Paddy Field Paradise



I really wish he didn't do this at 6am

I had to do some research on paddy fields (for starters I learned that is the correct English term, more so than "rice paddy") before this post. Because although they are all around my house, I have no idea how they are cultivated or what really goes on in a paddy field. When we flew into Japan, we could see flooded fields out the plane windows. When we took the train into Tokyo there were fields full of tall green rice stalks.  I'm pretty confused about rice agriculture.

"Our" fields seem to be following the timeline I found on on the Internet. A couple of weeks ago a guy on a tractor came and plowed them up (there was another guy weeding by hand too). From what I read, they should be planted in early June. So we'll see.

Currently the fields are flooded naturally because it has rained for two days straight (the famous Japanese "rainy season" is upon us I guess). Also, the resident frogs weren't too loud at first, but the more it rains the louder they get....



these canals run all through the neighborhoods, I believe            
they are used to flood the paddy fields



some kind of dam in the canals?  I found it one
neighborhood over

Memorial Day Hoedown at Japanese Wal-Mart

This weekend I drove to the mall in our rental car twice by myself.   Remember here you drive on the wrong left side of the road in a car with the steering wheel on the wrong right side. So I was pretty proud of myself. And it's awesome to shop without Chad rushing me at my own speed. I'll post more details on driving later.

you'll just have to imagine the hoedown music

On the supermarket side of Japanese Wal-Mart there is an odd display at the front of the store right now. It must be a Memorial Day display.  It's an "Americana" display with American flags and a poster of a Japanese girl in a cowboy hat and hoedown music playing on a boombox. And typical American food, of course. What is typical American food? Budweiser, Spam, Pringles and raw steak, apparently. Pretty accurate, I'd say.

exotic treasures from the imported food store

We can get a lot of American brands here (I'll post a list later on) although sometimes they are expensive or in tiny packages. There is also a store called Caldi that has imported foreign food from all different countries. We gave it a thorough going over and found some good stuff.

Flora and Fauna

The plants here are almost the same as the ones in South Carolina. Azaleas, roses, irises, pansies, dianthus, hydrangeas, petunias, ferns and elephant ears are all very popular. I see cedar and pine - type trees, lemon trees are popular, and I even saw a magnolia. I recognize almost everything. I've pruned and weeded a little in my yard, the weeds here are huge.

We have lizards, butterflies, birds, bugs galore. Because of the rice paddies (more on those later) there are a few ducks that wander around the neighborhood and......we have dozens and dozens of little green frogs all over our yard. I have taken about a million frog pictures, although in my defense, they are good practice for close up shots with my new Nikon. Check out my Shutterfly site for more nature shots.



I have pretty two-toned roses and the frogs like to sit in them

mystery tree in my yard, anybody know what this is?
those are flowers, not nuts



frog party, they all come out when it rains

Is The Ground Shaking, Or Is It Just Me?

when in Rome, right?  you use an odd "clothes
pin mobile" to hang them up

I suppose I should mention the earthquakes, and the after effects of the big one. There are tiny earthquakes everyday and we have felt at least two decent trembles since we have been here. We have noticed that it is hard to feel most of these unless you are sitting still. If you are up and moving around, you won't notice them. Sometimes you wonder if it is actually an earthquake or your imagination, but the dead giveaway is if you hear the house creak and pop like it is settling. Then you know it's really a quake. The two bigger ones have registered as 3's here where we are and were 4.something further east. They are all just a few seconds long, by the time you realize it's a earthquake and start wondering if you should get under the dining room table, it's over. They're a real let down so far. ;)

There is zero damage here from the March 11th quake. I heard rumors that some people lost roof tiles and that a neighbor's garden wall crumbled a little bit. They definitely felt it here. As far as the nuclear situation and the damage up north, we see it on the news pretty regularly. The only widespread effect is that the whole country is devoted to saving energy so that blackouts can be avoided (we have had no loss of electricity so far). Which means that companies and stores are running their air conditioners as little as possible. Which means it can get pretty hot inside sometimes. Chad had to get a fan for his desk because it is so hot at work. The news gives tips on how to save energy all the time. Everyone is asked to save 15% energy this year. As for us, I let the upstairs get hot during the day and only run the air conditioning downstairs (I'll explain the heaters/air conditioners later). I also dry clothes outside (normal here even before the energy saving) even though I have a dryer. And I don't use the dishwasher. It isn't much, but hopefully it's our 15%.  Also I'll say that we don't really know what it was like before the quake so we are probably not aware of some changes.  We've talked to a few people who were here about the differences since and they say it is different but their examples are pretty vague....mostly just that people aren't buying as much or going out (to bars and clubs) as much.

Yum!

Le Clair: currently the #1 rated Ota restaurant on Trip Advisor

So on Tuesday the Japanese wife of one of Chad's co-workers (they are about our age and newlyweds, and her English is pretty good) kindly invited me out to her favorite "cake and tea" shop here in town. It turned out to be an adorable bakery and dessert shop where you can get tiny, pretty desserts and then tea or coffee from a vending machine. Unfortunately it is on the other side of town and there is currently no way I could find my way back to it. 

Le Clair porch

Oh, and the food was not unusual: chocolate, shortcakes, cheesecakes, tirimisu, fruit tarts etc.  I had a really good tirimisu.

 

Mall Rats

There is a mall about a mile from our house. It was the first place we drove to and we still go almost every other day. There is a store at one end called Aeon which is pretty much Japanese Wal-Mart. The other end is a movie theater (yes, they show some American movies) and in between is an arcade, bookstore, cell phone store, fast food, sit-down restaurants, Starbucks, electronics store, drugstore, giftshops, bakery, dessert shop, florist and dozens of clothes/shoes/jewelry/cosmetic boutiques. The boutiques will get a post of their own one day, they deserve it, trust me.

Side note: We were told before coming that we would be stared at a lot because we're foreigners. I have not found this to be true.....we don't get stared at much unless people overhear us speaking English to one another and then they do a double-take. I think that being short, fair-skinned, brown-eyed brunettes really helps us blend into the crowd. Even kids don't really pay us that much attention which tells you we are not that unusual. We've seen a few tall, blonde foreigners out and about they really stand out. But even they are not being pointed at or stared at...the general public is pretty much focused on their shopping or whatever.



Aeon aka Japanese Wal-Mart



inside the mall

Country Goes to Town

The first week we were here we had to take the train into Tokyo to visit a bank (to get a bank account) and company headquarters.  I thought we had to go to the American Embassy too, but apparently we can just call or email them to tell them we are here.  A company representative went with us and taught us how to ride the trains and subways, which is good, because otherwise we might still be wandering around under Tokyo.  We are going to try it by ourselves sometime in the next few weeks.

coming up out of the subway at Otemachi

a shrine next to company headquarters

that tower you can barely see just to the right of the big skyscraper
is the Sky Tree aka New Tokyo Tower

recess on top of a a skyscraper - bad pic, but those are kids playing

gardens in the sky, these are all from company headquarters at Iidabachi

I think we were around Akihabara here, headed home

Around the 'Hood

Our neighborhood is a little maze-like but that seems to be the way of much of Japan.  The roads aren't that clearly marked.  Our American GPS with Japanese maps works great though.

Gardening is popular here and most of our neighbors have pretty little gardens and are constantly digging in them.  I walk around the neighborhood a lot and take pictures:

down the street

some people have space for vegetable gardens

a neighborhood shrine?  no clue, but it's about a block away

neighborhood garden

yard around the corner

New Digs

We have a wireless network at our house!  Tokyo D'Esposito is officially open for business.

It's been a long two weeks.  When we arrived it was almost dark at 4:30pm (the sun comes up early and goes down early here - no daylight savings time) and our driver piled us in our car and took off across Tokyo.  It was completely dark when we arrived at our house and all I could see was a maze of a neighborhood and a very urban landscape.  So I pretty much freaked out all night.  Chad won our bet about who would lose it first and I didn't even care.

Good news is that I'm much better now and not freaking out at all.  Not even at the earthquakes. ;)  But more on those later....for now here are some long awaited pictures of our house.

in the light of day

dining room

living room

the kitchen

from the back, across the rice paddy - the one in the middle

Quick Update

Chad and I are hunkered down in Starbucks at the local mall using the free wireless like it's a puddle in the desert. Good news is we are told we could have Internet at our house in a week or two. I have lots to write about after two days here! It's very different and I'm having a harder time adjusting than I thought I would. The jetlag is pretty bad for starters. Right now it's just one day at a time! Tomorrow we go to register at the local city hall and meet our new Japanese teacher. Tuesday we go into Tokyo to the American embassy and then Wednesday Chad starts work.

I'll post again as soon as possible, everyone send fast Internet thoughts our way!!

Internet Woes

So Chad has started trying to get our Internet access set up in Japan and he got some bad news.  Apparently it could take months for us to get it.  They are backed up because of the tsunami damage.  (For the record, lack of Internet bothers us WAY more than radiation exposure.) So....this could be my last blog post for awhile.  I will post as soon as I can after we get there - please check back!

Latest News

We are currently in a nice, new apartment for a couple of weeks.  The relocation people seem to have thought of everything: dishes, linens, washer/dryer etc. are all here.  Moving out of our house took two days and since people did it for us, we spent the time lazing around on our front porch.  Not a bad deal.  I decided to wait and talk about what we shipped/left here when I unpack in Japan.  We pretty much guessed as to what to ship so we'll see how well we did when we get there.

fancy (and untouched) place setting in the apartment

We leave on Thursday, May 5th, early in the morning and are going through San Francisco to Tokyo.  We found out that several people will meet us there to help us with various things (thank goodness) AND we found someone here in Greenville who lived in our house in Japan.  He told us a few things about our new house including that we'll have rice paddys all around!  So expect many rice paddy photos to come....