I felt cold quite often while in Holland last week.  Even when I was outside walking in the sun.  But then it was around 20 degrees C (68 F) which is cooler than I keep my air conditioner at home during the summer.  I’m not exactly used to Japanese weather, but I am better able to cope with hot weather.  Today, in Tokyo, the heat index is 42 C (107 F).  The actual temperature is 35 C (95 F) but the heat index explains why attempting to hang out the laundry makes me feel as if I’ve been exercising for an hour.

I’m not sure what temperature I prefer but I think that somewhere around 25 C (77 F) feels good.

On Friday evening we took my two sisters and Ashleigh, our current house guests, out to sing karaoke. Both Christine and Sarah have done this before but it was Ashleigh’s first time.  There is no doubt that karaoke in Japan is all about having fun and we spent a lot of our time laughing.  Sarah and Ashleigh have no idea of the difficulty of any song and I think they were a bit surprised by how difficult it is to sing like Lady Gaga.

Ashleigh and Sarah at Karaoke

My sister Christine has a beautiful voice, but we ended up laughing over her song choices. It’s true that sometimes I pick ridiculous songs for the humour value, but Christine actually likes Dusty Springfield’s “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me”.  And it appears to sing it correctly you have to stand up and make large sweeping gestures with your arms…  She did manage to sing one song that was released this century, Katie Melua’s “The Closest Thing to Crazy”.

Christine, singing about being crazy...

I have been living beside the Sumida River for over a year but last week was the first time I had the opportunity to travel on it.  I took a boat trip from Odaiba to Asakusa with a couple of friends.  At times travelling across Tokyo can be stressful, as the trains are so full, but the boat trip was relaxing.  There are a couple of different boats and I was disappointed that we just missed the strange silver futuristic looking one.  But that just means that I’ll have to try this again the next time we have visitors.

As well as a boat trip we also took the driverless train across the Rainbow Bridge.  There are some touristy things that I would be happy to never do again but I still enjoy going across the bridge by train.

Rainbow Bridge

One of the good things about growing up with a rainy climate is that I rarely consider not doing something because it’s raining. Yesterday we wanted go and see the Tokyo Sky Tree, which we reckoned was about 40 minutes walk away. I’m not sure exactly how long it took us to get there but it was an enjoyable walk even with the fairly heavy rain.

The Sky Tree is not complete but it is now taller than Tokyo Tower. This makes it nice and easy to find, even for someone like me with no sense of direction.

Tokyo Sky Tree - Under Construction

Today I walked along the river for an hour in the rain.  This wasn’t something I’d planned but it was overcast, not warm or cold, and the rain was light.  It was almost perfect walking weather.  I want to make the most of  being outside before Japanese summer hits as it will bring torrential rain that even I want to hide from.

Yesterday we set out to spend the morning at Jigokudani Monkey Park.  We had arrived in Saku the night before and had arranged to meet our friends at 10am.  I was looking forward to our road trip as we are rarely in a car anymore. The day was damp and overcast, so we didn’t get a very good view of the mountains, but the journey was still enjoyable.

Once we parked the car we had a 30 minute hike through the forest.  I would love to see the monkeys when it’s snowing but I don’t know if I really want to go hiking in the middle of winter.  Even yesterday, without any ice or snow, it was a difficult walk.  The ground was muddy and in parts it was very steep and slippy.  But it was worth getting a bit dirty.

The monkeys are Japanese Macaques and they are beautiful.  I wasn’t expecting to see quite so many of them or for them to be so unconcerned about us being there.  A couple of them even pushed me out of the way when they didn’t like where I was standing.

Alpha Male Japanese Macaque

One of the things the monkeys are famous for is bathing in a hot spring.  They do this to keep warm during the snowy months and I wasn’t sure if any would be bathing yesterday.  But when we got to the spring there were quite a few monkeys lazing around.  Others were grooming each other in the water.

Monkey in Onsen

One of the park keepers pointed out the alpha male of the troop. I believe that he said that the monkey was 26 years old. (He was speaking in Japanese so it’s possible that I am mistaken.)  He was calmly sitting watching all the humans and as long as we didn’t stare at him it was possible to get quite close.

Marty tries to become Alpha Male

Last night we stayed at the Plaza 21 hotel in Sakudaira.  It was the smallest Japanese hotel room I have ever stayed in.

Hotel Room

Hotel Room - Looking Towards the Window

I found it really hard to take a picture of the room because I couldn’t find anywhere sensible to stand.  The pictures don’t really show how small it was.  If I lay on the bed and stretched out I could touch the walls on either side of the room with the tips of my fingers and the points of my toes.  And I’m not exactly tall.

This weekend we are going to Saku to visit a friend and to go and see the snow monkeys.  I love travelling on the shinkansen and can’t wait to leave but Marty is still fast asleep.  Obviously the thought of a train with a maximum operating speed of 300 km/h isn’t as exciting to him as it is to me.

This spring has been surprisingly cold and damp.  But today the sun came out and a I finally got a chance to see the cherry blossoms.

Street Lined with Cherry Blossoms

“Bake a cake”, he said,  “It’ll be fun”.  It’s been years since I tried to bake a cake and I’d forgotten how much time it can take.  I used to make chocolate cakes, but I really don’t want all those extra calories in the house, so I decided to make something less fattening.

But before you can make a cake you need to shop for the ingredients.  It’s difficult to find the correct ingredients here.  I have been told that they don’t sell self raising flour in Japan.  This can be made from plain flour and baking soda but it adds an extra mixing and sieving phase when trying to get the baking soda evenly mixed through the flour.  I think I found the right type of sugar, but if nothing else it was the right colour.  Good fruit though is easy to buy, if a bit expensive.

After sieving and mixing the salt, flour, baking soda, and cinnamon I had to prepare the fruit.  I don’t appear to be very good at grating things.  The carrot was too hard and seemed to take forever, the apple was too mushy and I nearly put my hand through the grater.  The orange peel was the only thing that seemed to grate in the way I was expecting. The raisins were no problem at all as all I needed to do was weigh them.  The sugar needed mixed with oil and orange juice, which should have been easy, but I managed to squirt orange juice all over myself and the floor.

The cake didn’t look great before I put it in the oven, probably something to do with the carrots and raisins, but it did smell amazing.  Now that it’s out of the oven it looks fine.

Carrot, Apple, and Raisin Cake

Actually it tastes fine too.  Not sure I would describe the process as fun but I would make this again.