Life In Japan

I was walking back towards our office when I saw a BMW car pass by. I thought, wow, what a really nice car, I wonder who's driving it? Must be one of the guys on the 9th floor (the powers that be, the ones who run this institute). Then I saw the driver. To my surprise, I recognized the person driving the car. It was one of the janitress whom I occasionally see walking around holding a bucketful of stuffs for cleaning.

Another car drove by, not as stunning as the BMW, but it looked fancy just the same. And just as I thought, I recognized the driver to be another janitress who cleans our toilet. Both of them probably just got off from work and were on their way home. I couldn't help but smile to myself. In this country, the people who clean the toilets get to go home earlier than the rest of us schmucks, and they get to drive those fancy cars. Only in Japan.

Moving out is always a painful process, no matter how convenient and easy the moving companies make it out to be. In retrospect, they probably did the easiest part. They only had to lug the big stuffs from Point A to Point B. The new settlers, meaning us, have to do everything else from a) packing, b) unpacking, c) arranging, and d) decorating the place. Well, of course they also have a "plan" where they do everything from a) to d), but it will definitely cost us an arm and a leg.

But oh, what a price to pay. I'm so tired. So dead tired everyday. We haven't even begun with b) yet. So far we've only opened boxes that would allow us to function normally in our day to day lives. I shudder to think of the weeks or even months ahead that we have to spend to make this place decent enough to live in.

When I was in the university, there was a big tree near our cafeteria that turned bright, golden yellow each autumn. It stood alone, apart from the other trees, as if in embarrassment because of the stinking smell of its seeds which fell on the ground. But its striking color easily made it my most favorite tree of all, and it became something to look forward to every autumn season.

I learned that the name of the tree is "ginkgo" or ichou (Ginkgo biloba). Right at our institute, we can enjoy a beautiful avenue lined with ginkgo trees. Every autumn many people would stop and take photos of this avenue. Some of them would even pick up the seeds (which are supposedly edible). As to why people would want to eat the seeds with such stinky smell (well actually it's just the rotting flesh), your guess is as good as mine. Well, we do eat durian, which is probably the smelliest fruit ever, right? Anyway, when the tree leaves are in their brightest yellow, you can expect them to last for only a week or so, and then the leaves start falling down.

I just want to share video clips of Aya playing the piano while practicing for her performance in their class concert. It's still a good two weeks away, but she has already memorized the notes by heart. I took her video so we can watch it together and see her mistakes. It's also a pretty good way to evaluate her performance so we can correct errors and see how else we can improve it. Well, I'm not a piano expert, so I just try to give suggestions based on what they learned in class so far. Maybe the piano experts among you could give suggestions and comments?

Without further ado, here are the videos I've uploaded to YouTube:

See the second piece here:

The first time I heard of the word "nebuta," it was while watching a TV program featuring the famous floats that the "Nebuta Festival" of Aomori is known for. Although I lived in the Tohoku region for more than three years, not once did I have the opportunity to visit Aomori (I got as far as Akita, though).

Fortunately, right here in Tsukuba we can still enjoy a smaller version of the "nebuta."

If there's one thing that I absolutely LOVE about festivals, it will be the ubiquitous yatai, or food stalls. Yatai are set up temporarily for Japanese festivals, selling foods for spectators, such as yakisoba, kakigori, takoyaki, and okonomiyaki. You can also buy barbecue and other grilled food, french fries, frankfurters, and fried chicken (chikin karaage). Mmm...love that grease!

How does a typical yatai at a Japanese festival look like? Well, let me show you! Here are some images taken at the recently held Matsuri Tsukuba.

Due to the O-bon festival/summer holidays, Aya's piano class won't meet for two consecutive weeks. But in order to make sure that the kids still get to practice their lessons even during the holidays, they were given sheets of paper where they will color objects corresponding to each day they practiced. If they have practiced for more than 4 times in a week  -  they will get nice stickers from the sensei.

 

 

 

If you think about it, there's absolutely nothing exciting about getting stickers on a piece of paper. But you know how kids are - they want to impress not only their sensei but also their classmates. So I guarantee you that Aya will definitely make sure that she gets all her stickers at the end of the holidays. 

 

There are at least three main activities that occupy people in Japan during summertime:

1. Swimming at the pool or the beach

When I first got here, I was surprised to know that swimming pools and beaches are open only during specific periods in a year, i.e., July-August. Boohoo. In the Philippines, save for typhoon seasons, we get to enjoy the pool and the beach 365 days a year. And the waves there won't look as if they were trying to eat you (see photo at Hasanuma beach below).

Aya and Tatay running away from the giant killer waves! Taken in 2005.

 

During the one and only time we went to the beach, to our dismay we found out that it was just too crowded for comfort. And as you can see in the photo, the place wasn't that great at all. And get this, everybody takes a "break" between 12 to 1 pm, and again sometime during mid-afternoon. As in, everybody gets their butts out of the water and waits for the announcement when it's okay to resume swimming. How KJ is that?!!

Almost everyday, Aya brings something home from the daycare. Kids from her class always do - may it be colored illustrations, works of origami, or anything they picked up from the park like stones and stuffs. They call them omiyage, which means souvenir. They bring home their omiyage to show their parents like prized possessions.

When we picked up Aya from the daycare yesterday, she proudly held two plastics - one was holding a colored liquid (mizu iro = colored water), and the other a collection of cast-off skins of cicadas. She told us that they call them semi no nukegara in Japanese. Semi = cicada, nukegara = cast-off or shed skin

Cicadas? Eww.

I was really looking forward to watching the latest animated movie from Pixar, Ratatouille, at Cineplex here in Tsukuba. I know that the movie opening was on July 28 - yesterday. But when I checked out the schedules, to my dismay I found that there are no English-subtitled (字幕版) versions, only the Japanese-dubbed (日本語吹替版) version.