Tokyo Life

As promised, here are some details about where we are living in Tokyo. We are now living about 30 minutes from the centre of Tokyo (on the semi express train). The area is called Higashimurayama and our local station is called Kumegawa. It's a great area to live in. There are lots of shops, supermarkets, restaurants, bars, parks, and other open spaces.

City living is still a bit of a shock to the system after living in the middle of nowhere for nearly 4 years. It's great to be able to do such simple things as shopping at any time of day and to have so many different ways to spend my time. It's fantastic to be able to choose what I want to do. I do miss a lot of things about Shimogo though and I'm lucky to have had the chance to see the two sides of Japan.

Unfortunately, I haven't slept well since our move which I think is due to the background noise of the local area. In Shimogo you could hear a pin drop, but in Tokyo, there's always a car driving past or people walking nearby. I'm sure I'll get used to the noise soon. I remember I had the same problem when I first lived in Tokyo (about 11 years ago). I used to be woken up by the musical bin lorry outside my tiny apartment, but after a few months, it ceased to bother me.

A particular annoyance at the moment is the noise caused by the local elections which are going on all round Japan. Every candidate seems to drive in a circuit around the local area in vans weighed down by massive speakers. All the candidates seem to do is repeat their names over and over again. It must be difficult for them to tell people their manifesto as they are constantly on the move. The candidate who has driven past our house the most is called Ishibashi. I think I've heard his name repeated at least 100 times today. Annoying, so he will not get my vote (if I were allowed to vote).

I thought I would take this opportunity to share with you this drawing showing a banner erected by General Douglas MacArthur's Japanese supporters in 1950. This banner was to display their support for him in a possible US presidential election race.

It is odd that our apartment in Tokyo is much bigger than our previous apartment in Shimogo. Tokyo is the one of the world's most densely populated cities where you would expect living areas to be small as space is scarce. Conversely, the Japanese countryside is in decline and there is an abundance of available space for housing. Therefore, I never really understood why most apartments I saw in the countryside were tiny. My theory is that apartment designs are fairly standard in Japan and are used both for rural and urban areas. It doesn't really make sense to use the same housing dimensions for both the countryside and city. If the Japanese nation want to preserve some sort of rural population, it would be common sense not to force people into living in rabbit hutches when there is no obvious need to do so. If the quality of life was better in the countryside, perhaps less people would want to leave. Here endith the lesson.
Here is a picture of our living room and our balcony. The living room is about the same size as our old apartment in Shimogo. It's nice to be able to sit on a sofa instead of the floor.

The balcony will be used for beer drinking during the summer. Clara loves her new room, even if it is a bit on the small side. She makes me knock on the door every time I want to enter. Yuki is really happy that she has a large kitchen to work in and is over the moon that our bath is double the size of the one we had in Shimogo. Our living conditions have certainly taken a turn for the better. Of course the natural environment is nothing compared to Shimogo, but the general balance of things does seem to be better.
We have basically finished organising the apartment. The last piece of the puzzle fell into place today when our telephone was finally installed. We have no plans for the weekend, but if we do anything interesting, I'll let you know.

I'll try and do another update soon, perhaps about our new space age toilet. Until then.

Primary School

Clara had her entrance ceremony for primary school on Friday the 6th of April. Her new school is called Higashi Hagiyama Elementary School and her class teacher is called Kumiko Sakurai. Sakurai sensei seems to be very nice and she smiled at all her new students right through the ceremony. Some of the other teachers looked quite harsh, so Clara has been lucky.

Class sizes in Japan can be up to 40 students. However, as the total number of new students at Clara's school amounted to 83, they had to be divided into 3 classes. Clara is now student number 19 in class 1-3. Every student has a number. I'm much happier that Clara is in a class with 28 students rather than in a class of 40, for obvious reasons.It was excellent to see the cherry blossoms all around the school building and a great photo opportunity.

One thing that I didn't like was some minor criticism directed at Clara's new teacher from some of the other parents. They were complaining that she was speaking too quietly. She was obviously nervous having 28 new students in front of her and over 30 parents looking on. I just thought that the first day of class was when the teacher deserved a bit of support, as opposed to some fairly audible criticism. Parent power is really strong in Japan - too strong.Anyway, I am optimistic that Clara will be happy in her new school and make lots of friends. The boy who sits beside her seems to be a real character so it will be interesting to see how they get on. I'm expecting a lot of interesting stories from Clara.

For the next 2 weeks, Clara will attend school from 8am to 11am. We are worried about her walking to and from school alone but I guess that's all part of growing up. Good luck Clara! Please follow this link if you wish to see more pictures of Clara's first day at school.

I will try and do a new blog soon to tell you about our apartment in Tokyo.

Cherry Blossom

This photo shows the street outside our flat. The street looks a lot nicer at this time of year because the cherry trees are in full bloom. We are lucky enough to have cherry trees outside our balcony.

Before I came to Japan, I did not really understand the fuss about cherry blossom season. However, after living here a few years, I find myself also getting excited about this time of year.

At cherry blossom time, even the drabbest of streets can look pretty. Japanese people love to have hanami parties and various festivals are held around the country. When the TV weather forecast is given, there are also special maps which show the advance of the cherry blossom front from Okinawa in the south to Hokkaido in the north.

Unfortunately, at any one location, the blossom only lasts for about 1 week. After that, the petals fall like large snowflakes and the streets become drab once again.

On Friday, we all attended the opening ceremony at Clara's new primary school. The school grounds had an abundance of cherry trees and they added a bit of colour to her first day at school. More on this in my next posting.

Shimogo Nursery School Graduation

I suppose that one of the reasons we stayed in Shimogo so long was for the benefit of Clara. Yuki and I realised that Shimogo was the best place for her to develop in her most formative years. Shimogo has benefited Clara immensely and the care and attention given to her at nursery school has been incredible. Her time at Shimogo Nursery School could not have been bettered at any nursery school in Scotland. She has learnt so much and has had the perfect preparation for primary school. It's ironic that my best and worst memories of Shimogo are both related to Shimogo Nursery School.The worst memory was in February 2006, on a Monday afternoon. I was sitting in the Board of Education when a message came across the town PA system in Japanese. I didn't understand the message, but when I looked at the faces of my colleagues who also had children at the nursery school, I knew something was terribly wrong. It turned out that some of the students had been buried by snow which had slid off the school roof. My colleagues and I rushed down to the nursery school to help dig out the kids. The first came out unconscious and was resuscitated. The second came out about 2 minutes later and died. I didn't mention it on my blog at the time because it was just too raw to write about. Snow related accidents are common throughout rural Japan.Because the excellence of the nursey school was pivotal for us staying in Shimogo for as long as we did, it was fitting that one of our last jobs was to attend the graduation ceremony. I knew that the the ceremony marked the end of our time in Shimogo and was therefore expecting it to be the most emotional time for us during our protracted farewells.

Clara seemed composed and confident throughout the whole affair, but cracked when she was had to say goodbye to her teacher in the school foyer. That set Yuki and I off.

However, as I have said in the previous post, we are sure to visit Shimogo many times in the future and Clara will be able to maintain the friendships she has made.

The Big Move

We were slowly building up for our move to Tokyo over a long period of time. Unessential items were slowly migrated to our new flat in Tokyo and other non essential items were gradually being boxed up or thrown away. Initially I thought that we had little to take with us to Tokyo but it turned out that we had much more than we realised.

Clara was a star. She rarely complained when we packed or threw away her clothes or toys. She proved very useful to have around and revelled in the cleaning duties. A perfect little helper!

On the afternoon of our move, it slowly became busier outside our flat as neighbours and friends realised that the time of our departure was close. That made us feel like we had truly became part of the local community and made our departure a bit special.

In the end, all our belongings managed to fit inside the truck, but there was no margin for error. Clara seemed unperturbed by all the activity and played with her friends right up to the very last minute.In between the packing, Yuki and I had to attend Clara's nursery school graduation ceremony. I knew this would be the most difficult event for us to attend and it proved to be quite emotional for us all. More on this in the next posting.

Goodbye Parties

Hello all. I'm sorry that it has been a long time since I have updated the blog. It took a long time to arrange our internet connection in Tokyo. A very frustrating experience, especially when you consider we are now living in the world's largest city where many things are cutting edge and super efficient.

Here are a couple of pictures from a couple of the goodbye parties in Shimogo. I went to quite a few parties in my final 2 weeks but only took the camera to a couple of them.

Many people went out of their way to make our last few weeks in Shimogo memorable. A great way to end our stay in Shimogo and say goodbye to all the people who have become good friends. Happy memories. Things ended on a high as I realised that I wasn't saying my final farewells. I am certain to visit Shimogo many times in the future for skiing, cycling, and partying.