Today, one of my English students cancelled his class – he caught the Corona. He now has to stay home for 10 days and take care of himself. Don’t worry, the chances that I’ll get sick too – from him at least – are minimal, since we only meet every 2 weeks, and he was just fine the last time.
After one of my Austrian friends who caught the virus in 2020 already, this is only the second person I know, personally, who has been infected. To be fair, my circle of friends is rather limited.
Still, I can see why people are not worried much anymore if infections don’t happen to their own family or friends. Heck, I’m not worried at all, either. After two years of this, there’s only so much you can do, really.
Finally, my office has received its finishing touches today! I’m happy to announce that it is done now – have a look at the renovation diary to see how far we’ve come.
If you remember my old office, you will see that the furniture and the rug are the same. I still like them, they are perfectly functional, so I saw no need to replace anything. Unfortunately, I had to compromise a little on the layout. My idea was to have both desks next to each other along the wall with the window. But with the turquoise shelf opposite the entrance door, even put upright, this didn’t leave enough clearance behind the computer desk to get in and out of the office chair comfortably – or into the oshiire. Switching the desk and the shelf did wonders, and it doesn’t look as awful as I thought.
The oshiire is now closed with a door. I had to compromise quite a bit here as well: I had the idea with a folding door too late for the top/bottom rails to be installed properly. And the French doors I wanted originally to match the design of the entrance door were almost three times as expensive as the standard flat ones that are there now. Sometimes I really wish I were made of money… (Or that I could make up my mind a bit faster.)
There will be no additional lamps, the LED tracks/spots that my architect suggested – I would have never thought of that – are sufficient and give just the right amount of light. The old lamps will go upstairs into the library/reading room. The blinds were put up today, they come from another room of my old apartment and fit perfectly. The cat cushion is new, and Pumpkin is sleeping there right now. He’s not so appreciative of it in the mornings, but things will be easier when it’s getting warmer, and I can just keep the door open, so he can roam freely.
Things that still need to be done: Get the myriad of cables on and underneath the desk in order, or at least out of the way. Even though Pumpkin is not super interested in cables, he is curious, so I don’t want to tempt him too much.
There is no wall clock (the old one will go into the kitchen) and I haven’t put up any art yet either. Instead of damaging my beautiful walls with random holes, I have opted for picture rails on the very top. They were rather expensive, but this way, I can be flexible and exchange my art as I like. For now, I have no clear image of what I want to put there, but I have taken a number of great Kyoto photos that might just be the thing for the office…
That’s it for my official renovations with my architect and the contractor/carpenter, all of whom are saints with their patience and all. From now on, it’ll be a string of (hopefully successful) DIY operations. Unfortunately, I have more ideas than time or money… But then again, it’s not as if all this needs to be finished immediately. I have no plans for moving any time soon, anyway.
The next step is the bathroom. After more than 2 months, I’m still brushing my teeth in the kitchen sink for crying out loud.
Japan 1912. The Meiji era has just ended, and theold ranks of aristocrats are slowly giving way to a new class of rich people who are staking their claims at the top of society. Kiyoaki Matsugae, of lower samurai class, has been raised by the aristocratic Ayakuya family, together with their daughter Satoko, who is two years older. Kiyoaki’s complex feelings for Satoko eventually blossom into a tender young love, which is destroyed because both lovers avoid being open with each other. Only when Satoko is promised to an Imperial Prince do they recognize what they are about to lose, but now it is too late for a happy ending…
This is one of those romances where you’d like to slap both parties and force them to speak to each other. Much pain would have been avoided. And yet, Mishima draws a detailed picture of the time with all the scheming going on so that the Matsugaes can advance their position and the Ayakuras can at least keep theirs.
I greatly enjoyed this book; the romance between the two youths is only a part of it, which is growing in importance towards the climax. I loved the insight into Japan of the early 20th century, and Mishima once again is able to draw up splendid pictures in your mind’s eye.
Yukio Mishima (1925 – 1970; pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka) is considered one of Japan’s greatest authors. When he was 16, he got a story published in a very prestigious literary magazine, the editors of which thought him a genius already. After the war, Mishima was taken under the wing of Yasunari Kawabata. Both of them were considered for the Nobel Prize of 1968, but the elder Kawabata received it. Mishima wrote 34 novels in total, and committed ritual suicide after a failed coup attempt.
This book is the first of four novels that make up the “Sea of Fertility” cycle, which were the last four books written by Mishima before his suicide. I have read them all, and will give a final verdict when I post the last one. In the meantime, you can get this one from amazon and judge for yourself.
Day by day, I’m getting more and more used to my new house and the neighborhood. Since the move, I’ve had to adjust a few of my routines – and I don’t mean the new ones involving Pumpkin. As weird as it may sound – after all, I moved less than 5 km – but life does feel different here.
First, it’s so much more quiet, but in a neighborhood without through traffic, this is to be expected. Now I’m enjoying the quiet after dark, and I even go to bed relatively early these days. Of course, it’s still very cold, so there’s that; I’ll probably return to my night-owl ways once my house isn’t freezing cold in the nights anymore.
Second, I now know my mail man! He usually comes at around 10:30 every day, so it’s easy to stop him on the way. Since there is still the old nameplate at the door (I’m working on it…) I had to explain the new resident situation again. I’m not receiving any mail for my company, which will be a problem once tax season arrives… Anyway, I never received much mail, and there are far fewer ads coming (mostly for food and takeout), so he’s passing me by most of the days. Dear friends: Send more letters!
Third, I needed to get used to a new garbage disposal schedule. Garbage days are the same as before, but in the old apartment, I could bring my garbage down to the collection whenever I wanted, and the management would put it out on the appropriate days.
Now I have to do this myself on the very day (and not the evening before), and what’s worse: The collection is quite early in the morning. Twice already, I watched the garbage truck pass by, bags in hand… As long as it’s winter, that’s not a big deal, I’ll just store the bags another week. But in summer that is not advisable. We’ll see how the early rising will go then.
So yes, lots of new routines. Who would have thought…
Seriously: I have won the Nengajo Lottery. Every December, Japanese people send millions of nengajo New Year cards, which are delivered early in the morning on New Year’s Day. Each and every one of these cards has a 6-digit lottery number, and on January 16, you can find out if you’ve won anything.
First prize (6 correct numbers; one out of a million cards; 1,916 winners max) are 300,000 yen in cash (or 310,000 for online shopping or 200,000 yen plus a set of 2021 stamps.)
Second prize (4 correct numbers; one out of 10,000 cards; 191,660 winners max) are a number of choices from food to household articles. I’m not sure what they are worth, but I guess several thousand yen each.
Third prize (3×2 correct numbers; three out of 100 cards; 57,498,015 winners max) are these two cute stamps with tigers. They are meant to send one letter and one postcard within Japan, but I’m wondering how many winners actually use them.
It’s really cold in Kyoto right now. I’m sleeping with two sweaters and woollen socks because I feel chilled even underneath my thick woollen duvet with extra blanket on top. The house is so much colder than the old apartment; today I woke up to 4 degrees.
Also, it’s snowing again. In all my years in Kyoto, it has never snowed so often and so much as this winter. Of course, I still love the snow, but the novelty wears off quite quickly to be honest. It snowed all afternoon yesterday and all through the night, and it’s still snowing right now. This is my garden this morning at 8:30 am.
Pumpkin is not amused about the temperatures. He loves watching the birds outside, and I think he understands that they are freezing even more than he does. Right now he sits on my lap, purring, happily keeping me from work. I’ll have to relocate him soon…
One thing you’ll find out very quickly when you have to move is: You have a lot of stuff. Possibly even way too much. My personal “way too much” is paper. Not paperwork or books, I don’t even dare mention these. I’m talking about plain, white, as yet unused paper.
This is all the paper I brought with me on my move: notebooks and booklets of all sizes. Large notepaper left over from my uni days, bound and unbound. Small loose sheets for taking notes by the phone. Tiny scratch pads for jutting down ideas on the move. One ream of printer paper for the office and another stack twice as high of old, one-sided printouts that can be reused. Just like the big old envelopes I have cut up for this purpose. There is also a collection of cardboard in all sizes, to reuse in art projects.
What is not there are my post-it notes in multiple colours and sizes (of course) and my collection of postcards and writing paper and corresponding envelopes. They form their own special mount doom upstairs.
Altogether, this was two moving boxes full of paper. With nothing written on it because partially used notebooks are elsewhere yet.
Today, I wanted to write about something completely different. But then, weather happened… It has snowed several days this winter already, which is quite unusual for Kyoto. Here’s Saginomori Jinja in the snow from last Friday. The snow has gone from the streets now, but it’s still pretty cold. Pumpkin does not approve and neither do I…
One important thing to do when moving to a new neighbourhood – especially one that is purely residential, like mine – is to go and meet the neighbours. This is formally called “go-aisatsu”. When making this self-introduction, you’re expected to bring a small gift and express your hopes for a good neighbourly relationship.
Ideally, this is done as soon as you move in. In my case, there were several possible times to do my go-aisatsu: Just before the renovations started, the contractor informed the neighbours of the plans, and it would have been possible to come with him. And then, there was the weekend after the move. In the end, I opted to do it after the office renovations were completed. This way, I could introduce myself and at the same time promise that there would be no more noise in the foreseeable future
Thankfully, the neighbourhood to which you have to present yourself is pretty limited. The Japanese term is muko sangen, ryo donari – three opposite and two next door. I met families with kids and retirees. And some of them even speak (some) English. Yes, it will be a good life here.
One of the reasons for my move was that I wanted a cat. And by a weird coincidence, I already owned a cat before I had packed a single box…
Meet Pumpkin. He is 11 years old, a distinguished gentleman in his best years. He moved in with me the week before Christmas, and we’re trying to make this relationship work. For now, it feels like having a secret lover in the office: There’s cuddles and kisses all night long, but during the day he goes “who are you – have we met?”
The following things I found out about him very quickly:
He loves heights and looking down on things. So, I bought a cat tree within a week of him moving in.
He is super curious. Every room, every oshiire storage, every box needs to be thoroughly inspected. Preferably daily.
He is adventurous too. The other day I made the mistake of letting him onto the balcony without watching him closely. He promptly made his way onto the roof on the first floor to explore, causing me a mild panic attack. He now demands to be let out daily for further adventures.
He loves kitty grass more than cat nip.
He also loves textures and enjoys chewing on bubble wrap and carton. His current favourite is a piece of wool. Thankfully, he spits it all out again.
He also likes to be in the same room with me, but to be fair, I’m kinda forcing him to. While he can roam most of the house quite freely, the house is freezing, and it’s only warm with me. We are slowly making progress, though, and I’m sure there’s more to find out about him. I hope I can give him a nice place to live in his final years.
And he deserves it. Before he became my Pumpkin, he lived under an alias with another family. In October, however, he was kicked out unexpectedly and for no good reason (they kept the other cat) and he needed a new place overnight. Through the Tamayuran, he ended up with a friend of mine, but she couldn’t keep him for good. So, in October already, I agreed to take him in – I always wanted an older cat – and he moved in with me as soon as the renovations were finished, and the house got quiet again.
That’s Pumpkin’s story so far. As I said, I’m sure there’s more to tell about him, but I’ll try not to make this into a kitty blog. You may see more pictures of him in the future, though. For now, I’m happy to say that he makes me laugh every day.
