Digital Books, Eating at Muji, and a Chilled Saturday

    I received a Kindle for my birthday last year, but it took me some time to warm up to digital reading. In Chicago, we lived down the street from the public library, and it was easy to check out and return books. I liked physically browsing books and taking them home. Choosing a book via Kindle felt like online shopping - it should be easier but was somehow harder and took more effort. The enormous digital selection was overwhelming. Then one day, my spouse, an enthusiastic proponent of digital reading, bought Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I started reading it, and that got me into reading on the Kindle. I'm glad I did. In a Japanese-speaking world, it's a convenient way to access English-language books. 

   Because of that, I have been reading a lot this summer. I just read Ruth Ozeki's The Book of Form and Emptiness, which is a story about an adolescent boy who is navigating life with his mother after his father dies. He begins to hear voices from objects and is subsequently hospitalized in a pediatric psychiatric ward. I wasn't particularly drawn to plot, but I love Ozeki's other works, so I gave it a try. It's a fictional story, and not at all a treatise or critique on current issues. Like her earlier book My Year of Meats, it represents in a thoughtful way all the maladies afflicting our post-industrial society. It's also about the power and morality of objects and our relationships with them. It is fiction but relevant, absurd yet relatable, despairing yet hopeful. It's my favorite book this summer. 

    E has been in summer school. It is farther than her usual school with no efficient public transportation routes, so we have been commuting via mamachari. It is a 40 minute ride roundtrip with two roundtrips each day. And so, I have been treating myself to kakigori. Kakigori is shaved ice with condensed milk or syrup or both with various toppings. Its ice is usually finely shaved compared to other types of shaved ice (like the New Orleans snoball). It is a fixture of Japanese summers, especially this summer which has been brutally hot. 

    On Saturday, we went to an indoor play space for the kids. We braced ourselves for a long queue but it wasn't that bad. In fact, there were fewer people than there had been on a weekend during winter. This play space is located in an indoor shopping mall with grocery stores and lots of restaurants, making for an easy transition to lunch. It also has a very cute bathroom dedicated for kids. 

Everything is a smaller size - the stalls, toilets, wash basins, etc. Japanese kids are afforded so much independence, and the infrastructure makes it easy. 

    The biggest problem with dining out in Tokyo is not dining with kids but rather dining without a reservation. People make reservations by default. If a good restaurant has a reservation system, it will likely be full unless you book a few days ahead. If the restaurant does not take reservations (more casual lunch spots, food courts, etc.), be prepared to go early or wait in line or both. You must constantly think ahead. With this in mind, at 11:15 am, we headed to the Muji cafe, which does not take reservations. 

© Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd.

© Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd.

    Muji is a Japanese brand that is based on a philosophy of minimalism, recycling, reducing production, and having a no logo/no brand policy. Not a bad philosophy, but it is also a massive retailer, so who knows. In Japan, they also have a cafe that sells healthy cafeteria-style food. It makes an effort - unique among big Japanese brands - to offer alternatives to animal protein. It is also a great place for families. I really enjoy the relaxed atmosphere of cafeteria-style eateries. There are no kids sets per se, but you can pick and choose among daily dishes, salad sets, curry sets, and soup sets among others. Better than the typical kids set that comes with fries, juice, and jello. It cost less than $30 USD for our family of four with large appetites. 

    If you have small kids, you may well know that they start declining in energy after lunch. It becomes a countdown to getting home and taking a nap. So we squeezed in a trip to the grocery store, picked up donuts from Mister Donut, and headed home. It was a relaxing Saturday.