Teeth and warts

I've finally found myself a new dentist. In March last year I had a bit of a dental "emergency" and ended up with being told by our usual dentist to, "not come back without my Japanese husband" (a common assumption here). 

The dentist we've been going to the whole time we've lived in Tokyo (seven years) is apparently only good if we have my husband with us, and that doesn't work well if I need to go by myself (usually we have gone as a family for one mass check-up). They also didn't do a great job with my tooth last year and I ended up having to have it removed while we were in Australia. So that Practice really lost my confidence.

So today I took myself off, all alone, to another dentist who reputedly spoke some English. Turns out he doesn't speak much English, but by the time we combined his bad English and my bad Japanese, we managed to communicate enough to get by. And the plus is that he didn't tell me to, "come back with my Japanese husband".

The other good news is that I have no cavities. Yay!

Yes, dealing with medical stuff in another country can be a challenge! Thankfully we're all fairly healthy.

The warts situation from March is gradually clearing up. One boy (the one who is better at looking after himself and putting moisturiser on twice daily) was declared clear yesterday, but he doesn't want to go back to swimming. The other one (who is the opposite in terms of self-care) isn't better yet. The doctor didn't have much sympathy for him. I don't either. The dr froze more warts and basically said, "It's in your hands." From what the doctor said, the water wart virus likes the rough skin that dermatitis presents. That's why putting moisturiser on regularly helps with the healing process. 

So it doesn't look like we'll be going back to swimming. Time to gracefully pull out, I reckon. I'm not too disappointed. With the two of them now doing karate on Wednesdays, I think we can safely drop one extra-curricular activity. They'll pick up swimming again at school in Australia next year.

Only one more medical thing to deal with today, the rest of the family are going to the dentist after school (my old dentist). I'm going along as an assistant boy-tamer, not as a translator!

Adult adoption in Japan

Did you know that adult adoption is a practise in Japan? I think I may have had an inkling, but this article says it's not uncommon. Interestingly enough, it is a foreign-born former American who did the adopting in this case (he's recently become a Japanese citizen, which is not terribly common among foreigners*).

Wikipedia (I know, a less than reliable source) has a lengthy entry on "Japanese adult adoption", and cites this astounding fact about Japanese adoption:

Over 90% of the 81,000 people adopted in Japan in 2011 were adult males in their 20s and 30s.

The main reason for these adoptions is to secure an heir and carry on the family business. The Economist (you have to go and check out the article, if only to see the witty cartoon) writes this:

Toyota and Suzuki, both carmakers, Canon, an electronics firm, and Kajima, a construction company, have all adopted sons to manage them.

The BBC have also written on this topic, giving as an example the oldest business in the world (according to the Guinness Book of Records).


*You might be interested to know that Japan accepts only about 15,000 naturalised citizens each year (about 0.011% of their population). That is much less than Australia who welcomed 84,183 new citizens in 2011-2012 (about 2.8% of the population).

Japan Photo #33 Answer

We had some great guesses for this photo question.

They ARE packets of tissues. More specifically they are advertisements on the backs of packets of tissues. These are often given out at train stations or on busy city streets for the purpose of advertising a product/company/event etc.

Yes you can use them for toilet tissue and I have, when caught short. But most Japanese toilets have toilet paper supplied.

This pack was given to me just yesterday.

These are super handy, especially when you have kids! I always carry some around with me. When I run out of freebies, I have to actually buy some. No worries, you can buy several packets for 100 yen at a 100 yen shop.

New bike, looong athletics meet, and a game of cricket

Well, it's been an interesting long-weekend.

Friday

This was the quietest day. We got to sleep in (yay!), and then took an overdue trip to a bike shop to find a bike for my eldest son, who could stand over his former bike without touching the seat! 

One new bike.

But that wasn't a simple outing. It required me to drive said son to the bike shop so that he could ride home on his new bike (which wouldn't fit in the car). However David wasn't sure that our son could find his way home on his own (it was a bit out of our usual biking haunts), so David decided to ride down to meet us. Then we realised that this was a good opportunity to get the younger two some exercise (just 3.8km to the bike shop one-way). So, then we had to persuade them to ride down and promised we'd let them drive back with me in the car (their bikes fit in the car). 

We had a bit of a race too. The car route was about 5km. I was sure that the bikes would beat me, but it turned out that David made a few wrong turns on the bike, so they rode further than 3.8km!

All that being said, we found a bike, that met all our criteria, including price. And now, my biggest "boy" has a man-sized bike. This will do him until he beats 185cm!

After lunch we didn't do too much lounging. I headed off for some groceries and to buy those daisies I wrote about yesterday. It turned into quite a ride, (getting the exercise that everyone else got in the morning). Then I went out and pulled weeds with David.

Mid-afternoon the next man-sized item arrived for our eldest. Some new wrestling shoes (size 29, Japanese, or about 10.5 Australian) we'd ordered arrived. This is the plan for the next few months until school starts again: he's going to join a Japanese wrestling club to continue to work on his skills and satisfy that longing to have wrestlers his own size to work with.

Saturday 

I need a new camera! This was the closest we were
allowed as spectators to the shot put.

We got up early to go to our 13 y.o.'s last athletics meet (though not as early as the athletes, who left school at 6am). It turned into a very long day. We thought as it was just a middle school meet (the previous ones have been middle and high school meets), that it would be finished earlier than usual. Half the number of athletes and events...but no, the whole thing took just as long. Explain that?!? We didn't get home until after 7pm (after stopping for dinner at McDonalds).

Sunday

The morning was as usual, at church. But Sunday afternoon we spent playing a friendly cricket match with a neighbourhood international church. There weren't many of us who knew cricket, a couple of Indians and a Nepalese man. The rest were mostly Americans who were keen to have a go. 

Cricket is such an incredibly detailed game. It is basically throw-the-ball and hit-the-ball, but beyond that it is pretty detailed. We struggled with terminology, with "protecting your wicket". Running between wickets proved to be a challenge too: those brought up on baseball find it hard to run with the bat. And the understanding that you didn't have to run when you hit it, but rather had to judge whether you could make it, communicate that to your batting partner and then the concept that some part of you had to be behind that all-important white line!  Mind you, we did modify some of the rules in order to give everyone a go finish the game in only a couple of hours (i.e. change batters every two overs or 12 balls bowled). 

Anyway, it was fun. The "learners" seemed to have fun too. Our boys, though they've never played cricket in a team, have seen plenty on TV and didn't really want to go home at the end. David said he can't remember the last time he'd played a full game of cricket.

It was also nice to be outside an not feeling chilly. We've had nearly two years of "winter". Skipping out on most of last year's summer by going to a mild winter-Queensland. Some warmth is definitely overdue. Unfortunately with that comes the arduous ordeal of protecting out skin. We Aussies are viewed as a little bit odd, wearing our hats around all the time. However what happens when you don't? We compromise with our boys, letting them wear caps instead of full rimmed hats and then try to get sunscreen on those ears and necks (often not succeeding). Well after our outdoor weekend, our youngest has a nice bit of sunburn on his ear, including a blister. Darn!

Back to work again

And now the weekend is over and it's back to work. Friday was the last non-weekend day-off we'll have before the end of school. Tomorrow it's five weeks till the end of school. I really need a bit of a break (although having the boys home from school isn't always the break I'm looking for). But I think we could all do with a bit of a break from the school routine. As usual, it's been a long year (that's gone fast with everything we've been doing), and I would have liked those mid-year two-week holidays that I grew up knowing. Oh well.

My green therapy

I did not inherit my mum's green thumb, but I do like a few living green things around, especially plants that take little care and are hard to kill. After many years of experimenting we've coming up with a fairly good set of plants.

These bring me joy every morning while I clean my teeth (it is right next to the bathroom sink)

and every time I go up and down the stairs. They have this little window spot all to themselves partway up our stairs, facing west. Our neighbour's house, only two metres away, prevents them from getting too much sun, but none of them seem to mind.

Geraniums, I've discovered, are wonderful. They tick all the boxes for me, easy to care for, hard to kill, and flower all year long.

Outside the dining room/my office window/sliding door we have this delightful crew. More geraniums. These one don't get watered so often but have died yet!

The daisies are new. They are an experimental bid to reduce the mosquito plague we experience in our backyard every summer. I've put another pot at the front door to try to keep the pesky things from piggybacking their way in that way too. All this because I read somewhere (for example here) that these types of daisies are disliked by insects. We'll see how we go. I'd like to have more and am looking for some seeds (which will be a cheaper way to acquire them!).

Last week we gave our new eight year old a tiny cactus as a present. It may seem like a strange gift for a boy, but I've caught the younger two boys admiring it a couple of times! It's very cute and quite geometrically interesting, don't you think?

Yes, it really is tiny, only a little bigger than my thumb.

And that us about the extent of my green endeavours. Simply put, I'd rather look at them than play around in the dirt. Our miniature backyard is also enjoyable to look at, providing some nice green therapy, if you avoid the fact that there are a lot of persistent weeds out there. Weeds that we (usually David) occasionally go out and tame!

Given how close we are to our neighbours, we have a remarkable amount of green to look at from the areas of our house that we spend the most time in while we're awake. I'm very thankful that the back of our house faces south and the sun, rather than north and constant shade!

Japan Photo #33

I had too big a day today (12 hours at an Athletics meet, quite ridiculous!) to do anything except give you another photo to guess.

Anyone whose lived in Japan will be familiar with these and where you get them. Anyone else want to guess?

Mystery word revealed

Yesterday's mystery word was capsicum (Australia, NZ, and India) and pepper (UK and US).

Capsicum is actually the scientific name for this fruit. Curiously the Japanese word for it is Peemahn (ピーマン） . I've read that this comes from the French (or Spanish?) word piment, but I haven't any idea if that is true.

I ran into trouble with this word when buying lunch at Subway at Yokota Air Base earlier in the year. I was served by Japanese who spoke just passable American English. My American English was challenged when I had to translate "capsicum" into what they would understand. I really felt like a double foreigner!

But it is hard to find a word that the US and UK use, but Australians don't. 

Lesley suggested vest (UK)/singlet (Aust) (sleeveless undergarment worn in cold weather)—I'm not sure what Americans call this. Except that I know the word "singlet" in the US is a wrestler's one-piece suit.

Wikipedia has a nice entry on Australian English, it includes this:

Terms shared by British and American English but not so commonly found in Australian English include: abroad (overseas);cooler/ice box (esky); pickup truck (ute); wildfire (bushfire).

In addition, a number of words in Australian English have different meanings to those ascribed in other varieties of English. Clothing-related examples are notable. Pants in Australian English refer to British English trousers but in British English refer to Australian English underpants; vest in Australian English refers to British English waistcoat but in British English refers to Australian English singlet; thong in both American and British English refers to underwear otherwise known as a G-string while in Australian English it refers to British and American English flip-flop.