Potty Talk Part 3

Every time I enter a public restroom in Japan I worry that I won't be able to figure out how to flush the toilet. Last week I told my girlfriend to go into the restroom first and then tell me where the flusher was. Kate always asks me to go in first and check it out as well. You would think it shouldn't so be complicated but it often is and the last thing you want to do is leave a public restroom with an unflushed toilet. Sure there is the handle method and some have automatic sensors. Those are the no brainers. But then you come across ones with buttons, lots of buttons - without a drawing attached. Some buttons have colors. Is it the green one? Or the red one? I am pretty sure I pushed an emergency button once. There might be levers or buttons on the floor that one steps on. I have also been known to stand and wave my hand in front of anything on the wall hoping it will trigger the flush. I think it took me 10 minutes at a restaurant one night in this teeny tiny restroom trying to figure it out. I was waving my arms, trying every button and handle I could find. I was sweating. Nothing worked. This was the last time I forgot to ask where it was before I went in.

The Container

Jack and I were at dinner at a little tapas place in Roppongi. I was bothered by the empty wine box resting between us at the bottom of the table. I had nowhere for my feet to rest. Jack tells me the box is for my purse. I forgot about this. I said, "But how would you know that is for my purse?" He said he looked under all the other tables and saw women's purses and man bags sitting in the baskets and boxes. Duh.

They do that here. They provide a special container to set your purse/bag in at a restaurant, instead of placing it on the 'dirty' floor or on the back of your chair. Last year I was out with 4 girlfriends at a restaurant at the Grand Hyatt. Instead of a basket, they gathered all of our purses set them on a chair and then covered them with a napkin?!?!?!? And at my house, my girlfriend was over, my American girlfriend, and I noticed her purse was sitting in our newspaper basket. I questioned her why it was there and she said she just assumed it was the Japanese bag holder. She has been here a bit longer than us.

Connor's Birthday Outing

Connor was so confused about when his actual birthday was because he had his kid party on Saturday and his birthday was on Sunday. He kept asking us, 'Am I 5 yet?' We didn't have anything planned for the birth DAY. In the morning he repeatedly came into my room while I was sleeping and asked for more presents and when they were all opened he wasn't happy. Hmmmm...did the other two act like this at 5?

So I decided we should take the train to see this 18 meter tall 'Gundam' in Odiba. Odiba is a man made island by the Tokyo Bay. It has it's own list of things to do including shopping, museums, an aquarium, water/onsen park and a giant Ferris wheel. It also has a Statue of Liberty which was fun for the kids to see out the window of the train because we were just at the 'real' one two weeks earlier while visiting my sister in NY. This Gundam reminded me of a transformer and Connor has been obsessed with transformers for quite some time. It was supposed to move it's head and blow smoke - which it did, and it was pretty funny to here the ooohhhh and ahhhhh's of the Japanese upon these highlights.

As we approached Shiokaze Park where the towering Gundam stood there were also hundreds of other people heading in the same direction. Ugh. All the pictures I saw online were of an empty park with a few spectators. But of course we happened to go on the day that there was some sort of Green Tokyo festival surrounding this Gundam guy. It wasn't so bad/crowded at the park, we only lost Connor once. It was the dreaded train ride home with lines and lines of people waiting to get on a train and then the wonderful packed cars with our kids still managing to fight and pinch and cry and I am pretty sure I said, more than once, this is our tourist event for the month. I'm done. Happy Birthday Connor!

McDonald's

Tonight I am recovering from Connor's 5th birthday party and decided to buy the kids McDonald's for dinner. Another thing I missed - the 2 minute walk to McD's when I'm too tired to cook for my children. So I am standing in line watching this young guy place an order when he flipped open his phone. I thought, 'Hmm, a bit rude,' then he said something to the cashier and I thought, 'Okay, maybe someone is texting him their order.' THEN he places the bottom half of his phone on some disk thing in front of the register which then lit up and apparently that paid for his food! George Jetson , your order is ready.

Part 2

We are back. It's day 3 and unfortunately the jet lag only seems to be getting worse before it's getting any better, for the kids anyway. I have my sleeping pills.

I had two brief conversations with friends long before we left for the summer. The first one was about how I should mentally prepare myself for that 'first' comeback to Tokyo after a summer in the states, that it might be difficult. The second friend said she couldn't wait to get back to Tokyo, and at that time I couldn't imagine that and I remember saying to her, 'Really?' As it turns out for me, for us, we loved seeing everyone back in the states; had a great, great time, but I was more than ready to return to Tokyo - and I believe anyone in close contact with me the last couple of weeks knew this to be true.

Upon stepping foot back onto the 'island' I was happy to be surrounded by people carrying on conversations around me and not understanding anything they said. I realized that I missed being in the minority. I missed the grocery store across the street. I missed the 5 o'clock curfew bell-sort-of-tone that is heard every night across the park. I missed Japanese service. I missed NOT having a car. I missed carrying around a boatload of Yen. I missed our doormen. I missed the vegetable/fruit guy even though all we say is konichiwa and domo. I missed the silly dressed dogs. I missed the view of the park out our apartment window. I missed my bed. I missed more than I thought I would. It feels good to be back.

On our way back home...

We are headed back to the states for most of the summer. I imagine I won't be posting anything unless there is some unusual experience between now and stepping onto the plane - which is entirely possible. I am looking forward to the flight as I will be sitting in business class with the two older ones and Jack is sitting 'in the back' with the little guy - he's not old enough to sit up front as a non-rev rule. I may be speaking a little too early, but - knock on wood - everyone is healthy, right now, and hopefully can stay that way until we reach American soil.

Thanks to all of you for reading and sharing in this great adventure of ours, and we look forward to more upon our return in August.

Buy me some peanuts and crackerjack...or yakitori

My sister is visiting with her 14 year-old daughter and her daughter's friend. We all went to see one of Japan's major league baseball games, the Yakult Swallows, at Jingu Stadium tonight. We might as well have been back in Madison at a Badgers Football game...in the student section! We unknowingly chose seats right behind the 'band'...the five guys playing trumpets throughout the game. We also heard random parts of the song, Africa, by Toto over the loudspeaker and then the crowd would sing the Canadian anthem when the Canadian guy on their team was up to bat. The crowd was crazy, non-stop cheering. I'll just have to let the pictures do the talking for this one.

Notice the guy in his work clothes? No time to go home first, men were hurrying into the stadium with briefcases in tow for the 6PM game

Kate and the girls enjoyed Baskin Robbins - green tea flavored on the far left, while the adults had chicken yakitori

A lot of flag twirling and most everyone had a jersey on - which was helpful when they started chanting a player's name as we just looked on the shirts to figure out who they were cheering for

This is a big thing - cheering bats that one bangs together - most everyone had these as well

By then end of the night these became weapons between the boys

Yes, cheerleaders

At every home run the mini umbrellas went up swaying and bopping in the air and everyone sang a song - this game was a blowout 10-1, so there was a lot of umbrella action, but I still never caught onto the words in the song

My sister couldn't resist - she had to have one too

The beer girls with mini kegs on their backs

Our Ebisu beer girl with a typical Japanese peace pose

A great time had by all. We will definitely go again.

Washi

I decided to squeeze one last cultural thing in before summer vacation. It was another opportunity through the social committee at Connor's preschool to take a class and learn how to make Washi paper. Washi comes from Wa meaning Japanese and shi meaning paper. There are stores throughout Tokyo that carry endless amounts of colors and patterns of Washi to be used to cover tea boxes, wrap gifts as well as so many other uses in traditional Japanese arts. The place holding the class was also a museum with a wonderful store selling an overwhelming collection of Washi. This stuff is much stronger than regular paper. They showed us a beautiful scarf and sweater made out of Washi as well as a Wedding dress that could actually be washed. Wow.

We were able to make two sheets of simple white Washi and one with a design sandwiched between two other sheets. Really interesting - many steps to the process that were explained to us at the start. When they saw the look of panic wash over our faces after reviewing the steps they reassured us that they would help us along the way.

There was a special way of dipping and dumping the pulp to get it onto the contraption. I was sweating knowing I wasn't going to remember the steps. Fortunately, the man assisting us was so sweet and helpful.
After a certain number of dips into the pool of pulp there were a certain number of swishes - so he tells me 9in Japanese of course) to count to twenty, 3x - but I not only forget how to count past 6 in Japanese, I then forget how many times to swish, 'Was that 2x to 20 or 3 times to 10 and what comes after 6? Ici ni san shi go roku...By my third washi paper making turn sensei gave up on me and started counting in English. So here I am counting as far as I can in Japanese and he is counting in English. You just don't want to screw up the method - this is an exact science!!!!!

Wiping of the excess pulp in a STRAIGHT line with a certain hand with certain fingers. Ah!!!

Transfer to a screen and lay down gently - rolling it little by little

Then rip it off - fast like a bandaid - can you see the look of relief on my face that I didn't screw it up?

Drying the Washi with a serious suction like machine

- The final step - smoothing the paper onto a hot metal board to dry, brushing it out from center to corner...she had to redo a couple parts for me

This is an art. I am not artistic, but can appreciate Washi paper now in a whole new way.

Random

Just some photos that didn't need their own post


Kobe, not Tokyo - When the swine flu was confirmed in Japan the masks were out in full force

Daikenyama - My mom and I saw this shop - a shop just for tomatoes and all tomato sorts of things. Loved the window display. Yum.

Arisugawa Park - Typical Japanese preschool in their matching hats

Omotosando - I don't know.

Roppongi Hills - I parked my bike, got my hair cut, came back out and found this piece of paper attached to my bike. I never did ask anyone what it said - I imagine it was a 'no bike parking zone.' If it was a ticket - I never paid it.

Shinjuku - I kept seeing people with Krispy Kreme bags around the various train stations. Then I saw the mothership here. This was a rainy day. I have read that the line can get pretty long - notice the ropes. I will admit I haven't had one yet...here.

Convenience Store - part 2

In theory being able to buy tickets for something at the convenience store sounds great. In reality, not so much. The website for the museum I wanted tickets for had great step by step instructions in English for the handy machine which I printed out and took with me. This particular museum requires one to purchase tickets in advance, not all of them do. When I got to Lawson I found the machine and just stared at it for a while. Nothing matched up to my pictures and there was no magic 'ENGLISH' button. So I just started pushing buttons. No luck. I walk up to the cashier, 'Sumimasen?' and showed him my printout. I wasn't sure how I was going to convey, 'I need tickets for the Ghibli Museum, 3 adults, 2 children between the ages of 12 and 18, two children between the ages of 5 and 12 and 1 ticket for the 4 year-old. I just said Ghilbi Museum. He lit up! Hai! Yeah!! We are in business. So he starts pushing buttons. When he got to the credit card page - I gave him my card and he had to translate my name and number into Japanese. He used the backspace bar a lot. Then there was a calendar page with numbers that I could understand. So I know I got that right. But then the screen to order individual tickets was a little confusing. All I could understand was that there was a ticket for 700 yen, 400 yen and another for 400 yen. On my sheet there were 4 choices. Hmmm. I decided to purchase 2 - 700 assuming that was an adult and then 4 of the first of the 400 Yen, but not one for my little guy. Maybe he was free? Because on my paper he was supposed to be 100 yen. I am thinking I can't go to the museum without a ticket for Connor as they might not let him in. I guess I'll go back and buy one more 400 Yen ticket. I am going to go to a different convenience store though as I am too embarrassed to return to the original place of frustration. I have to assume that if I bought all the wrong tickets they will reimburse/exchange them for us at the museum and chalk it up to the stupid gaijin. And that process will probably take a half an hour.

Jill, we WILL be going to the Ghibli Museum on Wednesday at exactly 10 AM.