Osoji...The End Of Year Big Clean

 When I first came to Japan, I would hear a lot of students talking about "Osoji", the end-of-year big clean. Osoji literally translates to "big cleaning".

This cleaning isn't about preparing your house for relatives to visit; this big clean is about purifying your home (or office, shop, clinic, school, etc) for the new year. A chance to remove the dust of the old year and welcome the New Year with clarity and good fortune.

In most homes, families clean together. Deep cleaning of kitchens and bathrooms, polishing floors, and cleaning tatami mats. If the weather is good, futons are hung out to air!

A lot of people use this as a chance to declutter. Second-hand stores are great to visit just after the New Year, as they have so much stuff, and there is usually a good sale!

Most of this cleaning takes place in the last week of December, just before the New Year decorations go up.

I've always found it too cold after Christmas to do a lot of cleaning, actually, to do a lot of anything!

Again this year, I got most of the deep cleaning done before Christmas. For me, being able to relax over Christmas and not worry about cleaning, except for the daily chores, has always been important. I always liked to cook and bake over the Christmas holiday, and of course, spend time with my family.

This year, I managed to get almost everything done before Christmas, except the entrance and the porch and the walkway in front of the house! 

The walkway, to the right, are the main windows of the house.

Part of the front porch.

For some unknown reason, this area has become a dumping area for things that don't belong in the house but never make it to the storage area. The blue box in the front of the photo is the cooler I used for shopping in the summer. It was supposed to be put away a few months ago, but it just sat there! There are gardening tools, including the infamous rake, the one I stepped on and smashed myself in the face, yes, just like in a cartoon, and it hurt like crazy!

I got Mikey and David to put things away; some of the stuff was heavy, I don't even try to lift heavy things any more!

Hannah had an important mission. She had to guard the entrance; the door was open, and we didn't want the cats making a run for it!

Hannah on guard duty!

I took a little video of Mikey and David working hard.

If you are wondering why Christopher isn't helping, he's at work! He doesn't have a day off until January 1st!

David found a lot of these little lizard things.

Little lizard, kind of cute.

There is still more to be done, maybe over the next couple of days, but it looks a lot better.

Still need to move the boxes and other bits and pieces.

While everyone was finishing off the cleanup, I made shepherd's pie for lunch. One of my students is a farmer; she gives me boxes of vegetables every now and then. The last lesson before the holiday, she gave me a massive box of potatoes. She said that she couldn't sell them as they have eyes and there are too many for her family!  I was so happy to get these potatoes. Rice is alright, and I don't mind having it almost every day, but I love potatoes!

Shepherd's Pie.

Christmas Part Three

 After the shrine, we made our way to the theatre.

The theatre is in a shopping mall, most of the stores are brand/designer stores, besides the theatre, there's a movie theatre and a hotel. It's not very big, but somehow we always get lost when we go there.

The orange and grey building with the spikes on is the part of the mall where the theatre is.

Part of the mall.

The left-hand side is where the shops are, opposite, across the water feature is the hotel.

We had a walk around, looked in a few shops, decided that as much as we loved the clothes, shoes and bags, we really didn't like the price! One short jacket for Hannah was 8,000yen (about £38), we didn't bother to see how the matching skirt cost!

One store that I like to look in is a vintage store. I was looking around and realised that most of the items were fashionable when I was growing up. To think that fashion from my teens is now vintage made me feel old.

We made our way to the theatre, found our seats and got comfortable. Our seats were rather far back, but the view was alright!

Our view of the stage.

I felt the first part, the auction, wasn't that good, so I was worried that I wouldn't enjoy it so much, but as the chandelier was lifted up and the first strains of the famous introduction started, the feeling of anticipation returned.

Just as we were settling into the first act, one of the staff members stopped by my seat. I was sitting on the aisle seat! The gentleman, who had the seat next to Hannah, had just arrived. I stood up to let him pass, and Hannah moved aside, but he turned away and stood behind us. We were in the last row. This happened two or three times until he finally sat down. I have no idea what he was playing at; if he had just sat down the first time, it wouldn't have disturbed us so much! As we were leaving during the interval, the staff member pulled us aside and really apologised to us. The gentleman, who had caused all the problems, simply ignored us. We accepted the apology, but also told the girl that it was no problem.

The show itself was incredible. Each actor brings something different to the roles they play. The actress who played Christine had a sense of innocence about her, a naivety that helped me to empathise with her. The Phantom seemed more cruel, more obsessed with Christine. As always, the last scene had me in tears, where the Phantom sings to Christine, "Christine, I love you".

Of course, there was a standing ovation at the end, calling the cast onto the stage many times, with the actor playing the Phantom taking the last bow!

With the poster outside the theatre

The cast for this production

We were both a bit peckish at this point, but not hungry enough to want a full meal. We found an Italian restaurant where we shared a pizza.

The pizza tasted nice, but the topping kept sliding off!

Nice pizza.

The topping and base are separated!

It was already rather late. So we made our way back to the train station to go home. It was about 5:30, it was so packed!

I wanted to see the Christmas lights and the market. We went, but only stayed for a few minutes; it was just so packed! I managed to get a little video, but I couldn't see a way to get to the front of the stage to see the performers!

Just trying to get my ticket for the train and getting to the platform was an effort. I was jostled, pushed, and hit with suitcases so many times, I thought I would have bruises all over!

We managed to get the rapid train back. It was about 6 minutes late, the driver apologised, saying that the express train in front of this one had a safety check that took longer than expected! 

I had to stand most of the way. At first, I wasn't happy about that; my feet hurt, my knee was throbbing, and I thought I would pass out from the pain in my back! But when I looked at the people around me, I noticed how tired everyone looked, not just tired from that day, but tired from work; most people on the train were workers or high school kids going home. I was tired from a great day out with Hannah, a day I chose to go to the city. These people were tired from work, maybe doing this commute 5 or 6 days a week. I tried to adjust my attitude and be grateful that this train ride is once or twice a year, not almost every day. Even though I ached, I could endure it better with this mental shift!

Mikey picked us up and drove us home! 

Boxing Day, December 26th, I slept most of the day. I was so tired.

Also, it tried very hard to snow yesterday. You can't really see it in the photos, but a good few flurries were coming down!

That was our Christmas. More quiet, more peaceful, but a lot of fun and a lot of love!

Christmas Part Two

 Christmas Eve was really great. Just being together, talking, laughing and eating!

I spent most of the day cooking. I actually enjoyed spending the day cooking. 

I did roast beef in the slow cooker, it was very tender! Roast chicken. Fluffy saw me take the chicken out of the fridge, she then watched as I prepared it. She kept pawing at me to get some! When I put the chicken in the oven, Fluffy cried. She then sat guarding the oven! And, yes, she did get some after it was cooked!

I also made roast potatoes, broccoli, carrots and of course Yorkshire Puds! And lashings of gravy! 

Christmas Eve dinner

Hannah's plate, most of the beef is under the chicken!

I asked the kids not to buy presents, I couldn't, no extra money! But Christopher used what bit of money he had to buy for everyone, even me. I told him when he said that he wanted to buy something, not to buy for me, as he paid for Costco!

He bought books for Mikey and David, a little pouch with cats on it for Hannah to use for her medicine when she's out. It holds a few days' medicine, very compact and cute!

He got me an electric blanket that wraps around like a cape! It is so nice and warm! I might never get out of bed again!

My lovely warm cape!

Christmas Day started at 4am! Dad called to wish us Merry Christmas!

Hannah and I had tickets for "Phantom of the Opera". We planned a day in the city, window shopping, nice lunch, the show and a look at the last day of the Christmas Market. As always plans changed but in a good way!

After talking to Dad to I decided it wasn't worth going back to bed as I had to get up at 5am to make breakfast and obento for Christopher. Also, Hannah was too excited to go back to sleep.

Mikey dropped Hannah and I off at the train station about 9am. We were able to get a rapid train, the one that doesn't stop at every station, it took about 30 minutes to get to the city!

We arrived in the city before 10am, when everything opens. The first problem was finding toilets! Train stations in Japan, especially in the big cities, are almost cities in themselves, with department stores, cafes, restaurants, movie theatres and even clinics in them!  The train station we were at has two floors of restaurants, the 10th floor was open because the movie theatre is up there, and people were already queuing to get in. I know that the toilets up there are open, so we went up. The escalators and stairs are located in the stores, so they are not accessible before 10 am. Therefore, we had to use the elevators. On the elevators, there have always been signs asking that people who really need to use them have priority!  Now there is one elevator that is a priority elevator, painted pink, with signs in Japanese, Korean and English!

Sign next to the priority elevator.

The red mark on the bottom is for people who have some disability or health problem that is not visible. Hannah has this badge because of her epilepsy.

We realised that we had a lot of time to kill! It was only 10 am, but the show didn't start until 1:30! 

On the eighth floor of the station building is a massive bookstore, Maruzen, which has branches throughout Japan.  I love going there, just to browse the English books. I was tempted but didn't buy any. I left Hannah to have a browse around; she is always looking for books on education and linguistics. 

I found a bench to sit on and had a look through an English textbook aimed at elementary school kids. Once we reopen our school here, I want to invest in some new textbooks, but this one had some obvious mistakes! 

France is not a city!

As we were walking around, we saw a lot of very excited kids, all racing to the same area.  The new Nintendo store was opening that day!

Nintendo Store

We were going to go to a nice Japanese restaurant for lunch, but neither of us was very hungry, but I wanted to eat something, as recently I've been getting dizzy if I miss meals. Part of the fun of having diabetes! We found a soup cafe. We got some lovely warm soup and bread, not very big, just enough to keep us going!

Our early lunch.

I had a beef stew, and Hannah had onion soup! Both were very delicious!

Hannah is being cute!

We took the subway to and from the movie theatre. I don't like this subway line as it's very deep, but I do appreciate that even at the most busy times it's always clean, no graffiti or litter and quiet. I took a little video from when we were going back, about 5:30, the start of the rush hour. Quiet and orderly as people waited for the trains!

Near the subway exit is a shrine, Kushida Shrine.

It's just a few minutes walk from the subway, so we decided that we still had a couple of hours to kill, so we went to see it! This was a change to our plans, but doing something spontaneous is good to, sometimes.

The area around the subway and leading up to the shrine was really interesting! A mix of older buildings, very old shrines and new buildings!

Across from the subway, the symbols are interesting!

A street near the shrine, with very old, small shops.

The entrance to the shrine.

It was so beautiful inside, but there were signs everywhere asking not to take photos! Of course, the Chinese and American tourists disregarded the signs and were taking photos and videos!

This is one of the oldest shrines in Japan, founded in 757! It's dedicated to Amaterasu, Susanoo and Ohatanushi. 

I thought I could write everything in one post but it's getting late and I haven't even got to the main event of the day, "The Phantom of the Opera".

So I'll leave it here, see you in part 3!

Christmas

 Merry Christmas, everyone!

It's Christmas Eve afternoon here in Japan! I had plans, but of course they got changed!

I planned to do a load of baking and make a lovely dinner for this evening.

But I'm so tired from yesterday's trip to Costco, then more shopping for vegetables, and then teaching!

One thing I'm really happy about is that I'm not in so much pain! I did just over 7,000 steps yesterday, the muscles in my thighs feel tight, and after standing to make obento, breakfast and cleaning the kitchen a bit (just over an hour), my back started to hurt a bit, but not like before! I'm so happy about this; it really shows that losing some weight and exercising is paying off.

I asked David to pick up some milk and eggs on the way back from work. He did, but he also raided the snack aisle!

David's snack haul!

Plus, there's cake in the fridge! I'm glad that he got this. I don't need to bake, but I did make some snickerdoodles! We don't buy snacks, I don't think we've bought this much in the past year!

I've put the beef in the slow cooker. I like it done like that, long, slow cooking. Makes it a lot more tender than in the oven!

The beef, all ready to cook.

I forgot to mention that Mikey had a magic show on Saturday. 

Saturday was crazy busy for Mikey; he had three classes in the morning, two of which overlapped in time. He asked Hannah to help out; she could start the one nursery class while he finished the one before, and then drive to the other place.  This worked out well. Hannah watched Mikey's show and said it was very good! She sent a few photos!

Tomorrow, Hannah and I are off to see "The Phantom of the Opera". I'm really looking forward to that, but it still seems strange to go out on Christmas Day!

Costco

 Last November, Costco opened a store nearby, about a 30-minute drive away.

I've been wanting to go since then. But if I had time, I had no money; if I had money, I had no time!

This time, however, Christopher offered to pay for me. He even made a credit card just to go to Costco!

One problem is that neither Christopher nor I can drive, so we had to coordinate with Mikey and David!

We've been planning this trip since the beginning of December!

David came home from work, picked us up and dropped us off. He then had to go to the dentist. Mikey finished his morning classes, then picked us up!

I was rather excited to go there. I think it has to do with being able to buy things that are different, more to my taste.  Also, there is always a feeling of nostalgia, the many times I went when the kids were little, and Hisao was alive.  We went to a different branch, almost a 2-hour drive away. It was always a full day out, always a lot of fun!

I didn't buy too much, I did get a whole chicken and a piece of beef for tomorrow's dinner. Everyone will be at home. I'm really looking forward to having everyone around the table again!

While I was choosing the beef, some ladies started to ask me how I cook it. I managed to explain, in rather broken Japanese, Christopher helped when I got stuck. But I was rather proud of the fact that I tried instead of just relying on Christopher!

As I was wandering around, I came across these rather interesting stuffed Mickey Mouse toys!

White Mickey

Black Mickey

I can't write what Christopher said about them!

A couple of photos of what I bought!

I normally wouldn't buy apples from Costco, but these were really nice. I also got a 3kg bag of potatoes for 800 yen!

Of course, I took a video. Sorry if the quality isn't that great, but you can see what I bought!

The Tree Has Gone

 Not the Christmas tree; I don't bother with one anymore.

The big tree near the house and storage room! 

I'm talking about this big tree.

It was a lovely tree, but it had grown too big and too close to the buildings. The first plan was to trim it down, so the top was lower than the roof, but I think it died! I noticed over the summer that the leaves were brown, and there was no new growth!

While it was still green, if we had a typhoon or strong wind, there was a possibility of it hitting the roof, especially the storage roof.  Once it had died, I was very worried that a strong wind could snap it and send it onto the house roof; it seemed very dry and brittle.

This year, we have been lucky in that there have been no typhoons that have passed near here, and the windstorms haven't been that bad, but I didn't want to push our luck!

Recently, David has been out with his chainsaw, cutting down trees or trimming back some of the branches.  Today he tackled the tree!

Before

He had to climb on the roof behind the tree to reach the top part of it!

About halfway done

No more tree.

Looks a lot better. Also, there seems to be more light in the living/dining area!  

David said that the view from the roof is really nice!

I would love to have the money to take down the old storage area and build a new two-storey house! I can dream, can't I?