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I bring slippers

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The building of my new apartment has a spa for the residents. As a common practice in Japan, we must take off our shoes to get in the spa’s locker room. I hate taking off my shoes at a public place, but I go there every day to take a bath and a shower because the service charge that I pay every month includes the spa fee.

Of course, I can’t walk barefoot around the floor that other people step on with their socks or bare feet since I have germ-phobia, so I have my own solution. I bring slippers and wear them when I take off my shoes to enter the locker room. This way, my feet never touch the public floor.

One day, a middle-aged woman approached me and told me to take off my slippers and stay barefoot inside the locker room. Listening to her reason for a weird demand, I realized that she thought I had used the slippers as my shoes and therefore I had entered with my shoes on. I explained to her that I did take off my shoes and wore the slippers instead of being barefoot, which was as clean as barefooted. Actually, wearing slippers is cleaner than barefooted, for that matter. But she still insisted that I should be barefoot. While I had no idea why she wanted me to take off my slippers so badly and I kept telling her how clean my slippers were, she finally made her hidden point clear. She said, “Because nobody is wearing slippers here!” Her point wasn’t about hygiene. She didn’t like to see someone different.

Like a typical Japanese, she wants everyone to live in the same way and feels secure by that. She’s the exact opposite to me. I feel secure when I’m different. I’m confident other residents will follow and apply my way in time, and after a few years, everyone including that woman will wear slippers in the locker room. I walked there with my slippers on as usual, a little proudly today…

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

take off your shoes

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When getting into a Japanese house, you must take off your shoes. It’s more than a natural rule to Japanese people and if anyone entered with their shoes on, it would mean not only uncleanness but also an insult.

When an English tourist once visited my apartment and started to get in without taking off her shoes, my Japanese friends there all at once shouted to warn. While it was just an ‘oops’ thing to her, it was a shockingly offensive gesture to them.

Even some restaurants and bars in Japan make customers take off their shoes. For some reason, the area I have just moved in has many places with that rule. I loathe taking off my shoes at a restaurant.

When I was a child, half of my house was in Western style, where we came in the hall, walked around the hallway and had meals at the dining room all with our shoes on. Although I was not so much used to eating with my shoes off, now it’s perfectly all right at home because I’ve developed sort of germ-phobia. But, sharing the floor with other people is a completely different matter. I can’t possibly step on the floor where people touched with their dirty socks or bare feet. Whenever I open the door of a restaurant and see the floor for shoes to be taken off, I leave the place right away and try somewhere else. Consequently, there are too many restaurants in this area that I can’t enter…

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

saving on electricity

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This summer, people in Japan are fussing about saving on electricity because the accident of the nuclear power plant after the earthquake triggered a nationwide shortage of electricity. Japanese people love to endure something together with everybody in unity and they seem willing to cooperate with the request of the government and the power company to save on electricity. They voluntarily switch to appliances that consume less electricity or fix a thermostat temperature for air conditioning higher.

I hate doing something together and have no intention of reaping the harvest of the power plant’s fiasco. But since I moved out my old apartment where the electricity charge was included in the rent and started to pay the charge for my new apartment, I have coincidentally saved on electricity purely to reduce the bill. I replaced all light bulbs in my apartment with LED bulbs and use electric fans instead of an air conditioner that I don’t have. It’s ironic that I’ve joined the electricity-saving frenzy just because I’m cheap.

By the way, I’ve been looking for a solar-powered lamp at online stores lately. There hasn’t been the one practical enough at a reasonable price on the market yet. If I got one, my electricity usage for lighting could be close to zero. I’m fascinated by the idea not for saving on electricity but for saving my money…

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

Now that it’s not available

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The region I newly moved in is situated at comparatively high altitudes. Therefore, it’s a little cooler than a suburb of Tokyo where I used to live. There has been no need to use air conditioning at night so far. The problem is the daytime. Although it’s obviously hot since it’s the summertime, making do with an electric fan isn’t impossible. Because I’m having my first summer here, everything is new to me like how hot it’ll get or how many rainy days we’ll have. I had been undecided about buying an air conditioner and went take a look at it at a nearby home improvement store.

For my apartment, an air conditioner can be put in only on the window frame not on the wall, but all the air conditioners of a window-frame type had been sold out. I looked it up on the Internet, and they had been also sold out at discount appliance stores. Now that it’s not available, I feel like I should have bought it earlier. Some online appliance stores still have them at the list prices, but getting one without a discount means for me to admit I failed to seize the opportunity. Now I fully intend to persuade myself that air conditioning is not necessary in this summer no matter how hot it is…

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

air conditioner

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I don’t have an air conditioner in my new apartment. Looking at other rooms of the building from the outside, I see quite a few rooms without an air conditioner. Does that mean I can make do without it for the whole summer, I wonder? Surely a cool breeze often comes in from the window as the mountains and the woods surround the building.

But it’s getting hotter day by day and I’ve wavered between whether I should get an air conditioner or not. When I lived in my old apartment near Tokyo, the air conditioner was already constantly on at this time of year. I would have died from a heat attack if the room hadn’t been air-conditioned in high summer there. An air conditioner has been a must-have item for me, but then again the temperature here is generally lower than the one in the Tokyo area. While air conditioning in my old place didn’t cost me a penny since the room originally equipped with it and the rent included the electricity bill, I need to buy it and pay for the bill here.

This building is air-conditioned in the hall and the lobby and there’s a draft when I leave the door slightly open with the bolt on. Because I’m cheap, I’m still seeking the way to use the draft instead of installing an air conditioner…

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

a fancy Italian restaurant

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Beside my new apartment is a mountain which sloping side has a fancy Italian restaurant. Normally it’s beyond my price range but I had an opportunity to eat there at 30% off. The website said it took 15 minutes from the foot of the mountain and I started to walk up a steep slope.

At first I enjoyed a fine view of flowers on the roadside and the town stretching below, but 20 minutes later, I was sweating all over without any sign of the restaurant. The steep road quietly continued to twist back and forth up the side of the mountain. When my feet became close to the end of their strength and I sweated for three saunas, I finally arrived at the restaurant. Sweat spoiled my dress, makeup and hairdo and I entered the place looking like I had been caught in a downpour.

The restaurant was perfect with an exquisite atmosphere and delicious meals, except for the whacking prices. By the time I came down the mountain from there and reached my apartment, I was totally exhausted and even began to have a headache. It was so strong that a painkiller couldn’t ease.

Since I moved in, I’ve been walking so much wherever I go, but I feel I’ve weakened rather than strengthened. Because my walking destinations are mostly restaurants, I haven’t thinned either…

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

not to come home ever again

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My mother and I don’t have much contact with each other. But after Japan’s earthquake, I’ve heard from my mother sometimes, which is quite unusual. A couple of months ago, she sent me a postcard that said she was worried about me for frequent aftershocks. The other day, her thank-you card for my Mother’s Day gift was forwarded to my new place although she had completely ignored my gift the year before.

She doesn’t know my new address because I haven’t told her that I moved. Every single action I take makes her resent for some reason, and I conceal things around myself from her as much as possible. On that forwarded postcard, she wrote that she’s been worried about me this time for radiation from the crippled nuclear power plant. Each time, I noticed her firm intention not to use a specific sentence. It’s ‘Why don’t you come home to stay with us for a while?’ When people leave the Tokyo metropolitan area for the safer western part of Japan, where she lives, it’s so unnatural that she hasn’t suggested it.

Of course, as a mother who has told me not to come home ever again, I understand that is the last suggestion she would make for me. I can even read between the lines, that she is overflowing with joy, because she believes I’ve suffered the earthquake’s aftermath as a punishment I’ve opposed everything she told me to do. Possibly, I’m twisted to think this way and she may be really worried about me.

But ever since I left home, I’ve lived easily and cheerfully and that has been intolerant to her. The fact I’ve already left and moved for a safe area would infuriate her if she knew. It’s human nature to gloat over someone’s misfortune and begrudge someone’s happiness, I guess…

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

there’s no such thing as 100% satisfaction

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A month has passed since I moved in my new apartment. Although I’ve been vigorously unpacking, cardboard boxes have still occupied more than half the living room. My handmade soundproof wall has been completed only on one side of the walls in my bedroom/studio that borders on the next door.

The positions of my furniture and instruments have been roughly decided for my studio. My old apartment was built on a light steel framework and had very thin walls. I was disturbed by all kinds of noise – rain, wind, cars, kids, neighbors, crows, helicopters – you name it. As my new apartment is built with reinforced concrete, it was supposed to be a lot quieter. It actually was, but wasn’t as much as I had expected. Unknown clanging noise coming from some pipe woke me up for several times, or I heard footsteps form the room above or below. I had probably overestimated reinforced concrete.

I know I should be content with much quieter surroundings here, but thinking about having gone through that hard and long process of the move, I want the kind of silence that I had imagined as a reward. I’ve been telling myself that it may get better when the whole soundproofing is done. Also, I shouldn’t forget that there’s no such thing as 100% satisfaction in this world after all…

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

the lake

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There is a lake a few miles away from my new apartment and I decided to go there for the first time. The local bus to the lake was surprisingly old-fashioned and worn-out. It jolted along a mountain road, ascending higher and higher. The lake lay at the foot of the mountain, surrounded by the fresh green woods.

Although I had expected it to be a popular recreation place for locals, it was quite lonely and quiet with only a couple of small spots to eat and shop. One of them was an Italian restaurant and I had an expensive lunch there as a sole customer.

The directory showed that there was a walk around the lake and I tried it. It got steeper and rougher as I walked on, as if I was climbing a mountain. The walk looked exactly like the one in my recurring nightmare in which I walked along an ever-steepening path and ended up tumbling down the slope every time. I crawled along the walk on all fours so as not to tumble down. Fighting off a fear of heights, I finally got to a suspension bridge over the lake, and the view of the lake from there was breathtaking. On my way home, I mistook the road for the bus stop, and walked all the way home. It took 90 minutes and I was dead on my feet…

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