Breakfast on a holiday should be more exciting than my usual yoghurt and fruit and I wanted to come up with a something to tempt Marty out of bed.  In the past I would have gone out and bought fresh croissants, but I can no longer eat these or anything that they sell in our local bakery.  It’s not easy to make a traditional Northern Irish breakfast here but I decided that I could at least make potato farls.

When I was last back in Northern Ireland I was disappointed that I couldn’t buy gluten-free potato farls.  I thought it would be very easy to do as these are mostly made of potato, with salt, butter, and some flour to bind it together.  Well, at least that’s what they used to be.  Some commercial potato farls are now made with only about 20% potato.   I can’t see any reason why the flour needs to have gluten in it and this morning I made them using Dove Farm’s gluten-free mix of plain flour.  The texture is different than the commercial ones, as mine are mostly made of potato, but they were yummy.

 

I’m nearing the end of my six month long intensive Japanese course.  I have four days left and they mostly consist of exams and preparation for the 5 minute talk I’m expected to give next Friday.  I have been asked by a few people if I think my Japanese is improving.  I find it hard to tell.  I have weekly tests and homeworks, which I get good marks in, but I still feel clueless on most days.

I think part of the problem comes from living in Japan and being constantly shown how much I don’t understand.  When I was learning other subjects I didn’t have any idea of the scope of the problem.  I thought I was good at science when I was 11 years old.  And I was, I was good for an 11 year old who only knew about the things my teacher had taught me.  I didn’t spend my days being shown science journals I couldn’t read or having to listen to people speak about advanced scientific concepts.  I had no idea how vast the subject of science was but I felt good about science and thought it was something that I would be able to continue to study.  I wonder if I would have decided to study science in university if I had been constantly bombarded by things I couldn’t understand?

In Japan every day I hear conversations I don’t understand and see media that I can’t read.  This doesn’t mean that I will give up but I do feel like there is a giant mountain in front of me that I will never be able to climb.

 

 

Today Marty and I decided that we would walk along one of the emergency evacuation routes out of the city.  We planned to walk for around 12 kilometers as it was supposed to be a beautiful spring day with temperatures around 24º C (75º F).   The walk started well though the route wasn’t overly exciting.  Normally we avoid main roads when walking around the city but during a disaster it seems that walking along large main roads is advisable.  It’s also the place where most of the support stations can be found.  I have never looked for these before but restaurants and convenience stores that are going to serve as support stations during a disaster have a sign on their door:

After we had been walking for about forty minutes the weather started to change.  We could see odd looking clouds in the distance and the wind picked up.  We ended up walking into a yellow dust storm.  I had never seen one before and I don’t want to see another one.   The temperature dropped by about 10º C and we spent the next hour or so eating dust and trying to prevent our eyes from streaming.  Our pleasant spring stroll became a battle against the elements and we did not manage to walk the 12km. We gave up at about 8km and decided to get the train back home.

Once we got off the train it started to rain.  We were both filthy when we got home.  Sunscreen and dust don’t seem to be a good combination and I had black streaks running down  my face.  I think we are going to spend the evening hiding inside the apartment.

Tokyo has amazing public transport but today all I can see are its flaws.  It’s snowing.  It’s not pleasant outside but it’s ten times worse on the trains.  The trains are always packed in the morning but when it snows they end up fuller because of delays and to avoid the horror of driving in Tokyo when there is snow.  More people, more crushing, and more heat.  The heat is unbearable.  I managed to remove my hat, scarf, and gloves on the platform before getting into the train but that’s not enough.  Within minutes I could feel the sweat trickling down my back.  Trying to remove a coat on a train so full you can barely more your arms is maddening but I actually managed to do that this morning, it was that or pass out.

Mind you, the problem seems to be me.  Everyone else stayed fully clothed as if it was snowing inside the train.  I have no idea how they do it.  I didn’t see anyone else drink water but I carry water in the Japanese summer and winter because both have their own forms of overwhelming heat.  I have considered not wearing so many winter clothes and just deal with the freezing when I’m out walking but I also have to sit in a classroom for hours.  Yesterday during class I was so cold that one of the other students offered me his coat.  Our teacher finally noticed that it’s not normal to wear scarves and gloves in the classroom and had the heating turned up.

Today I have enough clothing to be warm in class, but it’s going to be grim getting back home again.

I’m back in London Heathrow waiting on my flight to Japan.  I did not manage to blog at all while I was in the UK, but then I rarely managed to get online.  The house we were staying in was supposed to have wifi but it broke completely for a few days and when it was “fixed” it was incredibly hard to get connected.  There were a couple of spots – like the second step of the stairs – where it was possible to connect for a minute or so, but it was incredibly frustrating trying to connect and I mostly gave up.  This means that I now have hundreds of unanswered emails.  Joy.

I’m starting back to my Japanese class on Monday morning and I feel horribly unprepared.  I tried to keep on top of the work over the past two weeks but it’s very hard to study when you are trying to do family things and catch up with friends.  I have a feeling that February is going to be a busy month.

I was going to start this post by saying that travelling is no fun.  But that’s not true.  There are lots of aspects of travel that are fun, but getting to the place where the the fun starts can be grim.  At the minute I am in Narita airport.  My flight to London has been delayed for a couple of hours, but at least I get to wait in comfort.  I am feeling a little stressed as I could easily miss my connection to Belfast in London.  And even if I arrive on time to make the connection I could still end up spending the night in Heathrow as British Airways are cancelling flights because of the weather.

Getting to the airport this morning was stressful.  When we arrived at the train platform we had no hope of boarding the train.  It’s hard to explain just how full trains become in Japan.  I have been in other countries where people have complained about the train but you could easily get on and still move your arms and feet when inside.  This train was so full that people’s faces and bodies were smashed up against the doors and windows.  When the train stopped and more people attempted to get in they did this by walking on backwards and pushing as hard as they could.  When that failed they started to run at the passengers who were spilling out of the train to see if that helped to push them further in.  The train was late leaving the platform because people got stuck in the doors.

I could not have gotten into the train on a normal day but trying to do so with a couple of suitcases was a horrific concept.  We ended up buying a ticket for the first class car and waited on another train.  We did not get seats but we were able to at least get on to the train and stand in the corridor beside the doors.  Then we had to get off the train.  The platform at Nippori Station is old and narrow.  It’s really hard to get off a train with the people waiting to get on.  And incredibly difficult in rush hour to walk down the platform to the exits.  To get to the Skyliner we had to walk past the exit that most people want to use and there were hundreds of people pushing and shoving all attempting to not fall off the platform on their way to the stairs.  And I do mean stairs and not an escalator.  I carried my case up the stairs hoping that I wouldn’t get pushed over by the crowd.

After that things got easier.  My train ticket didn’t work but that was fixed by asking for help and did not involve being worried that someone would knock me off the platform.  At the airport there was no queue at all.  I assume that some of the passengers decided to come late because of the delays.  I did managed to get confused again, but that’s because of my understanding of Japanese.  I didn’t understand what was being said to me at the automated immigration gate. Being a foreigner I can sign-up for this service but my passport can’t be read correctly and I have to go through the line that is staffed.  It’s not exactly automated but it’s still quicker and I use it because it means you can ask for no stamp in your passport.  My last passport was filled up in 5 years and I would like this one to last a bit longer.  I asked for no stamp and the person behind the desk just said “sorry, you have stamp”.  It took me much too long to work out that she had made a mistake and stamped my passport before asking if I wanted this or not.  We both did a lot of apologising and I rushed on to the lounge so that I could sit and wait and try to think of something other than travel.  As you can see I failed.

I have been trying to sort out my travel plans for 2013.  Last year I spent 144 days away from home and I don’t want to travel quite that much this year.  Since 2007 I have attended three Perl conferences a year, but I don’t think that I will be able to attend  YAPC::EU this year.  It doesn’t coincide with any family events and it’s expensive to fly to the Ukraine from Tokyo.  Actually, it’s noticeably more expensive to fly to anywhere from Tokyo this year. I do plan to attend YAPC::NA in Austin in June and YAPC::Asia if it is held in Japan. I also want to attend some TPF Community events that should take place in Europe around the time I am there for my aunt’s wedding in May.

Although I travelled a lot last year I didn’t actually manage to have much of a holiday with Marty.  We have been been talking for a while now about seeing more of Asia while we live in this part of the world.  We haven’t been that great at doing that but we have booked a holiday around our wedding anniversary which will take us to China and South Korea.

I started the next level of my intensive Japanese class a couple of weeks ago. It’s utterly brain melting.  I was unsure about doing this as I’m flying to Europe on Monday for a family birthday.  I’m really looking forward to catching up with people but I’m not looking forward to missing two weeks of this term.  I am going to miss a lot of material and I will be expected to somehow cover this myself while travelling.  When I get back I’m also going to have to find time to complete the 10 hours of written homework, the two essays, the three kanji tests, and the two weekly tests that I will have missed.

I didn’t notice the snow this morning.  It’s a national holiday and we had no plans to go out.  Our apartment is on the 24th floor and when I looked out I saw white.  I assumed I was looking at a low cloud and thought nothing more of it.  As the day went on I saw more and more mentions of snow on Facebook so I decided to take a closer look out the window.  The low cloud was actually a blizzard of wet snow.  Our balcony was covered in snow and so it seems was most of the city.  I have never seen so much snow in Tokyo.

I like the way snow looks and I always think that it will be a good idea to go for a walk.  Marty was amused as he had suggested that we go skiing today and I had told him that I didn’t want to go out in the snow.  But I’m not always consistent and walking in the snow seemed very different than travelling to a mountain to get to snow.  I did end up wearing my ski wear as there was a gale blowing and I wanted to be comfortable.  As always it was not easy to walk in the snow.  After about thirty minutes of plodding along the muscles in my legs started to complain.  We had to be very careful near the roads as the cars were having a terrible time getting anywhere and some of them were sliding across crossings when they should have been stopping.

I wanted to take pictures but it wasn’t easy to do that.  Apart from the blizzard making it incredibly difficult to focus correctly the lens didn’t like the change in temperature and steamed up.

I do hope that the weather improves before I travel next week.  Snow always means delays and many flights were cancelled.  I was amused to read about the train delays in one news article:

Delays of as long as 10 minutes are expected for bullet train services to and from Tokyo.

I do love living in a city where a delay of 10 minutes makes the news.

 

The start of a year encourages me to think about new things.  I’ve just read Hails’ list of 101 things to do in 1001 days and it reminded me that it was time to create a new list.  It will take me a while to complete this, as I find it hard to come up with 101 things , but I do love the idea. I only managed to put 60 or so things on my last list, but the actual number doesn’t matter so much as the fact that having this sort of a list motivates me.

My lists always end up being dominated by travel.  Last year I managed to see Rome, Seoul and Melbourne, but I haven’t made any holiday plans yet for 2013. I dream of seeing the statues on Easter Island, the Northern Lights, and the Galápagos Islands, but I think it will need quite a bit of planning to actually manage to do that.  On my list I also have the Grand Canyon, the Great Barrier Reef, and Uluru – all places I have started to make plans to see.

There are non-travel things on my list.  I want to improve my Japanese and my ability to write English.  I want to find better ways to deal with my email and my to-do lists as at times I feel like I’m drowning in unanswered email.  I want to learn how to make gluten-free bread as I crave beans and toast. But most of all I want to make good use of the time I have in 2013.

I’m not cooking a turkey this year, but I am supposed to be making Christmas desserts.  This is not going well.  The Anzac Biscuits I have made are great but I can only bake six at a time in my little oven and Marty keeps eating them.  I made shortbread and it was a disaster.  It wasn’t the lovely light golden colour it should have been and it disintegrates with the slightest touch.

I then tried to make a fruit cake. When I started this there was no try, just do, as I have been making these for years.  Instead of being all puffed up in the middle, showing off the almond decorations, it was sad and sunken.  I was not happy but I could have rescued that with a meringue icing that is supposed to look like fluffy snow.  But then I noticed that the edges of the cake were hard, so hard that I wasn’t sure I could cut it.  I miss wheat flour and gluten.  This was the first time I had tried to bake with self raising non-gluten flour and it did not go well.  If I was staying at home I would turn it into some sort of Christmas trifle, but I have no easy way to transport that on a train.  I had wanted something that would look pretty, but I have now cut the useable parts of the cake into fruit cake slices.  They taste fine, but don’t look like the Christmas present I was hoping to make.

Since I have to take a cake to my friend’s house today I’m going to make a chocolate-chip cake with wheat flour.  It’s not exactly traditional but I have the ingredients and I no longer care that I won’t be able to eat it.  At least I’ll have something pretty to take with me.  Marty is also baking.  He’s attempting to make  a chocolate roulade, which if nothing else smells beautiful.  It has to cool for three hours and then we will get to see how it goes.  If it fails to roll I think we’ll buy some strawberries, mix in the whiskey cream, and break the meringue up in pieces.  We’ll call it Christmas mess, as that has to be better than Christmas fail.