A Weekend in Tokyo

    Between extracurricular activities, birthday parties, and day drips, it's rare for us to spend the weekend in the city with no agenda. But that is how we spent last Saturday. There is someone else in Tokyo as well: Joe Biden, my mother-in-law tells me. One clue was the incessant sound of helicopters overhead. American heads of state and diplomats always exact the biggest fanfare. Since we mostly stay in our neighborhood and get around by bicycle, the visit didn't really affect us. 

    Saturday started out cool and cloudy - perfect weather for a cup of coffee and some reading. Although I received a kindle for my birthday last year, it took me a long time to warm up to it. I used to read a lot (also a symptom of living down the street from a public library), mostly during my commute to work and during lunch. Once I no longer had that, I found it difficult to sit still and read. Something about moving and settling into a new environment threw my head into disarray. Daily tasks required more energy than usual, and I guess there was just no mental space for anything other than surviving gracefully day to day. 

    A few months ago, at the one year mark of our arrival in Japan, I suddenly started reading with my kindle. I just felt like it one day. And I realized that I could access any English book I wanted this way (it's obvious, I know). I've been reading a lot of Murakami recently. I am now reading his book Underground, which is a collection of interviews and reflection about the 1995 sarin attacks in Tokyo. For a terrorist attack of that magnitude, there isn't as much literature as you would expect. The book is thought-provoking and introspective. It asks how the event, and even more so the public's reaction to it, reflected Japanese society and its psyche at the time, and perhaps even now. 

    Anyways, I was able to read a good hour before my kids woke up. This is a true luxury. Since the kids must get up and get ready early on weekdays, their accumulated sleep deprivation allows them to sleep as late as 8:30 am on Saturday mornings. M slept until 9 am, a real win win situation. Naturally, we had a slow morning. By the time everyone at breakfast and got ready, it was 10:30 am. Despite a light drizzle, we headed to our local park, which was pleasantly empty. 

Our playground outing was short lived, as the rain started coming down hard after fifteen minutes. Our bicycles are rain proof, but it is never fun cycling in the rain, so we waited for the rain to die down before heading home. 

Since we moved so slowly through the morning, it was already past eleven when we returned home. Time to prepare lunch. We usually get ramen at our favorite neighborhood shop but stayed home for homemade ramen (i.e., packaged ramen from the supermarket). I had bought quail eggs on a whim a few days prior. Quail eggs are common in Japan. Ten quail eggs cost the equivalent of $1.50, so I wouldn't call them a delicacy here. Nonetheless, it is not something we usually eat, so it was interesting to try. They taste similar to chicken eggs. The kids loved eating them because they are small and therefore "cute".

They look different from chicken eggs, but they don't taste all that different. 

E no longer naps regularly, but she occasionally will on the weekends. So after lunch came nap time for the kids and coffee time and Japanese studying for me. On the one hand, I'm happy to have the free time while the kids nap. On the other hand, napping takes a big chunk out of the day and makes it trickier to make plans. 

Post-nap playtime. M wearing her sister's lunch bag. This went on for half an hour. Visual proof that anything can be a toy or a prop. 

    By the time the two wake up close to 4pm, it's almost time to go to Grandma's house. My mother-in-law was in Karuizawa for the last few weeks, so E had requested dinner with them. Usually my husband's grandmother cooks, but she too had just returned from a trip, so takeaway it was. 

    Japan makes it easy. Most large department stores have a food hall in the basement with a grocery store, gift foods, and different restaurant counters. You are spoiled for choice. The grandparents delivered with this beautiful sushi assortment in addition to a few side dishes. I don't know what it is about salmon eggs, ikura in Japanese, but kids love them. It's a little scary because they are on the pricey side as far as sushi selections go, and they throw them back like pizza rolls. While both love ikura, E doesn't like sushi as much as M, who really loves it, particularly the tuna rolls. She even surprised us by pointing to the roll and calling it "maguro." Who knew that she knew the specific names of fish? We don't even eat sushi often.

    Anyways, it was a really delicious end to our Saturday. I leave you to feast your eyes on these beautiful boxes of sushi:

Food Shopping: First Impressions

Food shopping is not entirely accurate because we are still quarantining. My mother in law has kindly been bringing groceries. I can't wait to be out and about doing my own food shopping. For now, here are a few differences between Japanese and American sticker prices I've already noticed. 

Fruits are more expensive, and seafood is less expensive. A package of strawberries cost $8 USD and nearly as much as domestic scallops. The scallops in the photo are really fresh - so fresh that they can be eaten sashimi-style. Yet they cost only about a dollar more than the strawberries. 

Unsurprisingly, natto is a lot cheaper in Japan. Natto is a kind of fermented soybean that is eaten with rice. It has a stinky smell and a slimy texture. It is not well-loved outside Japan. Nevertheless, it is healthy, a convenient source of protein, and a staple in our household. My kids love it. At Mitsuwa in Chicago, it cost around $2 for a pack of three. Here, it is 75 cents for the same. Also, it is more delicious - if you think natto is delicious at all. 

Then there are things like this bag of muesli/cereal mix:

It's Kellogg's brand but I have never seen this in America. Have you? It is really good (light, crunchy, and only lightly sweetened). I would have bought this back home. I don't know how much this cost, but things like granola, muesli, and cereal generally cost double or triple what it would cost in America. Sad, as I love muesli. But I also love morning pastries, which are abundant here. There are french-style bakeries everywhere. More on that once quarantine is over. 

One other thing I noticed is that produce items are overly packaged. Take this for example: 

On the flip side, the quality of produce items are very high, higher than my local Whole Foods in Chicago. I've gone through three packages of strawberries, and not a single mealy, watery, tasteless strawberry. Maybe $8 is worth it then? 

There was a QR code on a package of potatoes tracing it to a farm in Hokkaido, an agricultural region in the north. I thought this was so interesting. My husband makes fun of me, but I would love QR codes on my food telling me about their origins. Japanese agricultural production seems very different from the U.S.. I want to learn more about it, so stay tuned on this topic.