Episode from An Old Tree in Kyoto by Hidemi Woods
Audiobook: The Family in Kyoto: One Japanese Girl Got Freedom by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps.
Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps.
japanese culture
Tokyo
Moving to a new place reminds me about the time when I first left home. I had always longed to live in Tokyo since childhood, watching modern high-rises or cool apartments in TV dramas. I knew that would never happen to me because I was a firstborn in a family succeeded from generation to generation and was destined to finish my life in the country family house.
But music provoked me to throw away everything – my family, friends, college life and, above all, secure life – and to move to Tokyo. As almost all Japanese record companies were in Tokyo and there were many musicians as well, I thought it would be easy to promote my music and find good band members. In actual fact, I only found bad musicians in an unsightly city with too many people, and the record companies picked trashy songs by ignoring mine. Except that I was so happy to have left the place where I was born, things in Tokyo weren’t as good as I had expected…
Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods
Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks, 43 available distributors in total
my yukata : Talking and Reading from Japan by Hidemi Woods
Episode from An Old Tree in Kyoto by Hidemi Woods
Audiobook: The Family in Kyoto: One Japanese Girl Got Freedom by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps.
Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps.
Radiation has been leaked
About two months have passed since the 9.0-magnitude earthquake in Japan. Finally, aftershocks have dwindled. Those atrocious scheduled blackouts have stopped being carried out so far. Food shortages were resolved.
Nevertheless, life is totally different from the one before the earthquake. Radiation has been leaked from the crippled nuclear power plants everyday and I can’t go outside as much as I like. At nighttime, stores and restaurants hold their signboard lights off and the streets have become dim. I don’t understand why they turn the lights off since the electricity consumption is low at night and electricity can’t be stored up for later use. As there’s no rational reason for that, I suspect they’re just promoting their gestures of trying to save on electricity. Their baseless savings of electricity make the whole town stale and depressed.
In Japan, people have consecutive holidays from the end of April to the first week of May, which is usually the lively, noisy and annoying time of year for me. But this year, the holidays were gone quietly. When I decided to move to the countryside, my biggest concern was if I adapt to living in a small town with sparse shops. But after the earthquake, ironically, the city I currently live in is as dark as the small town I’m moving to, and because my going out is limited due to radiation, the shopping experience here is nothing less than in a small town…
Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods
Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks, 43 available distributors in total
an old watchmaker
I removed all the magnets from the fridge to pack for my new apartment.
Moving those magnets is tricky because they must be separated from my wristwatches by at least 3 feet. It’s the rule for the wristwatch’s well-being that I was taught by an old watchmaker.
His shop was run by him and his wife and I used to visit it very often when I lived downtown Tokyo. My friend once gave me a wristwatch as a gift and she wore the one of the same design. The back of hers was taped up unsightly and she warned me that once I had its cover taken off for a battery change, it wouldn’t be closed again because the watch had a peculiar shape. When the battery was dead, I brought the watch to the old watchmaker’s shop. Although I had thought he would tape up the cover, he grappled with the cover for as long as 10 minutes with sweating and closed it beautifully.
Since then, the shop has become my favorite. Some watches didn’t start ticking even with a fresh battery and in that case, he took time and mustered various old tools from his tattered box and his unique skills to fix them perfectly. I liked to see him working on watches. I can’t count how many times he saved my watches in bad condition.
Years later, I moved to the suburbs and became unable to visit his shop. When the battery change was needed for the peculiar-shaped watch, which had been the old watchmaker’s specialty for me, I brought it to a clock store chain in a nearby shopping mall. I thought they would tape up the cover this time around, but they closed it with a special gadget right away. I wonder if my favorite watchmaker has already retired while I religiously obey his law to separate magnets from watches…
Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods
Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks, 43 available distributors in total
how neat it looked without things
Now that I have already submitted a month’s notice to move out this apartment in mid-May, it’s less than a month for me to leave.
Through my vigorous packing after the earthquake, my apartment is quite empty. I realized how spacious it was and how neat it looked without things. On the other hand, ironically, the destination of my things, which is my new apartment, has had less space and looked more and more like a storage room with numerous cardboard boxes towering to the ceiling.
I’ve often heard on TV that there is a strong possibility this 9.0-magnitude earthquake will trigger an earthquake which epicenter is the metropolitan area. That plausible story combined with daily fears of aftershocks and radiation makes my resolution to move out of the Tokyo area firm no matter how attractive my current apartment has become once again. While I want to move to my new place as soon as possible, thinking about those towering boxes there, I have no idea how many months it will take to unpack all of them. The completion of the moving won’t come so easily…
Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods
Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks, 43 available distributors in total
TV talent show : Talking and Reading from Japan by Hidemi Woods
Episode from An Old Tree in Kyoto by Hidemi Woods
Audiobook: The Family in Kyoto: One Japanese Girl Got Freedom by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps.
Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps.
easing my stress
The region where my new apartment is located is famous for hot springs and my apartment building has its spa for the residents. For this trip there, I had looked forward to easing my stress from the earthquake’s aftermath in a hot spa by feeling relaxed and rich.
But when I went there, I found out that the operating hours were cut short due to shortages of electricity and oil because the nuclear power plants and some of the thermal power stations for this region had been damaged too and remained to stop after the earthquake. Also, to save on electricity, most lights in the spa were off and the Jacuzzi and the sauna were closed. All I could enjoy was to sit in the hot tub in a weirdly dark, silent spa. That easily made me downhearted. To make things even worse, a mother with a shrieking child came in and destroyed the remnants of peace. There is no way to avoid the aftermath, and a noisy kid, in Japan…
Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods
Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks, 43 available distributors in total
To escape from those stressful days
Aftershocks persist day and night although it is more than a month since the 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit Japan. I often wake up in the middle of the night by a jolt and brace myself for a possible big one. As a result, I get up every morning tired. To escape from those stressful days and also to move my furniture and boxes, I took a trip to my new place for a couple of days.
About 70 percent of the moving was completed by this trip. The goal is near. The region of my new apartment was still covered with snow and looked like a different world. I was able to be absorbed in cleaning the apartment without thinking about aftershocks, radiation and a shortage of food for a while. It was when I began to feel unwilling to go back to the Tokyo area that I jumped out of bed at night with a big jolt. I turned on my new TV which I had just set up that evening and found out the seismic center was right under the area of my new apartment. There is no way to avoid an earthquake in Japan…
Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods
Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks, 43 available distributors in total
Did our risk-taking pay off?
I’ve written a note about how disturbing the loud noise that a neighbor kid made by shooting hoops on the street was, and dropped the note to the kid’s crazy family for four times. Nevertheless, he started it again and this time I consulted my partner as to what to do. He said he would visit the family to complain face to face and went out in the evening.
I began to be worried when he hadn’t come back after a while. I went out to see what happened but a hush fell over the crazy family’s house and there was no sign of my partner. An ominous feeling seized me. Did they come to blows and was he killed? Is he lying dead inside the house? Or, is he being carried away by the family’s car to be buried? I came back to my apartment after searching for him in the neighborhood and thought I could save him if I called the police right now. When I was about to make the call, he returned, safe and sound. According to him, the crazy family told him that they didn’t care that they let their kid play on a public road as if in their own yard, or that the noise annoyed the neighborhood. Because they had no concept of morality or legality, he left. Then, the kid’s father followed him cursing out loud. As the man acted like a crazy animal, my partner ignored him and detoured back after losing him. My partner could have been killed or imprisoned for assault by countering, for such a frivolous matter like this.
The noise of a bouncing ball stopped the next day, the day after and the day following. Did our risk-taking pay off? I have the feeling that the noise will return sooner or later…
Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods
Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks, 43 available distributors in total
Hidemi Woods 