plans and preparations – goinggaijin.com

On (Sick) Leave

While I was complaining last week about the cold weather, the temperatures plummeted even further, way below what’s normal around this time of the year. And I promptly got sick. I spent the weekend in bed with Pumpkin, but when I almost didn’t make it back upstairs after going to the toilet on Sunday night, I decided to get up again if just for a few hours on Monday.

Maybe it’s a flu, maybe another run-in with Corona, in any case I’m still having dizzy spells at times. This might also be because I don’t really feel like eating much, even though a friend of mine was kind enough to buy sweets and other easily digestible (and preparable) foods for me.

Anyway, I’ll be lying low for a while and this too will pass. And since it’s very close to Christmas and my usual holidays around this time of the year, I thought I’d just bow out a bit early – Sunday post is already prepared.

Take good care of yourselves, enjoy the holidays…. I’ll see you next year.

Preparations for the Cold

The autumn colours are over, and the temperatures dropped accordingly. In turn, Pumpkin and I are cold even indoors – I’ve mentioned the lack of insulation before, I believe…

So, time for my usual preparations for the cold: Once again, I’ve moved my bedroom to the smallest room on the second floor, facing south. My thick woollen duvet is in place, as well as the fleece blanket on top of it. Pumpkin may now sleep with me, not that he needs permission, really. It’s not freezing at the moment – we’ll keep those moments for February – so he’s in and out of my bed throughout the night. As long as he doesn’t wake me up doing so, I don’t mind.

There are also a few new things I have done this year to try and keep the house (and me) warm: First of all, I shut off the ventilator in my bedroom and nailed a board over the opening. Since I’ve moved in here, I never once used it, so I felt confident in my decision. There’s not much insulation in the hole that’s left, but I mainly boarded this up to decrease draught. With a bit of luck, this also prevents certain crawlies from coming inside…

Second, I asked for help from a neighbour’s contractor to put up a curtain rod in my genkan. There is now a heavy curtain in front of the entrance to the rest of the house, and I keep it closed in the nights. To be perfectly honest, neither of these improvements will make much of a difference with respect to the actual temperature in the house. Nevertheless, there is something to be said for the placebo effect, and that alone might just do the trick. 😉

However, one third thing that already made a difference in the nights: A friend of mine gave me an old hot carpet as a gift. Since I don’t use my living room much, not in winter, anyway, and I’m not sure whether it would withstand my heavy office chair, I came up with another use for it. It now lays between the two futon I use in my small bedroom.

It takes about 30 to 45 minutes to heat up the bed nicely, and my pyjamas to boot. Once I’m going to bed, I turn the carpet off again; I don’t mind the rest of the room being cold as long as I feel warm myself. I might need the heater still, but only to warm my hands when reading before I turn in. We’ll see how this goes in the long run, and how expensive this will be. For now, I’m very happy with the arrangement, and Pumpkin is too.

Weekend Project # 6

There is something in the air around this time of the year that brings out the child in me – and I’m not even religious. I love Japan, but when Christmas approaches, a certain nostalgia sets in, and I miss things that I took for granted back home in Austria. The two things I miss most are: snow (I should’ve moved to Hokkaido) and baking cookies. And possibly central heating too (I should’ve moved to Hokkaido).

At least I have an advent calendar, the refillable one I bought two years ago is still going strong. However, there was a small problem with it: the little drawers on the sides didn’t close properly. This may sound petty, but I’m just OCD enough to find this annoying, so I fixed it by glueing little pieces of wood on which the drawers can rest onto the back of the calendar.

It didn’t take long, and now I’m ready to get the drawers filled again. And, as I’ve done before, while there will be chocolate and tiny sweets, some of the drawers will hold things to do like “have a bath” or “go for a walk” etc. It’s nice to create your own traditions for holidays.

Guided Tours

As some of you may already know, I’ve been doing something new this year: Last spring, I became a tour guide for (mostly) German speaking visitors to Kyoto.

That was a big step for me because I always thought this was not the kind of job I would enjoy. As an introvert who doesn’t warm easily to strangers, the sheer thought of spending hours with people I’ve just met – and generally having to be on my most charming behaviour to boot – simply scared me.

However, the reality surprised me. First of all, I get to talk for hours about my favourite subjects: Japanese culture and history. And second, people who book a guided tour are by and large curious and eager to hear what I have to say. So, I’d say, it’s a fun win-win for both sides, and the fact that I only do very small groups of max. 5 people does help.

Of course, there are drawbacks too. Although I enjoy the experience it can be quite draining because I’m still an introvert. Also, my arthritis doesn’t help with running around for hours, even though the amount of pain is not always the same. All this to say that usually, I’m pretty exhausted the day after a tour, both physically and mentally, and sometimes, I cannot do any demanding tasks at all on the next day.

Despite all this, the pros considerably outweigh the cons, and I have decided to continue with the tour guiding. Even more, I’m going to offer my own tours through What’s up in Kyoto starting next year.

For now, I’ve been working as a sub-sub-contractor for companies in Tokyo, who take roughly 30% of the fees. The money isn’t that bad, but at the end of the day, my hourly rate isn’t much more than what I get for an hour of English teaching (where I don’t have to move.)

Before setting everything up, however, I need to do some research on pricing and logistic details. I also want to offer more tailored tours for people who have seen the major tourist spots already and want to do something different. I have a few ideas already, mostly centered on the areas where I’ve lived before. Of course, I’ll keep you posted when everything is set up!

I’m Back!

Summer is over – which in Japan means that the humidity dropped considerably and the temperatures are now in the mid-30s. September is also typhoon season, but the first one that got people worried even up here didn’t even reach Kyoto (it did cause a lot of damage in Kyushu, though.)

In my summer off (from here), I did some serious BATI-HOLIC fangirling (the next two months will be busy in this regard…), got caught up on my reading, and finished a few other projects that have been lingering. They run the gamut from personal to house-related and business; I’ve even made progress on a certain long-term pet project of mine.

Speaking of pet: my beloved Pumpkin has made me explore Japan’s health care services in more depth than ever before, and he now owes me money. I’ll give you the details in due course.

Anyway, I’m back for now and will do my best to keep you in the loop two times a week as usual.

Summer Greetings

We’re still in a heat wave here in Kyoto. Even though there was a thunderstorm in the late afternoon that cooled things down considerably, the effect is not going to last.

https://k-kirie.com/At this time of the year, people send so-called shochuumimai summer greeting cards. They are meant to inquire about somebody’s health during the hot season. The winter equivalent are kanchuumimai, usually sent out in January or February. I think the summer ones are more cheerful, and knowing that the Japanese suffer more in summer, this might be the reason.

Although I do like the heat, I’m suffering enough for my brain to turn to mush… So I’ll take a bit of a break now, at least until Obon. Hopefully, it will cool down again afterwards.

Happy summer – stay cool!

Getting Ready…

I’m busy this week, so this is just a very short update. I’m getting ready for this year’s Gion Matsuri Ato parade where once again, I’m volunteering at the Ofunehoko. This huge float is always the final one of the second parade and it was always my favourite.

I’ll be working on Monday morning for four hours, and I’m preparing to wear yukata again. Since I have lost so much weight, I can wear a lovely shibori yukata I got from a friend some years back, and I even bought a nice yellow obi to complement the traditional blue.

In fact, I already wore it on Saturday for the Kimono Rock Party, but this time, my friend isn’t here to help me get dressed… I hope things will turn out just right.

For the second time this year, I have received an English version of the flyer that explains the history and trimmings of the float, so I’ll have to do some studying. Not that many people want these sort of details (not in English anyway), but I love this kind of information, so it’s not lost here.

I’m also planning to visit some of the other floats – a friend of mine volunteers at the Hashi Benkei Yama – and I hope it will be a good day with not too much heat and no rain either. We’ll see.

Summer Time…

It’s still raining almost every day, but nevertheless, it’s summer time. In other words: cockroach time…

Last week I caught two adults in my livingroom’s oshiire closet, and I thought that would be it for a while. Until a bit earlier tonight I found the huge mother-of-all-roaches and chased her through the kitchen. I need to buy more bug spray, just in case the monster spiders make a re-appearance as well…

In other, work-related news: I am now officially on social media. On X (formerly known as twitter), to be precise. The reason is that many opportunities for writers are not only announced on X, but also require you to “simply dm me for details or to pitch”. Of course, I’ve had an account there for What’s up in Kyoto for years, but I felt it would be a bit weird to use it for unrelated writing work. Thankfully, of all the social media, I find X the least intrusive wrt privacy, so here we’ll go. I already started off with a photo of Pumpkin, who knows where this will end.

Yes, I know what you think – next thing she’ll tell us is that she actually got a mobile phone… Well, I am indeed contemplating that one too…

Simply…

Following up on my post about Kyoto’s IC cards, I decided to buy a prepaid ICOCA and take advantage of the new point system for commuters. Mostly, I’m still riding my bicycle, but there are some occasions where I need day tickets, which are not available on the bus anymore. Instead of purchasing some at a subway station, with an ICOCA, you can “buy” them online in advance. You still have to pay the full amount for all your trips on that day, but whatever is beyond the price of the day ticket is reimbursed in points (which can be used to reload the card) the next month. Anyway, I digress.

Buying the physical ICOCA was the easy part. The next step, registering the card under my name could be done online without much trouble, thanks to online translators.

One final step was necessary to be able to earn the commuter points, and the website said: “Simply insert your card into a ticket machine at a subway station to finalize your registration.” That’s what I did (or so I thought, when charging the card) all the way back in April. Points are awarded in the following month on the 15th, so I waited patiently.

And nothing happened for three months, even though I could login to the website and check how many of those one-day passes I had purchased so far. Still: No points arriving. The young assistant at my nearest subway station couldn’t help me beyond offering me a phone number (which is useless to somebody who still heavily relies on visual cues and handwaving when speaking). So, as I was in the area on Monday, I went to the bus & subway info center at Kyoto station to sort things out in person.

There, a lengthy back-and-forth eventually resulted in them making the call to the main office on my behalf. And I was informed that the final confirmation step at a ticket machine was still missing. I was a little surprised, but begging for help, somebody finally took pity and went with me to the nearest subway entrance to see what was going on.

There, it turned out that “simply insert your card into a ticket machine…” involves the following steps, all of which only in Japanese, of course:

Choose a ticket machine that has the “points” option available in the first place (50% chance)
Push the correct button (25% chance if you’re not fit with the kanji)
Enter your (online) password and confirm
Check the info displayed and, if correct, confirm again

Well. Everything’s simple in hindsight. And with help at hand….

Summer is Coming!

Today was the first day this year with more than 30 degrees! In other words: summer has officially started in Kyoto. My windows can stay open now, the duvet from my bed is on standby while I’m using the covers only (pyjamas will become optional in a few more weeks), and I’m looking into buying special summer items that dissipate heat.

Interestingly, I really didn’t need to check the thermometer to deduce that it’s summer now. I found out by a simple fact: Pumpkin is sleeping on my desk now.

Yesterday evening, he still squeezed behind me on my office chair (Side note: how come cats always use up 50% of your space, no matter what size it is?) but today, he prefers the cool wood of the desk in the coolest room of the house.

To be perfectly honest, it does annoy me a little. He has absolutely no business being so cute, and when he’s sleeping right next to me, I feel like canoodling him every 30 seconds or so. Goodness, I have stuff to do!