Tiny envelopes

Not a day goes by that I'm not grateful for the park moms.  They are so kind to me in many, many ways.  They have helped me day after day find things I need, take care of my son, and provide lots of laughter. 

Before I arrived, they had a system of support already set up.  They took turns shopping and caring for children.  When someone stopped by the store to buy meat (or whatever), they would send a Line message to the other moms asking if they needed meat and mentioning a good deal.  If someone had an appointment, they could ask the other moms to watch their child.  Since meeting the moms and hanging out with them almost daily for over a year now, I've often participated in the shopping and childcare exchange. 

When one mom buys something for another family, the recipient tries to pay them back as quickly as possible.  Sometimes it doesn't happen on the same day as the purchase.  Maybe they aren't at the park that day or they don't have exact change.  When that happens, they put the money owed into a special small envelope.  Then the envelope is presented with gratitude for the patience of the person who needed to be repaid. 

It took me a while to figure out the envelope exchange.  When to use it versus when it wasn't needed was a mystery for a short time.  I knew where to get the envelopes, called Pochi Bukuro, because I often see them for sale in stationary stores.  Before hanging out with the moms, I didn't realize what they were for.  They are so small, that I had always wondered why someone needed such petite envelopes and why they were sold in abundance.  After watching the exchange several times, I figured out the etiquette and when it was appropriate to use the envelope to return money.

Pochi Bukuro were first made at the end of the 19th century.  They were used to give a gift of money or a tip to express gratitude. Several years later, Pochi Bukuro started to be used as an envelope to put money in for Otoshidama (money from parents and other adults given to children for New Years). It is now used for other purposes, such as to give money for a “tip” expressing gratitude for a service at a hotel or inn (in general tipping is a big no-no, but there are special circumstances), and as an envelope to enclose a small message to attach to a present. 

The envelopes are decorated in so many different designs, but the size of the envelope is standard.  It is the perfect size to hold bills folded into thirds or quarters, and the material is always thick enough to hold coins.

I went to Costco on Monday with a couple other park moms.  While there, we purchased several items for the other park moms - bagels, salad dressing, and pesto, as well as other items.  While most paid me back on Monday, one of the moms wasn't there and a couple others didn't have exact change.  So I received several of these cute envelopes this week.  I love it when I'm able to shop for the park moms.  It always gives me the greatest feeling of accomplishment - which may seem silly until you take into account the language barrier - because I feel like I'm contributing to the group.

In a pickle

It is no secret that I love tsukemono.  There are so many different types of this special fermented food in Japan, and I love about 85% of it.  There is great little shop in Nerima that supplies the area with fantastic pickles made from a variety of vegetables.  It is such a great place to visit.

While riding our bikes around town, we stopped by Okada to fill up our fridge with more pickles.  Okada is known for their daikon pickles but there is so much more available on their shelves. 
Tsukemono is often eaten with rice or as part of a meal.  However, I have been caught just munching it straight out of the fridge.  I am sad anytime I don't have a selection of these delicious pickles in my fridge.

The shop is on a busy street, tucked between a gas station and mixed use building.  There are not any other retail shops on the same block.  It seems strange and out of place, but it works.

After parking our bikes in front of the shop, we walked inside to find 2 large open top coolers and a long set of shelves along one wall.  A woman employee came out and greeted us.  She invited us to taste the many varieties of tsukemono set out in little dishes in one of the coolers.  My son quickly grabbed a toothpick and dug in. We weren't too far behind him.

I love the crunch of the various vegetables.  They had daikon, eggplant, cabbage, turnips, cucumbers, carrots, gobo, and so much more.  Everything had a different brine, to enhance the special flavor of the vegetable.

My absolute favorite tsukemono they make is their celery!  My son and I ate the entire package in one night.  Now I need to go back and buy another package.

A hidden gem in Shibuya

Sometimes I think Tokyo is filled with only chain restaurants.  Even though I know this isn't true, it can really feel like it.  I can sometimes get discouraged because Osaka was filled with tons of mom and pop shops.  Tokyo, on the other hand, is all about the big neon signs and familiar labels.

My husband, however, is really good at finding really special and unique places for us to dine.  Tori Katsu is a hole in the wall in Shibuya.  The small 17 seat restaurant opened in 1975 and has been delighting taste buds with fried goodness ever since.

When I call it a hidden gem, I am not kidding.  It is not on a major street (around the corner), in a non-descript building, on the second floor.  The sign announcing the presence of the restaurant has a white background and black lettering.  It would be so easy to never know it was there.

Once we finally arrived inside the restaurant, we were greeted with a bar that snaked around the room.  The open kitchen was on one side while chairs were on the other.  The menu was simple - pick whatever or how ever many fried items that you want.  Everything came in a set with rice, miso soup, and a pile of cabbage.  The prices have not changed for over 20 years, so everything is super, super cheap. 

We ordered 2 sets to be shared between 2 adults and 1 child.  Actually, we ordered almost everything on the menu.  We wanted to try it all.  Chicken, pork, eggplant, and more. 

I loved watching the two older ladies making our dinner.  It felt like we were at someone's house and I was chatting with the cook.  The cooks were smitten with our son and giggled every time he said anything to them.

The food was really good.  Not in a fancy way, but in a glorious fried feast sort of way.  While the chicken katsu (fried chicken cutlet), their namesake, was divine, I think the potato croquette was the best I've had since moving to Tokyo.  We all rolled our eyes as we ate bite after bite.  The flavors were simple, but so very good.

Tori Katsu was a delight.  It really was one of a kind.  I'm so glad my husband found it and took us there.

Back to the warehouse

When my friend says "do you want to go to Costco?" is there any other answer that the affirmative?  It may seem like just another task to complete in the US, but here it is an adventure.  There are so many familiar things that I can't find other places in Japan.  But there are also so many new and uniquely Japanese or Asian items that I've never seen in Costco!

I had a short list to guide me.  But it didn't matter.  I knew I would simply walk up and down every aisle to find my treasures and find interesting things.  And I found a lot of interesting things.

Only the best drying rack I've ever seen!

Five kinds of mushrooms!

Seafood pizza is no joke.

Lots of Korean food, too.

They sell more than just tomato pasta sauce. 

The biggest package of miso I have ever seen. 

It's a good thing they eat a lot of miso here.

Bonito (shaved dried fish) is also a key ingredient in Japanese cooking.

Dry ramen noodles with seasoning is a popular snack.

These are the fanciest marshmallows I have ever seen.

Yogurt flavored gummies are all the rage.

Lunch was clam chowder and a salad.  It hit the spot.

It was another successful trip to Costco.  My cupboard is full (and I didn't buy excess stuff to reverse the liberating KonMari work I've been doing).  But most of all, I had fun with my girl friends.  We had a great time talking in the car and shopping all afternoon. 

Purging all the clutter

I like to have a clean and uncluttered home.  However, I also like to buy things and am quite sentimental by nature.  So, despite the fact that I aspire to live a simple, zen-like existence, I don't.  I accumulate and accumulate, always thinking "this will come in handy" or "I really want this." 

Before moving to Japan I seriously purged my belongings.  Yet over the past year and a half I have not used many things that I thought I had to have as well as purchased and brought into my home many, many more new things.  Since clutter equals stress in my life, I was getting increasingly more grumpy and not able to relax.  Cleaning was becoming burdensome and was taking longer and longer.  The more crowded the shelves got, the more claustrophobic I was feeling.

With the recent addition of "Tidying Up with Marie Kondo" on Netflix, I have been inspired to simplify and organize.  My husband purchased her book for me, "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" and I have not been able to put it down.  I am pouring over the pages, excited to start simplifying and focusing on things that bring me joy.

Since I live in Japan, why not try the ultimate Japanese form of blessing your home?  The KonMari method is legend here.  My friends saw me reading her book and immediately asked "is that Kondo Marie?"  (Family names are said first here.)  We'd then delve into a conversation about her uplifting ways of helping people spark joy in their homes.

Last week I jumped in with both feet and went through all my clothes, asking myself if each item sparked joy and if I wanted it in my future life.  Soon I had a huge pile of clothes ready to go out the door.  My son helped me go through his clothes and my husband also tackled his after I put them all on the bed.  He said something about not being allowed to go to bed if he didn't do it.  I just thought I was incentivizing him (ha, ha).  We found 2 huge bags of clothes that we no longer wanted.

The next day, I pulled out every book that we own.  It was a difficult process, but we found 50 books that we no longer wanted on our shelves.  Honestly, this barely cracked a dent in our books.  But all the books are happy to have been pulled from the shelves and set back with a bit more elbow room.

Our spare bedroom was becoming a dumping ground for items no longer needed.  Before things got too out of hand, I needed to get everything out of our house.  In Japan, you can't just take everything to Goodwill.  Everything must be sorted and disposed of according to the rules.

After taking the kid's clothing to the park moms for distribution, I still had a several bags that needed to be dealt with.  My husband decided to help me and dedicated our Sunday to purging everything once and for all.  We went through everything once again, sorting accordingly.

First, we rode our bikes about 20 minutes to take our worn out clothes to Nerima City Resource Recovery Center.  It was a simple drop off.  We were so happy to have the first load off our hands.

Next, we took the nice clothes, bags, and a couple housewares to Off House, a resale shop.  They went through the items and made us an offer.  It wasn't much money, but we weren't doing it for the money.  One thing I liked was that they detailed how much they were giving us for each item and offered to return any items that they weren't going to pay for.  We were happy to donate the rest those as well.

Our final stop was Book Off, where we sold 42 books.  It was so easy to sell them to the book resale shop.  They offered us so much more than Half Price Books ever did.  It wasn't much, but almost double what I expected.  Just like Off House, they gave us an itemized receipt, which was really nice.

So far the KonMari process has been uplifting and energizing for me.  I'm looking forward to continuing on the journey of simplifying and focusing on the joy because right now it feels so good!

Stay for a while or have a party

Sometimes we run across something so incredibly random, we just have to do it because it is so off the wall. 

Today we went as a family to tour the local... hotel.  Actually, Hotel Cadenza Hikarigaoka is the only hotel in Nerima.  But who does that?  Well, when I was an event coordinator, I did.  But that was my job.  It was not a family activity on a Saturday morning.  But when I mentioned it to a friend, she said "I saw they were offering tours.  I think I might do it, too!"  She was not teasing.

When we arrived, we signed in and found a seat in the Azelea Room.  I was more than surprised to see 47 other people in attendance.  There were people ranging in age from less than a year to 70+.  I asked my husband why other people were there, and he shrugged his shoulders.  He had no clue and he wasn't going to ask.  Fair enough.  I wouldn't have the nerve to ask either.

The hotel was in the midst of celebrating their 25th anniversary as well as holding a bridal fair.  So, it was all decked out with dresses set up everywhere and special decorations.

The hotel staff gave a few comments regarding the tour and then broke the group in half.  Our group started by touring the 5 restaurants.  The hotel itself has only 91 rooms, and 5 restaurants to serve those 91 rooms.  The offerings were diverse: Japanese, buffet, Chinese, lounge/bar, and a bakery/café.  Each restaurant had at least one food that included local Nerima produce.  The Chinese restaurant used Nerima cabbage in their hum bao and the bakery used blueberries, honey, and miso in some of their treats. 

Private room in Japanese restaurant

Chinese restaurant

Café where you can enjoy items from the bakery

I got such a kick out of the treats featuring local honey and miso

displayed on boxes that said "imported".

Mount Fuji saying hello when we were in the bar

(on the 22nd floor)

The interesting part of the hotel wasn't getting to see the room or the ballrooms.  They were pretty standard (nice, but standard).  The interesting part was seeing the chapel and shinden.  Western style weddings are very popular in Japan.  When an acquaintance showed me her wedding photos full of a big white dress, a chapel, and a priest, I asked if she was Christian.  She laughed and reported "Christian for a day!"  Since then, I have come to learn that white weddings are very big business here - all the way down to the white priest that they hire.  So the big chapel that seats 70 didn't surprise me.

The more traditional shinden is what surprised me.  The shinden is a room for a traditional Shinto wedding ceremony.  Most hotels do not have a shinden.  It was so interesting to see.

The other interesting thing to learn was that the hotel has appeared in many television shows and movies.  There are TV and movie studios in Nerima and since this is the only hotel in the area, it is the go to place for on location shots.

At the end of the tour, we received some little gifts of baked goods from the bakery.  It was a nice tour and an interesting way to spend the morning, even if it was a little unusual.

Picking up dinner

It happens more often than I like to admit.  Usually by the end of the week, I'm just not wanting to cook dinner.  So my son and I head over to the local fish shop, Fresh Hikari, to pick up sushi for dinner.

At 5:00 all the sushi is marked down to get it out the door before the store closes at 7:00.  They start with marking it down one or two hundred yen.  Every 30 minutes, any remaining fish is marked down even more. 

It is fast, easy, and filling.  I can never get over how horrible supermarket sushi is in the states.  I once bought sushi at my beloved Trader Joe's, and almost got sick from the gummy rice and bland fish.  A very young me making a very gross choice of food.  It didn't happen again.  Sushi sold in stores in Japan is always fresh and great quality.  There is a very high expectation here.  People would not put up with overcooked rice and subpar fish.  It would rot on the shelves.

Most stores mark their sushi down at the end of the day.  If they do lower their price, it is a great, inexpensive dinner.