TOKYO

Our car finally arrived last Friday. We have been waiting for it for 9 weeks now and in the mean time have been learning a good skill called "patience", otherwise known as "chotto matte kudasai" or "just a moment please!" Did you know that the true meaning of frustration cannot be experienced in Australia? Did you know that the word wakarimasen means, "I don't know" and "I don't understand" and not to mention that saying "no" should be avoided, so saying "yes" when you mean "no" is a better option, confused? We certainly are, sometimes we just get ourselves out of a muddle by a laugh and a smile, that seems to work extremely well no matter what we think we are talking about.

Mark managed the drive with our brand new car into Tokyo really well, despite being confronted by torrential rain and signs like this:

At 3.45am on Saturday morning our alarm went off for an early morning trip to Tsukiji Fish Market. With a mix of tourists and locals we queued in the wee hours to see the tuna auctions, some ending a night on the town. It was well worth it, again it felt like we were spying on an ancient art, perhaps we shouldn't have been there,  peering in on this Japanese tradition, serious men with tapping fingers, curved to indicate price. Then on to sashimi breakfast and the fish market proper where we were appalled to find whale meat on the menu.

Tokyo thrilled me with its' energetic buzz, millions (35 million) of people passing by going about their daily lives. The excitement of this constant stimulation was infectious, it was hard to decide how to spend our three days.We opted for Shinjiku, the Science and Electricity Museums and for the first time in my life, Disneyland. I cannot wait to go back, next time I might spend a day or two at Ginza, the consumer capital of the world?

Care to join me?

Mark had to hurry back to Nagoya by Shinkansen for work, so brother Ross who is visiting from Hobart, Oliver, Sophia and I had a dry and leisurely drive home to Nagoya:)

Gaijin

Anyone reading this who is under the age of 18 or male may now wish to leave this blog site.

Something weird arrived in the post addressed to me today, I cannot read it so I am curious as to exactly what it is. An envelope with a cartoon picture of two young women looking at each other with a knowing look in their eye, as if to say. "Let's go there together".  At first it seemed that I had been invited to join the secret society of Japanese fish grilling or perhaps ikebana. I had been hoping to have a few such lessons so that I could improve my knowledge of 1. how to cook a decent meal in this country and 2. to expand my knowledge of floral arrangements. Upon opening the letter, I am now convinced that indeed I have joined the secret society of women, I have the membership card to prove it. They seem to have my birth date wrong though, I was born on the 27/07, but not in the year 1939 as they seem to think. I would love to post a photo of the booklet here but fear that someone reading my blog may take the cartoons of female anatomy the wrong way. As far as I can tell from the pictures, there are 7 steps to being a woman in this country, all revolving around DNA. I have a  membership card now and appreciate that as an alien in this city, someone is really looking out for me.

FYI, Did you know that as registered aliens, we are the recipients of a monthly cash benefit for our children? We receive 13000 yen per month for each child.

Life is starting to settle down here now. For a moment the other day, I forgot I was in Japan. A beautiful still and sunny morning, 3 aeroplanes flying over head, not a cloud in the sky. The house is equipped, we have a washing pole, finally found a plug in Nagoya so that we can wash the dishes. (Please refer back to the kitchen sink plug on a previous blog) Still a bit challenged by shopping for food, still trying to find a strong coffee, although managed to get a drive through Starbucks coffee served with ice.  I am really suprised to find so many American chains here Starbucks, Maccas, KFC, Mr. Donuts, 7/11, and how to find someone in Japan? Directions via convenience stores. "I'll meet you at Family Mart," or "turn right at McDonalds and left at 7/11".

It is good to be an alien for a change. Not being able to communicate with people is a challenge, but to be in this predicament for a short time is a good experience for us. We are the foreigners now, perhaps we can appreciate life for foreigners in our own country of Australia and appreciate the difficulties that they must have. Simple things, such as installing a Japanese wireless system at home or when is a chemist a drugstore and when is a chemist a chemist and where is a chemist? How do you say that in Japanese? How do you ask for dencorub in Japanese?

For those interested in the outcome of our Nagoya Bay hermit crabs; we started with 8, spent AU$60 on a tank and set-up, spent the next day fearing for the lives of our newly named pets, and watched in disbelief as the harmless crustaceans new home turned into a "Tank of Terror". These Japanese hermit crabs are really aggressive, the big ones ate the medium ones, slowly ripping off their claws, consuming them limb by limb-ouch! We now have two enormous hermit crabs, Nugget and Samantha and two minute ones Mini max and ????, obviously not worth their trouble to eat.

So, we continue our adventure as gaijin in Japan, we are trying to pick up a little bit of the language and learn as much as we can about this fascinating culture. But for the time being we can only peer in and imagine the real Japan.