31 December 2009

The streets were very quiet. Nick was off work, as were most of the population. We popped up to Atago Hills shrine, one we hadn't been to before, though very easy to get to from home.

At 26m above sea level, it is amazingly the highest point in the 23 wards of Greater Tokyo. On the east side of the hill was a set of vertiginous steps; ascending them is said to imbue success, so we walked down and then back up again. Emily just about made it up the sheer flight, with a lot of help, so hopefully that will give her a chance of a promising future!


Later we went to Aoyama Cemetery, arriving just as it started to get dark. A full moon was rising out of a bank of cloud, but with the city backdrop it wasn't all that eerie.

Feeling rather unprepared for the bitterness of the air, which had chilled substantially since a quite mild morning, we stopped off at Roppongi Hills on the way home for a hot drink. Here it was still buzzing though all else was very quiet.

For our New Years Eve meal I splashed out and made Delia's sage and parsnip roulade. It cost more than 20 pounds to make (less than a pound of parsnips cost ten quid!) but was as delicious as I remembered it being and well worth the effort.

We settled in for the evening and watched Lethal Weapon, which did feel dated but was still a great movie. Unfortunately, Nick had been feeling somewhat off colour all day and as the evening went on he developed a bit of a fever, running a temperature around 38.5C. We did stay up to see the new decade in though. I put my head out of the window a little after midnight and could have heard a pin drop. Not that they don't celebrate New Year in Japan - in fact it is very important and a cause for several days holiday and family gatherings - but they save their fireworks for summertime and instead gather at shrines and temples to hear the bells and gongs there bring in the year.

30 December 2009

As feared, Nick didn't pass the exam. He immediately discussed it with his boss who asked him to look into the coaching courses available. Emily was being very tiresome when I took her out to the park. She said she wanted to walk not ride when I gave her the choice, but then just stood around picking leaves and making no attempt to walk. In the afternoon, I decided to stay close to home and just let her do what she wanted to do, but after 10 minutes in our car park prodding the hedge with a stick I had to chivvy her along a bit! Eventually, with a lot of cajoling, we made it a few hundred metres away to the playground, but it was a very boring day for me.

29 December 2009

With Emily in nursery, I met Nick to view the apartment in Higashi Azaba, but it was immediately obvious it was no good as all the doorways and ceilings were too low. In any case, seeing it now after looking at the one in our building made me realise it didn't feel quite right for us. Nick told me that the landlords of the larger one in Mita City House had agreed to no key money and a slightly reduced rent, so we decided to go ahead and say we would like it. I am trying not to get too excited about moving in case something goes wrong.

28 December 2009

Nick had his second attempt at the regulatory exam. I've got everything crossed as I am fed up with the studying interfering with family time at the weekends.

In the afternoon I went over to the embassy to see Tracey and have a look at 5 day-old Rudy. He is certainly a good size!

Emily played nicely with Lottie and they had tea together before we left for home.

26 December 2009

We had a welcome date at Jo's for Boxing Day brunch, along with Bettina and family. She had made bread and brought Gruyere, Jo made a tortilla and some yummy bircher muesli. My goat's cheese parcels were a bit of a disaster, however. They say never to work with children and animals, but I would add filo pastry to the list! The kids were all very full of beans and had gallons of apple juice and lots of bread. We had a few glasses of bubbly to mark the festive season.

In the afternoon, with his exam looming Nick set to studying, while I took Emily out to play for a while, though it was nearly dark by the time we left as she was very late having her nap after the get-together.

25 December 2009

After checking out, the owner asked Nick to move the car down the road to another space. As it was a one-way road, he would have preferred to go round the block, but she was gesturing to him to reverse. A couple of other vehicles came up behind as he was manoevering and my directions weren't much help either. Before we knew it the car was perilously close to a fence and he was stuck right across the narrow road with several cars waiting. Things quickly got worse as a guy in a van that was waiting got out and said he would try. He ended up getting the car door scratched and when he tried to go back the other way he also began to dent it. At this point Nick told me to go and wait for him in Starbucks, so I took Emily off down the road in much trepidation and close to tears. Nick was being very brave and managing to keep his cool under such awful circumstances, and I hoped he would be able to handle the situation without losing it.

He joined us quite quickly afterwards and I didn't dare mention it. He seemed fairly sanguine about it but it must have been very traumatic. Once fuelled for the morning we quickly got on our way. Just north of the city the highway runs directly along the coast, where the empty sands stretch for miles so we found a rest stop and got out for a wander on the beach. The sand was littered with washed up detritus; naturally the plastic flotsam and jetsam was of immense interest to Emily.

We played there a while before continuing on our drive back towards the airport. The satnav let us down a bit and we found ourselves buying a very poor lunch from a convenience store in a town that has the dubious honour of being UFO capital of Japan. Emily fell asleep after that and we carried on until we could draw up in a layby next to the sea near the airport and eat our unhealthy haul. The view from there was wonderful, with the snowy mountains of the Alps just visible across the water, but we had to eat quickly, knowing that Nick would be tied up a while explaining what had happened at the car rental place.

The return flight was near-empty, so we had a choice of seats and were able to shift over to see the vivid sunset as we approached Tokyo.

We were soon home and talking to the folks back home on Skype as they began their Christmas Day.

24 December 2009

Emily slept in, finally stirring at 7.40. It was really cold in our room and as breakfast was not provided we got out as soon as possible and went to the Starbucks on the main street for a good nosh up to fortify ourselves for a day out in the winter sun. Our main plan was to visit Kenrokuen, the park up the road that is one of the top three gardens in Japan, and especially renowned for its beauty in snowy conditions. Once there, Emily was very difficult and wanted to be carried at first, before capitulating and staying on her feet to explore. Even three days after the last snowfall there was still plenty around to make the wonderful garden even more heavenly. The white helped pick out the best features exquisitely.



Unfortunately Emily's mood deteriorated again, leading to half an hour of angst on all our parts before she calmed down again, and then only because Nick agreed to carry her. There was a gang of old ladies dressed in conical hats shovelling the densely packed snow off the paths, who were glad to pose for a picture with Emily.



A pair of wagtails were prancing around sweetly on the rocks by a water course. Further on some crows were bathing raucously in a shallow stream, which I'd never witnessed before. In an extensive plum orchard was a wooden shelter with meltwater dripping off its snowy mantle, and Emily was cracking up as Nick tipped his head back and let the drops fall into his mouth. We found a notice explaining that some trees were scarred after being tapped for turpentine in June 1945 to fuel military aircraft missions.

After a very unhealthy lunch in a German bakery, which reminded us of Greggs but had a fancy toilet with its own dressing table, we walked back past Kenrokuen and on to the Higashi Chaya area: an old geisha 'pleasure quarter'. The houses were the traditional slatted wood type and very picturesque.

The city is home to Japan's gold leaf industry and 99% of the country's leaf is made there. We found a gift shop that even sold leaf-coated cakes and boiled sweets with flecks of gold in them. While we were there Tracey called to announce the arrival of baby Rudy the day before; at 10lb 6oz he was apparently the heaviest baby to be born in the hospital in 2009. Had to have smarted a bit!

Emily woke up after a short doze in the baby carrier, and again she was tetchy and reluctant to walk. Nick ascertained that there was a playground in the vicinity so we went along there. Unfortunately it was slushy and the equipment wet and dirty. She enjoyed decorating another snowman with sticks and stones though.

While we were doing that a class of children came along and gathered for an earthquke drill, each equipped with special cushioned headgear.


We caught the period charabanc bus back into town as the sun set and dived back into Starbucks again for more sustenance and a chance to warm up. We didn't want to go back to the minshuku, so with no other way of killing time until dinner we took Emily across the road to a department store. She was happy as Larry playing with the many sample toys there and we stayed for more than an hour. It was stultifyingly hot in there but we felt it was the least we could do after pleasing ourselves. She was clearly very hungry but we still had our work cut out to tear her away.


We couldn't justify a second night of pizza so went to a Japanese 'casual dining' restaurant, all dim lighting and alcoves. It turned out to be an excellent choice. Nick ordered dish after dish and we had quite a feast. Emily had fun extracting edamame (green beans served in the pod) and wolfed butter sweetcorn, washed down with a huge pitcher of apple juice. She was very cute and genki. On our return to the accommodation the old lady showered Emily with gifts. All day she had been saying 'Emily doing poo' and now, finally, after a couple of false starts she produced some. She has gone from denying when she does one to talking about it incessantly. She dropped off quite quickly this time, as I lay next to her and regaled her with tales of Santa bringing presents for good girls who go to sleep.

23 December 2009

We woke at 6.30, in good time for sunrise. Big storm clouds out at sea were blocking the full effect, but they were flushed with hints of pink

.

At the heart was a towering anvil of cloud topped with the telltale blur of ice crystals; puffy cumulus were billowing behind it as it travelled northwards. We took it in turns to sit and watch the front move slowly by from the little rotemburo tub. While Nick was in there I put Emily in with him briefly, though it was a trifle too hot for her.

Breakfast was thankfully not too daunting in terms of outlandishness of content or in amount. Emily was happy with a banana and cranberry and chocolate bread but we had the usual battle to get 100ml of milk down her. After checking out, the hotel minibus took us back up the precarious zigzag track to the car park on the cliffs. Emily was very grouchy again and refused to walk around. Despite her strop, we stopped to have a look at the view back down into the cove and over the other side of the headland to a small lighthouse a little way out. They seemed to be in the process of developing the site into a tourist attraction and had erected a viewing tower with a scary overhang that felt like walking a plank.

A short distance in the car brought us to a village with a disused British-designed lighthouse on the clifftop above. Emily deigned to walk all the way up the steep track to see it. It was very cold and showers kept sweeping through, producing a couple of short-lived rainbows over the water. Down by the car park we saw some daikon (white radish) that had been hung on a rack outside a wooden house, and I saw some more the same up the road afterwards.

We continued south on a road hugging the scenic coast for an hour, to Wajima.

Emily slept all the way, and carried on snoozing for some time after we had parked in a restaurant car park on the edge of town. Once she woke we went in for lunch. Emily was being fussy and just picked at some soba noodles. Of course, she was more than happy to help polish off the cakes that we ordered with coffee. On the way out the waitress kindly gave her a snowman decoration from their Christmas tree.

As we turned inland to pick up the toll road the weather deteriorated to freezing showers. The attractive blanket of snow had survived for a third day, but as we hit the coast further down it petered out. It was only about 100km to Kanazawa but it seemed to drag interminably and I was running out of ways to entertain Emily. Even once we hit the city (c. 500,000 people) it still took half an hour to navigate endless lights to the minshuku (pension accommodation). Lamp no Yado was the sublime to the ridiculous of this downmarket establishment, but we had booked the cheap option to offset the expense of our first night. However, we couldn't have asked for a more effusive greeting than that provided by the proprietor. She was an old lady of at least 80, reeking of cigarettes, who scooped Emily up and carried her in from the car. Her's is an old samurai house so it has low ceilings, narrow corridors, squat toilets and shoji (paper screen sliding doors). It was extremely cold so she fired up a kerosene heater in our room; after so many people died in the Kobe earthquake from kerosene fires, Nick has been very nervous of them, and admittedly they do give off a lot of fumes too, but it did warm it up very quickly.

By the time we went out to explore it was nearly dark. We were in the heart of the samurai house district, which is very atmospheric, with cobbled traffic-free streets, mud walls covered in straw matting, trained pine trees and glazed-tile rooves with a snowy mantle.

Emily was still being stroppy and would not walk, but cheered up a bit when we stopped to make another snowman. We thought the area was very attractive, next coming to a pleasant street with a stream running along beside it and shops and eateries across each little bridge over it. The main drag, Katamachi, was just around the corner, and lit nicely for Christmas.

We spent ages trying to decide where to eat. Unfortunately the concept of smoke-free dining has yet to make it to the provinces, making it hard to choose somewhere pleasant to eat. After a few enquiries, we swallowed our pride and went into an Italian-style cafe. As far as the food was concerned it was a good choice; the pizzas were fabulous and we followed up with delicious icecreams. Back in the chill of the minshuku we fed coins into the aircon to raise the temperature a little before bed. Emily took ages to go to sleep again and I had to lie on the futon next to her while Nick stayed huddled up in the ante-room revising for his upcoming exam. She decided she wanted to recite all the Japanese she knows, which was quite comical. We were all in bed at 10pm and soon flat out. The futons were comfy and layers of fleece blankets and duvets helped ward off the chill of the room.

22 December 2009

At two, Emily can sing/recite the following songs:

ABC
Twinkle, twinkle
Old MacDonald
I'm a Little Teapot
Mr Sun
What's the Weather?
Round and Round The Garden
Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
The Wheels on the Bus
Baa Baa Black Sheep
Ring a Ring O' Roses
London's Burning
Jingle Bells
Humpty Dumpty
plus some bits and pieces of Japanese songs for good measure


She can now count to eleven and to eight in Japanese

22 December 2009

Emily is two!!

We began our celebratory trip to Noto and Kanazawa by taking the monorail out to Haneda airport. The plane was nearly full, but we got lucky and were able to spread out across a row of three. We were also fortunate to be on the left side of the plane because it was a clear, sunny day and Fuji was visible as soon as we got off the ground.

As we progressed north west we passed over the rugged terrain of the Alps, some with a fair amount of snow.

One of the crew came round with freebies for the kids and Emily seized upon a Pikachu pouch bag with great glee. Though we were only 50 minutes in the air, she was fed up before the end though, which does not bode well for long haul flights to come. It was exceedingly hot in the cabin and she had bright red cheeks, which didn't help; amazingly many of the other passengers had coats on and blankets on their laps. As we flew up the Noto peninsula we could see water on both sides. It looked quite remote, and had a Scandinavian feel to it with its cover of snow and slopes of pines and cedars.

The small airport takes only a few flights a day, so it must seem a lot of effort to clear the tarmac in bad weather. I was more nervous than usual on landing as I could see slush at the edge of the runway. Even once we got off, Emily was very grumpy and refuse to walk. She has a lingering cold and possibly teeth coming, or is the start of the so-called 'terrible twos'? There was only one restaurant at the terminal, but we had a decent lunch as we looked out at the sun's rays on the sea and watched our plane re-load and take off.

After collecting our car we began to drive towards the tip of the peninsula; Emily was asleep in minutes. Aah, the magic of car travel. The roads were thankfully clear of snow and ice and really quiet. The rural scenery looked even better under a foot of snow, the houses mostly traditional wooden ones and with sloping rooves. There were lots of kaki (persimmon) still on the trees, and the orange fruit looked like jewels against the white background. Stubborn globs of snow clung onto some pines. We took an unplanned detour when we saw a sign for Mitsukejima, a large and shapely rock stack. It was especially picturesque lit up by winter sunshine with a bruised sky beyond and a snowy approach.

Emily woke up as we parked, and despite me giving her a new coat and hat to wear she was again reluctant to walk, especially on the snow. On the shore was a bell for couples to ring together, but it was rather loud and as Nick was holding her at the time she began wailing and was hard to calm.

She didn't want to walk on the beach either, but finally relented a little when I made her a small snowman, and when I discovered a stash of acorns she was all smiles again for a while.

It was only another half hour to Lamp no Yado, our accommodation for the night. The onsen retreat fills a small steep-sided cove

its little bay guarded from the full might of the surf by random boulders and rocks, from which spray was flying as the relentless waves broke upon them. It was only 3pm when we arrived, but when we were shown to our 'room' we felt so drawn by the view that we didn't go out again for a walk or drive as planned. The ryokan was very quiet so they had upgraded us to one of the miniature villas, which had a large room downstairs and another upstairs, plus an attractive bathroom that had an adjoining rotemburo: an oval cypress-wood bath for one in a little glass-sided room that afforded views directly onto the sea. We even had our own sundeck with access to the pool that runs along the front of the complex, which would be fabulous in summer. Apparently the ryokan is rated in the top 3 in the country for lodgings with a view.

Emily was very happy playing on the tatami while we drank in the amazing view, including a rainbow out at sea.

Nick and I took it in turns to go in the little bath, throwing open the window so we could feel the cold air as our bodies were warmed, and so we could hear the waves beating against the rocks. At six, we walked over to the main building for dinner; Emily was very proud of the red plastic slippers they had provided for her. We had our own private dining room, which even had its own sumptuous toilet attached. We were presented with a huge array of dishes, with a whole crab each as piece de resistance; more and more dishes were brought just when I thought the culinary assault was over. We tried to get Emily to eat some of the delicacies but she grazed on a pouch of baby food I had luckily brought for her, plus rice crackers and half a tin of beans. We were there for two hours but she did very well and didn't get upset at all.

Back in our room the futons had been laid out. We lay down with Emily on the middle one as usual, and waited for her to fall asleep. It took half an hour, by which time we were both on the point of dropping off ourselves. We had a booking to take a bath together in the romantic private bath that sits in its own little house in the middle of the pool.

It was wonderful to luxuriate in the hot water together with the window open on the sea below. Out over the ocean a storm was brewing so there was the odd lightning flicker. I was moved to compose a haiku on the power of the sea:

Inexorable

Man cannot quench surf's hunger

Legions attack shore

20 December 2009

As we will be going away on Emily's actual birthday we held her party a couple of days earlier. Inevitably with it being so close to Christmas, a couple of invitees were away, but the other 6 were luckily available, including all her regular playmates.

Emily looked pretty as a picture again in her lovely frock, though the tights were still just as wrinkled! As we entered Skip Kids she veered off into the play area and that was the last I saw of her for some time

before she sauntered over to graze on the pizza and french fries. Skip has a great menu for adults, and they even have their own pizza oven, but I find that the kids food is limited and not at all healthy. Still, if she can't eat junk at her own party then the world would be very boring. We were all highly entertained by an impromptu Michael Jackson performance by Haru, who is just two and a half. He'd watched so much footage of the singer after his death that he had started doing a very cute impression of 'Rock With Me', complete with a little dance routine.

Tracey and James arrived late on, having driven around the area for an hour or more trying to find the venue. Tracey is now three days overdue and her bump was certainly very prominent. We wondered if proximity to one month-old Cooper would trigger something to happen. Once all were present we asked for the cakes to be brought out, and there was a rather chaotic gathering to sing 'Happy Birthday'.

The party ran well over the two hours we'd expected, but Emily was still very genki as we finally left after 6.45. Only the promise of the Thomas helium balloon I'd picked up earlier could draw her away from her play to head for home.

18 December 2009

While Emily was at nursery I went to view two apartments in Higashi Azabu. This is normally a fairly pricey area, but the building they are in is 20 years old hence being in our range. The neighbourhood was surprisingly quiet given the busy roads close by. The block itself was small, having only 11 apartments over 6 floors, and the communal areas were rather dreary, but the flats themselves were newly-refurbished and felt nice. The second one had white carpets, so that immediately put it out of the running, but the one on the 2nd floor felt bright and spacious and had hard floors. At 84sqm and with three good sized bedrooms, it felt substantially bigger than our present one, though the fact it is on the 2nd floor is a negative point (in earthquake-prone Japan, the lowest floors are sometimes crushed by the weight of the floors above when a building collapses).

After I'd picked Emily up, we met an agent to view the 90sqm apartment in our building. I didn't feel the same excitement about going into it, but that can be accounted for by the familiarity of it as the decor was all like ours. It felt so much bigger (indeed, it is 30% larger by floor space) and had a longer balcony and frontage too. So much to consider, especially the attendant costs of moving, but I definitely feel that now I have seen what we can afford I can't settle for staying where we are even if the landlord agrees to drop the rent.

Emily was ever so tired because, yet again, she had failed to sleep at nursery: now the norm rather than exception. Amazingly she wolfed her tea, but got very upset when it was time for her bath, so I decided to give it a miss and settle her straight to bed with a story.

17 December 2009

Our lease is up at the end of January, and we were planning to negotiate a lower rent as we know we are paying too much for our place, especially with the market currently favouring lessees. However, in gathering data to support our reduced offer to the landlord, I found I came across many other places that are either bigger or nicer for not much more than we are currently paying. So suddenly I am inclining towards actually moving home. There are so many considerations though, not least the possibility of paying several months rent in deposit and 'key money' (a peculiar practice in Japan, which is effectively a one-off gift to the landlord), plus the cost and hassle of moving. And we paid a lot of money for our curtains, which would probably not fit somewhere new. And Nick's job is by no means safe so after all that we may not even be there that long.

But... it would be great to have a bit more space and, crucially, another bedroom for storage and for guests (and for 'just in case'!). There is even a 3-bedroom apartment here in our own block that is 90sqm (compared to the 70sqm we now have that is quite an increase, though still very small by UK standards). Being a serial mover, I feel quite excited about the chance of a change of scene and if we decide not to do so now I expect I will be a bit deflated.

In the afternoon, we went to Jo's apartment to see her, Isy and Cooper. Emily, Tim and Isy were manic together.

I very gingerly held the little guy for half an hour, as I was worried about his healing arm and just because you do forget how tiny and vulnerable a newborn is.

Naturally it made me wish I could hold my new nephew, Charlie, too. Emily came over to look a few times but didn't seem put out, probably because she was having too good a time. Their apartment looks down on the monorail track so every few minutes she would yell 'monorail' and turn to look happily at me, bless her.

16 December 2009

Julia and Charlize came over in the morning for a playdate. We did our best to get festive, watching The Snowman and eating mince pies, but so much is made of snow at Christmas that it seems hard to get in the mood without any; although cold and cloudy there seems no chance of any here, though elsewhere in Japan they have quite a bit.

The nursery held a party in the afternoon, and as we were allowed to invite friends Tim also attended. Emily looked sweet in a Sixties style dress that we had third-hand via Fiona.

While they had their fun Bettina and I had ours, celebrating the season with a couple of Kir Royals!

15 December 2009

Ollie was picking Isy up from nursery as I collected Emily, and told me the wonderful news that Cooper is finally at home with them, nearly four weeks after he was born.

13 December 2009

Emily's obsession with small leaves is becoming annoying. She can't pass a bush without plucking off as many as she can before I stop her. She is only interested in small ones for some reason, so large-leaved ones are safe from her scavenging fingers. It's my own fault because I have given her mixed messages about picking leaves and flowers before so she doesn't know what the rules are, though she often looks at me and says 'only one' before turning back to continue denuding the plant.

Since our ride to the airport on the monorail she has been crazy about the Pokemon character Pikachu, as their weird little creatures are plastered all over one of the monorail trains, and at the station a man had given her a sheet of special monorail Pokemon stickers. So while we were at Hon Shiba playground by the tracks we were on the lookout to see the special one go by. When it did come past, Emily went crazy, jumping up and down, pointing and shouting. We will be using it again next week and hope to ride that particular one as it will make her day.

After lunch I left Emily napping with Nick and went off to the TMG Christmas party, which we were holding at KSpace. The 2-4 time slot was no good for Emily as she often naps until 3 now, so I decided not to take her. With my hands and eyes free I was able to be of better use in helping out with greeting people and taking the money, and generally socialising with the guests. It went off very well, despite issues in the planning stage. We hired a Santa and he was very authentic: rotund and jolly (the one at Credit Suisse's party was jovial enough but very thin). I was informed afterwards that he had obviously imbibed some Dutch courage first, though I hadn't detected it.

I met Nick and Emily in the park up the road afterwards and we played a little in the twilight. Emily blew her first bubbles; we've had the bubble set for ages but I'd hidden it as she was just sucking the soap up the pipe.

10 December 2009

Emily and I had a wander around Shiba Koen again, and I was amazed to see some little daffs in flower already. There was also a late-flowering cherry in bloom and in the weak winter sunshine it felt almost spring-like.

We went to meet Julia and Charlize at Roppongi Hills in the afternoon. They had a great time, and as always were really feeding off each other's buoyancy.

There were lots of Christmas decorations to see, and we finished up with a quick visit to Bornelund toy store. It was pretty hard to tear them away from there to go home. We had to fight our way out of the complex through thick crowds who were waiting for Johnny Depp to arrive on a promotional tour. Back at home Emily took all the apples off the tree for the umpteenth time.

9 December 2009

Bettina and I had another playdate at Ai-port with Isy, so that Jo could go to the hospital to see Cooper. This time Isy's grandparents were around though, so it was much easier for us to keep an eye on the kids. Jo's woes go from bad to worse: although Cooper's arm is healing his belly button has become infected and he now needs treatment to prevent infection getting into his system. The whole thing is becoming more farcical by the day.

8 December 2009

While out and about I saw two unusual sights in quick succession: a Japanese man who was a good seven feet tall, then a severely disabled woman in an electric wheelchair with her husband/carer riding along behind on a kids' buggy board.

My exuberance about getting Emily off the bottle was a bit premature, as she was very reluctant to drink her carton at teatime, and when we sat down after her bath she asked for milk several times, before I distracted her with a story. There's no going back now, but I will have to find many and varied ways to get calcium into her.

The day ended on an unpleasant note, when I realised that the loo was blocked. Midnight found me in rubber gloves (one of which sprang a leak) with a coathanger rammed up the U-bend, but all to no avail and Nick had to call the letting agency helpline to arrange a plumber for the earliest possible visit. This is an advantage of paying through the nose for our place : 24 hour assistance for life's tricky little problems.

7 December 2009

It was bitterly cold despite strong sunshine. Emily spent half an hour sitting in the park collecting pods from a sycamore tree, and it took a lot of encouragement to get her to move and use some energy up before lunch. Meeting Julia and Charlize at Arisugawa late afternoon, it was so cold that I wished I had a scarf and hat, and poor Emily's hands were red raw, not that she seems to notice, mind you.


I've been thinking for a long time about getting her off the bottle but I couldn't pluck up courage to try something new. In the supermarket I saw that they sold packs of 100ml cartons with a straw and decided to go for it. I gave her one for lunch and one for tea, thereby replacing her usual 200ml bottle before bed. It took a lot of work to get her to drink both of them, but she didn't bat an eyelid at bedtime when we went straight to tooth-brushing without the usual drink first. I repeated several times that she was not a baby but a big girl now and it was time to leave the teat behind. Seemed to do the trick.

6 December 2009

What a difference a few hours makes! After a poor night's sleep on a thin futon with a stone for a pillow and a snorer next to me, I was recompensed by the sight of Fuji, resplendent with snow, from our bedroom window. The scene of blue sky, sea, mountain and the odd boat, plus a fisherman on a jutting pier was extremely tranquil. We could even see the tardy moon still lingering above the mountain.

After a filling and varied breakfast we packed up and got out to make the most of the dry, clear morning. This time we took a good look around the shrine complex spread out up the hill, including a pool guarded by a dragon, where we washed some small coins in the holy water, to purify them and make them lucky. Apparently the five yen bronze coins with a hole in the middle are the most auspicious.

At the top of the island is a large area of garden that was set out by one Samuel Cocking, a British merchant, with the lighthouse cum observation tower at its heart. Up on the roof of the 60m structure, we had superb views all across Sagami Bay and across to Fuji.

It was so sunny that I feared we might burn, and was very sorry when we ran out of time and had to go back down. I was really missing Nick and Emily though, and wished I could magically transport them here to enjoy the views with me. Kit and I left the others browsing the shops and made our way back to Tokyo, using the cute little Enoden railway line that hugs the coast and trundles along just feet away from people's houses.