Oh, shit! I’m in Japan!

Sometimes (but not as often as I used to), I get this feeling of, “Oh shit!  I am in Japan!!!”

And I feel a little like I’m in prison.

Yeah, I know I am VERY privileged and Japan is a wonderful country with lots of kind people and delicious food and I could really be in prison maybe even a North Korea prison but I’m not so I really should not be complaining.

Nevertheless, I’m like, “Wait?  Wasn’t I supposed to live my life in America?  How did THIS happen?  I’m in Japan.  Omigosh.  Weird.”

I supposed many immigrants feel like this.  Maybe not all, but a lot.

I think immigrants in the U.S. don’t say it publicly because then it will be like, “You thankless vermin, you don’t appreciate all the freedom and wealth America has graciously bestowed upon you!  Swim back over to where you came from and see how you like working in a factory for two cents an hour!”

I think it’s an immigrant thang.   All of us immigrants can imagine what would have happened if life had gone a different way, if we detoured at a different fork in the road…….Somewhere in an alternate dimension there’s a woman who looks just like me driving an SUV and picking the kids up from soccer practice.  She’s listening to NPR on the car radio and driving through a Chick Filet.   She hands her debit card to a person with an accent who is also imagining an alternate dimension in which her life is completely different.

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I wrote this post way back in spring but didn’t publish it at the time.  Still feel this way.  Like, Ohmigosh, I live in Japan…how did that happen?????

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November 8, 2020

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Kids’ Clothing Awesome Style

Aeon Shopping Center.

Omigosh…..SO CUTE!!!!!

ADORABLE!!!!!

SWEET!!!!!!

I want to wear these clothes myself…They are so cute.

Gah, so cute.  I always enjoyed dressing up my son when he was little.  Can’t do that anymore.  Darling Son isn’t the least bit interested in clothes.

These are “character” clothes.  You can see Kitty and Minnie Mouse and Doraemon.

More character clothes….Purikura on left. Kamen Ride on right.

Don’t you wish you lived in Japan so you could scoop up these cute clothes?

Or if you do live in Japan….don’t you love living in a country with such cute clothes?

Raincoats.  Yes.  Even in gloomy weather, one can not be unfashionable.

 

 

 

 

 

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June 1, 2020

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Bra Shopping at Shimamura

I’ve got big saggy  thirty year old boobs*, and I need to dress them up pretty.  I have posted before about my brazziere woes.  Regular stores in Japan don’t have sizes large enough for me (I wear a D so not larger than typical American women my age.)  I have in the past resorted to buying my bras in America.

There are stores online in Japan, of course, but I don’t really want to get my bra over the internet.

So I tried Shimamura with success.   It’s an inexpensive store with clothes like you might find at Walmart.  But it does carry large sizes of clothes.  That’s nice for me.

I asked permission to take these photos, so here we go!  Bra shopping at an inexpensive Japanese store.

 

These are the small sizes.  They don’t make this cute stuff in D cup.  No way.  This is A cup.

You can sort of tell if you look at the Hello Kitty bra that there is padding.  ALL Japanese bras seem to have padding, even the largest sizes.  (At least that was true in the nineties, when I was much thinner.  I could NOT find non-padded bras.)  I think the reason for the padding is that partly because Japanese fear the dreaded nipple.

Japanese women are quite conservative in their bosom area–normal women here do NOT wear scoop necklines like in America–where you can practically peek in when they bend over.  Maybe all the Japanese bowing is the reason why Japanese women don’t like scoop necklines?

I think these are still the small sizes.   But pretty, I think.

Okay, these are the larger sizes, D and E cup.  No offense, but it gets progressively uglier, doesn’t it.  Not terribly bad though.  Just not delicate.  In real life, they seem sort of cheap, which I guess they are.

More of the D and E cups.   Not  as nice as the smaller sizes, definitely.

 

*My boobs are fifteen years younger than the rest of me.

 

 

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April 11, 2020

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You are probably wondering where I have been…

I’m here, but I seem to have run out of space with this blogging site. (Thus the missing photos in the previous posts.) So I am wondering in my head what to do about this….

Also, I seem to have lost my blogging mojo. I enjoy it, but now that I am not doing it, I am enjoying that, too.

I’d like to get back into it, but I will definitely wait a bit first. When I get back, I won’t do the “every day” thing. I started that because I read a book in which the person blogged every day. I did enjoy doing it every day, but of course it is hard to keep up that pace. And I feel like if I do it every day, and then stop one day, you will all think. “Oh my gosh, she’s dead.” When in reality, I’m just living life as usual.

So in the meantime, check out those lovely blogs to the right side….Most are other Wives in Japan. Have a great January! 🙂

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January 16, 2017

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Happy holidays from me to you….

What’s inside?

Yumminess!

What’s inside?

Scrumptiousness!

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Well, another year has come and gone.  I can’t believe it.  2016…DON’T LEAVE MEEEEEE!!!!!!

(Wiping a tear from my eye)

I am going to take a break for the holidays.  Holidays in Japan means Christmas, but it actually mostly means New Year’s Day.  I don’t know when I will be back…..

Happy Holidays!

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December 19, 2016

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“Plants That Eat Bugs” Book Twenty-four of the Big Kid Picture Book Battle

Today’s book is originally a Japanese book, and it is called, “Mushi o  Taberu Kusa.”

Mushi=Bug

Taberu=Eat

Kusa=Grass

Isn’t it awesome?  I am so fascinated with these sorts of plants.  The venus flytrap is the most famous, but there are others.   Anyway, this book is great.

I bought a venus flytrap in college.  It died!  I even fed it flies……..  Oh well.

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December 18, 2016

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Leaving Yamagata City…

Yep, that’s me!   Ready to board the bullet train and head for Fukushima.

(The straw hat and luggage were provided by the station for photos………)

My “ekiben” on the way home.   Yes, it was expensive!

Enjoying my train ride.   Reading and thinking of writing………

I really enjoyed Yamagata City and seeing old friends there.  I probably won’t go back for a while….but who knows?  The possibilities are endless.

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December 17, 2016

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Bunshyoukan and Nanokamachi in Yamagata City

After lunch, we went to a shopping area and walked to a building called the Bunsyoukan.  It used to hold the offices of the Yamagata Prefectural government.  It is exactly one hundred years old this year (2016).  Woo hoo!

Inside the Bunshyoukan were exhibits and a coffe shop.  Very interesting!

My husband had told me “Go to Yamadera.”  However, that’s located out of the main city area, so we couldn’t go there.  “Well then,” he said, “Go to Nanokamachi.”

That’s this little shopping area.  He had told me that there was an extremely famous sweets shop…but I forgot he told me that, and didn’t go!  (Or perhaps I wasn’t listening?)  He was a little disappointed I didn’t go to the famous sweets shop he recommended!

But we did manage to do shopping, definitely!  On left is a Lupicia bag with Christmas gifts of tea for my Japanese teachers.  I basically have three teachers (one on Wednesday and two on Friday) but I like to give to the other teachers, too.  On right are sweets for my sweet son and husband.

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December 16, 2016

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Lunch in Yamagata City

My motive in spending the day in Yamagata City was to get together with my gal pals of the Association of the Foreign Wives of Japanese.  So we had lunch at a wonderful Italian restaurant called Igatta.  My husband and my Japanese teachers said, “Yamagata City is famous for soba!  You should eat soba noodles!”  Uh……no.

 

I had the ladies lunch….

I chose this spagetti because it was unique.  Chicken and burdock.  Delicious!

A genteel lunch suitable for a lady….

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December 15, 2016

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Kajo Park

Okay, now I going out of the back of the Kajo Building.

Walking to nearby Kajo Park.

You can see it there on the map.

Approaching Kajo Park….

Off to my left…

And behind me, we see Kajo Building…

I found the park lovely.  I realize that it’s probably the least prettiest season.  No leaves or flowers or even snow.  However, the weather was nice for walking.  Chilly, but not terribly cold.  No wind.  Mostly blue sky.

In the summer (and late spring and early fall), Japan is just too uncomfortably hot and humid for enjoyable sightseeing.

Came upon this treausure.  Isn’t it like something out of a book?

It’s a former hospital, now a museum.  (Free of charge.)

Somebody famous…a non-Japanese person I believe…but I don’t know who, exactly.

I snapped this photo because there was snow on the ground in Yamagata City, but we didn’t have any at all in Fukushima City.  However since I took this photo last Thursday, we have started getting a bit of snow here.

When I was leaving the park, I heard a soft chirping…of a bird?  of a bug? I looked for the curious noise…it was a cat!

This cat came up to me with her low chirp….

Her fur was quite healthy.  However, she had an air of desperation and sadness about herself.

I am guessing this cat was abandoned in the park, but quite recently.  Poor little kitty!

She was friendly, so I am hoping somebody took her home.  (Probably what her idiot former owners thought, too!)

Made me so sad……I wanted to take the cat of course, but our home does not allow cats. Maybe I personally would disobey this rule and secretly keep a cat (my former neighbor secretly kept a menagerie!)  However, my husband is a very “by the rules” type of guy and although he adores cats he would never ever break the “No Cats” rule.

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December 14, 2016

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