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Published: February 24th 2007
Valentine Card
Folded card, just out of the envelope.Hi everyone!
I am sorry I haven’t posted a blog entry in so long. (I seem to start every blog entry that way, don’t I?) A few weeks ago the blog host site lost its email service so it could not send email notifications to our subscribers. Thus, I thought I would wait to post an entry until the email service was back up, but that STLL hasn’t happened, so I am going to post this entry and then send an email to everyone from my regular email and hope that (1) I can do it and (2) I don’t miss anyone. If I miss someone, I apologize in advance.
We have really begun to feel settled here in Tokyo and are enjoying it immensely. I would go so far as to say we are loving it! At least once a week one of us says to the other “Do you believe we live in Tokyo?” As I am not working full time anymore, my stress level has decreased exponentially (except when Marc calls me, as he did last week, and says “Hi Honey, I am in a cab and bringing some colleagues (from the US) home for a
Valentine Card
Card "opened" up drink and we’ll be there in about 2 minutes”!!!) For a few weeks in the beginning I was really missing my audit work but I now have got a list a mile long of projects and things I want to do so I don’t miss it a bit. I have established a routine now and am taking various classes, completing some needlework projects, cooking and being a housewife. I had about 10 needlework projects I had started back before Marc and I got married (14 years ago!!) and I am finally slowly getting them completed. I have really enjoyed having the time to do things like that again. I am taking wrapping classes (I’ll write more about that later), language classes, and Japanese cooking classes. Some days it seems I am busier than when I was working and my days are really busy, but with things that I love. (With the exception of the housework!!) One of my friends here said she was describing her life in Tokyo to a friend back in the states and the friend said her life sounded so wonderful that when she (the friend) died she wanted to come back “as an expat’s wife!” Funny
but true… We “expat wives” do have a wonderful, fun life here.
Marc is really enjoying it here too and is finally getting settled into his job. He is enjoying the variety of his work as he often has meetings in various places during the week. Last week for example, Monday was a Japanese holiday so he was off. Tuesday he was in his office at Fuchu, Wednesday he was at the Embassy and then the Japanese Ministry of Defense, Thursday he was he was back at the Ministry of Defense, then the American Army base, and Friday he had meetings conducted completely in Japanese (with a translator in tow) at the offices of Japanese contractors. His schedule is ever changing so he is never bored. He works with American military members and civilians, and Japanese military members and civilians so he meets a wide range of people.
One of the nicest things for us is all the time we are able to spend together. Before we moved here, Marc was commuting back and forth from Orlando to Washington DC almost every week, so we spent a great deal of time apart. He is not traveling much at
all now and it is wonderful that we actually see each other in the middle of the week instead of just on the weekends. We are trying to get out and explore different areas and places on the weekends and having a ball. Almost everywhere you look there is something new for us to see. Shopping areas, Temples, Shrines, etc. We have gotten comfortable enough with everything and our limited Japanese language skills (Marc’s much better than mine) so we feel comfortable going and exploring almost anywhere. When I have time I am going to go through all our books, materials and websites and make a list of all the places we want to visit. Just seeing everything in Tokyo will be a very large list, not to mention all of the places we want to see outside of the city and other areas of Japan.
I am taking more Japanese language classes and learning a lot. I don’t put it into practice enough though, as I am so concerned about my pronunciation. Marc uses it and hears it so much that he is learning a lot and while he can’t yet converse very well, he can ask questions,
Temple Book II
Temple Book Pages get directions, read menus, etc. Now Marc actually knows enough and is “convincing enough” to get himself into trouble! We went up to Sapporo for the snow festival the beginning of this month (I will post a separate entry on this trip) and we were looking for postcards. Marc asked someone in Japanese at a little souvenir shop “Where can I buy some postcards?” He immediately realized he should have asked “Do you sell postcards?” because the shopkeeper launched into this long conversation about where to go to get them, and of course none of us understood a word of it so we just looked at each other and burst out laughing.
The following is just some odd bits to tell you all about:
Valentines Day is not really celebrated here like it is in the US, though a lot of the florists had bouquets of roses for sale, probably for the Americans! In Japan, Valentines Day, February 14, is a day that the women buy chocolates for the men. They buy them for their husbands, boyfriends and also for male co-workers. The men are completely on the receiving end on this day. Men do not give the
Temple Book III
Senjoji Temple Page women anything. Then on “White Day,” March 14 the Men give the women chocolates. From what we understand it is called “White Day” because the tradition was supposedly started by a candy maker who sold mainly marshmallow candies. It was interesting to walk past the chocolate shops and bakeries on the 13th and 14th. They all had counters and sales people out on the sidewalks selling chocolates and doing a brisk business I might add! I bought Marc chocolate per the Japanese custom, but Marc also took me out to dinner and bought me flowers per the American tradition. I am attaching a picture of the card Marc got for me. It is a perfect example of the types of unique cards you get here in Japan. The pictures aren’t the best so…I’ll describe it a bit. It is a small little card (note the quarter in the picture) and came in an envelope folded flat. (See the first pictures) When you open it, it falls open and there is a tiny bead on a silver string that you pull down which makes it form a tiny white bird cage with two lovebirds (one pink and one blue) in the cage. The little silver heart at the top says “Happy Valentines Day” and it opens to write a tiny message in it. It is just so different from anything you would find in the states!
Paying our utilities here is quite different from in the states. Almost everything here is paid in cash, with the exception of our rent. (The first month we had to pay our rent in cash as we did not have our bank account established yet. Marc and I were both really nervous carrying 750,000 yen (or $6,578) in our pockets when we went to deposit it in the landlord’s bank account!) We couldn’t read our utility bills at first so Marc took them into the office and had the translator explain them to him. Now we still can’t read them, but at least we can tell what the bill amount is. Here in Japan, all of the utility bills (electric, gas, water, cable and internet) are paid in cash at convenience stores like 7-11 or AM/PM. They have some sort of machine that scans the bills and you pay the amount just as if you were buying a soda!
I have really enjoyed exploring the various shopping districts here. I wrote in an earlier blog entry about our exploring Kappabashi which is a “district” where there are numerous stores selling all sorts of kitchen items, including pots and pans, dishes, china, utensils, glassware and on and on. I thought at the time that this type of a “district” was unique to kitchenware. I have since found that there are “districts” for all sorts of things. A friend of mine told me about the Asaksabashi district which is for all sorts of paper goods. We have been out there a couple of times and it is just so much fun exploring. We went into one store where they had an entire floor of greeting cards, one floor for balloons, one for wrapping paper, one for ribbons and one for bags. Just to give you an idea… the “bag” floor had bags of every shape and size imaginable. There were bags made of paper, cellophane, plastic and cardboard. Bags made of every sort of cloth, organdy, silk, satin, velvet and cotton. They were in every shape, color and size imaginable! There were bags with handles made of rope, string, cloth, cords, and plastic. And just in case you couldn’t find EXACTLY what you wanted, they had all the supplies to make your own! After a few minutes of walking around, it became almost funny. This same district is for jewelry stores. If you are interested in making your own jewelry or having some made this is the place for you! This isn’t the really “upscale” jewelry area, but some stores have really beautiful things. There are dozens of stores that sell every type bead and stone imaginable. One store had an entire area of cameos and you could pick out exactly the one you wanted and the mounting. You can buy all the individual pieces and tools and make it yourself, or pick out exactly what you want and have them make it for you. I have been once to an area called Kichijoji which is where the fabric stores are. A friend of mine who is a quilter calls one store “8 floors of heaven.” Marc was with me when I went, and as patient as he was he didn’t have the patience to spend hours there like I could. This one store had everything imaginable for any one who likes to sew, there was one entire floor dedicated to fabrics for men’s suits for example. I have got to find time to go back to that one!
We finally found a local doctor for our medical needs. Marc asked around for referrals and we found a large doctor’s practice near our home. The doctors are from Japan, Germany, France and England. They are all bilingual and seem to be really good. The one we chose is Japanese and went to medical school here, but did her residency and practiced in the states for quite some time. It seems that about 75% of the practice is for expatriates from the US, and Germany. We have been really pleased so far. We seem to have pretty good medical insurance as there are no deductibles or co-insurance payments. The obverse is that we have to pay the entire amount and then get reimbursed from the insurance company. The costs here seem to be less than in the states, but still considerable when you have to pay the entire amount up front.
A friend told me to obtain a “Temple Book” before we started doing much touring and sightseeing. So we went out to the Senjoji Temple and got one. A Temple book is a small book maybe a little bigger than a paperback book. Its pages are not like regular books i.e. one page after another, rather it is one long page folded like an accordion to fit between the front and back covers. (See the pictures) You can buy these books at the temples from the monks for about $10. Then each time you visit any temple, you bring it with you and the Monks write in it (for about $3), the temple’s name and the dates you visited. Then they stamp it with the temple seal. As you travel around the country, you can have the monks at the various temples “record” your visit for you in your book. It makes a great souvenir and it also is a way for the monks to earn money for the upkeep of their temple. We quickly found though, that we need to write the name of the Temple and the date very small at the bottom of the page so we’ll know which temple’s name is on that page!
Well, that is about it for now. I have a lot more to write about (The Sapporo Snow Festival for example) so I will start on the next entry in the next couple of days.
Stay tuned…. There will be more to come…….
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Another Kathy
non-member comment
So great to hear from you and all the details; you sound so happy!