月別アーカイブ：2017年5月

As I mentioned in a previous post, June is my least favorite time in Japan. I found another reason other than it being the wettest month on the calendar. There are fifteen public holidays per year, but none fall in June! I know that it’s a measly little thing to complain about compared to some countries with less than ten public holidays a year. But, really? Why stop at fifteen?
Each month has at least one public holiday with five of them observing and honoring nature. There’s Spring Equinox in March, Greenery Day in May, my favorite one which is Marine Day in July, Mountain Day in August, and Autumn Equinox in September. If I could create a public holiday in June, I’d name it Rain Day or Water Day. Sound silly? What do you think? If you could come up with a public holiday in June, what would you name it?

There are so many great TV shows out there, do you have a favourite? I haven’t had a television in quite some time, but there are a number of sites, such as NetFlix which enables me to keep up with my favourite shows. One of the reasons that I prefer this method of watching entertainment is that I have the choice of when and, to a certain extent, where I watch these programmes. There is a large library of different categories – comedy, drama, sci-fi, documentaries – so I can choose my entertainment according to my mood and energy levels.
One particularly traditional area of British TV are detective series’. There are a great many detectives we grow up with, solving murder mysteries all over the country. Often, there are specials aired during a bank holiday weekend and we can watch as a family. Do you have a favourite detective?

Running and cycling are both excellent forms of aerobic exercise. Both allow you to engage large muscle groups in a sustained activity, which elevates your heart rate and delivers a wide variety of health benefits. Running burns more calories than cycling, and it can make your heart work a little harder. According to experts at Harvard Medical School, the heart rates of trained triathletes tend to be six to 10 beats per minute higher when they are running than when they are cycling.

This morning, as I opened my front door all ready to take my son to preschool, I was greeted with rain. Not just drizzling rain, but proper raining cats and dogs rain. I went back into the room to get my son’s raincoat and my 5-year-old raincoat and thought, “Bugger it. There’s no way I’m going to ride my bicycle holding an umbrella.” I arrived at the preschool a little later than usual only to discover that the waterproof coating on our coats had worn off. Oh, great!

The rainy season is my least favorite time in Japan. Although it doesn’t rain every day, it is a hassle when you need to commute by bicycle. Hopefully, after I invest in new raincoats and an umbrella holder for my bicycle, my attitude about getting around in the rain will change. I’ve never made a teru teru bozu talisman to bring fine weather, but I just might this year.

One of the biggest differences for me living in Japan is that I only make my own lunch once or twice a week. There are a few reasons for this. I think that the main reason is the selection of quality “to go” and “ready” meals is much greater and more reasonably priced in Japan. If, as in the UK, comparable meals are out of my price range, I would have to make more of an effort to prepare my own lunches.

Another reason is the difference in my schedule in Japan, whereas in the UK I could easily spend a big portion of one of my consecutive days off on meal preparation for the following week, it is more of a challenge here. Although if I had the same schedule in the UK as here, I believe that I would increase the amount of lunches I would make for myself to three or four times a week. This would be because my preferred method of cooking, to bake or roast, would be much easier for me to do. It is much more common to have an oven in an apartment or house in the UK – it is in general – a standard in every household. There simply isn’t the space for it in my accommodation in Japan.

This does allow me to experience more authentic – and delicious – Japanese food while I am living here, so I am quite happy, currently, to be buying in lunch!