Do I need a bib?

Lunch was at a ramen shop in West Shinjuku. I stumbled upon it when I was tired of the offerings nearer to the Shin-Okubo area.

It may be spring officially in Tokyo but it’s cold and rainy this afternoon. I ordered the regular ramen with soup and rubbed my chilly hands while waiting.

One of the waiters handed me what looked like a big napkin and he gestured to his chest. Bikurishta (What a surprise)! I peered around and I was the only one given this.

I know he was being nice but it’s the kind of situation I would inwardly shake my head in bemusement. Most times, I think I blend in the crowd because of my North Asian looks, but once I speak, it’s obvious I’m not Japanese. Same for today — I am gaijin so I would be perhaps less skillful with slippery ramen and chopsticks. But I’m Chinese, for goodness sake! Or don’t I look it? We know how to use chopsticks and eat noodles without splashing it on ourselves.

The kangaroo always gets given an English menu when we eat out. I don’t think he feels offended but he can read Japanese quite alright. In fact, a bit of sad news, he beat me by eight points in the JLPT test we took last December. I overtook him in the listening and vocabulary sections though.

But after complaining about this double standard treatment, I have to admit I’ve played the foreigner card more than a few times when I get stuck in sticky situations. That’s just the reality here for gaijins.

Merging

I’m taking a punt and it’s an experiment, really. The past two weeks at work have been great — the learning curve is steep but I’m totally into it.

The reason for this title is, I’m joining my work and my personal life together. I was inspired by what Microsoft did with the making of their Vista software — they put up a blog to chart their software engineers’ progress in producing, tweaking and testing this new software. The public loved it because they could see the faces, the thought process, the challenges, and the emotions that went into making this product. Public relations companies often present corporate giants as faceless, inhuman entities that just pump out stuff for you to buy, but with Web 2.0, it’s all changing.

I’m not selling anything but being a little shameless in self-promotion. If you noticed, I put up a new sidebar section to display the links to the websites I’m working on. This blog has been used to chart my progress in Japan — sort of a travelogue and a space to talk about relocation/expat issues in my adopted country. But a big part of my journey has been about developing my career as a writer and I want to start blogging more about this.

Last year was full of stops and starts but now it’s taking off in a much more serious way. I was trying to continue my work in print journalism but found it too hard and the rewards pittance. The option to work with the kangaroo wasn’t an easy decision but it’s turning out to be just fine. Maybe I’ll even blog about tips on how to work well with your domestic partner. A lot of people ask me, “Don’t you just hate talking about work all the time?” Actually, not really. I like it that we have a common interest. The kangaroo is such a workaholic, he’ll talk about his work 24/7 anyway.

Going back to my experiment: why am I putting up links to my work websites? Social media. As mentioned, public relations and advertising just cannot ignore the possibilities of marketing campaigns on social media networks. A lot of successful webmasters, small business owners and the self-employed infuse their work with their personalities. So here I am, representing myself.

Watch this space, folks.

Our new digs

This was taken during the viewing. Love the bit of greenery in the terrace.



There’s a fair bit of space though it’s not so obvious from this angle.



We spent a couple of weekends just fixing up the apartment. I’ve always been a big Ikea fan but it’s in Chiba, an hour and a half’s hike from central Tokyo, so I made do with Muji, Tokyo Hands and Daiso.



View from the bedroom… Sorry I don’t have pictures of our sleeping area. I think it was fairly empty at the time, with only the sofa bed standing against the wall. I wanted to take a photo of the room with the futon laid out but I forgot…



I made Thai green curry and tom yum kung soup as our first dinner in our new pad.

I’m just slowly adding new touches to the apartment. I’m eyeing a small coffee table from Muji but I have to wait for the kangaroo to have a free moment because I don’t think I could carry it home myself.

One other quirk about our new place is our living room area is in our bedroom because there’s just so much space. The study, the kitchen and soon-to-be dining area are on the other side, which is smaller. If we have a guest sleeping over, we would have to move the sofa bed into the study-cum-kitchen. Bizarre, but it works.

I’m a domestic goddess

Okay, I didn’t lose my wallet — I found it in the office. Amazing how a few glasses of wine could bring out the drama queen in me.

The weekend was busy with setting up house. We received the microwave, rice cooker and a myriad of kitchen utensils from this Canadian girl, Jennifer, who is moving back to her home country. She obviously has quirky, colourful taste and she sold us so many cute items.

The kangaroo is really getting into the lime green and red theme. Our new lights are shiny red shades with lime green bulbs. Sounds loud but the green light bulbs are really warm, orange lights when you turn them on. We’ve set our eyes on these cool lime coloured curtains from Tokyo Hands too.

We sort of have a dirty laundry crisis — our second hand front loader is a complete dud. The kangaroo took out his toolkit, put on his headlight and rubber shoes to work on it last night but after two hours of tinkering, he declared it officially dead.

So, we’re getting a top loader but no dryer (still partially keeping to the environmental attitude) possibly from Muji this weekend.

In the meantime, we’re going back to the old apartment to get our laundry done. We still have it under the kangaroo’s name till this Sunday even though we’ve moved out — there was a bit of overlap but we’re not paying rent in March for the new digs which worked out just fine for us.

On another note, with a bigger kitchen, I’ve been cooking up a storm. Tonight’s dinner is going to be Szechuan tofu with minced meat, grilled chicken wings and steamed asparagus.

I lost my wallet

I try to be careful but this side of me gets to me at the worst of times.

I don't know where it went. Maybe it's in the office or maybe in mos burger or along the streets Shinguku but it's not at home.

I couldn't pay for dinner. I feel awful.

New home update

I love my new home. Perhaps it would seem a bit ordinary to others but this is by far the nicest pad we’ve ever lived in. I couldn’t believe the dodgy places I used to call my own place but for a while we’ve got our own little slice of heaven.

Cooking, cleaning, buying things for the house are such a newfound joy. The increase in space has improved my peace of mind more than I could’ve imagined. I will probably hole up in our apartment willingly in future. No more feeling cramped and stressed!

The kangaroo had a conference call this morning at 6am but I was hardly disturbed because we have sliding doors that separate the living room and bedroom. As the light morning drizzle fell, I snoozed deeply and didn’t even notice when the kangaroo climbed back into the futon.

I’ve been whipping up my quick 10-min dishes (okay, I’m exaggerating, what cooks in 10 min without coming completely from a packet?) and they seem even easier with a three-pan stove, a grill and a toaster.

The only slight blip is I can’t seem to get along with the washing machine. The kangaroo seems to know how to work it well but I tend to overload it or press the wrong buttons. I was running terribly late this morning because I was fiddling around with it. We got a front-loader because the kangaroo is a firm environmentalist though he’s really a capitalist at heart.

The vigorous spinning apparently wicks off dirt and water much faster so it saves more energy and water than a top loader. I just read from a few websites that front-loaders require special detergent — non-sudsy, efficient soap — to work well. The spin motion, which is designed to mechanically whack the dirt out, is interfered by the suds by “softening” the impact and your clothes don’t get a good wash. Tide is recommended as a good efficient detergent. Guess what I’m buying at the supermarket this weekend…?

Alright, housewifey, auntie overload here. Time for lunch, I reckon.

A new identity

I realised that this summary doesn’t fit me anymore:

A freelance journalist from the Lion City, aka Singapore, who lives in a shoebox with a 6 ft 3 kangaroo, shares her adventures in Tokyo, her new home.

If you take a look to the right, I’ve written a new one. Inspiration hasn’t hit me yet but that will do for now.

I’m no longer freelance, though I could do adhoc assignments if any came my way, and I'm not quite a journo anymore. I’ve become a web freak. We’re also not in a shoebox anymore. As the kangaroo put it last Thursday night between bites of his alfredo chicken from a plate on his lap, “We’ll be living like humans again.” I chortled with joy whilst digging into mine from the floor.

I planned to make our home red, white and black with a splash of green. It’s not quite working out the way I thought — not in a bad way at all — because we’ve got many colours going on in our new home at the moment as we both contribute to our new pad. We’ve got a yellow iron, red swivel chairs, white desks, brown shelves, green, yellow and brown towels, a nude striped duvet… I give up on keeping to a particular scheme. Maybe that’s us for now. Just colourful folks.

Hazukashi

That means "to feel embarrassed" in Japanese.

Yesterday, the Japanese salaryman colleague I have was very excited about the kangaroo's return to Tokyo. He was discussing with our other colleague at length about impending meetings with clients in the coming week.

He also asked me a few times what time the kangaroo will touch down and go to the office. Also, he wondered what time I will be coming in today, "You will be with Kangaroo-san tomorrow morning?" I felt a wee bit embarrassed — did he think we'd be shagging during office hours?!

I am here, in the office, with no special "schedule". Let's say I work in a different company, I couldn't be late just because my boyfriend returned from a business trip. Anyway, I'll see him at home later.

I have thought about how to behave in the office — no "honey", "baby", or other cute endearments. He will just be "Kangaroo-san". And we don't have to eat lunch together.

Signing across two pieces of paper

Yes, you read that right. I must've signed 20 pages of rental contracts today. From fire insurance to the apartment management documents to a slip on moving in a piano if I so ever wish to (I could have a piano, not any other instrument, by the way).

The reason why the Japanese make you sign your signature across two pages of the contract is to prove that the two pages are indeed together and authentic and that you've read them and understood it all.

It just brings to mind yet again how prepared the Japanese like to be. Why? So when the actual thing happens, the execution is flawless.

And I have to admit, I am experiencing this perfectionism. Our broadband Internet has already been installed and is part of the rent. The water/gas/electricity peeps are being arranged by invisible others and the keys will be hopefully ready a day before the agreed date, and usually when they say "try", it usually happens. Let's wait and see.

This situation speaks volumes about why I love and hate Japan. You can trust that things will go very smoothly once they are in place, but to get there, it's such a friggin pain in the arse.

Will post pictures of our new home once it looks decent.