Acclimating

Today, Monday June 18, our house shook at 7:58 am.  It was quite a jolt.  The kids were getting ready for school and Avalon was finishing up some last minute homework at the table when the ground starting rumbling and the house started shaking and I started panicking.  It was the strongest, scariest earthquake I have ever felt.  That’s saying something because I’m from California and I’ve felt my share of earthquakes.  But as it turned out, we were one of three cities that felt it the strongest.  We live right next to the center!  That’s never happened. The epicenter was in Takatsuki where I work every Tuesday.  The neighboring city, Ibaraki, also got a lot of damage and that’s…

Subtitle:  This is no way to live. The average temperature over the past week has been around 4 degrees Celsius.  That’s 39 degrees F.  It was negative degrees C the other day.  I feel like I’m living inside an ice cube.  Finally it snowed today, Saturday, January 27.  If it’s going to be ice cold outside I prefer that it snows so at least it’s a beautiful sight and there’s the possibility of a snowball fight or snowman to be made.  Old timers at my kids’ school are telling me that this is the coldest winter in Osaka they’ve ever experienced.  Japan can be beautiful in winter but let’s be honest, my California self can’t take this cold.Japanese houses are…

We arrived in Japan from sunny, coastal Southern California, where the weather is almost always perfect and the sun shines without humidity and the sky is blue and the air smells like the ocean.  We looked forward to experiencing four seasons in Japan.  My kids had never lived anywhere with real changing seasons and my husband who is from Chicago missed them. In the past year we’ve seen sights that we’ve never seen at our house in California.  Fire red autumn leaves on the trees, snow falling outside our front door, cherry blossoms bursting on branches like popcorn, and a whole lot of torrential rain and gusty wind.  I’ve never needed an umbrella so often in my life.  And that…

June 13, 2017 I’ve been collecting more interesting photos to share.   Some are hilarious and some are downright strange.  The featured photo above just about sums up my trash frustrations when in the great outdoors.  I don’t mean out on a nature walk.  I mean just after setting foot outside my front door.  One day I asked some people why there were no trash cans in public places.  We had some discussion about it, but the consensus was exactly like on this sign.  Everyone just carries their trash around with them and takes it home.  I guess I need a larger purse! On another day I was talking to an expat American teacher at school and I was telling…

Here are some thoughts about Japan I’ve been storing up in my head.  You will have to add some pictures in your imagination to go with my thoughts.  Friday, February 3. Japanese houses are freezing in the winter!  I don’t think I can overemphasize it enough.  FREEEE-ZING.  NO central heat makes our house an ice box.  Sometimes you can see your breath inside the house.  Okay, that’s an exaggeration.  In the US we really take central heat for granted.  When you adjust the thermostat you know that any room you walk into, including the toilet/bathroom, is going to be nice and toasty.  This house we are living in is only two years old so even new houses don’t have central air or…