me, myself and I

The other day I left K at home with J during her afternoon nap and hit the shops to get some baby presents for 2 gorgeous little girls that friends had last month and last week. I remembered that around this time last year, I was in my "I never get any time for me" mood, feeling all sorry for myself, and getting pissed off with J for not understanding why I needed time off on my own, away from K, I needed to feel that I was more than just a boob to hang off, more than just a mum!! On our trip home at Xmas, mum looked after K lots of times so I got to go out with friends and go to the movies etc etc which was sooooo great. And earlier last month, J looked after K one Sunday afternoon while I went out to a movie and izakaya with a good friend. etc etc

So it wasn't the first time that I had been out without K. But perhaps it was one of the first times that I had been out and about BY MY SELF. ALL ALONE. JUST ME. NO ONE ELSE TO THINK ABOUT. NO ONE ELSE TO TALK TO.

ME, MYSELF AND I for the first time in a very long time.

I felt awkward, fidgety, lonely. Sitting at the train station waiting for the train, I wished that K was with me so I could at least be talking to her, telling her about the kids playing in the park beside the train station or whatever.
Huh, wierd, hey.

For so long I wanted my own time, and yet already I am lost without my little side-kick for even a few hours. I wondered how my mum did it, before dad retired, being home all day by herself, going out shopping by herself. She must have been lonely too. I can't wait until K is a few years older, old enough to be able to go shopping with and sit down and have a snack with at a coffee shop and have a "chat" (as in, chat with kid type chat). Already she is so funny sometimes the things she says, the things that take her interest. I used to go out with my mum a lot, often a trip into the city, by bus, and later when the bus route no longer came down as far as our house, by train (30mins or so), to the mall to do shoppping. Often all we came home with was rye bread from the coles in the mall(exotic food not stocked at the local suburban coles) but I remember it was fun. I hope that I can do with same with K too.

Of course, my lonliness faded as soon as I walked into the shopping centre and realised I didn't need to race through the shop in 5 mins flat before someone lost interest and started a tanty, and I began to enjoy my random browsing. As for presents, I got a cute little 3-6month summer set for the little baby girl born last week from a UK store "N****" that I was a bit peeved about when I asked for it to be wrapped as a present and they said that I could either have it in the 200yen box or the 100yen bag. Ok, not really the price that matters but surely they could wrap it for free, like every other shop I have ever been in to in Japan does - how stingy!?!? (I payed 200yen for the gift wrapping in the box, fwiw, lol). Only got a little t-shirt for Feb's baby, it is for a Japanese couple, so I think I will have a look at Costcos when I go later this week for something a bit different for them.

Tomorrow is hanami/easter party for playgroup. I have made up about 25 "easter baskets" (out of milk cartons covered with 2 pieces of origami paper and stapled a ribbon on them as a handle) for the easter egg hunt! yay. hope it is warm.

pure gold

almost forgot the best part of our weekend away....

It seems that Shizuoka and Aichi are known for their large number of foreigners, a large proportion of whom are Brazillian. We had stopped at one place along the way and this old guy was about 10m away, yelling out something at us it seemed, but I couldn't even understand what he was saying, so I just ignored it, until it clicked:
"Buenos Dias!" (but said like Chilean Spanish without pronouncing the "s". He was saying hello, and he thought we were brazillian (I say we, because when we were in Brazil, J got stopped 2 times and asked by locals 1) the time and 2) how to get to xxx. It was quite funny.)

So with all the Brazillian residents, what else do you find, but Brazillian supermarkets! Yay. We stopped off on our way home at one, and was soooooooo excited to see the pure gold of Inca Kola.

I guess it tastes like the yellow creamin soda we have in Aus (Kirks is it) J thought it tastes like かき氷syrup. Either way, we hadn't even seen any outside of South America so we bought a couple and just had it lukewarm (because I hadn't put it in the fridge yet) with some yakisoba tonight. Just delish, bueno, bueno.

Also bought a few other bits, like some mortadella and salami, and some fruit juices (passionfruit and a cam-cam drink too) At the checkout, the lady spoke Portugese, so I very shyly muffled a "obrigada" as I thanked her and left, wondering if I should be saying obrigado or obrigada..... Made me want to start studying Latin Spanish.....(we only spent a week in Brazil, so didn't pick up any language, but after 3 months in South America, I could say a few things, like "do you have a room for 2 and how much is it?" and "2 beers, please!" You know, the important stuff.)

the rest of the camping weekend

We set up tent in the camping grounds by Hamanako Lake on Saturday afternoon, and spent a leisurely afternoon playing on the grass (K and R), going for a walk, J hunted down some asari (he got 3!!) and just relaxing. Then we went to a hotel close by for a bath, followed by a trip to find something for dinner, as we didn't bring any cooking suff with us this time. We found a huge Jusco department store with a food court, so we got to have yummy ishiyaki bibimbap (I haven't had it for AGES and was craving it, without craving the smokey yakiniku atmosphere so it worked well). Then we went back to the site, and basically all fell asleep early. It was a 90% chance of rain (haha) in the morning, so we had planned to get away early....but everyone else in the campsite beat us and we were the last to leave at about 8am. Luckily it was only spitting while we packed up. Just as we got in the car to head off, it started to come down heavy, and stayed that way all the way home, so we didn't get any sightseeing in on the way home. It was a nice little trip away though.

camping - in a tent!

We left home early Fri morn and drove to Irago penninsula in Aichi. It poured most of the morn ro we didnt hold high hopes for being able to set up camp.By lunch time it had cleared and was really warm tho. We stopped for unagi lunch near Hamanako (2500yen each) then continued on to the peninsular- it was so windy it felt like the car would tip over! Havent experienced wind like that since Patagonia where the wind was actually pushing us back 2steps for every one we took forward. despite this we still went searching for a camp site, but of course it is still out-of-season so the two possibilities were closed anyway. so we spent the night in the car at a park. We had originally thought of catching a ferry across to the Minami Chita Peninsular, but to tell you the truth, it didnt look that exciting or worth the 7500yen so we headed back to Hamanako. just been to the zoo ( which basically consisted of an hour and half temper tantrum from k- seems her 2yo teeth, molars? are coming t
hru, NOT fun) and then had take away ringer hut (sara udon) in the car as all that screaming obviously wore k out and she crashed as soon as we got back to the car). Now we have just set up tent for our "March long weekend TJKR overnight camp by Hamanako"! What a lovely day for it! I am excited!!

might even let loose and do some asari狩り

deflated

that's how I felt when I made it to the video store this afternoon, only to find out that my much anticpated return to watching GA was shattered - they only have up to the 3rd season. bummer. now what am I gonna do??? I don't really want to get hooked on another series, because it tends to take over my life (obsessive compulsive tendancies that I have, lol) but man I was looking forward to my time out with the 200yen GA rental vids tonight while J is away.

just us

natto-gohan and cheese toasties.
guess who isn't home for dinner tonight! J is away again for the week for work. And K and I are enjoying the simple things for dinner.

revelations

I just realised that it DOESN'T take me 2hours to iron 5shirts....without a dvd of Grey's Anatomy playing, I can get them done in a snappy 35mins. who would have thought?? (lol)

quiet day at home

nothing much happening. gave myself the morning off (although, I seem to do this more often than not, hmmm) and didn't do a thing until my guilt at keeping R in the house all day got to me, so we went for a walk (K in ergo again.) I actually felt a bit rejuvenated - don't they say you should work through the pain?? Having her (K, that is. R is, of course, on lead) in the ergo feels comfy, it is just afterwards that my shoulders and side/back ache. I think it is more to do with that I am having sleep issues the last week or so. Cannot get comfy at night, and seem to be waking up several times during the night for no reason. Ok, so we co-sleep, and I do feel that I am squashed up in between K and J, with no room to actually spread out.......hhhmmmmm. I think this has contributed to my body aches a lot too. (and my head is still sore from the face-plant the other day, and the bruise on my knee has doubled in size and now my knee looks like I rubbed dirt all over it and baked it in the oven for a few house so that the dirt wont come off. lucky is still too cold for mini-skirts)

yeh, so a quick morning walk with r, we stopped off at he supermarket to pick up some tomatoes and asparagus to go in our salad which is gonna be the side dish for our "ラブラブ lasagna" (recipe courtesy of gaijinwife many moons ago). we had a long nap that I partook in too, and a yuumy blueberry pound cake with cuppa for afternoon tea when we woke up (K had milk, I had the cuppa). I went all out and used my new starbucks sakura coffee mug - we have bought the sakura mugs a few times, and I really liked this year's design. the photo is pretty average though - an attempt at using my webcam to take a photo, lol


so, now just trying to work up the motivation to get the lasagna going. maybe once いないないばぁ starts I will head into the kitchen and let the the babysitter (TV) do its work.

the bloody kotatsu

had another kotatsu moment this morning.
Well, actually, I got all the way to the train station (the 10min walk away one. and this morning I had K in the ergo on my back, rather than in the stroller) when I felt a flash of dread wipe through me - did I turn off the grill??? I had been toasting bread crusts (for some reason the bread shop around the corner gives me 20slices of crust every time I buy a piddly 8-slice loaf of bread. Now, the bread there is delish, and the crusts are yummy to eat too, but now that K is no longer teething (I originally got them to make rusks) I don't have such a need for all that crust))anyway, I was going to bring the crusts with me to feed the kid to try to keep her quiet on the train (bribery in its best form) but I realised that I didn't have the crusts with me....then I wondered if that simply meant I had left them at home, OR they were burning to a crisp as I waited to cross the road to the train station. I spent a few minutes going back and forth in my head as to whether I had turned off the gas or not, but even though I was 99.9% sure I had turned it off, I couldn't shake the 0.01% chance of the whole house and surroundings burning to the ground if I had forgotten. So we ran/walked home (I am not as fit as I used to be, esp with a 12kg sack of poatoes, or close on my back). Of course the gas was off, but I thought I should just check the kotatsu while I was home, and wouldn't you know it - bloody J had left it on. I know it was him, because he is the only one that uses it in the morning. K and I usually aren't up to use it, but it seems that when we are, he assumes this means that the responsibilty to turn off the kotatsu is then passed on to me. I don't even think that leaving the kotatsu on all day would cause a problem, but I guess I also don't want to have to find that out.

In other news, I have a very bruised and battered ego (and forehead and right knee) after misjudging the baby gate in the kitchen when going in yesterday afternoon to fix tea for visiting friend E. My foot clipped the top of the baby gate as I tried to climb over it...luckily my forehead broke my fall. I must have thumped down hard because E came running over to me "are you ok" while I was all lying face down in the dead-body-on-the-road-with-chalk-round-them pose. I half wanted to cry out of shock and embarrasment, but I ended up doing a silly laugh-to-avoid-crying-thing instead. It *was* pretty funny though. But that, added to my 2往復 to the train station this morning with K on my back (after we had already taken R for her morning walk, of course with K in the ergo), and I am feeling kinda sore all over at the moment. I can hardly raise my arms above my head. Seriously considering flagging dinner tonight and getting take away or meeting J at the cheapie Chinese joint by the station for dinner. Cannot be bothered making anything. But, the rice was pre-set to cook, and I have everything I need to throw together a quick at home chinese (mabo-nasu and 八宝菜 (chicken chow mein minus the mein) so I guess I should just get to it. I will, as soon as I can drag myself up off the sofa........

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

On a bit of a spur of the moment decision, we ended up at:
(cue Wada Akiko voice)
"FUJI
Safari Pa-----ku"
on Saturday with PILs. The ad for this is one of the most annoying in the world! It totally sticks in your head,


needless to say we were all singing "honto ni, honto ni, honto ni, honto ni lion da" all day.

This is a different kind of zoo, where you lock yourselves in your car, and drive around the bears, tigers, giraffes, etc who are all out in the open. The coolest part was when a giraffe walked past our car. Man they are big fellas.It wasn't cheap (2700yen per adult, kids under 4 or 6 free to drive in your own car, an extra 1500yen each to go in the safari bus!!), but it was cool seeing the animals right up close like that. And all of K's favourite animals were there - elephants, giraffes and zebras. There was also a small patting zoo, with pigs, kangaroos and some very sad looking wallabies with their ears all eaten away, possibly by one nasty boss wallaby. We had a good day, but K has had a bit of a persistant cough for a few weeks now, and it seems to get worse when she runs around. So of course she got so excited at the petting zoo and ran all the way to the restaurant where we were gonna have lunch, so that as soon as we got into the restaurant, she coughed so much she up-chucked, everywhere. All over herself and of course me. So everyone else ordered lunch while I got her cleaned up. Then J said they would watch her while I ordered at the counter. There should have been 3 sets of eyes on her, so I still can't work out why she ended up in the men's toilets, with MIL standing at the door trying to bribe her out. Once they got her out, PIL and J were then too busy in some stupid conversation about where that door leads to, that no one was watching K. Even me at the counter ordering had an eye on her, but not them. I stuck it up them - 3 sets of eyes and not one of them on her!! Am sure I hav been labeled psycho gaijin mum now. At least it might give them a kick up the butt to be more vigilant in watching her, if only to stay out of my wrath, lol。

um-mah

guess who went to bed without any dinner tonight, after I came home to find half a loaf of bread on the floor.
I still cant believe R ate 3 and 3/4 slices of plain bread

getting there

can see the floor, possibly even eat off it - and remembered we have carpet in some places!

twilight

was so tired tonight but as soon as i got into bed I became fully awake. Am looking for something to do (no, not *that* - j is away for work this week,hehe). A friend lent me books 1&2 of the twilight series and i devoured them. read book 2 in 3 days- havent done that since bk(b4-k) i guess... although there was that nora stint last year... Anyway, I need some more vampire and werewolf action soon. hopefully i will get #3 in the series tomorrow- but HOPEFULLY that wont be until evening bcoz i dont think i should put the housework off for another day: I can barely see the floor and my undies have been worn the right-way-round, inside-out,back-to-front and reverse back-to-front! yep, my latest obsession is in full swing.