Secret Spring: Hanegi Park

Tokyo never ceases to surprise me. A short wander down the Inokashira Line, I came across Hanegi Park. Don't let the baseball field fool you, this park is home to a truly charming bairin (plum tree orchard) with around 650 trees fetchingly grouped together.

Unfortunately I showed up about 2 weeks past their peak so couldn't get the full effect. But ume are much hardier than their delicate sakura cousins, so there were still enough blooms to make for a nice afternoon walk.

The floor is no longer a freezing shock in the morning, and there is some light when I emerge from the office in the evening... Persephone is indeed on her way!

Black Suits and Coffee: 就活と希望

It is that time of year again. I see them in their shiny black suits, sensible shoes and faces white with tiredness and anxiety. The job hunting season commences, and I watch young students still unused to the brace of a suit as they file through my office, write resumes madly at coffee shops and stare out of trains, glazed over by the repetition of answers to the same 10 interview questions.

Not to mention the questions trey pose themselves.

Will I be okay?
Will anyone hire me?
Do I actually want to do this?
But my parents say...
But my friends say...
What will I do with my life?

I see them and just want to go over, give them a big hug and tell them:

You will be okay.
Don't take a job just because the company is famous or your parents tell you to.
Don't forget who you are, in the process of streamlining yourself for bored HR interviewers.
Life is long, and your first job will mainly teach you what you do and don't like.
Your value as a human being is not linked to your paycheck.
You are fine just the way you are.
Don't trust anyone who says 'you will be lucky to work here'.
Don't trust companies that won't pay you benefits.
Take a deep breath, you can do this.
The company won't take care of you, YOU take care of yourself.

You will change and grow and make mistakes.  Right now it all seems to loom so large, your whole future decided by a few sheets of paper and luck. But try not to worry. One day you will stand as I do now, hopefully in a slightly kinder world, and tell someone else the same thing.

大丈夫よ、自分のままで。

Vegan in Tokyo: A Helpful List

It seems that with age I am getting increasingly snarky about the morality of eating animal products.While I am by no means 100% vegan yet, I have definitely tried to severely reduce the amount of milk products and eggs I eat.

Since I know many others have similar moral (or health) concerns, I started listing some of my favourite haunts across the city, where you can get cruelty free tastiness!

Lets start in Roppongi, of all places. A short stroll from Mori Tower you will find Chien Fu (which also has a sister restaurant in Kunitachi). They specialize in Taiwanese style vegan food, with the fake meat the country is so famous for. The sweet and sour 'pork' is a major favorite, and their huge teishoku sets are all around 900yen. You can buy bags and cans of fake meat, vegan ramen and tofu mayonnaise on your way out too!

Next up is Kagetsu, a major ramen chain. During the spring they have vegan ramen, gyoza and fried rice. Cheap and cheerful. 

(NB. This is the last year they will be serving it, although you can buy the gyoza and ramen from their online store!)

(I ❤ gyoza, can you tell?)

While not a restaurant, the health food store Natural House, which has branches across the city, usually has several choices of macrobiotic bento. They are a bit on the pricy side, but allow you to have the traditional bento experience minus the meat and fish. My favorite is the 'meat' stew Nagomi set.

A hidden gem, if you so happen to be between Azabujuban and Shirokanedai station, is King Falafel. This used to be a twice monthly treat, when I worked in the area. The owner is lovely, and the full sized sandwich is a serious meal, with freshly fried falafel. Serious yum, but only two little chairs outside for seating.

On the same lines, Shamaim near Nerima is a bit of a hike from central Tokyo (unless you live there, of course), but has a fabulous falafel set and hummus set.

For something with a more American flavor, Good Honest Grub (housed in what appears to have been a normal house, between Shibuya and Ebisu) has an excellent Mexican bean wrap and smoothies. 

I have already written extensively about Eat More Greens (near Azabujuban Station) here, where the menu changes with the seasons (and has the most amazing Valhrona chocolate vegan doughnuts).The same goes for Deva Deva in Kichijoji (info here). Both T's Kitchen and T's Tantanmen are fabulous, with the first being one of my go-to lunch places when I lived on the Toyoko line.

There are several more places I wish to go, and there are definitely some that have slipped my mind at the moment.

Any recommendations? I would love to hear from other veggies in Tokyo!

Tokyo Marathon 2015: Expectations and Reality

So, I finished the Tokyo Marathon... and am now dealing with the disappointment that came with it.

I started off really well. It felt like flying, going at a good pace with steady breath, steady heart rate and powerful legs... except for a twinge in the left knee.

Right after saying hello to my wonderful friends who came to cheer, I started feeling real pain. I tried different ways to stretch it out, and kept on going until the 23km mark, where suddenly my knee locked and I couldn't bend or land on it. I burst into tears of sheer sadness and disappointment. Had the knee not given out, I am pretty sure this would have been my fastest race yet. I had trained very hard, gone to the sports therapist to get my muscles and tendons properly stretched... all for nothing.

I hobbled over to the AED tent, and the kind volunteers stretched me out and taped up my knee. Hoping for the best I started running again. For about 5 steps. Nope. This was not happening. No can do. More tears and general despair.

And this is the interesting part. Until not too long ago I would have given up, since I obviously couldn't reach the 'perfect run' image jealously guarded in my mind. But instead I took a few breaths and re-framed the whole situation.
Okay, so a sub-5 hour marathon is out of the question. What CAN I do?

Oddly enough, walking wasn't all that painful, as long as I kept my knee from bending. Good. So the new goal is to finish the darn race and not get swept  (loaded into a bus that takes you to the end point because you are too slow to finish in the set time). I picked myself up and power-hobbled my way to the end, trying not to be too sad or jealous when my friends passed me (since its not their fault, for crying out loud). I ended up finishing in just under 6 hours, which is not bad for a hobble pace.

While I am proud of myself for finishing and not giving up when my 'ideal' was stripped away, some ambivalence remains. There is medal on my bedside table, and I am not sure I deserved it. I can't help but think 'what if the day had been warmer' (as the doctor said the long wait in the cold might have precipitated it) or 'maybe if I had just stretched it out a bit more'... ugh, annoying.

Cultural Fatigue: aka 'Eugh, not this again!'

Yesterday I was scrolling through Tumblr (small life tip: if you haven't got a Tumblr account, don't get one. It is intensively addictive!) when I came across a reference to cultural fatigue (http://www.vagabondjourney.com/what-is-cultural-fatigue/). 

While the author is talking about a very different situation (being constantly overcharged in South America) the whole 'feeling' is so very familiar.

As much as one can enjoy living in a different country, it can get exhausting. Japan may be easier than South America in many aspects, but it still finds ways to make you want to scream.

I spend almost all of my waking hours speaking in Japanese. I like my job, for the most part, but the thickly layered bureaucracy is a slog. Having to speak and write in keigo is exhausting. Not always understanding 100% of things said or jokes can be a bit alienated. Getting spoken to in boo-boo English from shopkeepers. People assuming I am an English teacher or don't know much about Japan.

It is not the end of the world, but these little things do add up. I can't run away from it, so how is one to deal with these feelings of 'doneness' and annoyance?

Well, I have a few ideas of my own, and would love to hear about others:

1- Give Yourself a Break

Spending most of your day in a foreign culture is mentally draining, so give your grey cells a break. Watch shows or read in your native language. Listen to comedians you like. Just space out for a while. Find quiet time to let your mind go blank.

2- Sweat it Out

Cultural fatigue also seems to turn into muscular tension. Get rid of that frustation through exercise. I find that running is a great way to combine idea 1 and 2.

3- Let It Go (Let it go~🎵)

There is a wonderful Buddhist saying: let go or be dragged. At a certain point you just have to let go of some of these annoyances. Making fun of them (to myself or with an understanding friend) helps me make the recurring annoyances small enough to brush off.

4- Enjoy the Good

While there are downsides to living in a different culture, there are (usually) also lots of good points which are worth remembering and celebrating. For instance, I enjoy celebrating traditional Japanese holidays in a small way (like eating ehomaki for Setsubun, or going to a shrine on New Years). I love that I can run safely even after dark. I love that tofu is dirt cheap. I love the beautiful places one can get to by train. I adore not having to drive or own a car. Making a little mental list of the things you enjoy can perk you up.

5- Eat Your Own Food

No matter how delicious Japanese cuisine can be, sometimes you just need a taste of home, whatever that might be. Super cheap Kraft macaroni and cheese, a plate of lasagna, hummus loaded with tahini... whatever it is, keep a secret stock for when you need it.

I am now going to take my own advice, have a bowl of pasta e ceci and watch terrible trash tv online. 

Of Snow, Running and Learning

I hope everyone had a lovely New Year! I spent just under 24 hours in Nagano with Matcha-kun and his family. They seem to have gotten much more used to me, to the point that I actually stayed with him in his grandmother's warm little house (in the same room too, scandalous!).

We did hatsumode at Zenkouji Temple, which was beautifully covered in snow, and bought some omikuji and a blessed arrow (which is supposed to keep bad things out of the house). After a cup of coffee and some apple cake, we jumped back on the shinkansen to Tokyo.

My vacation was very short (ah, the joy of IT and travel-related businesses), but it was lovely to have 4 days away from the computer. 

 

With Tokyo Marathon coming up (yup, I got a spot!), my weekends are filled with running increasingly ridiculously long distances. Fortunately, thanks to recently finding a lovely long park, 20 km just fly by!

Of course, this means that my time with Matcha-kun is more limited than usual... but we both know it is only a temporary thing. 

It is interesting how since moving in together, our interests have started to interweave more. He has started swimming again (influenced by my running obsession) and I have taken to reading more about history and political affairs (his field of expertise). And we both have gotten into Downton Abbey!

Never stop learning, that's the trick (*^^*)

良いお年を！ Happy New Year!

I love Tokyo during the New Years season. Over a course of days the city slowly assumes an emptiness, with only 3 or 4 people in the space I am usually used to seeing 20. The trains, usually a scene of discreet shoving and lines of people wrapped in thick coats and thicker perfume, today dwindled down to just me. An entire train car to myself, as I make my way to work through the quiet shuttered streets.

At night I can hear the high clap of the wooden blocks, the same sound that announces the start of a kabuki play, as the local volunteers warn the shoutengai inhabitants to watch out for fire. A sound from a different era, which lulls me to sleep, giving a sense of safety and balance to the unusual quiet.

2014 was an odd year, punctuated with a series of highs and lows reminiscent of a jagged heartbeat. Ending on a high is certainly a great blessing, as are all the lessons I learned on the way. Here is hoping for a happy 2015, with more adventures, joys and tranquility.

(And, ladies and gentlemen, if you happen to pass a homeless individual today, be kind and buy them a ticket for a bowl of warm soba, to start the New Year right. I haven't seen the cheery lady I sometimes chat with in front of the station in a couple of weeks, and am worried about her...)