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Free download of Kindle ebook! March25rd-29th ‘My Naked Spa in Japan by Hidemi Woods’

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My Naked Spa in Japan by Hidemi Woods

A Slipper Battle

About ten months ago, a middle-aged woman complained to me about my slippers at the communal spa of my apartment building. She wanted me to take them off and stay barefoot in the locker room because everyone except for me was barefooted there as a custom.

I refused as being barefoot wasn’t an official rule and I felt much more comfortable and more hygienic with slippers on. I was kind enough to explain to her that wearing slippers was more hygienic on the public floor than barefoot. It’s totally logical, but she didn’t accept anyway because her point was to keep up the custom.

I’ve kept wearing my slippers in the locker room everyday to this day even though sometimes there were other middle-aged women who grumbled to me or darted an angry look at me. Three months after I got the first complaint, I saw a woman wearing slippers in the locker room and I was no longer the only one that wasn’t barefooted. Then, since last month, a mother and her child have been wearing slippers. As I predicted, people began to imitate me and adopt my way.

And the other day, this slipper battle developed a new twist. I entered the locker room with my slippers on as usual, and there was a woman who had gotten out of the spa and been putting on her clothes. She was putting on her socks when I walked past her. Thinking I found the third example of non-barefoot, I said hello to her with a smile as I usually did. She turned to me and our eyes met. I was astounded. It was none other than that middle-aged woman who told me to be barefoot here ten months ago. She herself was wearing socks! She looked startled to see me and her face got filled with embarrassment at once. She returned hello to me in a faint voice. She lost her battle.

Slowly but steadily, a wrong custom such as nothing should change is disappearing. I was shown a proof that to keep doing the right thing can change the world in a better way. For me, though, it’s an extremely trivial thing like wearing slippers…

 

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” My Naked Spa in Japan / Hidemi Woods”

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Free download of Kindle ebook! October23rd-27th ‘Autumn Diary of Singer-songwriter in Japan by Hidemi Woods’

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Nearly four months have passed since I moved in my new apartment. While I’m still unpacking countless cardboard boxes, I’d been working for handmade soundproof walls in my bedroom/studio that borders on the neighboring apartment with my partner’s help. Since I overestimated reinforced concrete of which my apartment building was made, my life in a quiet environment solely depends on our handmade walls of flattened cardboard boxes, soundproof polyurethane and soundproof vinyl sheets.

 　　We’ve finished the whole four walls and the floor. To my disappointment, our soundproofing couldn’t resolve the clanging noise that came from some pipe. The source is still unknown but it’s a weekly thing that wakes me up every Thursday. Also the footsteps and other noises form the room above easily disturb my sleep. And a new comer has arrived. A flush noise in a drainpipe has begun to be heard since mid-August. Those seem to come from the ceiling of my room that is a weak spot for handmade soundproofing. Now I have to resort to the last measure.

 　　Putting my bed into a big container made of many drapes and boards and sleeping in it, which I used to do in my old apartment before I moved out. It’s like Dracula sleeping in a little larger coffin. Although to sleep in a quiet room out of that coffin-like thing was one of my main purposes of moving in here, I’m about to end up being no better than before. All my enormous amount of effort and time to move didn’t pay to get a quiet life. It’s so hard to secure a good night’s sleep…

Autumn Diary of Singer-songwriter in Japan by Hidemi Woods

Free download of Kindle ebook! July30th-August3rd ‘Living with Giver and Taker in Kyoto, Japan by Hidemi Woods’

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When my younger sister had learned Japanese dancing for a couple of years, my mother decided to get her on a local TV talent show. Unlike me, my sister was always my mother’s pride for her prettiness.
　To be on the show, there was an audition in a city, about 20 miles away from our home. My father was going to drive them there. I assumed they would go with just three of them, leaving me behind as usual. For this particular occasion though, I felt rather happy not to join them because I had borne a grudge against Japanese dancing since my mother let my sister take lessons not me. But my mother had the nerve to demand me to come with them to the audition, saying that it was a huge event for my sister and I should show support for her.
　I got in the car, not for her audition but for a possibility to eat out at a restaurant on our way back, which we hardly did and the three of them might do without me. My mother was never punctual and we were already late by the time we left home. From then, things were just like the movie, ‘Little Miss Sunshine’. When we got there, the registration was closing and the judges were leaving. My mother desperately begged for the audition. They reluctantly allowed it with the obvious intention of making it finish quickly. After my sister danced for a few seconds, they stopped the music and said thank-you. I kept asking my mother if it meant she passed or not while my sister gloomily undressed.
　When my mother admitted my sister failed, I felt over the moon. I thought justice had been served. I was in an utterly good mood and was saying, “Let’s eat out! Which restaurant shall we go?” all the way in the dismal car. My parents and my sister were too depressed to respond to me and we ended up going straight home. I couldn’t get to eat out after all…

Living with Giver and Taker in Kyoto, Japan by Hidemi Woods

Free download of Kindle ebook! July2nd~6th “Diary of The Hottest Summer in Tokyo by Hidemi Woods”

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Diary of The Hottest Summer in Tokyo / Hidemi Woods

There is no formal casino in Japan. Instead, there are innumerable pachinko parlors all over Japan. A pachinko is a very popular Japanese gambling game that is partly like pinball and partly like slot. They buy small silver balls to play with, and the machine brings out the balls if they win. They exchange the balls for money or items like cigarettes and chocolates. For some reason, it’s not allowed to exchange directly for money. They get a certain strange item with their balls once, and exchange it for money at a small dark hut behind the building. A pachinko parlor is sort of a mix of a casino and a game arcade. It has a large number of pachinko machines side by side in aisles and exists around almost everywhere people live.Sadly, it doesn’t make people a millionaire. By playing all day, they win a few hundred dollars at most. As for me, I’ve never played a pachinko in my life. My life itself is awfully like gambling and I’m bogged down with it completely…

Diary of The Hottest Summer in Tokyo: My Apartment Hunting, New Song and Costco / Hidemi Woods

Free download of Kindle ebook! Mar25th-29th, ”Dreaming Japanese Girl and Reality in Kyoto / Hidemi Woods”

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Dreaming Japanese Girl and Reality in Kyoto / Hidemi Woods

There’s an old Japanese custom called ‘Age of Thirteen Visit’. A child who reaches thirteen years old by the traditional system of age reckoning visits a specific local shrine to receive wisdom.
The important event has one critical rule. The thirteen-year-old visitor should never look back until they pass through the shrine’s gate after the visit. If it happens, wisdom they’ve just gotten is returned. Every time a topic of the visit was brought up by some chance in my childhood, my mother would strictly instruct me not to look back when my visit came. It had become a repeated threat for me. After those years, I reached eleven years old, which is thirteen by the traditional system, and the day for the visit arrived.
I was so tensed and nervous because of years of my mother’s threat. I got dressed up with kimono and my mother put a wig on my hair to make me look grown-up. While I was greedy enough to look forward to getting wisdom, I was anxious about looking back as much. From the moment we left home, my mother kept reminding me not to look back at the shrine. As the pressure had accumulated, a sense of panic had been built inside me. By the time we prayed at the altar in the shrine and started leaving, I was panicky. On the spot about only several yards to the exit gate, I couldn’t stop myself and looked over my shoulder.　I blundered away my once-in-a-lifetime visit. My mother made sure I didn’t look back when we passed the gate. I lied and said no.
On our way home, we dropped by my aunt’s house. She noticed that I was wearing a wig. But when she pointed it out, my mother instantly denied it. I didn’t understand why she had to lie about such a small thing like a wig, but she just insisted it was my real hair. My aunt slipped beside me when we were about to leave and asked me if it was a wig. Although I said yes indifferently, she triumphantly uttered, “I knew it!” She sounded as if she had beaten me and I felt annoyed. I hated my mother’s totally unnecessary lie. And as for me, I went through a terrible teenage life with my own trifling lies. I believe that was because I had returned wisdom at the shrine on my Age of Thirteen Visit…

Free download of Kindle ebook! Mar25th-29th, ”Dreaming Japanese Girl and Reality in Kyoto / Hidemi Woods”

Free download of Kindle ebook! Mar18th-22nd, ”The Japanese Girl and Last Homecoming in Kyoto / Hidemi Woods”

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The Japanese Girl and Last Homecoming in Kyoto /Hidemi Woods

The cab was running through my familiar neighborhood where I spent my entire childhood. It was still shabby as it used to be. The cab drove through old houses of my childhood friends where I used to play with them, and under the overhead train bridge where I ran into perverts so many times. From the car window, I saw the elementary school I went to, and the sidewalk on which my first song came to me while I was walking. The bookstore where my father bought me my first English dictionary and also where he spotted his missing cousin. A place where a milk factory used to be that I waved to its plastic cows beside the gate every time I passed by in my father’s car. The old temple where my late grandparents used to take me and let me feed doves.
Then something struck me and I suddenly realized. It wasn’t just the house I was losing. I was losing my hometown and departing from my childhood. I would never be in this neighborhood again because it was going to be an unrelated, foreign place from now on. Although I had always hated my neighborhood, that thought brought a lump to my throat and soon I found myself crying. I was stunned and overwhelmed by this unexpected feeling. If I hadn’t been inside a cab, I would have wailed.
The cab came near Kyoto Station that was my destination. My late grandfather often took me to this area around the station that used to be undeveloped, decayed and in the miserable condition. But now, after years of intense redevelopment, it has become an urban area with numerous modern buildings of hotels, fashionable shops and huge shopping malls. It was a completely new different place and I found no trace of what I was familiar with the area. The cab stopped at the signal close to the station and there stood a new movie complex by the street. I casually wondered if it showed ‘Tomorrowland’. Then I felt I was actually stepping into it.
Things and places I had been with were all disappearing and a place I had never seen before appeared in front of me. I saw a change more clearly than ever. I was leaving everything old behind and going into a new world. The world I’m walking into is unknown, but therefore there are full of possibilities…

Free download of Kindle ebook! Mar18th-22nd, ”The Japanese Girl and Last Homecoming in Kyoto / Hidemi Woods”

Free download of Kindle ebook! Mar4th-8th, ”Earthquakes, Nuclear Meltdown and Tokyo / Hidemi Woods”

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Earthquakes, Nuclear Meltdown and Tokyo / Hidemi Woods

Japan experienced the biggest earthquake in its history. When it occurred, I was in the room upstairs of my apartment. At first, I felt faint quivers and went downstairs just in case it grew stronger and I needed to escape outside. As soon as I reached the foot of the stairs, it showed its main force.
The building began to shake violently and I held the LCD monitor with my right hand and the toaster with my left hand without thinking. The shaking got even stronger and it was hard to stay standing. As a native of Japan, I was supposed to be accustomed to an earthquake since we have one quite regularly. Nevertheless, this scale was surreal. The room swung right and left fiercely and it lasted long. Two heavy pots on the top of the toaster went flying along with jugs and thermoses, as the toaster I was holding with all my strength kept moving madly.
Even things upstairs were tumbling down the stairs. Until the shake finally stopped, I was vaguely thinking Tokyo was being destroyed completely. While I was still in shock trying to comprehend what had just happened, a strong aftershock came. It was as big as the first one. This time, the big tall shelves fell down throwing everything on them to the floor. I had never been so scared in my life. I was actually crying during the shake, shouting “Help! Help!” When it was over, the whole floor of my apartment was covered with things and there was no place to step on. I wondered what I had done so wrong that I should have such a terrifying experience…

Free download of Kindle ebook! Mar4th-8th
”Earthquakes, Nuclear Meltdown and Tokyo: Japan experienced the biggest earthquake in its history / Hidemi Woods”

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