Bad Hair Day

If you spoke with me prior to our moving overseas, you may know that my greatest fear about moving to Japan was finding someone to cut my hair.  

Hair Studio Billy in Kobe was recommended on a website with information for foreign teachers living in Hyogo. I found them on the web where they boasted having international experience and even spoke English.  I made a reservation for the very next day!  

I should have known something was up by the way
 that President Billy wouldn't look me in the eyes.

The interior was funky and western inspired.  The stylist was a young, hip girl with black rimmed glasses, and her English was perfect.  I was feeling confident I chose the right place.  However, halfway through the haircut, she asked if she could use thinning shears.  Um... ok?  10 minutes later she was still thinning and thinning.  She even thinned my bangs!  With no end in sight, my heart started beating fast.  I blurted out, “I think that’s enough of the thinning shears!” She seemed a bit surprised, like I had interrupted her masterpiece, but she finished up with the cut and dusted off my neck.  We paid and left.  I felt tricked.  

I went home that night and washed and dried my hair hoping for the best.  Then, I cried.  My hair is so wispy that it sticks out when I don’t use a straightener.  The humidity only makes it worse.  It is my greatest fear realized; the worst hair cut that I have ever had!

But here is what I have learned in just a week’s time.  People around me do not care if my hair isn’t perfect.  In fact, I am not sure that any of my Japanese coworkers even noticed that I cut my hair at all.  My husband still finds me attractive.  So, that leaves me.  I was very upset on the day of the bad hair cut.  No woman wants to feel like their hair isn’t pretty.  But, the truth is my hair is not what people love about me.  It isn’t what they judge me by and it isn’t what they will remember me for.  A bad hair cut is just that, bad, but there are worse things.  And it will grow.   

Home, Sweet Home

At long last, the tour of our new home in Japan! We have taken care of most of the major purchases. You will notice that there is no TV to speak of. We will probably eventually just get a cheap computer monitor for watching movies on, and it will go in the living room. We also need new curtains for several rooms. Finally, there is one room opposite the bedroom that is not pictured, because there is nothing much in it besides cardboard that needs to be thrown out. It has a wood floor and is intended to be an office, but we’re not sure if we’ll find a use for it besides storage overflow. Enjoy!

From the front door - Our "genkan" or entryway. Please take off your shoes! 

This way to the washroom

Our square Japanese soaking tub with modern control dials

This curtain separates the washroom from the kitchen (the school gave us our awesome retro fridge)

That curtain needs to be replaced!

Fairly spacious kitchen by Japanese standards

Next to the kitchen is the living room with "guest bed"

Across from the living room is the separate toilet room with airplane-esque door 

The staircase of doom (extremely steep) 

From the closet - our new bed

View from the bed 

The Mac only work zone 

Caught in the Rain!

If you visit us in Japan, you might think that I’m overly cautious with how often I bring an umbrella. Sometimes I feel that way too until days like today. We decided to bike over to the ATM to get some cash before we go to the city tomorrow. It was sunny and hot outside with some dark clouds on the horizon. On the way to the bank, I heard an old lady say a storm was coming. Her friend replied, “Nah, it’s gonna miss us.” I thought it would be a good idea to grab the cash and get home. 

The bank is next to a grocery store, and we decided to grab a few things (having totally forgotten about the black clouds). After paying, we looked outside, and to our dismay, it was pouring sheets of rain! We had several bags of groceries, two wet bicycles and no umbrellas or jackets to speak of.

We killed a little time at the appliance store upstairs until the rain got a little lighter. It was still pouring, but it wasn’t torrential. We got psyched up and got on our way. It was ridiculous how wet we got, and we laughed all the way home! I hope it’s the last time this happens, but I’ve actually been wetter in Japan.

The picture doesn't do justice just how wet we got

Earthquake Survival Chocolate

We were a little confused at first by this chocolate display stand with chocolate bar sleeves in front of it. On closer examination, I realized the stand was promoting earthquake preparedness, and the chocolate sleeve included a checklist. And of course, what earthquake checklist is complete without a bar of Meiji chocolate?!

It seemed silly at first, but I remembered afterwards that Hershey’s business boomed throughout WWII when it was making chocolate for the troops. Any claims about the health benefits of chocolate aside, maybe just having a comforting, sweet bar in a time of emotional distress is an important part of any survival kit. 

The Cat Returns

Again, and again, and again. We basically have a pet cat now, albeit an outside cat that is still kind of scared of us. After the first night he came, we bought a bag of cat treats and threw a few dry nuggets onto our porch. A few days later, I noticed they were gone. The next night, the cat was waiting for us on the porch! 

He comes and goes now, and we regularly give him scraps or a few cat nuggets. We gave him a cardboard box and later bought him a scrap of carpet. Sometimes he lounges on our porch. Other times we don’t see him all day. But he usually comes around at some point, accepts a treat, and then is on his way. He actually isn’t a very cute cat. You can’t see in the photos, but his ears are rubbed red, probably because he has mites that he has been scratching. But he is our feral cat, and until we are reunited with Moses, he is all we’ve got!

Miki Penguins

I had once heard of a bar in Kobe with live penguins in it. I was a little shocked when one of Becky’s co-workers told her there is a cafe in Miki that also has live penguins. 

We ended up going in the evening, and it turned out to be relatively close by bicycle, although there were a few nasty hills along the way. The cafe is called Ballantaine, which seems to be a bad transliteration the Japanese version of valentine. It had a fairly standard interior for a gourmet coffee and cake shop, except for a big penguin tank on one side! There were four african penguins. Two were mostly lounging, and the other two were constantly swimming in circles in their tiny pool. The menu was a little pricey, but I guess we were paying to see the penguins too. I’ve been told the penguin bar in Kobe has an expensive cover charge to pay for the penguins.

I got strawberry cake and iced coffee, and Becky got some sort of potato cake and a Brazilian coffee. Everything was delicious, the penguins were great, and we will definitely go back!

More IKEA/China Town

We went to IKEA for the second time and bought what we have long been lacking: a bed! I think the apartment is almost ready for a photo shoot. Expect some pictures in coming days... 

After IKEA, we spent a bit of time in Kobe. We had some fantastic croquettes at Kobe Croquette in China town. It was recently redesigned by one of the most famous Japanese architects, Tadao Ando.

China Town in Kobe is clean and tame, with lots of great places to get food from street vendors and of course, some great photo-opps. 

A Local Cat

Becky went outside at night to hang a pair of wet jeans on the line (dryers are expensive and uncommon in Japan), and she was surprised by a small cat. It likewise was startled, but it waited on the defensive as Becky ran in the house and get a butter roll. She proceeded to tear off chunks and feed it the entire roll, getting the cat closer and closer with each chunk. It never ate directly out of her hand but toward the end it was pawing the bread out of it. 

We got ready for bed, and found the cat sitting by the door an hour later! I found a couple of scraps of Canadian bacon in the fridge. I opened the door, and the cat greedily pawed all three pieces out of my hand. We finally had to cut the cat off, but it hung out on our porch for at least another hour before we stopped watching it. We hope it comes back.

Garden Phase 1: Clearing Weeds

Since first arriving at our apartment in Miki, we wanted to do something with our back yard, which is too small to really be a yard, but a nice size for a manageable garden plot. After years of neglect, we knew we would need to hand till the entire plot to make it useable. We went to the hardware store and bought the most basic tools. The weeds were so thick that we decided clearing them before tilling would make the whole process a little easier. A few hours of extremely sweaty and mosquito infested work later, and we now have an empty plot to work with. 

We will leave the tilling to another day. We will be a little limited in regard to what we can plant this year, with the fall almost on top of us, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. More to come later...

Miki Yama Forest Park

Since before coming to Japan, we saw a place called Miki Yama Forest Park very near to our new apartment complex on Google Maps. We found the website at the time, but it was difficult to tell whether it was a nature reserve or just a park. We casually asked some of the teachers at Becky’s school about it, and they never had much to say. 

Last week, I was exploring on Becky’s bicycle (I’m finally getting one next week), when I found a gravel path going into the woods and a map of the forest park beside it. So I knew there was at least some decent hiking. According to the map, the main entrance was maybe a 15 minute walk from our house, so we decided to check it out during the weekend.

It did turn out to be very close to our house. We were shocked when we walked through the main gate. The park was beautiful. It had a large paved parking lot with nearby vendors, fountains that were full of happy children, a nature center, a restaurant, lots of picnic areas and a mixed of both paved walking paths and more rugged hiking trails. It felt like a little bit of paradise in the middle of Miki, and we were shocked that none of the teachers had talked up the park previously. 

We explored for a couple of hours until stopping at a good picnic spot, where we ate a delicious beige lunch we bought at the grocery store that morning. We hiked a bit further and found an observation tower that overlooked all of Miki. 

We exited the north of the park at the hiking path I found a few days earlier. We walked through the nearby neighborhood, including a substantial cemetery, where families were happily visiting graves to clean away dead flowers and replace them as part of the Obon festival.

We walked a bit further to our intended post-hiking destination, Amaguri, a shop that sells gelato and treats made with chestnuts. The gelato was as delicious as the dancing shop mascot was hilarious.

Capsule Toys

Remember when we were kids and the grocery store had capsule toys for 50 cents at the exits? They still exist in Japan. Sometimes they are simple toys for as cheap as 100 yen and sometimes they are blind-boxed, highly collectible toys for 300 yen and up. Blind boxing is when a toy is wrapped, so you don’t know which model/color you are going to get until you pay for the item and open it. This practice is slowly becoming more popular in the U.S. thanks to designer toy shops such as Kid Robot .

Outside the entrance at a local bookstore, I saw a capsule machine filled with Lego mini-figures. It showed the eight variety of figures that were blind-boxed. I was a Lego maniac for many of my formative years, and I was instantly smitten with the possibility of getting a Lego elf, a mini-figure that has never been in any Lego set! The samurai and bearded fisherman were also worth going for.

Becky encouraged me to get one for 300 yen, and I admit I had a slight gamblers’ rush as I dropped in my three coins and turned. Then I suppose I had gamblers’ disappointment as I opened the capsule and tore open the bag revealing the baseball player, one of the less desirable outcomes, in my opinion. The disappointment was severe.

After dreaming of the Lego elf for days, we returned to the bookstore with a pile of 100 yen coins. We weren’t sure how much money we were willing to commit. I put in my first 300 yen and had that gamblers’ rush for a second time. I tore open the bag and peaked in. “I got the elf,” I said, shocked and delighted. He now guards the house moving around from surface to surface.

Dinner in Namba

We spent the afternoon exploring the Osaka neighborhoods I used to like to hang out in. Thanks to the use of borrowed wifi, we were able to communicate with my friends, Atsushi and Yuko, to arrange meeting up for dinner. I used to work with Atsushi in Amagasaki, and he and Yuko married the same day and year that Becky and I did. 

Tourists doing the classic Glico man pose

We met them in front of the Glico man, one of the most famous landmarks in Osaka. Being in the heart of Osaka, we decided on okonomiyaki for dinner. Okonomiyaki is a savory pancake dish with lots of combinations of ingredients that get thrown into the batter. Then a sauce, mayonnaise, dried seaweed and bonito flakes go on top. Okonomiyaki is available nationwide but is commonly considered a delicacy to the Kansai region. 

When eating okonomiyaki, customers sit around a griddle, which keeps the food warm. Some restaurants bring partially cooked pancakes to the griddle, and then the customer is responsible for finishing the cooking process at the table. We split three pancakes between the four of us, and we were stuffed!

After dinner, we walked through the iconic, brightly-lit streets of Namba before getting on the subway and making the long journey back to Miki.

Nakanoshima, Osaka

Miki is rural, very rural. There is not a lot to do there. It will be a fine place to work, study Japanese, and build some local relationships. But the weekend will call us away to Kobe and Osaka. This weekend, we chose Osaka.

Entrance to The National Museum of Art, Osaka

We started our day in Nakanoshima, an island about 20 minutes south of Osaka Station on foot. You wouldn’t realize it’s an island without seeing it on a map, because it’s right in the middle of everything. The island is home to Osaka City Hall, the National Museum of Art (Osaka), a science museum, a lovely park with a rose garden, and a number of other landmarks. 

In addition to the big landmarks is one of my favorite companies in Osaka, Graf. Graf is a furniture store, a design company, a gallery, and it has one of the best cafes in Osaka. They have a simple menu with four set lunches, and everything always tastes fresh and gourmet. 

We popped into the Museum of Modern Art for a bit after lunch. A portion of the museum was free for the day, and we enjoyed making fun of an exhibit called White, which was literally white, framed canvases with a tiny bit of texture on each canvas. Several rooms of all white squares begged the question what is art?

Just over the river is the beautiful Utsubo Park. Once a US airstrip, this park is not widely know beyond locals, but anyone in the area should get a cold drink and take a leisurely walk here.

IKEA

An IKEA is located in Kobe, less than an hour-and-a-half from Miki. It’s a little bit expensive to get there by train, but it’s actually cheaper than the three-and-a-half hour drive from Oklahoma City to IKEA in Dallas. IKEA in Japan, and most Japanese companies, offer reasonable ground shipping fees, so you can buy large items and not need a car to ship them home. So our new furniture will come in a few days, and I’ll post pictures once we get the house partially furnished.

After IKEA, we did a little window shopping at some of my favorite stores in downtown Kobe. We both laughed when we saw this T-Shirt at Design Tshirts Store Graniph.