A Fish Out of Water

How Hot and Wet Do You Like It?

Very hot, and very wet. Summer, that is. This is the first time I've spent an entire summer in Japan in ages and it was so hot that I've had to rethink my favourite season. It's always been summer, I love the heat and the lushness of summer greenery and not having to wear socks and eating fresh summer fruit and going to the beach and of that stuff. But I'm starting to not love weeks and weeks of temperatures that relentlessly stay above 30C.

The hottest temperature I experienced this summer, 38.8C during a visit to Osaka, is not the hottest temperature I have I have ever experienced: that would be 47C somewhere in the desert on the drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, a few days after I got married. But- don't roll your eyes, it's true- that was a dry heat. When the temperature is in the mid-30's and the humidity is at 90%, you start to not like summer so much any more. This wasn't even my hottest summer- 2010, when I was at the end of my pregnancy, was worse. I think it's on record as the hottest summer recorded in Tokyo, ever. Yet this time around it's much harder. Not that lugging around an extra thirteen kilograms of weight in record-breakingly hot weather was easy, but with the baby still inside me I didn't have to do much to keep it entertained. This time around, the baby was now a very active toddler, incapable of staying at home all day with the air conditioning on. This active toddler wanted to go out.

Thank god for splash pools. Thank god specifically for the one that is open from the beginning of May till the end of September, an unusually long period for Tokyo. We have a splash pool right across the street (and another just up the street) but it's only open during official school holidays, for about 6 or 7 weeks in July and August. So despite the fact that it's a 1 minute walk away, we only actually went there a few times this year. We went to the May-to-September splash pool, a 20-minute bike ride away, much more often. Just yesterday, in fact. Because the heat of summer doesn't confine itself to school holidays.

Shuma, of course, loves getting wet, and I know most little kids do, but he loves it with a zeal that I rarely see in other kids. He just goes nuts in the water. And he is not picky about temperature. The first time we went this year, in early May, he stayed in the water until he shivered, and then he stayed until his entire body was cold to the touch, and then he stayed until his lips turned blue. I kept asking if he wanted to get out and warm up and he kept saying no, and I am not a worrying, helicoptery type of parent so I decided to let him have his fun. A little drop in body temperature wouldn't kill him, right? But there is a point at which the distinction between relaxed parenting and wilfull neglect disappears, and that point is when your two year old's lips turn blue after three hours in ice-cold water on a warmish spring day, so I got him out of there. And I had to drag him out kicking and screaming. He loves the water that much.

And I love it too. Many of the mothers huddle under trees and/or their parasols, with their sun hats and long-sleeved UV protection hoodies and shorts over stirrup pants, watching their kids from afar while complaining how hot it is. I am not one of those mothers. There really is no better way to cool down on a scorchingly hot day than sitting on the side of a kiddie pool with your feet in the water, watching your child go berserk in the fountains.

So I survived the summer, and thanks to splash pools and a water-loving little boy (OK, and air conditioning) I am not quite ready to declare spring or autumn my favourite season. Just don't expect me to stay in Japan for the entire summer next year.

Aobadai Koen, May 10th.

Hikarigaoka Koen, with friend Leo on June 7th.

July 19th, Aobadai Koen.

Oizumi Chuo Koen main pool, July 22nd.

Oizumi Chuo Koen main pool, July 27th.

Oizumi Chuo Koen second pool, August 5th.

Aobadai Koen, September 14th.

At the Zoo

 

Today Shuma and I went to the Inokashira Park Zoo with one of our playgroups. It was his first visit to a zoo, and my first time at the main section of this particular one- the zoo is actually split into two parts, with a smaller section inside Inokashira Koen, the park in Kichijoji. That part only has a few aquariums and birds, and when I went years and years ago I thought that was the entire zoo and came away rather disappointed.

But the main section is way better, if only because of the guinea pig petting zoo. I love guinea pigs and used to have one of my own, so I was thrilled to get a chance to cuddle with one again. When Shuma saw the box full of piggies he was immediately interested but quite nervous, and it took a while for him to get close. When I finally picked one up and showed him how to touch it gently he relaxed and petted it a for a while, and we both giggled as it licked our fingers.

Eventually he started poking its eyes though (do all toddlers do this or is Shuma a little freak?) so we had to put the piggy back, but it was so nice to play with it. Now I want to get a guinea pig of my own. Probably a very bad idea.

The zoo is very small and we saw everything fairly quickly, but the grounds were fairly nice with some cherry trees just coming into bloom. Shuma was just as impressed with the grass and trees and fences as he was with the animals- the few animals he noticed at all he pointed at, said "doggy" and moved on. Except for the owl, which he identified correctly ("ooh ooh!"). Owls are his favourite animals after dogs.

The zoo's most famous exhibit is Hanako the elephant, who at 65 is the oldest Asian elephant in Japan. She has had a hard life and seeing her in her concrete jail cell made me sad. A lot of the animals there were also trapped in tiny concrete pens but Hanako was the sorriest looking. I wish the whole zoo was just guinea pigs and farm animals, it would be just as fun for the kids and way less depressing for the adults.

Here's Shuma playing with Hiyori, the closes thing he has to a playmate, and her older sister Jessica, who watches over Shuma like she were his sister too. The kids got to fool around after a picnic lunch and then we saw the rest of the zoo, and I was hoping to pet some more guinea pigs but Shuma fell asleep.

So I walked around Inokashira Koen to see the cherry blossoms. They were only just starting, but it was a nice way to let Shuma nap and get myself some exercise. I wanted to stay in Kichijoji a little longer but it's been so long that I've been there that everything seemed unfamiliar and I didn't know where to go. Weird, I used to work there and live nearby and hung out there all the time. So when Shuma woke up we just caught the bus home. If only the bus ride weren't so long and so crowded (and so full of old people who deserve seats more than we do- not fun standing up and carrying Shuma for 45 minutes) we'd be hanging around in Kichijoji and cuddling guinea pigs all the time.

 

Inokashira Shizen Bunkaen (Inokashira Park Zoo)
1-17-6, Gotenyama, Musashino-shi, Tokyo
0422-46-1100
Open Tuesday to Sunday 9:30 to 5:00, closed Mondays (closed Tuesday instead when a public holiday falls on a Monday)
Admission 400 for adults, 200 yen for seniors, 150 yen for students 13 to 15, free for children 12 and under
Stoller and wheelchair accessible, nursing room and change tables available.

Midtown

A few months back we had a nice day out that I never got around to sharing, so before I completely forget:

On a nice day in early October we went to Tokyo Midtown in search of the baby swing rumoured to be there. And we found it, sort of, in the park (Hinokocho Koen) to the northeast of Midtown. It's kind of half art instillation and half swing set, with a few regular swings and one toddler swing.

 

It's not really a baby swing though, and any kid big enough not to sit snugly in the weirdly designed seat is probably big enough to use a regular swing.

Just look how fun this swing is. Also, the whole swing set is really low and obviously parents have bumped their heads on the top bar, so on one side someone has slapped some ugly yellow and black warning tape. Not the side visible to most of the park though- wouldn't want to interfere with art. How the designers didn't anticipate bumped heads is beyond me, but it does seem to be a tradition in Japan for things to be designed by people who have never used them (thus my useless washing machine, obviously designed by a man who has never done laundry). End of rant, thank you.

We did have fun just hanging out on the lawn though. I don't know if it's on purpose, but most of the lawn is clover rather than grass, which is totally OK. The park is nice, and the other playground equipment looks OK, and there's a little Japanese style pond and garden and it's just a nice place to hang out.

We didn't find any four-leaved clovers though.

We had lunch at Union Square Tokyo, which I'd been wanting to check out since it opened a few years ago. They have a really nice patio, which faced the park and was spacious and had a few other families, which made us feel a bit relieved about bringing a baby to a nice place, but he was an angel.

I had pasta with oyster cream sauce, which was very nice, but Hideaki won for best order:

A nice burger, juicy and perfectly done, with good crispy fries. We also had some good wine, and the waitress fussed over Shuma, and combined with the nice weather and atmosphere it was a really really nice lunch. We've been back once and were kind of disappointed (especially since they close their patio at the beginning of November, regardless of the weather) but that lunch, and the whole day, was wonderful.

Kinchakuda

At the end of September I took Shuma to Kinchakuda, a park in Hidaka City, Saitama that is famed for its flowers. I've been wanting to go for years but never had the time, and now that I often find myself at a loss as to how I'm supposed to fill up the days with a baby I thought this would be a nice little outing. I was right, and aside from a really sore back from carrying him for most of the day things went great. I'm guessing the early toddler years are a good time to do touristy stuff like this, before he's old enough to get bored of it.

The park can be visited as part of a hike or long walk, but I chose to go directly from the station (Koma Station on the Seibu Chichibu Line). It took about fifteen minutes and was a rather pleasant walk, along paths lined with farm fields, rice paddies and chestnut orchards. There were also vendors for much of the way selling local flowers, produce and crafts. I was interested in the sesame, which we'd seen growing a few years ago in nearby Hanno, and I wonder if the area produces a lot of it.

There were also plenty of flowers, and as we got closer to the park they increased, as did the crowds. After paying my 200 yen entry fee, this is what I saw:

The flowers in question are called here manjushage (曼珠沙華), and more commonly known as higanbana (彼岸花; English names include red spider lily, cluster amaryllis, and storm lily).

This is what a single flower looks like, and it's beautiful enough on its own, but people come here to see thousands of them together in a sea of red. Indeed, if you've seen a picture of a field of higanbana then it was probably taken here, as Kinchakuda is famed throughout Japan. Speaking of pictures, I wasn't expecting to take amazing ones, but here are some examples of what more talented photographers can do with these flowers.

So of course even though we went on a weekday we had to deal with major crowds, and it was slow moving along the narrow paths in the park. Luckily the place is well-designed and the number and layout of the paths make it possible to occasionally escape the worst crowding and also get some pictures that aren't filled with people.

There was evidence here and there of the previous week's Typhoon 15, one of the biggest storms to pass through in recent memory. Here a few trees have been knocked over but left where they lay, presumably so as not to disturb the flowers.

Near the middle of the park was a market area full of vendors selling snacks and local products, so I bought a simple lunch and found a place by the nearby Komagawa River to sit down and eat it. Shuma charmed the pants off of the surrounding picnickers, and the couple seen on the right in the above picture gave him a manju (sweet bun stuffed with red bean jam). Which I brought home for Hideaki, because Shuma hasn't discovered sweets yet.

Across the river was a small landslide from the typhoon. The river was nice and shallow and looked to be a great spot for swimming in the summer, so we'll be back.

The other side of the park was far less crowded, perhaps because the flowers weren't quite in full bloom yet.

Can you spot the dragonfly above? It's an akatombo (red dragonfly, or autumn darter), the same as the one below:

This is the Aiaibashi Bridge, a pedestrian bridge said to be the biggest of its type in Japan.

Every once in a while there were white higanbana, which are even harder to photograph than red (the flowers also come in pink and yellow).

Watch out squeamish people, a spider shot follows:

You didn't think I would do a whole post without a picture of Shuma, did you? Of course, it was hard to take his picture- he can stand by himself but every time I backed up to take his picture he would grab the flowers and try to eat or otherwise destroy them.

By the time I left the higanbana section of the park it was late afternoon. This would be a good time for serious photographers to visit, as the light was lovely and the crowds were thinning out.

Nearby there were fields of cosmos. The park actually has several types of flowers that bloom throughout the year, although higanbana are by far the most famous.

More pictures can be seen here.

 

Kinchakuda
Saitama-ken Hidaka-shi Koma Hongo 125-2
042-982-0268
15 minutes from Koma Station on the Seibu Chichicu Line; can also be accessed on hiking routes from Komagawa Station (JR Hachiko and Kawagoe Lines) and Hanno Station (Seibu Ikebukuro Line)
Open daily from 7:00am to 5:00pm during the higanbana season (two to three weeks around late September, but varies; season announced in September here)
Admission 200 yen during the higanbana season; free during the rest of the year
Parking 500 yen
Wheelchair and stroller accessible, but most paths are unpaved and crowds may be hard to navigate

Shinagawa Staycation

Hideaki had a Friday off this past weekend, which fell right between our anniversary and Shuma's birthday. We really wanted to take a trip to the beach to celebrate, but without time or funds for a drive or flight far away we were left with somewhere near Tokyo. Well, the water around Tokyo is already nasty enough, and although I doubt there is any appreciable amount of radiation in the ocean in these parts it just didn't feel right letting Shuma into the ocean. So after a long search for Tokyo hotels that both still had pools open (a lot of hotels have outdoor pools only, and the season is really short) and allowed babies in them, we settled on the Shinagawa Prince Hotel. I found a good deal that included a night in one of the best rooms (35th floor, main tower), four tickets to the pool and fancy buffet breakfast, and it cost 20400 yen for all of us.

It was a great choice as I had to go through Shinagawa anyway, on my way to immigration to pick up my new visa. So a little announcement: I now have a permanent residence visa! I no longer have to worry about extending my visa (or getting arrested for forgetting- oops!) and won't be kicked out when my spouse visa expires due to a divorce or Hideaki dying. Not that I'm planning anything, but, you know. It's a relief.

So back to the hotel: it's  not a terribly fancy place, but very very big and with lots to do (movie theatre, bowling alley, aquarium, two pools, tonnes of restaurants, shopping etc). We didn't leave the building (well, complex of buildings) for twenty-four hours but still really enjoyed ourselves. We started with just checking our room out. Shuma loves exploring new places and we might as well have been at Disneyland for all the fun he had.

Our view wasn't great, mostly office buildings and Shinagawa Station, but if Shuma were a little older he would have loved being able to see all the trains, especially the shinkansen (bullet train).

We had a late lunch downstairs at Anna Miller's. We were playing it safe because of Shuma, and the food was as unimpressive and overpriced as we expected, but I finally got to try the pie people have been raving about for years. Here's the thing- I love apple pie, and by apple pie I mean the North American kind with rich, flaky pastry and gooey, cinnamon-scented filling. The Japanese kind, with tough pastry and a firm, bland filling, just doesn't cut it. So I've been suspicious of Japanese peoples' claims that Anna Miller's apple pie is the best ever. But I had to try and it turns out that- yes! It's the best apple pie I've ever had in Japan. Maybe not the best in the world, but it's a true American apple pie. Yay. So I'll be back for a kid-friendly dessert sometime.

After lunch we tried the pool. There is an indoor pool, with a sauna, jacuzzi and kiddie pool, but it was off-limits due to swimming lessons at the time so we used the outdoor pool. It also had a kiddie pool, which was the only place babies were allowed and was freezing cold, and although Shuma and I are pretty tough when it comes to water temperature we didn't last very long.

The boys needed a nap after all that strenuous lunch-eating and pool-frolicking. Actually, I'm the one who needed a nap after getting a very squirmy Shuma in and out of his swimming diaper and swimsuit and stopping him from crawling away while I was changing, all the while trying to preserve my modesty and hide my tattoo, which is of course not allowed (the tattoo, I mean). It was exhausting, but he loved being in the water so much that it was worth it.

Next up was Aqua Stadium, the hotel's aquarium. This was Shuma's second visit, and the place is notable not so much for its aquarium displays (although the shark and ray tunnel is very cool) but for its seal and dolphin shows. I had been prepared to hate the shows the first time but found myself really enjoying them, and of course Shuma loved watching the seals and dolphins perform. This show was a little different from the first one, in that there were almost no kids and thus far less splashing (the first time I went everybody in the first few rows got soaked), the lights were darker, and the music they played before, during and after the performance was kind of romantic. Or at least the Japanese version of romantic: 80's ballads, 10cc's "I'm not in Love", and gospel! Apparently dolphin shows are a very popular date venue.

So he loved the show but he also loved watching the fish and other non-performing creatures, and the lights and waves and reflections. He probably would have had a great time without the trained sea mammals, and now that I think about it the part I liked best about the shows was just being able to sit down and watch at our leisure. Wouldn't it be nice if aquariums had seats to let you sit down and watch the fish? Actually, they did put out seats in the tunnel for the last few hours the aquarium was open, with the lights turned low and little tables with candles, and they were serving drinks so we sat down and had some champagne and watched the rays glide overhead. I think that's the best idea ever, but then we noticed that everyone else was in couples and we remembered it was like 8:30 on a Friday night so we gulped down our drinks and got ourselves out of there. I may be an obnoxiously doting parent, but I do realize that nothing spoils a romantic atmosphere more than a baby. Even a good one.

There is also a restaurant we didn't try that has fish tanks at every table. But more aquariums should have seats! It's such a brilliant idea. I'd never leave (maybe that's why they don't).

Watching Shuma's face was just as interesting as watching the fish. He was really mesmerised by everything and I wish more pictures had turned out.

After the dolphin show they announced that you could touch one of the dolphins for 700 Yen, and because we're idiot parents we stepped right up. Of course Shuma was scared, and in the special commemorative picture they took (which we didn't buy) he looked absolutely terrified. I think it was being held over a giant tank of water that scared him, rather than the dolphin itself, and who would blame him. They dolphin trainer was really nice about it (as was the dolphin), and let us just look at the dolphin from the side of the tank, taking quite a bit longer than the other kids. He also encouraged us to take lots of pictures, which is nice (too bad most of them didn't turn out).

I'm still totally on the fence about animals as entertainment, especially dolphins. When Shuma is a few years older and expresses an interest on his own I may try another dolphin touching/kissing/swimming type thing. Ooh, and a few years after that maybe he'll be old enough to take to Mikurajima or Ogasawara to see them in the wild! Can't wait.

We had a quick dinner at the hotel's family-friendly food court, and then went to bed early. The hotel has a daycare centre, right next to the aquarium and movie theatre, so we'd thought about putting Shuma there and watching a movie or getting some cocktails (or going upstairs to our room), but it turns out that you need to make an appointment for anything after 6:00 (and even then it closes at 9:00) and we were too late. This isn't a country that encourages people to have a life after kids.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel's nicest buffet. The food was pretty good and they had corner booths with low sofas reserved for families, so we got a nice place to sit. After checking out we tried the pool again, and because it was daytime and very hot it was excellent. We were able to stay for much longer, and also able to try the indoor area, and Shuma had such a good time and charmed the pants off of tonnes of people. Before going home we went across the street to TGIFriday's for lunch. Perhaps because we'd had something similar the day before, but I wasn't into greasy American food so didn't really enjoy it. Ooh, but I liked my cocktail and truly wished I could wean the boy right there and then so I could have more.

Shuma had a blast! We'd mentioned it was his birthday, so he got the full birthday treatment with a half-dozen staff members (and all the tables near us- I love that about Japan) singing happy birthday and a free dessert and picture. He had exactly the kind of reaction you hope for: several seconds of utter shock and confusion followed by total delight. It was so awesome that I want to do it a few more times (after all, his birthday isn't until next week).

The dessert (an ice cream sundae) was just a bonus, and of course we couldn't let him eat it with his dairy allergy and all so we had to finish it ourselves. We're such good parents. We did give him the maraschino cherry, which is the sweetest thing he's ever eaten so it goes without saying that he liked it. It was really nice of them to take a picture but it was not only a really bad photo but possible the worst one ever taken of Hideaki and I. Luckily Shuma looks OK, he's Mr. Photogenic.

And then we had to go home. It was sad for our little staycation (ooh, I hate that term, but what else can I call it?) to be over, but it felt like we'd been away from home for days. In a good way. Just one night, but much cheaper and easier to prepare for than a real vacation, and so much fun. We're thinking of making this a tradition.

 

Shinagawa Prince Hotel
Plans start at about 5000 Yen per person (double occupancy) in one of the annexes up to several tens of thousands of yen; if you're with family it's worth spending a little bit extra for a nice room in the more expensive main tower

Anna Miller's
Apple pie a la mode 819 Yen, whole pie 4148 Yen; other American style pies also available
High chairs for older children only (no belt)

Shinagawa Prince Hotel Pool
Indoor pool open 8:00am to 11:00am, 1:00pm to 4:00pm; 6:00pm to 9:00pm; Outdoor pool open 8:00am to 6:00pm from mid-June to mid-September
Admission for hotel guests from 1100 yen, various plans for non-guests
Babies and toddlers in diapers allowed in kiddie pools only (both indoor and outdoor pools)

Epson Aqua Stadium
Open weekdays 12:00pm to 10:00pm, Saturdays 10:00am to 10:00pm, Sundays and holidays 1:00am to 9:00pm
Adults 1800 Yen, 1000 for elementary and middle school aged kids, 600 for preschool kids above 4, free for kids under 4. Guests of the Shinagawa Prince Hotel (and several other nearby hotels) get 300 Yen off admission. Weekdays after 6:00pm admission is 1000 Yen

Food Court Shinagawa Kitchen
10:00am to 10:00pm 8 food counters plus (licenced) drink counter
High chairs for older children only (no belt)

TGI Friday's
Weekdays, Sundays and holidays 11:00am to 1:00am; Fridays, Saturdays and days before holidays 11:00am to 3:00am
Baby high chairs (with belt) and booster seats available

Birthday

We recently celebrated Hideaki's birthday, and Shuma gave him the best present he's able to give: a whole day of very good behaviour.

For the actual birthday there was an ice cream cake, which looks awful here because we forgot to take a picture before eating it.

But it was delicious and was addressed in way Hideaki has never been cake-addressed before. I was afraid he'd think it was cheesy but he loved it. Shuma was his usual fussy self- the good behaviour was on another day (we like to stretch our birthdays out).

A few days later we had lunch at Girandole at Park Hyatt, which is kind of a fancy place so we were prepared to bolt at the first sign of fussiness, but it never happened. I wish we were always so lucky.

I started with salmon rillette and mixed greens with passion fruit sauce. It was really lively and fresh but would have been better with a few more of those crispy bread things to scoop up the salmon with.

My main course was pan fried kurodai (black sea bream) with Herbs with chive sauce, which was perfectly cooked and very tasty.

Hideaki had sirloin with Lyonnaise potatoes and Bourguignon sauce, also nicely cooked and delicious.

Dessert was next door at Peak Lounge, where Shuma started to get a bit wiggly but still well under control.

This was the same place we had high tea at last year near the end of my pregnancy, and Hideaki was tickled that we now had before and after pictures.

I had a blueberry tart and iced latte, Hideaki had a mochaccino and tiramisu, and Shuma had a few of our berries.

We stopped by the neighboring Shinjuku Chuo Park to reward Shuma with a little playtime. My sister-in-law tells me their grandmother used to live nearby and that they used to come here all the time as children. When I told Hideaki that he used to play here he was like "We were homeless?" That's exactly the kind of image this park has, but it turns out to have a really nice playground, complete with a splash pool.

We weren't dressed for the pool, but we did find one thing of interest:

That's right, a baby swing! Finally!

It's actually more of a toddler swing and he is way too small for it and probably was in danger of flying out of it, plus we had to wait our turn and then finish quickly because a whole bunch of other people wanted to use it. Maybe they should think about putting in a few more?

But we can't complain, finally finding a baby swing was a great end to a great day.

Baby Swings in and around Tokyo

This is a baby swing, common in parks all over Canada and, I assume, many other countries as well. But not in Japan. After Shuma fell in love with baby swings during our recent visit back home I've been searching the local playgrounds for them, without luck. What I found instead are these awful Japanese style swings.

In Canada most full-sized swings feature a nice comfy strip of rubber that can be used by both kids and adults, but Japanese swings' seats are made of a plastic board. This hurts to sit on, being a hard surface, and is so narrow that adults will find joints on each side jabbing painfully into their hips. If they can even get into it, that is: women blessed with wide hips, or adults of any gender with a few extra pounds (extra bonus points for being both, not that I would know anything about that) will have trouble in squeezing in.

To make matters worse, the seat swivels front to back, making it hard for little kids to balance on. I've seen toddlers and little kids being taught how to use these swings, and it involves lots of crying, begging to go home, and falling down on the kid's part, and plenty of "gambatte" (try your best) and patience on the parent's part. So there's a steep learning curve, whereas back home kids kind of segue naturally from the baby swing to the big swing without much fuss.

So naturally I'm on the search for proper baby style swings here in Tokyo, or even the rubber-strip style adult swings, so I can at least hold Shuma while I swing. After asking around I was relieved to learn that they do exist here, as I'd been worried maybe they were banned here or something. They are called omutsugata buranko (おむつ型ブランコ, literally diaper-shaped swing) or akachan-you buranko (赤ちゃん用ブランコ, baby swing) and are not yet widely known but starting to show up in newer parks. Unfortunately none of these parks are near me, or near anything I'd like to go to, but at least there's hope.

So here are the parks that I know of so far that feature baby swings. It's all heresay as I haven't actually been to any of them yet, so please let me know if any of this information is wrong. And please, please, please leave a comment if you know of another park with baby swings or rubber full-sized swings, anywhere in Japan but especially in Tokyo.

 

Parks in and near Tokyo with Baby Swings:

Korekiyo Takahashi Memorial Park (高橋是清翁記念公園)
Next to the Canadian Embassy, near Aoyama-itchome Station
Tokyo-to, Minato-ku, Akasaka 7-3-39 (東京都港区赤坂7-3-39)
03-5413-7015

Shinjuku Chuo Park (新宿中央公園)
In Nishi Shinjku
Tokyo-to, Shinkuku-ku, Nishi Shinjuku 2-11 (東京都新宿区西新宿2－11)
03-3342-4509

A small park outside of Shirokane-takanawa station
Address unknown (Let me know in the comments if you have any info)

Kinuta Park (砧公園)
Near Youga Station in Setagaya
Tokyo-to, Setagaya-ku, Kinuta Kouen 1-1 (東京都世田谷区砧公園1-1)
03-3700-0414

Sakae Park (さかえ公園)
Next to Ario Nishi Arai in Adachi-ku, near Nishi Arai Station
Tokyo-to, Adachi-ku, Nishi Arai Sakaecho 1 (東京都足立区西新井栄町1) 

Toneri Park (舎人公園)
Near Takenozuka Station in Adachi-ku
Tokyo-to, Adachi-ku, Toneri Kouen 1-1 (東京都足立区舎人公園1-1)
03-3857-2308 

Besshonuma Park (別所沼公園)
Near Naka Urawa Station in Urawa, Saitama
Saitama-ken, Saitama-shi, Minami-ku Bessho 4 (埼玉県さいたま市南区別所4)
048-836-5678

Showa Kinen Park, Tachikawa (uncomfirmed- let me know if you see swings there)

Canada, Part One

Has it really been almost four weeks since Shuma and I returned from our visit back home? I don't know how I went so long without posting about it. Whoops, yes I do: I was hindered by a cranky baby with adjustment issues, jet lag and a cold. It took him nearly three weeks to get back to normal, and while he's probably forgotten all about the visit by now, he probably missed Canada more than I did at first.

And no wonder, with a house full of people fawning over him. For those just tuning in, my parents live in Brampton, a suburb or Toronto. It's the same house I grew up in (well, from the age of four) and aside from my parents it contains my brother Greg and his long-term girlfriend Sherry in a basement apartment, along with frequent visitors. My sister Julie came a few weeks after I did, soon followed by her daughter Zoe, so it was kind of like a family reunion.

There were friends visiting as well when I arrived on a long weekend in May (Victoria Day, the de-facto beginning of summer in my parts, I guess kind of like Memorial Day in parts of the US). I naively expected Shuma to delight in having so many people to play with, but I under-estimated the effects of jet lag and stranger anxiety. He had a few charming moments, but for the most part he spent his first several days napping and crying (and seemed to be widest awake just when I was at my sleepiest). And even after he got over the worst of his jet lag he was cranky and wouldn't eat. I guess he's just a sensitive guy who needs time to get used to changes.

There he is above, during an epic nap on his grandfather Baboo (a nickname given to him by his first grandson about sixteen years ago). While I was having a wonderful nap all by myself, poor Baboo couldn't move for a good part of the afternoon and got his shirt soaked with baby sweat for his trouble.

When Shuma was awake, he did tend to cheer up for walks with Baboo and I. We tried to get in at least one a day, an easy feat since we live near a very nice system of parks centred along Etobicoke Creek, which flows by our city on its way to Lake Ontario.

I still get excited to see bunnies- they just weren't around when I was still living at home. This little guy was enjoying the dandelions in a very neat way: he'd bite off a stalk at the base then chomp the stalk all the way up to the puffy end, then eat that too. Too cute.

Not quite the tortoise and the hare, but along with all of the rabbits we came across this snapping turtle, the first time we've seen one in these parts. We actually spent a good deal of time trying to rescue it as it seemed injured and we didn't want to leave it out in the open for it to get run over or bothered or kidnapped. We even went home and coming back with equipment to safely move it to a more sheltered area with, but when it finally had enough of our pestering it just up and walked away, obviously perfectly healthy. Served us right for anthropomorphising.

Shuma fell in love with the baby swings that are at every playground. Swinging was probably his favourite part of the visit, and I'm really sad to be back here in Japan where this type of swing is rare. I've done a bit of research and they can be found here and there, but nowhere near me. If you're interested in checking it out for yourself, they are called omutsu-gata buranko (おむつ型ブランコ, literally diaper-shaped swing). Let me know in the comments if you find these swings anywhere.

So I took a million pictures of Shuma on the swings, of course.

Back at home, Shuma quickly found a few favourite places. The best was the hallway above the kitchen (our house is a split-level), where he could watch the action and play with the bars of the banister.

I had really been looking forward to letting him loose on the lawn, hoping he'd learn to crawl there, and maybe even stand and walk. But they had a month of almost non-stop rain before we arrived, and it was hardly better after we got there. The ground was often too wet to sit on, so when it was warm enough to be out we put him in this kiddie pool.

And it would occasionally warm up enough for us to use the pool as a pool! Unfortunately most of the pictures we took are X-rated. He did have a swimsuit and swimming diapers, but we had him naked as often as possible to help clear up a diaper rash.

Greg's into mountain biking and would take off nearly every day to careen down some hill or other. One weekend he invited us to come along, and we went up to Blue Mountain, a ski resort near Georgian Bay. We took a gondola up the hill and while Greg and Sherry endangered their lives on their bikes, Baboo Shuma and I walked around on top of the hill (Mom, not much of a walker, guarded the car).

 

This is a small remnant of the first chair lift in Ontario. Both Baboo and I are completely incapable of using a chair lift and always manage to fall as we get off, which has to be one of the most embarrassing things in the world. We've seriously developed major phobias, and won't even try skiing anymore. I actually didn't even know this about Baboo until this trip, and it was kind of a relief finding out: if both of us are the same maybe I can blame my genes? This lift, being out of service, wasn't so scary and we totally conquered it.

 

After our little hike we drove to the nearby Craigleith Provincial Park for a picnic. The park is on Georgian Bay and has a shore lined with shale, rich with 455 million year-old fossils.

The thing to do is break apart the fragile rocks to find trilobites and other ancient critters, and although we found some good ones I forgot to take pictures (here is a trilobite found there a few years back).

Normally I find myself wishing there was just a bit of sand so we could take a dip (the shale underwater is covered in algae and way too slippery for swimming), but it was freezing this day so I was fine with it. We saw a loon in the water, which was a huge highlight (it turned up as a tiny black smudge in the pictures I attempted).

Shuma had a spontaneous nap while we ate, so a thousand pictures were taken. Not many pictures of the actual bbq and picnic though, as my hands were nearly frozen. A very nice day though.

Back home, Shuma really enjoyed watching the cats. They weren't particularly thrilled with him, but Toki (shown above) started to warm up to him a little, so much so that she could even stand to be in the same room for a few seconds.

More swinging.

Some frolicking on the lawn waiting for the pool to fill.

Drying off after the pool.

And all dressed again. Note that the pictures above, and all other suspiciously good photos in this post, were taken by Sherry or Greg and not me.

Shuma's appetite returned little by little, and he developed an obsession with berries. Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries: if it was expensive, out of season, and imported from far south, he approved.

He also approved of the thousands of toys my mom had stocked the house with. She actually fixed up my room really nicely with a beautiful new crib with cute bedding, a fully stocked change table, and the aforementioned toys. I meant to take a picture but by the time I got around to it I'd messed the room up too much. But Shuma was never without a nice place to sleep, a nice place to be changed, and a nice toy.

And some nice tickles.

He even had a bunch of equipment loaned to him from a friend, including this exersaucer.

And after a few weeks, he was back to his happy self.

Here he is with uncle Greg.

Speaking of Greg, this is one of his (many) aquascape aquariums. They are constantly changing so I'm sure this one looks totally different by now, but this particular display was entered in a contest at the time. Shuma loved the aquariums and was happy to look at them until my arms hurt from holding him, and often when he was fussy Sherry would whisk him downstairs to be calmed down by the plants and fishies (although I'm sure Sherry herself was just as effective).

My sister Julie arrived in a rental car from Buffalo, where she'd been dropped off by her fiance. He is a trucker and she travels with him all over the states, which sounds like lots of fun.

Julie brought along her corgi, Cletis Van Damme, and he became Shuma's new best friend. But the cats, just as they'd almost accepted Shuma (Toki had actually allowed Shuma to make eye contact), disappeared into the basement, never to be seen again.

Right on schedule, Shuma learned to pull himself up to standing at nearly nine months old. He was naked the first time, and although the event was heavily photographed and video'd, this is all I can show you.

To be continued. See more pictures here.

Nerima Blueberries

A few Saturdays back we took Shuma for his first fruit-picking excursion (also our first in Japan). He's ten months old now, and that might seem a little young to be putting him to work, but we believe it's time he started earning his keep.

For years now we've been noticing little blueberry patches here and there in our area but never seemed to find the time to go picking during the short season. I've also seen the berries themselves on sale at the local JA (Japan Agriculture, the national farmer's co-op) store and at little honour-system roadside stands, but balked at the price: 600 yen for a tiny 200 gram package. Outrageous!

And then this year at the JA there were posters and brochures for Nerima-ku blueberries. Nerima is the ku, or ward, that we live in, and was famed for its daikon in the Edo era, and is recently known for producing the most cabbages of any ward or city in Tokyo. Not exactly exciting stuff, so apparently the ward is trying to re-brand itself with blueberries.

There are now 25 blueberry farms (orchards?) spread throughout the ward, mostly concentrated in the west end. And aside from selling the berries at JA shops and farm stands, each farm is open on certain days of the week for picking, at the price of 200 yen per 100 grams. Still pretty outrageous but cheaper than buying them already picked and possibly cheaper than imported berries. And after trying it for ourselves, it's totally worth the money when you factor in the entertainment value and the fact that they are a million times more delicious when freshly picked.

The brochure is unfortunately only available in PDF format, page by page (scroll down and click the page with 7 and 8, which shows the farms nearest to us- we picked at number 7, Konishien). But it's nicely down, with lots of information about blueberries and maps of the farms including local sights. And this being Japan, Nerima blueberries have their own "image characters": Blueberry Kuma Sankyodai (The Three Blueberry Bear Siblings). Big Brother Bear is named Burun, he's cheerful and good at making jam; Little Sister Bear Rirun is a bit shy and loves fireworks; Little Brother Bear Berun is a mischevious glutton who loves climbing trees.

So back to picking. All farms charge the same price, but they all vary on days and times they open (and I think you need a reservation to pick at each one). Some places provide plastic tubs, some ask you to bring your own; some farms have a 1 kilogram limit and some don't. At all farms it's strictly picking only, with no eating allowed (unlike traditional fruit picking in Japan, in which you a heavy entrance fee and eat everything as you pick it). But I did see plenty of other pickers eating, and we snuck a few too.

Shuma was a really good picker, and even grabbed and ate a few when we weren't looking. He just knew exactly what to do, it was amazing. Maybe because it was early in the season (some bushes looked like they hadn't yet been picked at all), but it was really really easy, and within a few minutes we had this much:

Which doesn't seem like much, but knowing how much they cost we were trying not to go crazy. The other pickers, who were equally divided between families with kids and lone obaachans (grandmas) were totally filling their buckets, and probably paid two or three thousand yen for their takes. I can only guess they were making jam or giving them away to friends and family. We ended up with 400 grams, for which we paid 800 yen. My inner cheapskate protested, but it was fun and provided a week's worth of breakfasts for all three of us (especially Shuma, who is in a blueberry phase and will eat nothing else in the morning) and a few desserts. And they were really good, in that Japanese fruit way: very very sweet. I still prefer the more tart and intensely flavoured Canadian berries (especially wild ones!) but it was very hard to complain about these.

Here is what I made with the last of the blueberries: a no-bake cheesecake.

It's made with mascarpone, cream cheese and yogurt, with a standard graham cracker crust and a simple topping of blueberries lightly cooked with sugar. So, so good! Oh, and that was a total lie up above- we ran out of Nerima berries before I could eat dairy (I've just started the gorging-on-dairy phase of an elimination diet to see if the dairy products I eat effects Shuma), so I had to buy more blueberries at Costco. But I fully meant to make this with our freshly picked berries, and I will someday. I will also work on presentation, but it's only my second time making (and liking) cheesecake and there no complaints.

Suitengu

On the to-do list of most pregnant women in Japan is a visit to a shrine, to pray for a safe and easy delivery and pick up an iwata-obi (a stomach wrap to protect the baby). This is best done on certain dates and at certain shrines, and although I got the day wrong I did get the place right.

The proper date would have been the first inu no hi (dog day) of my fifth month of pregnancy, which is not quite as easy to determine as it would seem. First of all, pregnancy is counted differently here, and Japanese women are said to be pregnant for ten months. This is not quite as wacky as it sounds as the months are lunar months lasting exactly four weeks long, and ten lunar months is exactly forty weeks. Which is indeed how long a pregnancy lasts, no matter which way you count. But it can get a bit confusing as I am keeping track of my pregnancy both the Canadian way and the Japanese way and I always get them mixed up and have trouble answering people who ask me how far along I am (luckily health professionals here count pregnancies in weeks, just like they do everywhere else).

The other thing is that nobody around me knows when exactly these dog days are. My husband, who can always be relied on to know absolutely nothing about traditional Japanese culture, certainly doesn't know. Nor do his parents, who are not at all traditional (a blessing really), or my friends or students, who all know what inu no hi is but have no idea when it falls. The problem is that inu no hi doesn't fall on a fixed date but every twelve days, based on the old Chinese calendar, and the days are seldom mentioned on calendars. After a bit of web sleuthing it turns out that my date would have been April 6th, which had long passed by the time I figured it out.

A final problem is that the place to go for inu no hi in Tokyo is Suitengu, a shrine in Ningyocho, just down the street from where Hideaki works, and he doesn't relish the idea of hanging around his office neighborhood on the weekend. But last week we finally got around to it.

I'd never been to Suitengu before, and if Hideaki hadn't been there I might have missed it. It's actually a very small shrine and is completely dwarfed by buildings crowded around it.

The visit was also a bit anticlimactic as all we did was the typical shrine stuff: ritualized washing followed by tossing a few coins, ringing the bell and praying. There are special ceremonies you can apply for, which involve paying a shinto priest in a comical hat lots of money to shake a paper-festooned wand at you, and you can also buy special amulets and charms to protect the baby and ensure a safe birth. We passed on that though, because, well, it's all very silly.

We could also have bought the traditional iwata-obi, but with a Japanese summer upon us I have no wish to have my stomach wrapped in layers and layers of constricting fabric. Actually, few women wear the traditional wrap-style iwata-obi these days, but most still do wear some kind of wrap or belt, believing that it will protect the baby from getting cold as well as from bumps and falls. These modern wraps are not so different from the pregnancy belts that some western women wear, but unlike in the west the reasons for wearing them are more for protection to the baby than for back support. I do have a belt that my mother-in-law bought for me and will wear it if my back starts to hurt, but I believe that a woman's natural defenses of skin, fat, uterus and amniotic fluid do a fine job of protecting the baby. So no iwata-obi for me.

Dog days are associated with pregnancy because dogs are thought to enjoy an especially easy labour (the lucky bitches). So the shrine features a little statue of a mother dog and her puppy surrounded by the twelve Chinese zodiac signs. Apparently you are supposed to find your sign and rub it, then rub the head of the dog and her pup to bring good luck to mother and child. We weren't sure if we were supposed to be rubbing our own zodiac signs or the baby's, so just in case we did all three (rooster for Hideaki, ox for me and tiger for the babe). It was the first time we'd thought about what our baby's zodiac will be, and Hideaki took it as a very auspicious sign that our spawn will be born in the year of the tiger, because like all good Osakans Hideaki is a devoted fan of the Hanshin Tigers baseball team.

Suitengu is also visited after a baby is born, and since this wasn't a dog day we saw far more families with newborns than pregnant ladies, and there were plenty of shops set up both inside and outside the shrine selling candy, toys and baby clothing. I'm sure there are a whole host of special baby praying days that I'll find out about months after the fact, and hope our kid doesn't grow up feeling deprived.

After we left Suitengu we walked around the neighborhood, and it was neat to see where Hideaki works. Ningyocho is an old area and has lots of little traditional shops, like stores selling nothing but hand crafted folding fans or scissors or sweets. Lots and lots of Japanese style sweets. Unfortunately the shops are all the kind of tiny place that once you step inside you feel obliged to buy something and since everything is hand-made it all costs a fortune, so we mostly just looked in from the outside.

The one place we did go into was a small restaurant called Tree's which specializes in something called soup curry, a variation of Japanese curry rice. Unlike regular Japanese curry, which is thickened to a glue-like consistency, soup curry is left liquidy and soup-like, and is thus much lighter. Hideaki has been eating at Tree's since he started at this job in January and raves about it enough that, although it didn't sound particularly appealing, I had to try it.

I had the tomato bacon curry, and it came in a bowl with a separate plate of rice (unlike regular curry rice in which the curry is served together with the rice). It was indeed soupy, much like a Thai style curry, but the flavour was closer to a Japanese curry. It is meant to be spooned over the rice little by little (or you can just dump the whole bowl of curry onto your rice like Hideaki did above) with pickled rakyo (shallot) and fukujinzuke (mixed sweet pickles) added as desired. It was very tasty and without being thickened by a roux it was quite light and I didn't feel nearly as full and greasy as I do after eating regular curry rice, which was nice.

Of course my midwives have warned me against eating spicy food as hot flavours are harmful to the baby (I wonder what they think women eat in Thailand or India?), so this was an illicit meal. May they never discover this blog!

Suitengu Shrine
2-4-1 Nihonbashi-kakigaracho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
03-3666-7195
Open daily 8:00 am to 7:00 pm

Tree's
3-6-8 Nihonbashi-ningyocho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
03-3639-2525
Open Monday to Friday for lunch 11:00 am to 2:30 pm and dinner 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm; Saturday for lunch 11:00 am to 3:00 pm