We have had lots of people stay with us this year and most of them have enjoyed shopping in Tokyo.  Norwin, who is with us at the minute, went out shopping today.  I must admit that I was expecting him to buy some sort of electronic gadget or maybe another godzilla toy.  I wasn’t expecting the hat…

The Joker

I was getting dressed this morning and I noticed that I felt strange.  The hairs on my arms were standing up and I couldn’t work out why I felt this way.   Marty hadn’t felt too well last night and I started to get concerned that maybe I was going to feel ill as well.  And then it hit me.  I felt cold!  For the first time since around April I actually felt cold in Japan.

I went out to look for a bike at the weekend and ended up in a shop that sells bikes made by Giant.  I fell in love with the Citystorm - but this was the most expensive bike in the shop.  And given that I’m not really a cyclist I don’t think I can justify spending so much on a bike.  But it was so beautifully designed and is painted with blue flowers.

I am going to have to get it out of my head before I go and look at other bikes.

I have been trying to learn to play a Weber piece but I keep getting frustrated with the music book.  I have no idea why these are bound in the same manner as ordinary books.  Why can’t they use something like a spiral bind so that the pages are easy for the pianist to turn mid-piece?

And not only can I not turn the pages but I am also having difficulty getting the book to stay open. So, I have to fold the book.  It’s bending the spine badly and also ruining the pages.  For some of the pieces I need to clip the pages in place with something like a clothes peg as the pages keep closing whilst I’m playing.  But this solution doesn’t work in a piece that requires the pages to be turned.

Music Book on Piano

Yesterday, Marty and I went to Tokyo Disneyland.  There is a national holiday on Monday but we had expected the park to be quite quiet yesterday.  We were wrong.  Yesterday was the first day of their Hallowe’en celebration.  When we entered the park we noticed that there were a lot of people dressed in Disney costumes.  At first we thought these were Disney crew members but there seemed to be far too many of them.  In Tokyo Disneyland it isn’t strange to see adults wearing Mickey Mouse ears or Tigger Tails as the Japanese really do enjoy getting into the spirit of things.  But even the Japanese adults don’t usually go dressed as Cruella de Vil or Belle from Beauty and the Beast.

We picked up an entertainment guide and discovered that for a limited number of days they were allowing adults to enter the park dressed as their favourite Disney character.  I really wish I had taken a camera as there were so many great costumes.  I particularly liked some of the interpretations of the Cheshire Cat.  No-one wore a face mask and reading the Disney site today it seems that these aren’t allowed.  But there was a whole variety of wigs and make-up that made the costumes fascinating.

The park was really full but somehow managed to maintain a fun, lively, party atmosphere without being claustrophobic.   In the evening we decided to queue for more than an hour to get in Disney’s Haunted Mansion.  Normally we wouldn’t do this - we have been in there many times before - but it was refurbished and re-opened yesterday.  It has been themed on “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and I thought the changes were much better than the attempt they made to change the Pirates of the Carribean ride to reflect the films.

We have had a lot of visitors over the past year.  Now, when people come, we try to find at least one place to go that we have not been to before.  On Sunday we went to Karuizawa.  We were a bit concerned about this trip as we went via the Shinkansen which made it more expensive than our usual journeys (11,000 円, 58 GBP).

When we arrived it was raining.  Raining so hard that we couldn’t actually see into the main street from the train station.  Thankfully this heavy rain only lasted for around 15 minutes and we were then able to venture out.  The first thing I noticed was the lack of humidity.  I knew it was in the mountains and that it would be cooler than Tokyo but it was so good to be able to walk around and not feel sticky and uncomfortable.

The area was really beautiful and I would like to go back on a clear day so that we could take the cable car up the mountain.  I love that Japan is as green as Ireland.  Though walking through Karuizawa I was reminded more of the towns in Canada that are in the Rockies.

I wonder how much it would cost to rent a house in Karuizawa next summer?

Forest in Karuizawa

I mentioned to a friend that I was on a diet.  Their response was, “dieting doesn’t work - it’s a waste of time”.  And it’s not the first time I have heard that said.  But what exactly doesn’t work?

My mother used to diet when I was a child.  Her approach was to eat as little as possible and to cut out everything from her diet that she really liked.  If she was very lucky she managed to do this for about a week.  Her weight is perfectly under control now as instead of doing this she eats healthy food.  You could, however, eat the same things as my mother does everyday and still claim that dieting doesn’t work.

It’s not that dieting doesn’t work it’s that our expectations are too high.  Even if you follow a strict eating plan put together but a very experienced dietitian it does not mean that after a couple of months that you will have a body like one of the models you see on the cover of a fashion magazine.  Those models work really hard to look like that and surely everyone knows by now that even pictures of the most beautiful people in the world are modified for print.

Why am I writing about this?  Today I stepped onto my Wii fit and realised that I weigh exactly the same as I did one month ago.  Does this mean I should give up my diet?  Surely it’s a waste of time being careful what I eat if I weigh the same?

I am not dieting so that I am lighter when I step on the scales.  I am dieting as I want to be healthier.  We have become so obsessed with how much we weigh and being fashionably thin that we have forgotten that it’s possible to be thin and unhealthy.  That by cutting out whole food groups from our diet we can damage our internal organs.  That people who live in affluent countries can suffer from malnutrition because it’s more important to fit into a particular dress than to worry about what’s happening inside our bodies.

So I will continue eating healthier food even if my weight stays exactly the same.

Last night we went to Roy’s Bar & Grill in the Mori Tower, Roppongi Hills, to celebrate my Dad’s birthday.  It was the first time I had been there and I would definitely go back.  It’s more expensive than the restaurants we normally eat in but the food and service were excellent.  And they worked really hard to make the experience memorable for my Dad.

Table Setting at Restaurant

Today, for the first time since I got back from Copenhagen, the sun decided to shine.  My house guests suggested that we take a walk round the Imperial Palace before it started to rain again.  It was really hot and humid outside but the beauty of the gardens helped me cope with the weather.  Part of the gardens appear to be a sanctury for all sorts of insects so I will probably complain about the bites on my arms for the next day or two.

Imperial Palace East Garden

Ninomaru Garden, Imperial Palace

I spent the day wandering around Kamakura with my current house guests.  As they had a guide book I ended up seeing places I had never been to before.  One of these, the Kaikōzan Hase-dera, is certainly worth visiting - even in the rain.

Gardens at Hase-dera

Flowers in Rain

Japanese Garden at Hase-dera