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Things are starting to move with my company: I have found three clients already, and just today I had a short one hour gig for an audio recording – given the nature of this one, it will probably not be repeated though.

I have also finally received some quotes from one of the local accountants I have contacted, and as expected, they are much cheaper than the large company in Tokyo. Hopefully they are more flexible as well, for I will try to negotiate a bit more, as there are still things I don’t really need (according to my lawyer), so maybe there is a way around those too.

It’s nice to get things done and nice to be busy, and for now, I cannot complain to be overworked. Let’s see how long this state will last…

We – as Westerners – tend to have a certain image of the Japanese: always polite and correct, very reserved and formal, strictly sticking to the rules… Very often, this is indeed the case – if you meet the Japanese in a business setting, especially if you are the customer or client. However, outside of this formal environment, the Japanese keep surprising me.

Last Saturday there was our neighborhood party. Essentially, the whole block of apartment buildings consists of three smaller parts separated by a road, but the exterior of the buildings is similar, so it’s easy to see which ones belong to the same block. As the buildings are old and stem from a time when people still cared more about living conditions than maximizing revenue, there are many trees between the buildings, flowerbeds and playgrounds for the children, or simply plain lawn.

There is also an open space at one corner, where people usually meet – and there the party took place in the late afternoon and early evening. Chinese, or rather Japanese, lanterns were hung up, food and drinks were provided by the neighborhood association. There was some music, people were playing bingo – given their enthusiasm, the prizes must have been enormous – children were chasing each other through the crowds… At the more quiet corners people would sit, eat, and chat, and I even saw somebody playing Go! In another corner there was a group of young people sitting together playing guitars and singing…

The whole atmosphere was very relaxed and enjoyable. Although I’m not a very outgoing person, it’s hard not to talk to anybody while standing in the queue waiting for the next batch of yaki-soba to finish. I did my best with the little Japanese I know, and I am always happy when I can hold a somewhat longer conversation with somebody; if need be, I speak English and the other person Japanese, and more often than not, we will understand somewhere in the middle. It was fun! Pity they only do it once a year…

In my apartment – except for the entrance and the bathroom area – there is only a single door. I mean, a normal, Western style door that swings open and that even the Japanese call “DOA”, as opposed to the Japanese style sliding doors made from paper, called fusuma. All my tatami rooms are equipped with fusuma, but between the hallway and the kitchen/livingroom, there is said one single door, that separates my office space from my private living space.

Although the house is well designed so that the sun does not directly shine into my office during the summer, it still becomes quite hot. Now is the time when I have all my windows open, but even so the airflow through my office is minimal. Only in the evening, around sunset, there is usually a stronger breeze that cools down the apartment a little.

However, that breeze is also strong enough to cause that one single door to bang shut, which gives me a shock every time it happens. And even if I put something on the floor to prevent the bang, the door still closes, leaving me to quietly suffocate. So, I have to get up regularly to open that door again, just so that it can bang shut again…

Yesterday I’ve finally had enough and decided to fix that problem once and for all. So, today I went to the home centre to look for a solution. I love browsing the home centre and imagining all the creative stuff that could be done with all their goods…

Anyway, I found what I wanted, and after about 30 minutes of tool-less wrestling and wrangling, I had managed to install a little hook that is supposed to keep the door from banging shut again. I am extremely pleased with myself and right now, I am enjoying a nice, cool – and quiet – evening. Ah, what’s the next project going to be?

I’m back! I had a wonderful time in Korea with my old friend – and with her boys out of the house, we girls had a great time dancing. Or, more accurately, drinking…

The trip itself was not as smooth as I hoped it would be. From Kyoto to Kansai airport it is roughly a two hours trip, and I usually take a group taxi, as this is the most convenient way. This time on the way to the airport, there was only one more person to share the taxi with, but for some reason there was some delay, and we needed to wait for her quite a bit. Then, almost predictably, we ended up in the rush hour traffic jam somewhere before Osaka, but the driver was smart enough to get off the highway and to circumvent it on normal streets. However, as we did not make the usual stop somewhere in the middle, I guess we were still quite pressed for time.

On the airport, after the machine check-in, I unnecessarily spent about 20 minutes in the queue for those who wanted to check in luggage… Oh well, Terminal 2 is tiny anyway, and there was still enough time to eat some udon – the low-cost carrier I flew with does not even offer water during the flight, but then again, it’s only 90 minutes anyway.

Interestingly, I had quite some problems with my luggage check. For some reason I had to run my bag (already emptied of toiletries and the laptop) through the X-ray machine three times, and then they asked me if they could hand search it. I have no idea what triggered the whole thing, but in the end they took away my toothpaste, a 160 mg tube that was not even 1/4 full anymore: “The container is too big…”

On the way back from my friend’s place in central Korea, the highway bus was 30 minutes late and I panicked a little, but I did make my plane. I stood in line for the usual luggage check, and again, they checked my carry on bag three times and then finally conducted a manual search. My pencil-case was a problem (why I still don’t understand), and they took away the best of all my friend’s gifts. Or, they tried to do so – only over my dead body would I give up that 650 gram jar of Nutella!

So, to educate the rest of you: Nutella apparently counts as a liquid in Korea. And you are not allowed to bring it on board except in 100 ml containers. Thanks America! The young woman at the luggage check was very friendly – “I understand, but there are so many CCTV cameras here, I cannot let you have it!” – and suggested check-in, or sending it by mail, or repackaging. Being a bit pressed for time, I went for the first option and paid 3000 YEN extra; that was the most expensive jar of Nutella I ever received as a gift…

In the end, the plane was delayed just enough to make me worry about my taxi home, but I found the information on their homepage to be inaccurate. I finally made it home, dead tired, at about 1:30 on Sunday morning, and dropped into bed immediately; I only opened all the windows to thoroughly air my apartment during the night.

The most interesting part of the whole trip was the special paperwork I had to go through as a resident of Japan. Usually, when entering Japan (and many other countries), you have to fill in a “disembarkation card for foreigners”, giving your personal data and details about the trip.

As a resident of Japan I don’t need to do this anymore. However, those like me living in Japan and intending to return have to fill in an “embarkation card for foreign residents” on their way out of the country. It is essentially the same thing, a piece of paper stapled to your passport, and you have to retain it during your trip abroad until you reenter Japan, where the paper will be removed again.

On top of this, everybody who enters Japan has to fill in a customs form. This time, because I have asked that all my boxes from Germany are delivered, I had to fill in two forms – one for customs at the airport and one for me, or rather: my shipping agency. It was straightforward, the officer was friendly, although he gulped a little when I told him the number of boxes that would be coming. I hope I did not make any mistakes, Japanese bureaucrats can be very literal…

Even though the trip was not very relaxing, the time spent with my friend was certainly worth it. We had great food together and talked a lot and we drank wine and had chocolate. I met some friends, did some shopping, and I could even finish some administrative stuff. Altogether, a very nice holiday indeed!

I know how this must sound, coming from the woman who has just spent 5 months hunting for the perfect washing machine…, but I am really not that particular a person! These days I try to buy Japanese products and patronise small local shops, because I think that if I expect to make a living in Japan among, from, and with the Japanese people, it’s just fair to give back to the local economy and not some international corporation that manages to not pay any taxes anywhere…

Beyond that, however, most of the things I buy I choose from a strictly functional point of view. Every electrical appliance I have bought, both for my office and the household in general, is from a different manufacturer. I don’t mind that my kitchen is not all of a piece, with a fridge that has a Swarovski-stone encrusted front with pink flowers, as seen in Korea, for example (yes, I am serious!)

The same with clothing: I don’t care for brand names at all. It is difficult enough to find clothes that I like, that fit, and that come at a reasonable price. The second criterion is even more difficult to fulfill here in Asia for somebody who is somewhat more… what’s the word again? … ah: voluptuous… than the average. Besides, as long as all those high fashion designers measure their clothing on 14-year-old stick figures, they obviously don’t want me as their customer anyway.

Similar with hygiene products: I buy whatever is cheapest whenever I need new toilet paper, tooth paste, shampoo, hand soap, dish detergent… If you’re not allergic to any ingredients, you can get away with that, and I don’t see the point in buying toilet paper with flowery print and lemon smell if the one without does the same trick at half the price…

There are only a few things I am extremely particular about, food for example. I buy Nutella, not any of those local chocolate spread imitations. Years of experience and unsuccessful tryouts have proved me right. I also buy European wine and cheese, and not the American versions, even if that means that my food bill is three times as high; I don’t drink that much wine anyway – not since I have discovered sparkling sake…

One other thing I am extremely picky about is: tooth brushes. For more than 20 years now, I have been buying only a particular brand of tooth brushes, one that is only available in Austria. Whenever I visit Austria, I buy a year’s supply of them, which usually makes the cashier look at me in a peculiar way… Unfortunately, I haven’t been in Austria for a long time now, so I was reduced to buying local, but I did not like them at all…

Somehow, I came to talk about the subject with an Austrian friend of mine – who promptly said he would go out and go shopping for me. And lo and behold: A package with a six month’s supply of my favourite tooth brushes arrived in the mail yesterday… Thank you so much! You’ve made my day! Oh, those little joys…