You find me sitting in the waiting room at the Shinagawa Laser Eye Clinic in central Tokyo. …feeling queasy. *Twinkle* has just been taken up to the 15th floor to have her eyes done, leaving me in the big waiting room on the floor below, stuck in front of a TV showing an instructional video on what’s going to be done to her. I find it positively terrifying, but try and reassure myself by thinking of all the people we know who have had it done lately, and how they could ‘see’ immediately after the op, and made full recoveries within a day or two of being fried. It’s pretty affordable too (about £700 paid interest-free over two years) – well worth it considering the difference it will make to her daily life.

Anyhow, I need to try and take my mind off it, so let’s talk about something else.

Mr. Joseph the Teacher

I’ve had a fair bit of part-time work since I got back to Japan. The vast majority of it has been through the English school in Shibuya, where most classes are taught one-on-one. Many students are there to learn English for a particular purpose (usually a business trip to the US/ Australia etc); this makes lesson planning and execution a lot easier (especially with the additional ideas and support I’ve received from my friend Shari). I also have a couple of private students I meet in quiet cafes. Also, today I had a successful interview for a long-term part time contract teaching weekly group lessons at an American firm’s Tokyo office.

My full-time job starts Monday; looking forward to that.

Joseph the househusband

Outside of paid work I’ve been pretty busy with housework and ‘admin’. With our marriage came the need to change *Twinkle*s details on accounts of all kinds, then there was the house move, changes in insurance policies, a new Internet contract, misplaced tax bills, lost bank books, forgotten online banking passwords and so forth. When I finally received my gaijin card (foreigner’s ID card) I had to update all my accounts with the new address. There’s not much left to do …just need to get my Japanese driver’s license I think.

I find sorting these kind of things out really satisfying. Perhaps it’s the control freak in me, wanting order in my life. I like to have a clear picture in my head of what policies we have where and what’s due when – it enables me to get on and concentrate on the important stuff.

The house is also starting to feel comfortable. Latest additions include a plant, and 2 x 780yen plastic stationary sets of drawers. They have CHANGED MY LIFE. I now have a whole drawer dedicated to pens, and another to scrap paper, with the other four also having their own unique role. With the arrival of the drawers, so we see the departure of the living out of boxes (except for the other cupboard.

I’ve also cleared out all the salad crops from the tubs on the balcony, except for the aubergine plants which are still producing. Bought ten tulip bulbs and look forward to planting them and watching them shoot. I’d like to plant some winter crops too – any ideas dad?

I’m getting better at making bread in the wok, although still need to experiment a bit more to get it good and crusty (by applying water and flour to the surface) without deflating it post-rise. I’m also enjoying making simple things like fruit salad (little known in Japan) and potato salad. Nothing too ambitious, but very healthy, tasty, nutritious and rewarding nonetheless.

We’re pretty much completely vegetarian at home now. We might get a bit of chicken in when guests come to visit, but other than that we feel really good without any meat. I’m really grateful to *Twinkle* for being so accommodating (although it hadn’t been a request of mine).

Joseph’s foreign friends

I’ve really enjoyed having quite a lot of contact with my friend Tom (who lives pretty near us in Meguro-ku) – I can see the weekly Sunday morning jogs around the Imperial Palace becoming a long-term part of my routine. They’re almost therapeutic. It’s good being in phone contact with Stu as well – our schedules at the moment mean that I’ve seen a lot less of him than I’d like to have done. Hopefully we can work something out so we can ensure that life doesn’t get in the way of communication.

That’s something I missed in the UK – male (and to a certain extent female) friends whom I could talk to about pretty much anything. I think perhaps it’s being in Japan that has enabled me to develop these friendships which otherwise might not have come to much, as I’m usually much more inclined to hang out with and talk to women. Here, we have shared challenges / experiences, and I think it’s these that served as a foundation upon which the friendships have been built.

I’ve found that marrying *Twinkle* has led to a stronger sense of kinship on my part towards both Tom and Stu, both of whom have Japanese wives. Whilst our relationships are all very different, we all have our challenges at times, and it helps to be able to share these things.

It’s only in writing this now that I appreciate just how much it means to me to have foreign friends in Tokyo. Last week, *Twinkle* and I visited two young ‘old colleagues’ of mine from the place of work I’ll be returning to next week after six years away. I’ve not seen them in years, although I must say that due to the communication we’ve had via our blogs it didn’t seem like a case of ‘long time no see’ at all. Alongside pizza we were treated to Shari’s delicious homemade hummus. I tell you, it was fantastic, the genuine article, certainly didn’t expect to find myself indulging in that here in Japan.

Anyhow, food aside, it was lovely to spend time with them and chat about this and that. They are the kind of people in whose presence it is hard not to feel relaxed (something which no doubt plays a part in their popularity as teachers); it felt good sharing ‘stuff’ with them, and I wondered to what extent our all being foreign played a part in creating such an atmosphere.

Ogura san, our homeless friend

I’m continuing to work on extending my social circle, which is currently distinctly square shaped. I’ve joined the Vegan Runners Club and Toastmasters, so should be giving them both a shot later this month. *Twinkle* and I meanwhile have been trying to open up our house a little more, now it’s relatively organised (only one cupboard left to go). We’ve had a few visitors, including our homeless friend who sells the Big Issue in Shibuya, who came to supper the other night accompanied by another member of his support group of which we are members. As I mentioned in a previous post, he’s a really interesting guy – now in his 50s, he owned his own company until someone else’s business for which he had acted as a guarantor went belly up, resulting in him losing everything overnight.

Business, income, house, wife and child, all gone, just like that.

He often says that he can hardly believe that he’s now homeless. He never even dreamt of the possibility. It’s unfortunate that in Japan homeless people have the odds stacked against them: in addition to the discrimination they face, with no fixed abode they are not entitled to government assistance. Without government assistance it can be hard to find work that will generate an income sufficient to maintain a small home – it’s a vicious circle.

He’s now working to set up an NPO to support people like himself. It’s hard though. Whilst Big Issue sales might generate enough for him to afford to stay in an Internet cafe overnight, it’s not enough to lift him out of the hole he’s in, thus his ability to move forward is hampered by a need to provide for today.

Despite all this, he’s incredibly positive, with a similar outlook upon life as myself. We’re working to try and promote the work he’s doing and hope to have him speak at an event that we’re organising for next month.

Ogura san can be found most days on the East side of Shibuya station.

MCs *Twinkle* and Tame

Speaking of events (and as mentioned before) *Twinkle* and are scheduled to MC at a meeting for 500 business-minded people in their twenties on Saturday. The aim is to encourage them to pursue their dreams (whatever they may be), and not just follow the crowd into jobs in which they have little interest, but feel they ‘ought’ to take. We have a few fairly high-profile speakers lined up whose names I forget. There’s a nice article on one of them in this month’s ‘Free and Easy’ Magazine featuring him camping in the Japanese outback, Ray Mears stylee.

I’m a bit nervous about that, as it’s all going to be in Japanese, and I don’t really know what I’m supposed to say or do.

Whether we will end up MCing or not I’m not quite sure. Since beginning this blog 5 hours ago we’ve returned to *Twinkle*s family home, and her eyes are now causing her an awful lot of pain follow the surgery. Thankfully she seems to be sleeping now; hopefully she’ll be feeling better by tomorrow morning.

iPhone Update

The iPhone remains my darling. The new Facebook app is absolutely fantastic, taking advantage of the iPhone’s distinct characteristics and putting on a pretty slick show, a great example of what a mobile app can be. I look forward to the other apps I have also being updated to more reflect rhe iPhone style rather than just feeling like ported versions of apps for other platforms.

It’s also proving its worth whilst we have no broadband. For example, without the iPhone I wouldn’t have got the job that I got today. That’ll more than pay for the monthly contract.

However, I do find the iPhone’s lack of an audio / vibration alert for new emails to be a bit of a pain, especially when *Twinkle* and I are carrying out a text conversation. Thus, I’ve bought a second mobile which does make a noise, and which also happens to give me free calls and sms to not only *Twinkle* but to all of my in-laws, and vice-versa.

When will Japanese carriers allow SMS to be sent cross-network me wonders?

My new phone basically uses the same OS as my old mobile, so hasn’t required any brain power to make it work. I’m very impressed by the new predictive text function though, just amazing. Shame the iPhone can’t match it when it comes to Japanese.

Anyhows, that about sums it up for now. As you can see, we’re pretty busy, but things are good, very good.

oyasumi xxx

[EDIT] Happy to report that the patient has just woken up and CAN SEE! They were right when they said it would just be painful for a few hours – what an amazing thing the human body is!