It has already been one month since New Years and it is hard to believe that 2010 is already 1/12th of the way over. (more…)
Luck foils me again 2 September 2009
Jill here.
Now I can finally post, before everything goes to hell tomorrow. We have just got word that our thirty-three boxes that we sent from Japan via container will be arriving tomorrow. Unfortunately, we just also got word that the delivery service that we are paying for will only deliver to the apartment building’s front door. No further. Which means that I will be carrying thirty-three not-light boxes up four flights of stairs by myself. Yuki will be in class all day, of course.
The work doesn’t really faze me at all. If I could spend all day doing it at my own pace, it would be nothing but a good excuse to exercise. But I know I will feel rushed and harried, because if any of the occupants of the ten other apartments (it’s a small building) arrive home or go out, I will be mortally embarrassed to have blocked the entire teeny tiny foyer with my 1.5 cubic meters of possessions. I’m cursing the bloody delivery service because, if you ask me, that’s no service at all. I’m also afraid that they’re going to have to leave things standing out on the pavement, because I really don’t think there’s enough space in that little foyer, and one of the neighbors normally parks her baby stroller there as well. Then I’ll have to rush, be embarrassed, and worry about my things being stolen. So tomorrow is going to be nuts and then I’ll be unpacking boxes for days on end, so this is my last chance for a while to update things.
And why not?
Sweden continues to full of surprises, some good and some not so good (like the shoddy shipping company). It is always the best thing about living in different countries, though, I think: to explore all the funny little surprises of things that you never once thought anyone would make or do, which are completely normal to the people who use or do them. For example, these little ice cube bags. It took me a moment to figure out what they were for, but looking at the little pictures on the back of the box cleared it up immediately. They are plastic bags for making ice cubes. Each bag is a big flat rectangle, which has been stamped to make little individual squares. You pour water in the top and it runs through tiny holes between each of the squares to fill the whole bag. Then you freeze the whole lot and when you need your ice cubes, just pop open the bag and break them apart. Now to me, ice-cube trays have been around for a long time, so who would think of making little disposable bags to do the same work? I don’t know, but someone obviously has. And no, I did not buy these little curiosities — they were left by the previous tenant.
In fact, I’m not up to buying much of anything. Because we bought far too much at first. We were feeling fairly confident in our financial situation, as we went out and bought what seemed like just the necessary things at IKEA and at electronics store, but we soon after discovered that the exchange rate had changed and not in our favor. Now we are buying only the cheapest foods, but even those are tremendous. We got a big pack of six chicken breasts, trying to save in bulk, and they still cost 110 kroner, or about 16 dollars — and that was the cheapest chicken in the store. That’s quite dear for plain old chicken breasts. We’re going to be eating a lot less meat — we split one chicken breast or pork chop or whatever between the two of us for dinners — and are going to try supplementing with other protein sources. The eggs are a bit more affordable, but only a bit. Thought we might be able to eat tofu, but it’s 40 kroner (6-7 dollars) for one little block, which is not even a whole chou (the standard measurement for tofu). I’m looking into making our own tofu, but I need to price soy beans and soy milk at the store to see if it’s feasible. It couldn’t be worse than the hard, chewy stuffy that they are selling as tofu.
Now you see, eh?
Until then, keep your fingers crossed for me. Our streak of bad luck has been exhausting — injuries, illnesses, slights from friends, no bonus for Yuki (the withholding of which is technically illegal), having to pay his municipal taxes even though we don’t live in Japan any longer, our visa applications going missing at Migrationsverket, our last minute dash to get visas in LA two days before flying out of the country, flights being delayed, canceled, and full of poor service, missing important meetings with friends and family that may never come again, the exchange rate going south, being confounded at every turn… it’s too much to think about at times. We used to joke that we used up all of our good luck for Yuki to get into grad school, but it doesn’t really feel like a joke anymore. So please, please let our bad luck finally be exhausted and let us find a way to live and work in this country for the next two years.
All hitched and ready to run 14 January 2009
Jill here.
Well, we are officially married. Yuki and I signed the paper (after some minor complications that I won’t disclose for quite a while yet) and turned it into the ward office on 1/11.
Which reminds me! A certain someone asked me just how we’d ever met and I thought perhaps I’d better share the story. Yuki moved to Seattle in 2001 to attend a year of ESL and then enter college. He’d done a year at the military university in Japan for officer training (as per his parents wishes) before standing up and saying that he really didn’t want to do that; he wanted to go to America and have fun. 
I moved to Seattle in 2002 to attend the UW, just as he had entered SCCC. Through the guilt-tripping of our dear friend Lois, who I had met in Japanese classes, I was dragged around to Kaiwa Table in 2003 or so. Kaiwa Table was a group of folks who met up at UW to practice Japanese or English (kaiwa meaning ‘conversation’ in Japanese) and Yuki came as part of the local Japanese community. And so we met.
I thought he was odd. Still don’t know just what he thought of me, though in general, people seemed to be either amused, baffled, or annoyed by me upon first meetings, so you could probably take your choice of those three. He was 23 at the time and the only of our friends who could drink; he was older than all of us, went to a different school, and worked (ahem, less than legally) at Safeco, which meant he only showed up from time to time anyway. But we were in the same group of friends and so we were automatically ‘friends’ by association.
In 2004, we both were headed back to Japan for a visit and Yuki apparently thought it would be a good idea to fly home to Seattle together, come August. I was less thrilled, but couldn’t think of a feasible way to refuse and so I gave him my flight number and he booked himself up for the same flight. We met only twice, as I recall, in Japan that summer and even then only in the company of friends, so I dismissed him as usual, busy having my own crazy Japan experience, living and working with seven guys from America, Canada, England and Australia at an illegal eikaiwa (English conversation school). Eventually the day came that we were to fly back, though, and I met him at the airport, along with one of our other friends who kindly came to see us off. After she left, he got busy trying to switch our seats so that we could be together. I was praying to myself that he would either pass out on the plane or that I would be able to and imagining nine hours of awkward conversation. We got on the plane. We got settled. And we started talking.
I think I remember us mostly talking in Japanese at first – which was probably the last time we’ve ever had conversations in Japanese, unless forced to by being in a group of Japanese people – but eventually we switched more and more into English, as I recall. At any rate, we discovered that we could actually talk to each other. For hours. And hours. And, long story short, we walked off the plane holding hands.
Of course, things weren’t all that simple in paradise and neither of us brought up what holding hands might mean. And, of course, he was leaving two days later to move to Montana for university. So we met up that night and I, freaking out, called my friend Lois to come with us and act as a buffer. Perhaps he was put off by that but I didn’t hear from him again until the next day when I texted him and asked about him leaving. We made plans to go out and went to B&O in downtown Seattle. Still neither of us had the balls to say what was going on, so we dithered and ended up going to Golden Gates in North Seattle. We walked around for a long time, each caught up in confused hesitation, and finally (I may have goaded him – I can’t recall but it seems like something I would do) he worked up the nerves, gave me a kiss, and we figured out that apparently we were in like.
We went to the 24 hour Starbucks in Lake City, got some caffeine to stay up, and hung out back at my place talking and being silly until three or so in the morning. Then he really had to go, since he was leaving the next morning for Montana. I drove him home and then, less than ten hours later, he left.
For the next two years, we did long distance between Seattle and Montana. I would drive to Montana at least one weekend a month the first year, then we got down to just school holidays, mostly. He would take the miserable greyhound bus over for Christmases and summer vacations, and I would drive 8 hours across Washington, Idaho and Montana on Friday evenings to spend Saturdays with him before driving the 8 hours back on Sundays. Then I moved to England for graduate school and the time difference went from one hour to nine hours. Then he graduated from UM and went back to Japan and the time difference flopped again to 8 hours in a different direction. We didn’t talk much during that period, exchanging occasional emails and nothing more. He would try to call and I would mostly get short with him, struggling with the stress of my life at Oxford. But after a year, in 2007, I finished up my course and moved back to Japan. It took another half year before we lived together in the same city. After three and a half years of long distance, we finally made it. And now, just after a year of living together in our teeny-tiny one room apartment, we have tied the knot.
Now we just have to get out of here and on to some place new! 
Ah, but first I must get back to translating. Yet another massive project. This one at cut rates and a deadline that I didn’t really want to agree to anyway. The things we do for money. Just dream of an apartment with more than one room, Jill. Keep dreaming.
How we spent our summer winter vacation.
5 January 2009
Jill here.
I thought I might post a little bit about how we opened up the new year this past week. Prior to New Year’s, I went back to Seattle for Christmas, as I tend to do, but only for a brief six days this time since I had trouble getting time off from work. Yet even six days was enough time to gain weight from all that holiday eating, as I unfortunately discovered. Perhaps a bit heavier than when I left, I arrived back in Japan on the 29th to head down to Kyushu with Yuki. For the first time (ever for me, in about six years for him), we spent o-shougatsu at his familial home in Sasebo, Kyushu.
It was the first time for me to visit his parents’ home, although I’d met them — once — before. They are very nice folks and I know I’m pretty lucky considering the number of horror stories I’ve heard about in-laws (or out-laws, as I often hear them dubbed). I know that they are shocked to be saddled with a foreign daughter-in-law — I know precisely because they’ve told me — but they try to keep the healthy attitude that it’s Yuki’s life and that it’s up to him to make his own decisions, whether they think they’re wise or not. Though that doesn’t mean they don’t give him an earful from time to time, especially about his educational choices.
At any rate, we arrived in Sasebo after something like eight hours on various trains. Hard to believe it takes nearly as long to get halfway across a country the size of California as it does to fly from Tokyo to Seattle, but there it is. The new year holiday was busy: full of lots of rushing around to different sights, shops, and eats. We visited the “99 Islands,” part of a national park in Sasebo that encompasses the bay filled with, in fact, not 99 but 205 islands. We drove past the American navy base a couple of times and saw a number of squids and their families around town, which was both amusing and slightly disorienting for me. We ate a lot, of course — not helping the Christmas gains at all — and rented movies to fill the time until midnight on the 31st when the hatsus began.
Mini Japanese lesson for you here: hatsu is how you read the character 初, which means ‘first.’ New Year’s in Japan is absolutely bursting with hatsus. Hatsu-moude (first visit to the shrine), hatsu-yume (first dream), hatsu-uri (first sales), hatsu-hi-no-de (first sunrise), and so on.
Last year, we did our hatsu-moude at our nearest shrine here in Omiya*, Hikawa Jinja. Hikawa Jinja happens to be in the top ten in the entire country for hatsu-moude visits, though, with just shy of 2 million people regularly visiting during the first three days of the year and the line is quite a thing to behold. Last year we cut in through the side, since we know the area, and only had to wait about an hour in the wee hours to move the 100 feet or so to the inside of the shrine.
This year, though, in the considerably less visited suburbs of Sasebo, Kyushu, we didn’t have to wait to long. We visited the small shrine near Yuki’s home at midnight and threw in our offerings, prayed to the gods for good luck in the coming year, and got free bowls of o-zouni, a weak soup with Napa cabbage and mochi rice cakes in it. The next day we hit up another, larger shrine for yet another hatsu-moude and to get new charms for the home for the new year. Then the night of the 1st, we once again headed out at midnight — only this time not for spiritual gains but commercial. It was time for hatsu-uri and the popular shops in Sasebo all opened at midnight to offer one of the biggest sales of the year, including the perennial favorites: fukubukuro. Literally “lucky bags,” these are sealed bags that the stores only sell at New Year’s for a set price. You gamble your luck that you might like the contents, though some shops have begun to display what is in the bags. They are usually (and unsurprisingly) filled with goods that haven’t sold well and need to be cleared out of the store, but the shops throw in at least one or two “hot items” as well, so you don’t go away feeling too sore after you pay and get to open your bag.
Yuki’s little sister and I bought bags from a store I rather like, called SM2. The bags cost 8,000 yen ($80) and contained approximately 30,000 yen worth of clothes, so it’s a rather good deal, even if you might not like everything in the bag you get. When we went home and compared, I thought Mai got much luckier than me, but those Nonakas are just lucky folk — maybe their luck will rub off on me in time?? 
Still, I got a couple of nice shirts and things that I’ll find occasions to wear, even if they weren’t anything I’d usually pick out myself. It’s rather fun to leave your fate up to chance and just see what you get stuck with. It helps you try things you might not otherwise, and that’s usually a good thing.
On a freezing cruise of the so-called "99 Islands." Click to see the rest of the photos from Sasebo on Flickr.
The next couple days, amid a shock of snow and cold weather, we hit up more stores, visited the family graves, the local European-styled theme park Huis Ten Bosch, and barely had a moment free, it seemed. Now we’re at last home and Yuki is back to work as of today. I go back to my full-time job at the school on Thursday but until then I’ve got a big ol’ translation job to work on, so I should hardly be wasting time blogging anyway, now should I?
*Omiya is in fact named for this shrine, as the name of the area simply means great (oo) shrine or temple (miya).
