never got to start those glass-blowing classes; the college filled up before his enrolment was processed! Instead, he’s been spending his weekends up to his elbows in clay and is having a wonderful time. His very, very earliest work (above) has just returned from the kiln.

Kin never made it to cooking class either but, on the domestic front, is now single-handedly responsible for the running of our household (a development we will share at a later date) and is getting better at it every day. And on the artistic front, with blue plastic document sheets, sticky tape and a stanley knife, he produced a photographic soft-box that make today’s pictures even nicer than usual!

And me?

As you can see, I didn’t learn to braid my hair; I cut it all off, instead! In my defence, though, this has made it a lot easier to reach my goal of learning to swim properly and I HAVE successfully poached an egg, so I think I’m still ahead of the game. I also finished my first knitting project!

Kin’s scarf is so long that he can (and does!) wrap it around his entire head to keep the wind off his face when he rides to work. I’ve started a scarf for myself, now and once that’s done, I’ll be ready to get a little more ambitious.

Learning to draw underwent a lengthy hiatus during our illness, but during this week of shutdown Japan, I’ve picked it back up. Kin is excited to share his skills with me; I think he’s too optimistic, but I’ll keep trying.

We’re ready for you, 2014. We might end the year in New South Wales, but we’re starting it in Shiga, and we’re going to enjoy every single day of both!

Gem

Happy New Year!

January 1, 2014 / enroutetoawesome / 2 Comments

By Gem

What a year it was and what a year it will be!

There we were in January 2013, huddled in our new(ish) Japanese apartment, sick, isolated, wretchedly cold and watching cloudy grey skies dump another few feet of snow on our already-buried bicycles (not to mention our defunct kitchen herbs). Venturing outside was frozen torment, while staying inside was chilly, miserable and soggy! The only place to find relief from the cold was the bathtub, but even this wasn’t safe. Both of us were so ill, the hot water made us horribly dizzy and, on at least one memorable occasion, almost knocked out a struggling Kin (who was running a spectacular fever at the time).

Here we are, in January 2014, in the same apartment in the same town, with the same grim skies dropping the same white stuff on us in big, crunchy drifts. We’ve even had very near facsimiles of the same viruses! But in 2013, we gradually learned things we needed to know to work with the situation. And this year, we’re warm, happy and having a great time!

We learned how to dress. Such an obvious thing to Northern Hemisphere folk, but a total mystery to two clueless Australians, whose usual response to winter is to simply pop a coat over their regular clothes. Here, we had to learn how to add layer upon layer before we stick the coat on top, then carefully plugging up all of the gaps with gloves, woolly scarves, mufflers, big socks, hats… you get the idea. It’s a complex process and we were starting from scratch, adding one element at a time, desperate to escape the horrible, face-freezing, bone-hurting cold outside. This year, our apartment is toasty warm, thanks to Kin developing sealing techniques with foam tape and our discoveries of various active heating methods, involving location changes, sunlight, cooking warmth and a small, very well-researched kerosene heater. Our most valuable plants are enjoying above-zero temperatures in a sunny space indoors and, importantly, we’ve learned that it is impossible to get around in snow without boots. Now that we know about boots and about which back roads regularly see the snowplough, isolation is no longer a problem.

The rather laboured point I’m trying to make here is that, during unhappy times, it isn’t always your situation that’s the problem. Once you’ve learned how to deal with a situation, a lot of the problems will vanish. Last year we were suffering. This year we aren’t. All that has changed is what we know and do. And the reason I’m making this point now, is that the internet is currently full of joy and optimism regarding the New Year (which is great!) together with happy certainty that this year everything will be different (which is NOT!)

This time next year, Kin and I will have left Japan behind, to return to Australia. On the outside, everything will be different. But when you look at our basic situation, nothing is going to change. We’ll still be married, so we’ll still spend each day experiencing the rewards (and demands) of life with another person. We’ll still need to earn money, maintain our home, nurture ourselves and manage our growth. And we’ll need to learn the skills and the information necessary for us to be able to do those things in the manner that we choose.

Were you suffering in 2013? What do you need to learn so that you don’t have to suffer any more? If you have no money for things that you need, perhaps you need to learn from a financial advisor. If you are miserable in your job, perhaps you need to learn work skills that will allow you to leave. If you are surrounded by people who are unkind to you, perhaps you need a counsellor or a sympathetic friend who will help you learn that you deserve kindness.

There is no need for you to suffer this year. You have the right to be happy. It is GOOD that you are full of joy and hope; a new year has just begun and wonderful things ARE going to happen in it. But that’s because we’re going to make them happen.

Don’t say to yourself “This year, things will be different.” Say “This year, I will be different!”

2014 is going to be an amazing year, because all of us together are going to MAKE it amazing! We will be positive! We will set goals! We will love and be loved! What will you learn?

Bring on the new year!

Gem

Welcome to English Day!

November 28, 2013 / enroutetoawesome / 0 Comments

By Gem

The day that ALTs from all over Shiga come to chat and play games with our sixth graders, giving them a chance to meet people from a variety of nations and, hopefully, give them a chance to use their English in a social-setting. The kids spent several weeks making decorations and preparing little speeches and interviews for their guests, while Nanook took them through some small-talk conventions and discouraged them from yelling “BUTTS!” when there was a gap in the conversation.

As well as Nanook and I, the children were going to meet Prozac, Tank, Angel, Sailor and both Timbuktus.

The original Timbuktu was having a difficult English Day. Kin, as part of his long-term campaign of harassment, had recently decided to rename her. (Kin is actually quite fond of Timbuktu, but her anti-gay attitude infuriates him; in earlier semesters, they could talk reasonably about these things and for a while he had her converted, but since then he’s worked less at their shared school and she got a new homophobic preacher, so she’s unfortunately regressed. Q-tip, who attends the same church, has thankfully not picked up this attitude.)

“I’ve decided,” announced Kin, flinging an armload of sketches onto his desk, “From now on, I’m going to call you “Bigot”.”
Timbuktu, who is a gentle spirited person despite the inner nastiness encouraged by her church, cringed, certain she knew why, but still unable to resist asking.
“Well, with the new JETs here, we have two Timbuktus. Both of you are about the same height, so we can’t do “Big and Small Timbuktu”. You’re both from the U.S., so I can’t differentiate by nation. BUT, only one of you is a bigot! So, I can call you “Bigoted and Not-Bigoted Timbuktu, only yours turns into “Bigot” for short! It’s perfect!”

Deciding not to argue (in the interest of the illustrations he was currently producing for her) Timbuktu made her weary way to Nagahama Elementary, taking the chance to plead with me as we put up posters and stuck balloons on the wall.
“Can you do anything, Gem?”
“Nope.” I grinned a bit too, but compared to Kin’s, my grin is nothing. “We’ve got gay friends visiting again soon, and you’re going to embarrass everyone if you don’t get this out of your system.”

Timbuktu knows when she’s beaten, so she just set her shoulders and prepared for an afternoon’s chatter with dear little innocents.
…whose first question to her was “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“What?! No, I… Gem, what are you teaching them over here?”
“Don’t look at me,” I smirked, surrounded by my own little gang of journalists. “I haven’t taught these kids since February. Now, what were you asking me, Taro?”
“Where are you from?”
“Minna, shiteru! You know this! Where am I from?”
“………ehhhhhhhh……”
“Guys, come on, I taught you for almost a year. Kazoku ni atta! Where am I from?”
“America!”
“No!”
The kids shuffled a bit and whispered frantically to one another, while I glowered around the circle.
“Don’t say America! She gets really pissed off if you say America!”
“Where else is there?!”
The group searched their folders, rolled their eyes desperately around the room, then, noticing the last ALT they had spoken to, lit up with new confidence.
“Canada!”
“No!”
“Igirisu?”
“NO!”
“The… The USA?”
“That’s America again!”
Over their protests that there WASN’T anywhere else, I only just heard Timbuktu snigger.

Prozac, meanwhile, was having his life-choices evaluated by three earnest-browed girls in cardigans.
“How old are you?”
“I’m twenty six years old.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No, I don’t.”
…awkward pause….
“HOW old are you…?”

While Tim was wondering if she needed a stronger moisturizer.
“How old are you?”
“I’m twenty two.”
“NO WAY!!!!”

Deeply unhappy with the direction our lives were taking, the children fretted, tutted and advised us to change our ways.

Sailor’s group commiserated with her on her failure to find a husband (“Kids, I’m twenty eight!”) and wondered aloud if, at this age, she would ever manage to catch one. Mine expressed doubt as to whether my decrepit ovaries would ever be able to kickstart themselves when Kin and I finally decide to reproduce. Prozac’s desperate assurances that he just needed to meet the right person were met with skepticism so great it bordered on disdain. At our ages, the children felt, we were already halfway dead, yet none of us were doing anything worthwhile with the limited time left to us!

Basically, it was your typical, everyday conversation with twelve-year-olds. It was a relief when the interview section was completed and we moved on to activities. Each of us had prepared a game or dance, all of which went down well with the kids and we gradually got them to forget what miserable failures we all were as people. After collecting our autographs, the kids gave us each an origami crane covered in English messages and we all exited the gym.

Cheerful, despite a remaining trace of uncertainty regarding our life choices, we teachers retired to the meeting room to devour Pocky and minestrone-flavoured chips.

“It could be worse,” pointed out Tank, on his seventeenth stick. “Last week my second graders asked their teacher if his wife is cheating on him.”
“My third graders learned to say ‘SEX!’ from someone,” added Sailor. “And when they learn a new word, it’s all I hear.”
“Mine just learned how to say ‘Poop’,” confirmed a gloomy Tim.
“If only mine learned ANY English,” sighed Prozac. “My first graders spent our last lesson having a farting contest. The winner got to fart in anyone’s face.”
Pocky froze between packets and mouths as we all waited.
“I was too tall,” he added, and everyone relaxed again.

Aren’t children just a joy? Does anyone else work with the little darlings? What do yours come up with?

Gem

As ever, all drawings were produced by Kin. Don’t tell him I used these ones though, because he doesn’t like them much!

A Lazy Autumn Weekend

October 27, 2013 / enroutetoawesome / 0 Comments

By Gem

Yesterday, we waved farewell to the other Shiga JETs, as they set off on their Halloween adventures in Kyoto and Osaka, and we’ve been living vicariously through our newsfeeds as they party on down (in costume) across two cities and three prefectures. It appears that a good weekend has been had by all, with only minimal vomiting (which is nice).

The two of us, however, are not the most active of beasts, so we decided to take advantage of a weekend when no-one would be attempting to lure us out by lurking in our apartment and embracing the Lazy.

It has been wonderful.

We’ve enjoyed the sort of breakfasts that you simply can’t whip up in under fifteen minutes on a weekday morning. We’ve dug out scarves and gloves from summer storage to help keep out the new nip in the air. We’ve aired our futon and other bedding while there’s still some sun to do it in, as well as catching up on pre-winter cleaning tasks.

I’ve planted the very last crops we’re likely to harvest before the cold really sets in; new spinach, lettuce, coriander and rocket seedlings, as well as some Asian greens and chrysanthemum seed that I don’t really expect to do much before the snow falls. Still, it’s good to hope.

Kin has worked on his T-Shirt design for JETs in our prefecture (yes, that is a scrotum; google “tanuki” and you’ll understand).

We’ve rugged up and gone for lovely walks (before the temperature gets too low), and enjoyed the Nagahama sights.

We’ve caught up with beloved friends in Australia and sent lots of long-awaited emails to our wonderful families (aided by rather too much red wine in the evenings). I’ve also dug out the scarf Kin has been waiting so patiently for and have added another couple of feet to it. We’ve had a couple of full-day meetings, so I’ve had plenty of time to get my speed up. I think he’ll finally get to wear the thing this winter!

…and then start complaining that real wool is itchy and never put it on again, I bet.

We went to Hard Off (our local second hand store) and bought a lovely new (ish) nabe pan for delicious winter hotpots. Our old one was looking a little ill and had an unsettling crack in one side that was getting longer and longer every time it was used! I also bought this wonderful book, full of simple sewing patterns that Beans can hopefully help me work out when I’m back in Australia. I can’t sew at all, but I’m definitely ready to learn!

Goodness me, looking back at all of that, it looks as though we’ve had a very busy weekend! Somehow, though, there’s still been plenty of time for Kin to play Pokemon and for me to catch up on Downton Abbey (and my ironing, damn it).

A few more of Kin’s shots can be seen on our Facebook page.

We may or may not be back in the social whirl next week, but whatever happens, we’re both so grateful for this downtime together. It’s lovely to be lazy!

Gem,

Tag: Japan (Page 2 of 4)

The Best Things in Life…

Gratitude

Accepting the costs

Active Gratitude

When Activity is Hard

My Awesome Five

A Week of Willies

Dongs of Praise

Welcome, Spring!

To Grandmother’s House

February was…

At The Moment…

Sumo Food: Chanko Nabe

Dashi (Stock)

Ingredients

Settling in to 2014

Happy New Year!

Welcome to English Day!

A Lazy Autumn Weekend

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