Baaaaaah Humbug!

    When life gives you lemons… you:

     a) suck it and have a lemon face;

     b) make lemonade

We all know the correct answer is “b”, but this week I chose “a” and poor Ninja has been faced with a lemon face, or “salad face” as he likes to call it, a few too many times this week!

Scenario 1: Couch shopping Monday night. Let us all imagine coming home each night and not having a couch to sit on – it’s a sad, sad existence, which leads to us sharing a mini ottoman! Our Karratha sofa couch was deemed too big and heavy to make the voyage, we thought we could get a funky futon here instead… WRONG! Most couches here are made to fit their owner’s … i.e. midget size, and vinyl is, unfortunately, very popular! We spent 2hrs at Nitori trying out dozens of couches until we pick this ugly, leather beast. The backs were too low, or not enough stuffing, or too small (call me Goldilocks), or too ugly – yes, this beast wasn’t the worst to look at – … it happens to be incredibly comfortable so I’ve made a deal that it can stay a year or two and then be sold to the highest bidder when we are decorating our new house!

The ugly beast

Scenario 2: the 20min walk to work each day causes me blisters! Not one pair of shoes I have can prevent them – I’ve tried socks, innersoles, etc… the situation is dire… and the maximum shoe size here is size 8… only 2.5 sizes off… (call me the ugly stepsister). To add to my 'Eeyore' moment, Amazon US, which sells really comfy, ugly walking shoes, doesn’t deliver shoes here! “oh well, doesn’t matter anyway”.

Scenario 3: I bought the wrong bread. I come home to a taller version of Jamie Oliver, who has cooked, washed, and cleaned (ok 2 out of 3) and all he asks is that I bring home some bread so he doesn’t starve each day… and I got the wrong bread. The bakeries here are big on white bread – it’s been blogged before. It’s full of sugar. We buy brown. I bought brown. I bought brown fruit bread. Damn…. it.

Scenario 4: It’s been raining non-stop since Friday. Japan doesn’t do rain like Karratha – no great big down pour for an hour – they have constant sprinkles that lasts days… possibly weeks! Sayonara Disneyland – you will have to wait until it stops raining! Ninja and I decided to brave the sprinkles today and headed out for our first cycle… so it rained a little harder. We had to pick up sandwiches from our local Tully’s coffee shop as we had no edible lunch bread (!) and the Tully’s staff laughed at me… or at my wet pants… baaahhh humbug!

But this self-deprecation and wallowing must come to an end as I’m reminded that we are living a once in a lifetime experience, we have our health and we have another year to visit Disneyland! 

There are two sides to every story, and the other side to these are:

Scenario 1: no couch means we cuddle up in our superb king-size bed and watch TV (cable installed in the bedroom on Friday). We’ve been without the bed for 6 months and are very happy to be reunited! Plus we’ve discovered we have more channels in the bedroom, including an Aussie channel, which sometimes plays AFL!

Scenario 2: I get 40 mins of forced exercise everyday and get to walk passed all of these beautiful places. Who cares if my feet hurt! Ninja gives a good foot rub anyway!

Marino's Football Training ground

Nissan building- I walk through on my way to Yokohama Station

Bay Quarter - near Yokohama Station

Scenario 3: Fruit toast for breakfast was lovely!

Scenario 4: the new bikes worked a treat. Sure, we look ridiculous in the helmets – I can’t decide whether they are retro chic or just gumby hats? But we have far to explore and these bikes will take us places! And Tully’s can shove it, I’m going to Starbucks only from now on!

My new wheels

We found a bike for Ninja - a Giant!

By now you would have read Kept Ninja’s blog, he’s back and in fine form. The baseball was a great night out – soon to be repeated I hope! One find worth a giggle was the “beer snacks” they gave me… hmmm.

Fish are friends, not food

ewwwwwwwww

No promises for adventures next week – it’s weather dependant!... bring on the Typhoon Songda!

Xoxo

Karate Kate

Hike, Bike and Kiai!

After two months of limbo in Perth, Kept Ninja and Karate Kate were welcomed back to Japan with open arms! We'd have been grateful if there were a few more ‘open doors’ as it took a day and a few drops of Nil Odour to sort out our apartment!

We flew back with Singapore Airlines, which was swish – I was giving up alcohol this week until I saw Bollinger on the top of the menu – what can you do? Kept Ninja and I are engaging in a ‘no alcohol on school nights’ policy, which so far has been successful, as has our banning of chocolate in the apartment… I had the shakes for a few days, but we’re tougher for it now!

Hmmm yum - Pocari Sweat

Few things we’ve discovered since our return:      

• Japanese advertising only gets better with time – check out this bottled water brand, which is delightfully called “Pocari Sweat”… nice.
• Speaking of sweat  - the humidity is around 75% in the morning, which makes for a nice walk to work… I need to invest in a hanky!
• Turning the TV on cuts out the internet – a strange phenomenon that Kept Ninja discovered this morning – that’s his department though :)
• The stovetop needs a heavy saucepan on it to switch on, this was discovered the hard way, and after eating dinner at 9:30pm on the first night… again Ninja’s department.



Costco loot

• Costco is a slice of heaven… we spent 2 hrs there yesterday… in the trolley were: 13kg slab of steak, 8kg of chicken breast, enough toilet rolls to last a year, same for tissues, 6months worth of cranberry and soda, and a Ralph Lauren shirt… ha ha. Would you believe the 150kg of groceries cost $25 to deliver – heaven! The part of this story that I’m leaving out was the 2km hike to the store from a little local train station through suburban Kawasaki - don't think they see many Geijins around their area… so after two hours of shopping we opted for the $13 taxi back to the main station :)

As a means of self-improvement, I’ve engaged in the following endeavours:

1. I went for a run on Thursday morning – the park in front of our apartment is luscious and green, and there is a lovely boardwalk to run along next to the water… let's hope I keep this up!
2. I’ve sussed out Japanese lessons for Kept Ninja and I – we’ll do 2hrs on a Monday night – the instructor comes to the apartment to teach us – thank you Woodside. We should start in 1-2 weeks time.
3. I signed up for my first “beginners” karate class!!! … kind of a necessity given my code name! Imagine my surprise when I rocked up to see 13 Japanese women – all fit as fiddles and most wearing brown belts!!! Oh dear! Sensei Hishiki was a fan of tough love and compliments were hard to come by. We started with warm up exercises, went through some of the punches, blocks and kicks at a rapid speed… it’s been 5 years since my last ballet class, but I remember my coordination being better than it was! We then split into our belt groups to learn the Kata (series of movements for grading)… oh to be a fly on the wall… bet Kept Ninja would have loved it! For the last 30mins (1.5hr classes), Sensei had me repeating front kicks and punches into the mirror to improve on my technique… there is a lot to think about! I came away from the class in awe of the other girls, rather sore, but engaged. My aim this week is to learn counting to ten, so I say ”kiai” at the right time, and to get the ends of my belt as long as the other girls (i.e. slim the waist line)!
4. The final effort this week to leading a health, balanced life has been to purchase a bike… I love the traditional bikes here – big wheels, bent handle bars, just like I had when I was young, and a basket in front :) I’m leaning towards the “Mini” pictured here. Kept Ninja is undecided between the Hummer, ridiculous clown bike and a Ferrari… any thoughts viewers?

The Hummer

Clown bike

my baby - the Mini

The Ferrari

Next weekend should include a baseball game (GO BAYSTARS!), more Karate and a trip to Disneyland! Stay tuned!

Xoxo

Karate Kate