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. 

My Birthday & Life Admidst Covid-19

My birthday weekend was filled with people, and that was enough of a gift. On the morning of my birthday, my father in law came over to watch the kids while my husband and I went for a run. The weather has been perfect for running: cool, dry, and cloudy. We ran around the Akasaka palace, about a two mile loop with some hills. Since I'm used to running in Chicago, the smallest inclines wind me. 

Life here feels relatively normal. Tokyo recorded just shy of 300 new covid cases yesterday. Restaurants are open, schools remain open, extracurricular and group activities are still available for kids, and stores are full with shoppers on the weekends. The metro remains packed with commuters. Some things have changed, of course. Mask wearing is near universal. There are antibacterial sprays at both the entrance and exit of any establishment. At food courts and some restaurants, there is a clear panel between tables. The current restrictions in Tokyo require restaurants to close by 8pm. 

We went food shopping at Takashimaya, a big department store chain, and it was packed on a Sunday. Food is always located at the lower level of department stores. 

I could spend an entire day exploring that one section, where you can buy groceries, take out, street food, and food gifts. I treated myself to a domestic, greenhouse-grown, ten dollar pack of strawberries. For the price, you get perfection in every strawberry. 

In the afternoon, we went to a concert where the Japanese pianist Kyohei Sorita (he's very popular and only 26 years old) was performing. Every seat was filled. As my first concert in over a year, it felt strange to be indoors in close proximity to so many people. Everyone received a mandatory antibac spray on their hands upon entry and everyone maintained proper mask wearing. The pandemic has been such a dramatic occurrence, and it seems necessary that its antidote be equally dramatic. Here, where vaccinations have been slower to take off, it has simply come down to banal rituals, like wearing masks and cleaning hands in public places. 

For my birthday gift, I received a Kindle, which I am super excited about. We used to live just a few blocks from a public library, so we enjoyed full use of it. There are English books at the public library here, but of course the selection is more limited. I would love to get any book recommendations or tips on using a Kindle! 

My birthday ended with dinner with my husband's family. Nothing like living through a pandemic for a year makes you appreciate the privilege of such a gathering. 

What Tokyo is like for a Parent

Japan is a country with a birth rate below replacement rate. You wouldn’t guess it though walking around Tokyo. Public places are designed with kids (and parents) in mind. Baby and kids products are everywhere. There are three separate holidays celebrating children: girls’ day, children’s day, and a coming of age day. In short, children have a disproportionately large cultural significance. 

In most respects, Tokyo is a convenient place to be a parent. Public toilet stalls have baby seats where you can park your infant while you do your business. Once you get over the shocking convenience, you wonder why this should be shocking in the first place. I used to just avoid public toilets altogether.

Toilet stall at the municipal office. Shockingly clean too.

Restaurants and food courts have an abundance of clean high chairs. Some even have special family dining areas where table and chairs are short enough for kids to sit by themselves. 

There are strollers available for free at department stores. This saves you from the agonizing question: stroller or carrier? To navigate the metro with a stroller or carry 20 pounds around while you shop? My solution was to not shop. 

Trying out the interesting design on the shopping cart.

In Chicago, I hated taking the train with a stroller. Either there was no elevator, or the elevator wouldn't work, or it did work but also doubled as a public toilet. Then there was the train schedule - the chances of trains running at regular intervals was 50/50. So I would take the train with a stroller only if I was forced to. For instance, a doctor's appointment unavoidably scheduled on a day my spouse had the car. 

You have probably heard of the quick and reliable public transportation system in Tokyo. It benefits everyone, but it especially benefits parents who don't have alternative means for transportation. This should be normal rather than exceptional, but somehow it isn't in most American cities. 

These are more than perfunctory conveniences that exist simply as a matter of law. The flip side of all this, however, is that a lot of is meant for moms.There is still a tangible imbalance of gender roles in Japan. This is improving, but the culture surrounding motherhood and women is still traditional in many ways, especially from an outsider's perspective, like mine. It's also a complicated issue to which it is worth dedicating an entire post, so I will save it for another time. For now, I'm just enjoying these small perks of being a parent here. 

My Trip to Costco Japan

We panicked today realizing that we were down to just two diapers and made a spontaneous trip to Costco. The one closest to Tokyo is about 30 minutes away. My parents got me a membership that I used sporadically in the States. Apparently Costco membership is transferrable from country to country, so I was able to use mine here. 

My first surprise upon arrival was that everything looks more or less the same. Big everything, same warehouse, same layout. Second surprise was that Costco Japan sells some very different products. There were a lot more French style desserts and snacks.

This mini pastry assortment looked amazing but we had too many staples to buy this time (diapers, olive oil, bread, etc.), so I refrained. Also, there are a lot of good patisseries and bakeries in Tokyo. 

And of course there were lots of uniquely Japanese food, like curry pan (brioche-like bread fried on the outside with curry on the inside).

Salmon roe by the boxful! Costco is all about quantity, but it was still shocking to see such massive containers of ikura. They were also giving out samples of this, which was equally shocking.

Sushi, nigiri, and sashimi by the party platter. I didn't buy one, but I have heard that the value is good and the quality not bad. 

Some delicious Japanese junk food that no one should have in these quantities: 

I told myself this one was a tiny bit healthy since it has almonds in it. I was really really tempted, but at this point I had two squirmy kids on my hands so I had to make a quick decision to pass this time. Almond Assort Pack, I will be back. 

Other things are constants in Costco everywhere. The interesting thing about these strawberries is that the imported American ones are cheaper than the domestic Japanese strawberries. Japanese strawberries are grown in greenhouses, not organic, but nearly always perfect in both appearance and taste. The blueberries, imported from Mexico, are the approximately the same price as they were in Chicago at $5 a pack. I bought a pack because blueberries in Tokyo are about eight times this price. Bagels, too, are almost the same price as in the U.S. How do they keep the prices of these imported goods so low? 

Most things at Costco were definitely a better value than what you would find in Tokyo, especially western items like granola, bagels, and olive oil (those were a fraction of the price). I could live without these, but diapers are the clincher. Because travel costs quite a bit (tolls are $10-$15 here and gas is substantially more expensive too), we probably won't go to Costco often, maybe once every other month. 

I did get this sashimi grade salmon and made chirashi with it. It was so
worth it. I can't believe you can get sushi grade fish at Costco. This was the best thing we brought home today.