Narrative Disorder » On the Road

Modegakuen “Spiral Tower”, Nagoya

Danielle — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 21:37:00 +0000

The very first day we arrived in Nagoya, on our house-hunt a month before we moved there, a building just down from the main JR Station junction caught my eye with it’s stunning spiral lines. I was told that it had only just been finished and that, among other things, it housed the local design institute. The Modegakuen “Spiral Tower” remains my favourite building in Nagoya and I loved to walk above ground from Nagoya Station just to go by it and see it from another angle. When I took up photography again, the building made me long for a fisheye lens, so I could play with its glass and lines and try to distort them into a fluid, moving, breathing thing.

It took me a year to get my 10-17mm fisheye lens and I finally managed to get down to the building in the dying light of our last day in the city. I was terribly sad that day, and much of it was spent doing obligatory things with other exiting ex-pats who couldn’t give a damn that they were leaving, were actually excited about it and even laughed when they noticed I was struggling with tears, so snatching those couple of hours to do a walk about the city I’d fallen in love with and spend some time with ‘my building’ was precious.

I really should have got around to it earlier as I learned a lot from looking at the images afterwards, and would have loved a second go, but here are some of the results.

Do full screen the slideshow if you can, it will heighten the fisheye effect. I hope you enjoy this beautiful building.

I miss Nagoya, today.

Danielle — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 03:37:27 +0000

That is all.

Narrative Disorder Redux

Danielle — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 17:43:10 +0000

The flattened boxes and packing material have finally been taken away, and everything except my desk, which was damaged and is being repaired and refinished, is in its new place, so I guess 'I'm still settling in' can no longer excuse a lack of blog posts. I find myself in the midst of a problem, though - about what should I blog?

The plan was to do our best to treat Sydney as though it were Japan and continue to travel, playing tourist in our own land, and continue to blog about life as an ex-pat wife, hopefully hitting on the odd issue that could be helpful to someone. It seemed a good plan; we lived here for 18months before we moved to Japan and it was, indeed, like moving to a foreign country (I genuinely found Japan easier), so clearly there were difficulties worth addressing. Now that we're here, however, the cost of living prevents us from being able to travel as we did in Japan, so travel and photography will be limited to the, not unattractive, metropolitan area. What is more, in the few months we've been here, I've found solutions to the main problems we had living here last time and, while I will eventually write those posts, there really aren't that many ways to say "Have lots of money" and "Don't live in The Shire".

Nevertheless, life is not lacking excitement, even if it is the kind of excitement which only that percentage of the population which identifies as 'writers' (and possibly musicians and other creatives) would define as such. Perhaps it's the lack of beautiful architecture luring me from my desk, and/or the removal of the constant, low-grade stress of living in a land in which you do not speak the language, but my narrative disorder has returned with a force I have not experienced for many years, perhaps even since high school. Characters are tramping through my head all night, scenes are playing like movies in my mind's eye, often from the moment I wake. When sitting down to write each weekday, my only creative angst derives from trying to unravel the big ball of scenes which seems to have replaced my brain. It's bliss!

All that is not to say that it's easy. No matter how quickly or slowly scenes come to mind, rarely do they come in order, and, despite the phrasing sometimes used to describe the process, nothing actually writes itself. What is different at the moment is that the scenes come so fast that it's all I can do to get them down, and there is simply no time for self-doubt. For years, I've understood intellectually the theory that you have to take off your editor's hat while writing your first draft. I've repeated the advice as mantras: "You can't edit what you haven't written"; "If it's worth doing well, it's worth doing badly till you learn", trying to convince myself not to second-guess as I go, but I've never before managed to achieve it. I'd like to think that I've reached some kind of personal and professional turning point, that this new state is the result of my continual practice and study of the craft, and that it will be, if not permanent, at least something I can call upon at will, but I daren't tempt the Gods by assuming such a thing.

And so, the answer to my original question becomes clear: the blog will return to its original subject - my Adventures in Wordcraft (I wonder if I still have any readers from when the blog was called that?) Whether this blissful state is permanent or not, I'll be doing everything I can to nurture it and, while I probably won't share my actual writing with you here, I will do my best to share anything that helps me to keep this state going. Off the top of my head, I can imagine posts might include: reviews of books on writing; alerts to a writer/agent/publisher whose blog or tweets I find inspiring; recommendations of tech that make reading or research easier; reviews of fountain pens and inks I use to slow down and create less frantically; or even a recipe for some comfort food to soothe a ragged, creative soul.

To those of you who came to this blog because it was about Japan, I want to say thank you for reading these past eighteen months, I hope I was able to help your own Japanese experiences in some small way. I have a few posts on Japan left in me, but only a few. Many of you are also writers and I hope you'll stick around to see where this goes, but I won't be surprised or upset if I see my subscriptions and views dropping substantially - it's quite a ride, the whole ex-pat jBlogger thing, even from the sidelines where I've been hanging out!

Of course, the most important way to nurture the muse is to answer its call to write, so chances are there will be awfully long gaps between posts, but I imagine only family, friends and writers will be watching for Narrative Disorder to go bold on their feed readers, so I'm sure I'll be forgiven.

From my desk to yours, happy writing!!

In which Phase Four begins with Valentino-red leather

Danielle — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 11:34:34 +0000

When contemplating the enormous task that this move would be, we divided it into four phases to make it feel more managable. Phase 1 was packing up Japan, two was getting back to Oz (an easy one to check off in comparison), three was the house hunt and four settling in. I'm delighted to say phase three is done and four is underway! We have found ourselves a four bedroom duplex in a suburb called Penshurst which is North of the George river but only about 20 mins to Superman's work. We are hoping that living out of The Shire and within easier reach of the CBD will help us to enjoy Sydney much more this time.

The house is big, four bedrooms probably seems over the top for a couple, but we wanted a spare room for guests and we found that in Sydney there was either tiny, pokey places or huge places - so we went huge. The smallest bedroom is the size of the room we squished both of our workspaces into in Japan, so the space will be wonderful. The space is also our payoff for having not only no water view but no real view at all; though there were many lovely places on Cronulla beach we could afford, none would accept our wee cat.

Design-wise, the house is a real 'find' for a rental property; it's modern but not a glass and tile box that is one of a block of identical apartments, rather a friendly modern with huge open plan spaces downstairs with vaulted ceilings and warm, dark wood floors, and three large bedrooms (with carpet - yay) upstairs.

The actual moving in will be a multi-delivery juggling act from hell! Our air shipment has arrived in Sydney so we'll have that delivered soon. We will have to move in, or rather out of the serviced apartment, before the sea shipment arrives with our bed, so that has meant ordering our guest bed so we have somewhere to sleep for a few weeks. The rather ingenious ottoman-bed (as against sofa-bed) will be cutting it fine but should arrive in time. The third delivery to deal with is that of the things we've had in storage while in Japan which, apart from the books, I can barely remember!

We began phase 4 today, by deciding on two of the rugs we will need for various spaces. We ordered the big rug and took home a small one for the area we are designating the reading nook, for which we also bought a beautiful deco version of a wingback chair in Valentino-red leather (matching ottoman on order.) We took them over and placed them today - it still needs the bookshelves and books but I can't wait to spend time there!

A brief addendum: obviously we are not really set up for net, yet, so this post has been written with the relatively new WordPress for Blackerry app which gives every appearance of being remarkable, so here's hoping it all works!

The Hunt is on…

Danielle — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:05:06 +0000

Home hunting in Sydney is proving harder than we expected, and we expected it to be difficult. There is a little something extra in it when you don't have anywhere to live if you don't find a place before the company funded apartment stops being funded.

At the end of the first week things were looking pretty bleak - our dreams of a coastal apartment were put to bed quickly because of our cat - noone down here would consider her. So we were down to houses, none of which we could afford on the coast. Inland in the Shire, the houses we saw at our price range were so badly run down that I was in despair by the end of the week. It really seemed that the assumption was that if you were a renter and had a cat then the assumption was that you deserved only to live like a crack addict with peeling walls and curling vinyl floors... and all this an hour away from the city! Sure, the beach is nearby but, frankly, if you're not right on the beach with a view of it every day, being within 10mins drive from it is little different than being 30mins from it, as far as I can see.

This week has been somewhat better. I packed our Saturday with showings and appointments and we inspected 8 properties and drove past several more. Of the 8, we found one we really liked and have applied for, the location isn't hugely convenient, but the house is beautiful and the area is green and pretty. We have another appointment this afternoon for a townhouse which is in a fantastic location for Mike's work and shopping without a car and looks as though it is a great place, too (though we've run into our share of prof. photos which were straight-out lying!)

And by the way, the navi in the Prius has been indispensable. We were able to make bookings 10mins apart despite being in a foreign city. just punch in the address and off we went. I highly recommend hiring a car with a good navi if you're house hunting in a new city!

I am hopeful we will have an address soon, cross your fingers for us! In the meantime, this is the view from the serviced apartment - at least we get it for a little while.

The Locusts are Coming!

Danielle — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 04:19:35 +0000

Urgh. Feeling very much in the midst of this at the moment.

We are pretty much in the same position as we were when I wrote this post from Sydney in Jun 2008 - the packers are coming on Tuesday morning at 9 (four hours after Brigid will be picked up for her trip to Aussie Quarantine) and we are in preparation limbo. Our days are a blur of decision making: Air, Sea or Plane?; Pack ourselves or leave for the packers?; If pack ourselves do we do it now or will we need it before Tuesday?; Do we even TRY to write "Air" and "Sea" in kanji on the stickers we are hoping will indicate to the packers that the various items are to go by air or sea - what if the kanji for "Air" is one stroke off the kanji for "The Depths of Hell"?

In Sydney, on packing day, we had four guys packing up our stuff, with no language barrier, and it was rather like trying to coordinate a locust plague. One guy might see you nearby and so ask you if you want your Grandmother's china treated as fragile while another might see you talking to the first and so, even though he's not TOTALLY sure, just make his own judgement based on your stickers with arrows and big black texta that the stuff IN this chest of drawers is to go by air but the chest of drawers itself is to go by sea - when you share a language, that's going to be right most of the time. Also, in Australia, if something seems just, well, stupid, an Aussie will - as politely as possible - ask you if you really meant that you wanted to ship your entire library by Air. This time, there will be five or six men who won't speak English, and one supervisor who will, but, in my experience with the Japanese so far, none of them will be so rude as to second-guess me even if they do wonder why Oku-sama has clearly written in kanji that she wants the piano sent to the Depths of Hell. Who is he to argue?

Today our goals are to organize which clothes will come with us and which will go by sea and organize the office - the latter seems an Herculean task atm but I am discovering that switching to tunnel vision and tackling a 30cm square area at a time eventually gets you there!

We will have internet till we leave and will leave the computers up till Monday (going by Air, no question) and hopefully at some stage between now and then I will have the time and energy to blog about our lovely, snowy New Year at Atsuta Shrine - but no promises, it may not happen till we are back in Australia and up and running with (what, in Australia, passes for) internet access.

Happy New Year to all!

Tip! Buying cooking knives in Japan

Danielle — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:50:59 +0000

Anyone who cooks even slightly, and probably many people who don’t, gives at least some thought to buying a knife or two when they come to Japan. It wouldn’t be stretching the metaphor too thin to equate a chef’s knives to a Samurai’s swords so it makes sense that many cooks dream of having knives forged using the same methods as those swords. Unlike electronic goods, or virtually anything else, in Japan you do actually save a LOT of money buying Japanese made knives here in comparison to buying them in the US or Australia – IF you go to the right place! A quick caveat: make sure you know what the importation rules are for your country before you buy them – you don’t want to find them confiscated at the other end! I’ll break this down into a few sections: Where to go Handy Japanese Phrases How to decide what to buy

Where to go

Kappabashi, specifically Kappabashi Dogugai Dori between Kototoi Dori and Asakusa Dori, and its side-streets, is the place Tokyo restaurant and cafe suppliers go to get all the hardware they could possibly need, whether it’s cooking supplies, ceramic ware, bento trays, enamelware, plastic utensils and storage, or four foot tall,ornamental (I assume) cheese graters – and it’s where you should go, too. Even if you aren’t shopping for knives, if you have any interest in ceramics or home wares, plan at least a half a day there. It is a dedicated supply area, though, so bring water and expect to have to go elsewhere to eat as there’s not much around. Also expect the occasional store person to grunt “20 minimum” at you in some of the shops – but only some, most are happy for the tourist trade. The district is easily walking distance from Tawaramachi, Ueno, Iriya and Asakusa Stations. So, where to go for the knives? THE BIG SECRET: Don’t buy your knives on the main street!! As I said, Kappabashi Dogugai Dori is the main street that you will turn down when you get there and you will soon come across plenty of knife shops with many of the brands you know (including some German ones) and the prices don’t look so bad – a bit cheaper than they would be in the States but not impressively so. These guys are very welcoming of tourists and so they should be because I’d say tourists would be the only people who don’t know that they are spending soo much more if they buy there than if they just went up the street a bit more and round the corner! If you keep heading down the K. Dogugai Dori you will find Kappabashi Hondori – a very small street which doesn’t look like much but it’s the place to go. Turn East up Kappabashi Hondori and just a couple of doors up you will find the tiny, but chock-full-o-knives, Union Commerce knife shop. In Union Commerce we found the same knives that we saw in the main street for 50 to 120 US dollars LESS. Yes the extreme examples were on sale but, and here’s the trick, some of it will always be on sale because there is another little knife shop directly across the street and their blackboards and posters were clearly competing with each other! I can’t tell you what the customer service was like in the shop across the road because I didn’t do much else but peek at the sales board but it’s probably worth a look inside. At Union the staff (owners?) are passionate about knives and have seemingly endless patience for broken Japanese and charades! I left very happy with my beautiful sleek black boxes having saved approximately 450 USD over the five that I bought. If you are looking for a hand-crafted knife (as against the hand-finished or entirely factory made ones which are, obviously, cheaper) I believe (through a friend’s friend who is a chef in Tokyo and did so himself) you can order them through Union but if you’re going to spend that much then hire yourself someone to translate for you when you go!

Handy Japanese Phrases

Hocho= Knife (you will also hear the word ‘bocho’ if you are listening well – this is the same word but ‘h’ is turned to ‘b’ after some syllables for easier pronunciation) [Brand name] no hocho = [Brand name"] knife. Use this if there is a particular brand of knife you are looking for (though I suggest you have some flexibility unless you’ve really done your research!) e.g., Shun no hocho; Misono no hocho; Maku (Mac) no hocho Misete kudasai (Meesehtay koodahsigh) = Please show me. You can use this any time, it’s very handy when shopping, just point to what you want to see and say “Misete kudasai” with a bit of a question in your voice and they will bring the item for you to see more closely. You now have a sentence, btw, Misono no hocho, misete kudasai? = Could you please show me a/the Misono knife/knives? (no plural in Japanese) Kore o kudasai (koray oh koodahsigh) = Please give me this one (or I’ll take this one) Use this after you’ve done all your exploring and decided on a knife that you want to buy. Try not to use this one before you are ready to buy – use “misete kudasai” if you want them to just show you a knife so that they don’t get confused. Note: “kore” means “this” or “this one just here that I am pointing to right at the moment, see?” and is used when the thing is close enough to touch – store people will often point and say “kore?” to confirm it’s the one you want – to which you can nod and say “hai” (yes) or, if you want to sound clever, “Hai, sore” (which means yes, that one just out of my reach and close to you over there ) to (toh) = and. As in “kore to kore to kore to kore o kudasai” because, seriously, who can buy one knife? Kirenaga (keeraynahgah) = a term which means the length of time that a blade will hold an edge. Using this term got me a big smile and guided toward another shelf of knives entirely – the Damascus steel ones, see below for why Honyaki Another type of forging which uses only one high carbon steel. These knives have longer kirenaga but are less flexible and so more easily damaged. They also need oiling and greater care because they are, obviously, not stainless. These knives are more expensive than kasumi knives because this process is less common because of the precision required. The knives made with this process tend to be the traditional and professional Japanese knives (like the Usuba) and often have an edge on one side only, and so are usable only by either right or left handed person, AND require a curved cutting motion which takes both instruction and time to perfect. Kasumi This is a type of forging in which a high carbon steel and iron are used so that the knife has strength and flexibility – this is the process by which samurai swords were made. Knives made with this method of forging don’t hold their edge as long as Honyaki but they need less care to be kept sharp, too so, especially for a non professional, it evens out. NOTE: There is a Japanese knife brand named after this process so if you ask for “kasumi” you are likely to be shown these – not that it’s a problem they are very good knives at a very reasonable price (in Japan lol). San Mai = Damascus/Damascened Steel This is another kasumi forging method which uses layers of laminated steel, and achieves a very pretty but also stronger and longer kirenaga result (still not as long as Honyaki but better than plain kasumi). The knife companies seem to be bringing Damascus into the home knife ranges whereas previously it was much more of a specialized blade (particularly popular with assassins blades, from my web research lol). There is a great post on the forging style on a bladesmith’s blog, here. I can only imagine that either they have found a way to make it more commercially viable or the home enthusiast market has just expanded to make it so, and considering the number of people who recently watched the final of “Masterchef” in Australia, that is a definite possibility. I mentioned that it makes for a very pretty metal, this is because you can see the different layers of metal in the end result – as you can see in this shot that Superman took when I brought my knives home and he went into enthusiastic-husband mode

How to decide what to buy

When talking about knives, a lot of talk focuses on the blade but the most important thing about choosing a knife is actually the handling of the knife, and that’s a very personal thing. Hence the rather tortured heading of this section – I’m not going to recommend any particular knives just give some suggestions (from an enthusiastic amateur cook) on what to take into account. The right knife for the right job This might seem obvious, but it’s actually a safety issue to have the right knife for the job. A good pairing knife will have a slightly different centre of balance to a chef’s knife, not just because the blade is smaller but because of the way it is used. A great list of all the Japanese knife types with links to individual descriptions can be found here. If you can only afford one good knife then either a Chef’s knife or a Santoku is the best way to go – the Santoku being the more Japanese of the two, obviously. “Santoku” means “three graces” meaning that it can be used for meat, fish and vegetables. The Santoku was developed after the Japanese were exposed to the European chef’s knife and saw the utility of a single knife which could do everything. A pairing knife for topping & tailing beans and peeling etc… is a good second knife if you have to choose, so that you have a safer option for smaller jobs. The right knife for the right kitchen! A confession. When I went to Kappabashi, I fully intended on buying a professional knife: a Misono UX10 to be precise. At the shops on the main street, the store men nodded with a smile and said “besto knife” and praised my good taste. In Union Commerce, the store man gave me that fond, grandfatherly smile (which is only a hair away from patronizing but an important hair), picked one off the shelf and handed it to me. I nearly dropped it. The thing was soooo heavy and the blade was almost 2 feet long – just the BLADE, the whole thing was almost 3 feet long – that’s longer than the width of the bench on which I would use it! I asked if there was a smaller one – and he giggled and said “Profeshonal hocho”. There is no shame in buying a knife made for the home kitchen – that’s what you are going to use it for. There are lots of companies that put as much quality into their home kitchen knives as they do their pro stuff. A home kitchen doesn’t need the same durability as a knife that is being used eight hours a day, every day (or second day if the chef alternates sets) and so can also get away with being a little more design friendly (in the same way that at home you can use much nicer pans than would be financially viable in a working kitchen.) Be open to brands you haven’t heard of Which brings me to the issue of which brand knife to buy. As I said, I’m not actually going to recommend any specific series of knives but if you’re reading this article, and continuing through this section then I’m going to assume you are going to be doing all the research on good quality blades from the various brands available. Try to remember there are going to be brands here in Japan that you might not have heard of but are equally good or better than those you may have so what you want to do is know your stuff about blades rather than having brand blindness. It’s the knife series you want to research, not the brand. Why? It’s the same with any products that have professional and amateur markets, a company might corner the market in quality on, say, full-frame cameras but not put anywhere near the same quality into their mini-digital ones – amateurs buy them because of the reputation within the pro community and are usually disappointed (while at the same time thinking no other brand is likely to be better which is by far not the case). So, while you’re researching take your notes on the reviews of the specific series of knives, don’t just assume all knives from a brand are going to be great. In the end, forget the blade… Sacrilege? Not really. Once you are looking at the quality series across the brands, the practical differences are so minor that it really won’t matter; after all, you’re not using them solidly eight hours a day. What matters is how it feels in your hand. One of the things you will notice about most Japanese knives is that most have plain, wooden, very straight handles rather than the ergonomic handles of Western knives. These handles are also very light and make for a knife with a lot more weight in the blade than Westerners would be used to judging as ‘good’. Shun and some other Japanese knives strike a balance by using similar materials to Western companies, addressing the balance issue but keeping the shape. Other Japanese companies address the comfort issue by copying the Western shapes but using extremely light materials (like pressed linen) so that the Japanese-style balance is achieved. In my exploration I found that Mac, Misono and Kasumi seemed to err on the side of Western handle shapes and balance (which makes sense since they do sell a lot of knives in the West); this, as well as the extra weight of the knife overall, was the reason for my final choice – the Mac Damascus series. My friend chose some Kasumi blades because she enjoyed the balance and she prefers lighter knives. A final recommendation: Nothing to do with the knives, really, but if you do have a passion for cookware and home wares, consider making it the focus of a couple of days in Tokyo. I took the Shinkansen in one morning met a girlfriend who lived just outside of Tokyo (another expat I now miss) and we got ourselves a lovely room for the night and spent two whole days just exploring Kappabashi. My knives now are not only a wonderful treat every time I use them but also a memory of a lovely time spent sharing a passion with a friend.

There, I’ve said it.

Danielle — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:45:06 +0000

We’re returning to Sydney January 8th 2010. I haven’t written about leaving Japan yet because, frankly, I’m quite sad about it but some boxes have arrived (for what purpose we aren’t quite sure) and the packing company is coming Tuesday to estimate how much space we’ll need on a container so I guess it’s about time. I can’t quite bring myself to write the ‘what I’ll miss’ post so I’ll wait a little more on that one and, for today, just outline what our friends and family will probably want to know. We’ve known since I was in New Zealand that it was doubtful that we would get even the 24 of the 18-24 months that was flagged when we left and 18 months was confirmed fairly soon after. After that, where we would go next was the big question. There was a small chance of Bangkok which would have been an adventure, for sure, but would have been HORRENDOUSLY hot and humid, so we weren’t too upset when it was taken out of the equation. The Australian arm of “Anonymous Car Manufacturing Concern (ACMC)” want Superman back for the implementation of the software that he has been over here developing but the big question was: would we be going home (to Melbourne) or to Sydney? Answer: Sydney. That was about when I began fighting off a mild depression. I think I’ve said before that we didn’t do Sydney well during the 18 months we were there before coming to Nagoya. Knowing that, I try not to make sweeping judgments about the city as a whole and we are determined to try harder and do better this time but there is one thing which there is no denying will make it difficult – location. Unlike in Melbourne, where ACMC is in Port Melbourne and we lived in Melbourne itself (right on the Grand Prix track for those who know Albert Park Lake), in Sydney, ACMC is in what is known as The Shire. It’s literally as far South from the centre of the city as its possible to be and still be in Sydney (though most Sydney-ites look at you funny when you say you live there and don’t really consider it part of Sydney.) Because of its distance from the city, there are actually some really good galleries (which often have small runs of the same exhibitions in the city - that’s how regional it is) and people are used to making their own entertainment so there are lots of recreation clubs and creative courses etc… but finding things to do is not exactly as obvious as it would be if we were closer to the city. Why not live closer to the city? It’s just not viable. Sydney’s public transport is bad enough if you live close in and it’s literally non-existent to ACMC. Driving in Sydney is also hellish, understandable with such appalling public transport, and getting across town for virtually anything is just not worth considering, let alone work every day. Superman doesn’t want to have to travel for more than 30 minutes on those roads which means living within what, in Melbourne, would be more like 15 minutes drive. Since we will only have one car, we also need to be somewhere near his work so that I can drop him off and pick him up easily on days that I need to shop (for which I need to drive a fair way to be able to get “exotic” things like ginger still young enough to have juice left in it or name-grain brown bread, like rye or whole.) So, what will we do? One thing that the Shire does have is water; it is surrounded by beautiful bays and inlets and has a coast on the ocean – real ocean. So the aim is to live close to and/or with a great view of the ocean or at least one of the waterways. Not being sporting (or, frankly, even sunlight) types, the most we are likely to do with the water is look at it or walk beside it (though Superman is dabbling with the idea of learning to surf) but just being able to do those two things will make life, and sitting at home writing, much nicer than if we are even a block away from it. There is also a lovely open-air mall in Cronulla which has a secondhand bookshop (GOD I hope it’s still there because it was the only one for miles,) some street cafes, a cinema and a decent green grocer and butcher, so we will also be hoping to live within walking distance of that. A local photography club meets in some rooms above the mall and I’m hoping that they will be as welcoming to visitors as their website says they are. That might be as much of the clubs and courses I will be able to handle, though – the beauty of living close to the city is that you can choose when to dip your toe into a play, a concert, an exhibition or even a short course without any ongoing commitment. For those of us who lean toward the hermitic and find get-togethers once every two months perfectly adequate to feel in touch with humanity, once a fortnight can be a little tough to manage. When will we find this magical apartment (because we don’t DO gardens)? Some time after January 8th, after which we will have a month in a serviced apartment while we house-hunt. Brigid will be in quarantine for at least 30 days, so we don’t have to worry too much about her, thank goodness. It would be nice to have it all organized before we leave, so that we aren’t going into such an unknown, but at least having a month rather than only a week (as we thought we would have in early December) will give us a little more ability to pick and choose – not that renting is really like that. For the time being, I am in that limbo time when I have a desire to organize everything so that it’s not weighing on my mind but can’t actually do much because we’re not packing anything ourselves except what will be packed into our travelling luggage which, of course, is what we need to live with every day. Of course, the other thing The Shire has that I do tend to miss here is bird life (of the non-enormous-raven-type) and I like to think that my friend the cocky, pictured above, might just find me again

Osaka and Osamu!

Danielle — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:19:12 +0000

Considering the ease with which one can get to Osaka from Nagoya and the number of times I have been back and forth to Kyoto and Tokyo, it does seem odd that we had not visited Japan's second largest city till last weekend. Our only real pull was that we felt we "should" go, so, when Superman's parents expressed an interest we decided we would join them. On Friday we drove the, now familiar, road to Kyoto, picked up the in-laws and went straight through to Osaka.

The overall impression of the place? Urban SPRAWL. From the outskirts of town right through to the ports, Osakans live, work and play in high rise boxes which give way only to the extraordinary network of roads and railway lines winding in and around, over and through every available space.

Highlights of the trip were the evening spent in Dotonbori (a bustling shopping and dining district which is open all hours), the night view from the Floating Garden atop the Umeda Sky Building (where I played with my gorgeous new f1.8 lens purchased for just such evening photos) and the Sumiyoshi-Taisha Shrine. Sumiyoshi-Taisha is a pre-Buddhist Shinto Shrine, built in the 3rd century but, like most active shrines in Japan, it is kept looking like it was built yesterday - thatching and all. We arrived just in time to see a wedding procession and ceremony. I did not take shots during the ceremony though afterwards I turned and found, to my horror, that Superman had filmed the whole thing!

On Sunday we headed down to Kobe but it was pouring with rain so we headed for the Tezuka Osamu Museum and spent a lovely afternoon amongst the works of the man whose stories so inspired me as a child (sorry, no pictures allowed.) Though there was little English, it wasn't hard to understand his early four-panel comedy strips and it was fun getting some bemused looks from the Japanese as I laughed out loud. Catching chickens seems to have been the bane of his young existence! We also watched the full first episode of Atom Boy (Astro) which I had actually never seen (except the "alive!" scene, of course) again, you didn't need to understand the soundtrack to know exactly what was going on. It was wonderful to have made the pilgrimage!

As always, here is the Flickr Slideshow for you to peruse - apologies for the order, I really need to work that out. Enjoy!

Koka Ninja Village

Danielle — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:27:08 +0000

On the Sunday before the Sports Day public holiday, Oct 11th this year, the All-Japan Ninja Competition is held at one of Japan's surviving original Ninja training compounds: Koka Ninja Village. As part of our 'making the most of the last few months' campaign, we decided to head down on this day and we were glad we did.

I'm not sure what we were expecting but we weren't expecting a riot of colour and the ringing of children's laughter through the trees. The village was interesting but probably would have been a little of a let-down if it weren't for the festive, family fun atmosphere.

Technorati Tags: koka,ninja village,koga,all-japan ninja

I’m back!

Danielle — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 06:35:40 +0000

View from chopping board over my workspace and beyond!

The New Zealand retreat was wonderful! I cooked and ate clean, NZ produce, drank and washed in sweet rainwater, chopped kindling and built a fire for my heating each day and I managed to slow my brain right down and get lots of writing done. The Northland winter was astonishing, equally cool, sunny, blue sky days and wild, wind-whipped stormy days which made one think in sympathetic wonder about Tasman and Cook and the men who lived through that weather out on the seas to find the place. I was highly inspired by both the isolation and the scenery. The fiction writing mood continues, however, so the blog writing feels a little like time taken away from it - hence the tardiness and brevity of this post. This slideshow is mostly of photos I took from my little house – you will see why I felt no need to leave and why the creative juices flowed!

In fact, this post was a little longer but I was writing it on the WordPress dashboard – which looks better than it did in 2.7 but seemingly still fails as a writing tool because when I pressed ‘publish’ it published it’s own autosave from fifteen minutes previous. I’ve written this in Live Writer which developed issues with images with WP 2.7 but frankly I’d rather have to manually insert an image than lose fifteen minutes of writing. Grrr wordpress – welcome back to technology, me

The Down Side

Danielle — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:09:43 +0000

This post has been milling about my mind for a while but particularly this month as today approached. I am sure it will not be worded as well as it could be but you will have to forgive me, you will see why below. There are many wonderful things about being an ex-pat, though perhaps I should say “mobile ex-pat” to distinguish we who live in a new country for a year or two (or three) from those “immigrant ex-pats” who have made a permanent home in one particular country. Most obviously, the opportunity to experience living in a country for at least a full cycle of seasons and celebrations, rather than being restricted to a week or two as a tourist, is extraordinary. Even if one only learns a little about the local culture, we learn things about ourselves and our home countries (and our relationship with our home countries) that we could not have done had we stayed home. But one of the things which I have appreciated the most was something that, in all my reading and intellectual preparation, I did not expect: the friendships you make with other ex-pats.

Even the most self-sufficient person who moves to a new city and culture (and, as we discovered in Sydney, that need not be in another country) needs a support network in a similar way that we do when we have a child or experience a massive life change like divorce. Most people forge their close, lasting friendships in the fires of the playground or Uni lecture halls (or the avoidance thereof) and so it’s understandable that those living where they grew up have little need to seek out new friendships – whatever the language barrier. It makes sense, then, that the first and possibly majority of friends that you make when you arrive in a country will be other ex-pats who either have been or are going through the same process. Those who have been here a while remember what it is like to be in the position of needing help for things which seem so basic they are almost childish and so they look out for newbies and, even if it is the first and only conversation you will ever have, share their advice generously. Obviously, if you find you have something other than “how to live in..” in common then you have the makings of a lovely friendship but if not, well that’s cool, too, the advice is almost always obligation free!

So, why so friendly? Well, some of it is possibly down to the fact that anyone willing to move their whole life to another country is likely not to be too much of a shrinking violet but it is also because mobile ex-pats can’t just settle into one group because, well, people are always leaving.

And that’s the down side.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you will remember that we were part of a group of 176 ICTs of not-quite-anonymous-car-manufacturing-concern who arrived in the same week. A day or two after we arrived, around thirty of us were taken to Immigration to apply for our re-entry permits en masse. After the wait for our number in order to line up and submit our forms we then scattered ourselves around the waiting room chairs to wait for our number in order to line up and receive our permits. Superman saw R playing with his DS and asked about it and the boys chatted for a bit and then A told R (this is silly they deserve silly anonymity names like everyone else so lets call them Caesar and Augusta ) So, Augusta told Caesar that she was going to get a drink at the konbini and, well brought up as she is, asked us if we would like anything while she was there. Now, I am usually painfully shy socially and so my first response was to say “Oh thanks, I’m fine” and then it occurred to me that I didn’t want to be like that here so I quickly added “but I’ll keep you company” and jumped up and went with her before I could notice what I was doing and freeze in fear. Augusta will be surprised at this (I think) but that was actually kind of nerve-racking for me, such a simple thing I know but I was incredibly nervous! We discussed drinks a little (she didn’t drink coffee, just like Superman) and made our purchases and by the time we returned to our seats we were chatting away. A few minutes after that we had exchanged phone numbers (and Augusta had taken our photos to use as our IDs on her swish phone.)

A couple of weeks later, NZ K had invited us to the quiz at Red Rock and we invited them to join us and the (very successful) ANZUS Alliance was born. In the next weeks dinner parties were had; plans were made to go out together with our matching DSLRs; decisions to stay indoors with the aircon till Summer was over were supported; Rock Band and Wii were played; mutually loved films were watched and favourite TV shows were swapped and fallen in love with. When the heat was over, we began venturing out together, happily spending hours together in the car driving to and from Meiji Mura, Kyoto, Nara and Takayama where we spent a wonderful weekend together staying in a traditional Gassho inn. In February we found we were at Yuki Matsuri at the same time and spent two lovely days exploring Sapporo, where they helped us build our first snowman (outside the brewery, where else!), and blowing glass in Otaru. Just last Sunday, to celebrate Augusta’s birthday, they took us to karaoke (my first time) and actually managed to get me not just to sing one song in front of them (painfully shy, remember, I don’t sing without at least 80 people to hide within) but to belt out “Love Shack” and “Whip it!” with utter glee!

It was in October in Takayama that Superman and I tentatively suggested we spend the inn’s post-curfew hours playing one of the board games we’d brought along. We bashfully gave them a choice and they leapt upon our favourite BECAUSE it looked so complicated and had so many pieces that it took an hour to set it up following the very specific rules. Truly, this geeky couple had found their geeky match! Many, many more afternoons, evenings and wee hours were wiled away playing Arkham Horror (we have the setup down to 15 minutes with out need to refer to the rules!)

To say that the last year wouldn’t have been the same without them is understatement in the extreme. I’m sure we’d have been fine if we hadn’t met them but we wouldn’t have had so much FUN and I know I wouldn’t have gotten through some of the down times without Augusta on the other end of the phone. We seem to let off steam the same way, we both enjoy some good, solid venting but all the while knowing and laughing at how whiney we are being and so never sinking into that “isn’t Japan stEWpid!” thing that so many ex-pats so easily do (thinking about it, that is a character trait of each of the close friends I’ve made here.)

Augusta leaves today. She has missed her family even more than she expected and is returning to an exciting new adventure and so I am happy for her and wish her all the luck and love in the world but I will miss her terribly, as I will miss Caesar when he follows in a month (with all the moving work done for him in advance, lucky bugger!) We will still Twitter and Flickr and email and Skype, they will have somewhere to crash wherever we happen to be living whenever they can make a trip, whether it be in a year or ten years from now, and we know vice versa applies. Still, it’s sad.

Thank you for everything, guys, don’t you go getting lost in time and space on us!

For those missing out, a virtual Hanami…

Danielle — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:22:47 +0000

When we first came to Nagoya to find a home here it was late May and it was the Summer green of the trees in the street, which filled the view from the study window, that sold me on our house. The bark of those trees also filled me with a quiet hope - I suspected they were some kind of stone fruit tree, all of which have beautiful blossoms. Well, the verdict is in - not only are they stone fruit but Sakura, Japanese Cherry trees and their blossoms are magnificent!

The view from my study window was just too beautiful today and I took my camera out for a play in the sunlight. The flickr slideshow is below, there are around 50 shots you can full screen it for your own virtual hanami experience. I hope you enjoy it.

Technorati Tags: hanami,cherry blossoms,japan,spring,flowers

Kyoto by Day

Danielle — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:30:26 +0000

Our last day in Kyoto was Sunday and the weather finally cleared so it was both safe and worthwhile to get the dslr out. We strolled Gion again (still sweet but not half as romantic as in lantern light) and failed to see the Imperial palace (it seems you have to make a booking in advance - be warned) but enjoyed a walk in the surrounding park where the cherry blossoms were just beginning to bloom. We also went to the International Manga Museum which was essentially a huge manga library in an old primary school with added exhibitions and an artists' and cosplayers' hang out. The slideshow below contains no photos of the latter hehe. Resolution should be high enough for you to full screen it - enjoy!

Gion Hanatouro (Lantern Festival), Kyoto 2009

Danielle — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:09:38 +0000

Our trip to Kyoto last week was scheduled to catch the first night of the lantern festival in Gion. I'm doing this quick post because the festival is still on and it's well worth a visit - especially if you haven't been to Kyoto yet and you've been waiting for a reason to go. I know cherry blossoms are the traditional reason for visiting Kyoto and they have begun, but this festival is by far worth the trip. It ends this weekend and if you live in Nagoya it takes only 40 minutes by Nozomi Shinkansen and is only 7800yen per person each way by GREEN car so if you choose not to go first class it's even cheaper!

Apologies for the blur and the poor exposure, it was raining heavily the night we went so I had to use my itty bitty pentax to capture the evening.

Technorati Tags: Kyoto,hanatouro,lantern festival,Gion. night