A Typical Day in April

Today is a hazy but nice day here in Tokyo. Temperatures have reached the low 70s every day this week. Choosing an outfit is challenging - I realized a few days ago that I had forgotten all my warm weather clothes at my parents' home! The obvious silver lining is that I get to shop for more clothes. The drawback is I have no idea where to begin. Normally I like to shop in person, but since I am still learning my way around, I would rather shop online. To avoid dealing with the hassle of returns, I will probably just go shopping on a day when both the kids are out. 

Breakfast is now bread + maybe yogurt + maybe something else. Good bread is easy to come by here, and we take advantage of that. 

The kids are up around 7:30 am. In Japan, the day starts later and ends later. Accordingly, our schedules have shifted too. Spring camp/school begins at 9 am and is just a 10-minute walk away, so we take our time getting ready. This includes completing the daily health check form. 

Covid cases have been rising steadily in Japan and now stands at 364 cases. Just a couple of days ago, it was 232. This is partly because last Sunday the state of emergency was lifted, allowing the restaurant curfew to extend from 8pm to 9pm. Such is the tug-of-war between life and Covid. 

Scootering to school.

Just around the corner from drop-off is Bio C'Bon, an organic grocery store. Organic food is not as ubiquitous in Japan as it is in the U.S. I have mostly let go of buying organic food with the exception of milk. Only a few grocery stores sell organic milk. Bio C'Bon is one of them. Organic milk is substantially more expensive here at about $5 for a quart of milk. At Whole Foods, it was $6 for a gallon. Today, though, is my lucky day: there is a 30% discount because it expires in two days. It's not a problem for us, because we can get through half a gallon in 3-4 days. I ignore expiration dates and toss food only if it looks/smells/tastes like it has gone bad. 

Look at this amazing Patagonia section. Who knew Patagonia produces beer. Is this a Japan thing or has Patagonia begun selling beer in the U.S. as well? 

Back home for M's nap and lunch. Today, lunch is a mini package of tofu, eaten cold with soy sauce, some leftover carrots and fish, and rice. M is a pickier eater than her sister, but luckily she loves all the Japanese staples, so making lunch for her is easy. While we usually all eat the same foods, I have been picking up random foods to try on post-lunch walks. When M goes down for her second nap, I eat my second lunch. 

On our afternoon walk. Lots of schoolgirls for some reason, and no school boys. 

I stop by one of our neighborhood grocery stores to pick up fruits and to marvel at the assortment of lunch bentos. 

Now on to a household goods store to buy a box of plastic bags for M's daycare supplies. 

On my way home, I stop by Temma Curry to pick up curry pan. Curry pan is a fried brioche-like bread filled with curry inside. I buy three different types. Two are suppose to be spicy, but I can't tell at all. Japanese food is not spicy to me. 

E returns home shortly, and I enjoy the golden hour when both kids are napping. The rest of a day is a blur of dinner prep, dinner, cleanup, bathtime, and bedtime. Normally I like cooking, but I am still finding my bearings in the kitchen and would rather eat at Hiro's parents' place where his grandma whips up amazing meals. Growing up, my grandparents lived far away and neither of my parents enjoyed cooking. So, it is great living close to a grandma, even if she is not mine, who enjoys cooking for you. 

Option number two is having Hiro bring home food. He arrives home too late to cook, and in any case, I would rather cook than referee the kids. His train station, like many here, has tons of food stands. One of our favorites so far is a yakitori place that sells skewered chicken and vegetables.

Tonight we go with option number three and cook at home. Dinner is beet salad, baked chicken, and stewed eggplant with onions and tomato sauce over couscous. Then it is time for a little bit of Netflix and some planning for a picnic we hope to do this coming weekend...

Cherry Blossoms are Here + Riding my Mamachari

Spring has arrived in Tokyo. The cherry blossoms are blooming everywhere. This year, there are neither tourists nor local picnickers having their hanami under the trees. Despite having visited Japan several times before, this is my first time experiencing cherry blossom season. The photo below was from my run through Yoyogi park yesterday morning. It felt amazing to run under the cherry blossoms. The orange fences are meant to keep picnickers off the grass, because of Covid-19. 

Everything is sakura (cherry blossom) themed at the moment: sakura sweets, sakura tea, sakura mochi, even Starbucks has their seasonal sakura-themed drinks and mugs selling. 

This week I finally experienced commuting with two kids on my brand new mamachari. "Mamachari" literally means mom bike, but broadly refers to most commuter bikes, whether they have kids seats or not. These bikes are ubiquitous, and because Tokyo is hilly, most have electric assist. Bikes are king here. High population density and all that comes with it (scarce land, lack of parking, traffic congestion, etc.) combined with narrow, winding streets, makes it easier to commute on a bike than in a vehicle. My building's massive bicycle parking garage attests to how universal bike ownership is. 

We sold our car in Chicago and made the decision to live in Tokyo without a car. So far, I'm happy about this decision. I engage with my surroundings more on a bike or on foot than in a car, and this is especially true in a city with narrow winding streets and small shops. Also, it's healthier. And better for the environment. I dislike big hulking cars and won't miss seeing them everywhere. 

Mamacharis can carry up to two children and a utility basket. I don't know what the weight limit for the children are, only that mine have years to go before they reach it. There are a lot of different models and configurations you can choose from. 

You can see from the bike garage photo that people use rain covers that fully enclose the seat. The seats themselves are adjustable, like child car seats. These bikes are more than cool gadgets. They are truly meant for daily transportation under all weather conditions. A mamachari with electric assist, two child seats, and rain covers will run close to $2,000 USD. Expensive for a bike, but so much cheaper than a car. 

We went shopping for a two-child-seater mamachari at a store with an indoor testing track. As with so many things in Japan, such models are mostly designed for moms, and thus have small frames. We wanted one that we could both use comfortably, so we test rode models with relatively large frames. 

It was hard getting used to biking with all the additional weight. However, mamacharis are designed to carry heavy things and have a low center of gravity to improve stability. I more or less got the hang of it after a couple of rides. Here is the one we settled on, equipped with two child seats, a basket, and rain covers that I have yet to use. 

Usually I am acutely aware of the ways I stand out: my clothes, comportment, manners, everything. The reality is, being East Asian, I probably don't stand out as much as I think I do - unless I start talking. On my mamachari, however, whizzing along with all the other mamacharis during the prime commuting hours, I feel blended in and invisible (in a good way). The only difference, though, are our helmets. Helmets are uncommon, particularly on adults. 

One other downside is the lack of reinforced bike lanes. Narrow Tokyo streets are one continuous flow of pedestrians, bikers, and cars, inching forward, moving sideways, coexisting somehow. I wouldn't call it chaotic, but it's not always easy to navigate either. There is an unspoken order to it all. 

Lastly, a couple of scenes from my ride this morning, including the rare one of a dad on his bike with his kid in tow. 

Weekend Craziness at Ikea Tokyo Bay

Ikea Tokyo Bay on a rainy weekend day looks like this, except indoors amidst showrooms. We arrived at the garage at 10:05am, and there was already a line with what looked like a hundred people waiting to enter. Ten minutes later, however, the line had subsided and we were able to get in quickly. 

Once inside, we realized the true extent of our miscalculation. As one of the largest Ikeas in Japan, we thought it would be large enough to absorb the predictably large crowds. But we underestimated (1) the size of the crowds, (2) how much people think alike, and (3) how much people with kids think alike. It seemed like everyone, particularly families with young kids, had planned to arrive upon opening at 10am. The crowd moved us forward, shuffle by shuffle, through showroom after showroom. There was no looking at a map to find the department you wanted to go to first. Also, all 2-5 year olds sound alike when they say "mama!" I responded to at least two other kids who were not mine. 

By 10:55am, I panicked and decided to get an early lunch to beat the lunch crowd. What I learned was that you can't beat crowds in Tokyo, and especially not an Ikea in Tokyo. It did get more crowded later, but even at 11am, it was hard to find a lunch table. 

Now the part I had been waiting for - lunch. I love a good Ikea lunch and was excited to try the different menu items here. We had karaage (Japanese fried chicken), curry, plant-based lasagna, and rotisserie chicken with potatoes. There were also seasonal strawberry-themed desserts such as strawberry mousse, strawberry mont-blanc, and strawberry tart. Interestingly, they offered non-alcoholic beer, which is more popular here than in the U.S.

There was also an extensive bakery section with waffles, croissants, muffins, and rolls. 

Time to put away our used trays and dishes:

This made me sweat. Instead of placing your tray of used dishes and discards on a tray cart, you instead line up to properly dispose of your discards yourself. I approve of this very much, yet it made me very frazzled because there are a lot of disposal categories that I can't read. And there is a line of people behind me, counting on me to do this as quickly as possible. What you do is place items in the correct bin and everything else on the conveyor belt. 

With lunch out of the way, we aimed to get our shopping done. What I needed were three plastic bibs for M's daycare, a print frame, some craft supplies for E, and a small trash bin for the bathroom. We found all those things, but of course, we found random things as well, like this:

To reward E for her patience, I got her a soft serve cone, which mercifully is mini-sized in Japan. 

I had wanted to check out the food mart but had no more energy left by the time we got through check-out. I did see that they sold some similar food things but also a lot of different ones. Another time. 

There you have it, Ikea Tokyo Bay on a rainy weekend day. It was thrilling, but I hope to return for some more exploring on a less crazy weekday. 

Enrolling in a New Daycare

I wish I could say that I am in the final stretch of childcare, as M begins daycare on April 1. However, I am still three weeks away from complete freedom. M's new daycare held an orientation yesterday, and it was two hours long. Patience is not my strength. This is unfortunate, because many aspects of life here require patience. 

The orientation was in Japanese, so I understood very little. I did understand that integration will take two weeks to complete. For example, on the first day, M will attend for an hour. The second day, also an hour. The third and fourth days, two hours. Then three hours the next two days, and so forth. This is ostensibly so the kiddos can better acclimate. As I heard this, I was screaming inside. 

Each child is given a mother-child handbook. It literally translates into "mother-child," not "parent-child" and definitely not "father-child." This kind of thing is typical but irks me nonetheless. This handbook is how the teacher and parent communicate. The teacher will write about the child's day and send the handbook home with the child. The parent will read it, perhaps respond or note any concerns, and bring it back to school with the child the next day. 

We were given another booklet for recording M's activities during the time she is at home. Each parent is to record the child's temperature, total hours of sleep overnight, time of waking, and food intake. Oh, and also number of bowel movements, time of BM, and texture. 

During the orientation, there was a doctor onsite to examine each child and address health concerns. Compared to America, the childcare approach seems more holistic. There is a cook who prepares meals at the school for all the kids every day. They ask parents to wean babies off pre-cut food and have them learn to drink from a real cup shortly after age one. This seems optimistic, but we shall see. 

Why was the orientation so long you might wonder. Well, there was a lot of paperwork involved. There is a lot of paper-pushing bureaucracy in Japan. It is not very digitized in this respect, and obviously not for lack of capacity. Japan is a pioneer in developing and using modern technology, yet it trails behind in the digitization of essential services: education, medicine, banking, etc.

One reason is the culture of hanko. People have hanko, a personal seal, that they must use to "sign" official documents. There are different makers of hanko and there may be differences in how they make them. This will cause you problems. For example, you open a bank account with your hanko, but the maker of that hanko goes out of business and you subsequently get another hanko. You try using the new hanko on a banking transaction and the bank stops you because the seals are not identical. You then have to engage in a pile of paperwork attesting to your authenticity. Or you have to track down a hanko that is identical to the first hanko. 

Anyways, we had to complete a lot of paperwork and then register M as a student of that daycare with the municipal office. I read once that patience is like a muscle that you must exercise to strengthen. If that is true, I am really strengthening those muscles!

The daycare itself is small but new and very clean. Tuition is calculated on a sliding scale. The maximum is about $900 per month for each child. This includes diapers, wipes, and food. This is amazing to me. It is what happens when the government subsidizes essential services like childcare. Parents can afford to work. 

More on M's first week of daycare when it arrives!

What to Bring and What to Leave

Because the kids are still at home, shopping is an undertaking that involves the right timing (must avoid nap times), right weather (no heavy rains because we travel by bike), and the requisite amount of parental energy (a lot). This is a long-winded way of saying that we don't go shopping often, even though there is still much to buy. This is a list of things I'm either glad I brought or wish I had brought from the U.S. I realize most of the things on this list (especially what to bring) are far from being essential.

1. Waxed Floss Picks

There are waxed floss and unwaxed floss picks. I am still looking for the elusive waxed floss picks. I don't know how anyone can use unwaxed floss. I tried it, and maybe there is something wrong with me, but it took me five minutes to floss because the floss got stuck every time.

2. Women's Shaving Cream

This is a mystery. There are plenty of shaving razors for women. But there is no women's shaving cream. In the shaving section, there clearly are razors for men and shaving cream for men. Gender-targeted marketing in Japan is not subtle: black or blue for men, white or pink for women. Must the women shave only with soap?  

3. Ikea Food Storage Containers

This one is very particular, I realize. Ikea Japan does not sell this slim container that I love. I donated all of the ones I had thinking that I could easily buy it here. None of the other containers available stack up compared to this. I love its slim profile and easy flip lid. I use it for dried grains, legumes, oats, cereals, etc. 

It makes sense in a way. I used these to store pastas and oats, but rice is king in Japan. There are entire aisles dedicated to rice storage. 

4. Vaseline

Did you know that Tokyo's winters are extremely dry? I expected to be luxuriating in humidity through the winter and into the spring. In Chicago, when the temperature fell, I knew to moisturize to avoid dry and chapped skin. Here, it may be in the 50s F and so warm that I don't notice how dry and cracked my skin has become until the end of the day. 

My go to for preventing dry skin is Vaseline, a tub of which costs about $16 and can only be found in international-type stores. It is possible that there is something similar to Vaseline out there. I just have to learn enough Japanese to be able to read labels. 

5. Kosher Salt

The salt is...not salty. It is also very expensive. No matter how much I sprinkle or grind, the food does not become sufficiently salty. I'm used to handling larger granules of kosher salt, so maybe I just haven't got the hang of using finer salts. In any case, I have stopped salting my pasta water because salt is more precious now than ever before. I long for kosher salt. 

My small collection of not-very-salty salt

6. Spicy things

Traditional Japanese favors are mild, subtle, and well-balanced. Spicy in Japanese cuisine is more of a wasabi-like spicy. Sometimes I crave intense flavors. There is a Chinese spice sauce that we always had in our fridge, but there is nothing like that here. The most common chili oil sold is relatively mild and comes in tiny containers. Sriracha is also sold in tiny bottles and is hard to come by. 

Honorable mentions: All baby things (especially organics and Nose Frida) and ibuprofen

What to Leave Behind:

1. Foot care products 

I thought I walked a lot in Chicago, living in the city and commuting by train downtown to work, but I walk even more now. People here not only walk a lot they walk in leather shoes and heels. It is no wonder then that there are everywhere a huge variety of foot care products. 

I went shopping for an insert specifically to relieve my Morton's neuroma and found a wall of these inserts. There are many, many more products for other types of foot issues. The selection dwarfs anything you would find in the U.S.

2. Hair accessories

Hair is a big thing here. Tokyoites almost universally have neatly coiffed hair. Hair stylists are seen more as artists and less as service providers. Correspondingly, hair accessories are varied, inexpensive, and high quality - even down to bobby pins and hair bands. It is very possible that I am clueless and this actually exists everywhere, but I have discovered a dryer brush-wand that dries hair much better and more quickly than the standard blow dryer. 

4. Hangers

Rows and rows of hangers. Sometimes there are two sections of hangers: one section for closets and the other for laundry and line drying. Hangers for ties, purses, belts, turtlenecks, everything. Hangers made of all textures. Hangers are inexpensive and ubiquitous. 

5. Baby and Toddler Toothbrushes

Have you noticed how toothbrushes marketed for young children have massive brush heads? The electric ones are better, but the non-electric ones are too large for the tiny mouths and teeth of small children. Small brushes allows for easier maneuvering to better clean tiny teeth. But bring your own toothpaste, as no-fluoride, safe-to-swallow toothpaste is difficult to find. 

Pink one is a Japanese toothbrush for a one year old. Green one is my green sprouts toothbrush meant for 0-6 months. Maybe a 0-6 month baby dinosaur. 

6. Bike Helmet 

Leave the helmet if you have always had trouble with helmets sitting on the top of your head like a soufflé rather than around your head, protecting it like it should. There are Japanese-made helmets designed to better fit Asian head shapes. This discovery has been a revelation. 

I recently bought one of these for M to wear while riding on my bicycle. E, the elder, has a relatively large round head, and I plan to ditch her old Giro helmet for one of the same. 

I am leaving out a lot of things which I hope to include in a post about unique items you can only find in Japan. I'm still discovering new things, though, so it is a list in the making. 

A Day of Shopping

We wake up to a beautiful morning. The weather is now definitively springlike even though spring is technically still a few weeks away. On a clear day, you can see Mount Fuji from our balcony. Can you spot it in the photo?

Neither Hiro nor I have started working yet, so the morning is another slow one. We eat what is now a typical breakfast of yogurt, fruits, muesli, and toast. Breakfast service and getting ready for the day takes over an hour. By the time we are ready to go, it is nearly half past nine. 

Today we decide to go to my mother-in-law's so L can practice the piano. She had her first lesson on Monday. We enrolled her in a few trial lessons to see how she likes it. If she does like it, we would consider getting a piano. It is still too early to tell. For now, L will practice on her grandma's piano. 

It is about a 15 minute walk there. In Chicago, L scooted around the neighborhood for fun. In Tokyo, it is an essential mode of transportation for her. Without it, the 15 minute walk would become a 20 minute walk.

Walking past the shrine just next door to our building. 

A nice day like today is a perfect one for doing laundry. It was raining the last couple of days, so today there are lots of laundry drying on balconies. 

Piano "practice" lasts for two minutes. We eat a quick lunch with Hiro's grandma before heading to the department store. L is starting school in April, and we have a bunch of school things to buy. She will be wearing a uniform and needs black shoes to go with it. She also needs rain boots, a backpack, and a swim suit. 

We head to the shoe section first. Japanese department stores seem to be thriving compared to their American counterparts. There are definitely differences in shopping culture. For one, returns are limited if allowed at all. Perhaps because of this, in person shopping is very much alive. You are more likely to spend both more money and time buying a pair of shoes, but you are also more likely to take home a suitable pair of shoes. 

Forty-five minutes later, we have a pair of black leather shoes and a pair of rain boots. 

I still have to pick up a few random household things and get groceries, so school shopping ends here. But first, a snack. On the restaurant floor, we stop by a Hawaiian restaurant, which are really popular in Tokyo. Here is the "snack" we order:

The food section is located on the basement level and divided into three subsections: groceries, prepared foods, and gift foods. Fruits are a popular gifts, so these are mostly meant to be gifted. $40-50 for a cantaloupe. $50 for a watermelon. It will never cease to be shocking. 

Buying some seafood for dinner.

Prepared foods, ranging from Chinese to sushi to salads and much more. We pick up nikuman / baozi / steamed buns and potstickers from the Chinese stand. 

Here we are at Maison Kayser, my favorite of the many, many boulangeries in Tokyo. 

It is not easy making my way through the department store, confronted by one temptation after another. We finally do, laden with shoes, cleaning supplies, stationary, groceries, takeaway, and baked goods. 

Dinner prep is easy because I bought sashimi. We stew some pumpkin (kabocha), sauté the brussel sprouts, and plate the sashimi. Everything is on the light side, so I supplement by heating up potstickers from the Chinese takeaway station. A semi-homecooked meal. 

Then, finally, it is time to unwind and enjoy the sunset.