Plastic not-so-Fantastic

When I go to the supermarket, I try to bring a shopping bag, I have a very attractive cloth one from my local supermarket that I can easily fit a week's shopping in. I don't like to waste plastic bags, because they take anywhere from 10 to 100 years to decompose (depending which site you read). Although the rubbish here is burned, not buried like at home, I still don't like using too much plastic. It's my small gesture to not destroying the planet.

It seems the staff at my local supermarket have a different view, despite selling the cloth shopping bags. They seem to have shares in plastic bag companies, to be honest.

Take last weekend, when I did my weekly shop. I bought some pre-cut pineapple. I buy the pre-cut to avoid that woody fruit that you get at the centre of the pineapple, which I don't like. It comes in a plastic container, which I'm not thrilled about, but I'm less thrilled about inedible pineapple. When I got to the checkout, the cashier put the plastic container in a little plastic bag.

This happens with certain fruits, which I don't get, but it also happens with non-food items, which I sort of get. Non-food items, like cleaning products and shampoo, might not be the best thing to put in with your food, although most food is wrapped in it's own packaging, but I can see the reason. The fruit being put in random bags makes no sense, it's not like the bag will protect the fruit from bruising, and as the bananas get unceremoniously thrown in the basket, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.

Last weekend, the girls proceeded to put the pre-cut pineapple, which was in a plastic box, in a little plastic bag, into a shopping bag of it's own. Even though I had a shopping bag. I told her I had a shopping bag, but she was very insistent that the fruit had to go in it's own bag.

I don't get it. Even when you buy bread, each piece goes in it's own bag, and then goes into a shopping bag. The staff are utterly thrown if you ask for it all in the one bag. I mean your melon pan might contaminate your pecan danish!

I've tried introducing the idea that so many layers of plastic bag are unecessary, but to no avail. I'm going to spend the rest of my Japan life trying to find ways of recycling the endless plastic bags I'm given. So if you get a useless pot stand made from plastic bags, be kind, I'm just trying to make use of them.

Very British Problems

I found this online, and had to share it. It's had me quite entertained for a few hours. Being British comes with a selection of unique problems, so to know I'm not alone in them makes me feel so much better.

Here's a selection of the Very British Problems:

• Repeatedly pressing the door button on the train before it's illuminated, to assure your fellow commuters you have the situation in hand.

I do this in lifts too. I always feel quite affronted when people get in the lift and press the button again. I feel they're suggesting I'm incompetent.

• Not wishing to tell someone they've misheard you, so simply soldiering into a completely different topic of conversation.

I do this all the time, my life in Japan is one, incredibly long, misunderstanding. I don't like to be rude, or suggest that the person I'm talking to doesn't speak English as well as they think, so I regularly have unfinished conversations, and end up talking about the most random things.

• Holding the door for someone with the tip of your outstretched foot, to indicate you've really no time to dilly-dally.

But, then, people who dawdle don't always notice my subtlety.

• Loudly tapping your fingers at the cashpoint, to assure the queue that you've asked for money and the wait is out of your hands.

Making people wait for me is very uncomfortable, I need them to know it's not my fault.

• Inviting someone to a party, then providing a list of reasons not to come in case they don't fancy it.

Because I'd hate them to feel obliged. I mean, who wants to think their guests are only there because they're being polite?

So anyway, go check it out here. Especially if you're British, or have ever had dealing with a Brit, because there will be so many things you recognise!

Rainy Saturday

Ok, OK, so I'm now at the point where my poor little brain is so fried by Friday, I forget to write "Fried Brain Friday". Well, it's tipping down with rain here, so a good chance to share my thoughts with the world, which surely makes it a better place.

• Last Sunday, I popped to the other side of this fine island I live on, only to jump on an early morning ferry to Shodoshima, a small island in the Inland Sea famous for olives, to join the annual Olive Marathon (the longest distance was half marathon, but, in Japan at least, it's still referred to as a marathon). It was a hot old day, and it was possibly the longest 10km of my life.

  

  Not sure why this is the wrong way up, but I have no idea how to fix that, so sorry about that)

• Please note the arm covers, designed in this case to stop me getting a horrific sunburn (sunscreen would have just sweated off, and there was precious little shade on the course). The only problem was that they didn't cover my hands. Cue comedy sunburned thumbs. Just the thumbs. Ridiculous.

• The wind on the ferry did me no more favours than the arm covers. The wind made my hair go a little crazy. Yeah, I was a gorgeous sight all day.

I seriously have no idea how to fix this so it's the right way up.

• I saw this poster at the convenience store the other day. Truly terrifying. Look at the cat's eyes! Is that the point? I thought it was a kid's show, but surely it would give the poor little loves nightmares. Is it parent's revenge?

• This jaunty flyer came through my door, urging me to get a cancer check. The coupons for a free check are a great idea, but I'm not sure cancer superheroes are the best idea the city hall has ever had.

• This journalist is apparently unaware of the irony of her article about leaving Amanda Bynes alone. I'm not completely sure who Amanda Bynes is, but I get the impression that she is going through somewhat of a rough time. The intention of the article is good, openly enjoying someone's spiral into mental instability is cruel and unkind, but then, so is mocking a pregnant woman's swollen feet. But then, I'm not sure celebrity journalists' in general are terribly deep thinkers, so I will just enjoy the irony.

So, that's it, the sum total of my brain. Now, I just have to decide on the best way to enjoy a rainy afternoon. A DVD perhaps.

What do you do when it's very rainy? What's going on in your brain this Saturday afternoon?

Fried Brain Saturday Morning

You see, I went out last night, past my usual bed time (I wasn't in bed until 10.30! Egads!) and so I didn't do this then. I could have been more organised and done it in advance, but I'm not, so I didn't, so there.
So, here are a few thoughts going round my brain this calm Saturday morning.

• I went for a run this morning, 8km round the town, including the park nearby. There's not much more to say about that, other than it's good to be able to run again, especially in this season when the weather is so lovely.

• I love the Under Armour campaign that I've seen around the internet. Teams of women, setting goals for themselves and working together to achieve them. If you look through them, there are only a few that have weight related goals, and no goals related to being skinny. I know it's an advertising campaign designed to make us want to buy stuff, like any other, but at least there's a positive message about being fit and healthy, rather than aiming to be a size 6, or whatever.

• There was quite a kefuffle this week when Toru Hashimoto said something stupid, again. He's the mayor of Osaka, and is basically offensive to get attention, which works for him often. This time he said the comfort women were necessary for the relief of soldiers fighting in the war. He also said American servicemen should use the sex industry in Okinawa more, as it would reduce the sex related crimes that seem to happen there quite a lot. There is so much wrong with all of this, but thankfully, the women of Okinawa stood up for themselves, and pointed out that women don't exist as tools for men to use for stress relief. The women of Okinawa give me hope that at least there are some people willing to stand up against this odious man.

Anyway, that's enough for today, I'm off to Uniqlo, because that's how cool I am. What have you got planned this weekend?

Fried Brain Friday

Apparently, my brain was so fried, I forgot to post for a few weeks. Oops. It's been pretty quiet around here, although spring has properly arrived and the sun had been shining everyday until today, which always puts me in a cheery mood. Despite all the sunshine, my brain is still fried, as it's Friday, so here is a selection of random thoughts from today.

• The other day I was watching TV in the sauna at my gym, the only place I watch Japanese TV these days on account of it being quite rubbish most of the time. It was a program about ”怖い女たち”(scary women) or something like that, which seems to be a common theme on Japanese TV. It annoys me on several levels, but mostly I wonder why it has to be women, and why they are all foreign (well, non-Japanese, which is the same thing around these parts). It's not like there are no scary foreign men, scary Japanese women, or indeed scary Japanese men. All that irritates me even more than the shoddy acting and stupid stories. The one I watched was about a 65 year old woman in North Carolina, who weighed 125kg, who was looking for a boyfriend online. Clearly horrifying on several levels for the people making this kind of show. I mean, imagine being fat and old and having the audacity to want a partner in life. The horror! I didn't wait to see what the "talento" (Japanese TV "stars", hired to make the program slightly more inane) had to say, just in case it pushed me over the edge.

• I think Japan might be turning me into an ardent feminist, either that or I'm becoming a bitter spinster. It seems like I'm deemed a failure because I'm not married, don't have kids, and don't feel the need to desperately sign up for matchmaking events to remedy the situation (like it's some kind of illness, like the flu). Seriously, it's like living in 1955, a friend's wife was demoted for having a baby, you know, because she can't possibly take her job seriously and have a baby, a woman's place is in the home, people, or in the kitchen, if it's 5am and she has a bento to make. Another friend was constantly asked when she was getting married (she was in her early 20s so, you know hardly an old maid) because, obviously, she would need to quit her job if that happened and the company needed to know if they were hiring. These women just accept it and nothing changes. It's makes me sad and angry in equal measure, what a loss of talent for companies, and how sad for women who would like the chance to work and have kids (the area I live in is famously conservative, even for conservative Japan, so I have hopes that it's different in the big cities, and this is just a "living in the boonies" thing).

• To lighten up all the feminist diatribe, here are some pretty pictures from the last few weeks.
  

  

  The view from Matsuyama Castle






Somewhere on the Inland Sea, near Imabari

The Shimanami Kaido, that joins Ehime to Hiroshima.

So, yeah, despite all the irritating stuff, it's still a good place to live.

• My module for my Master's is about discourse analysis, which from what I've worked out, is when lots of picky people get together and over-analyse the structure of a text. It's not really my thing, so I'm ploughing through it in the hope the assignment will be more interesting, as it will be something I chose.

So, that's all for today, folks, I'll try not to leave it so long next time, although I can't promise.
Hope you are all well and enjoying spring where ever you are.

Fried Brain Friday

On a Friday, my brain is pretty fried, so  like to give you a random selection of what's wandering through my brain.

• In the light of Monday's horrible bombing in Boston, I loved this quote that appeared online this week.

From here

• On a lighter note, The fashion for wearing trousers that only cover half of the bum seems to have arrived in Japan. I saw a kid today, looking pretty cool (to the untrained eye), dyed blond hair and all that jazz. His trousers hung pretty low showing his boxers to all the world. They were Sesame Street boxers (and before you ask, it was hard not to notice, I wasn't checking). I think I have officially crossed over into the age where youth fashion makes no sense. Were they ironic? Or is Sesame Street a socially acceptable program for young adults these days? So confusing.

• I've finally finished watching the first season of The West Wing (this whole "working to earn a living" thing really cuts into my DVD time, is there someone I can talk to to get that sorted out?). I'm slightly amazed by Rob Lowe, he looks basically the same as he did in St Elmo's Fire (which I'm too young to have watched when it came out, by the way, just so you know). How does he manage to never age? And where can I get what he's having?

• I also read NW by Zadie Smith over the past few weeks. I really liked it, especially because it's set near where I grew up, and I love recognising places when I read things, and the way she writes dialogue really sounds like the way young people there speak, I could really hear it in my head, even though I've never spoken like that. I looked for a review to link to, but the first one I found was, well, pretentious, so I gave up. Something about Joyce and modernism and stuff like that. Look, it was a good book, I can't tell you if it was reminiscent of Joyce, because I only made it to page 3 of The Dubliners before swearing off Joyce forever (although the band The Dubliners are a family favourite), but, apart from the ending not really coming to any conclusions, I thought it was a good read, if you liked White Teeth (also by Zadie Smith).

Anyway, that's all for today, a cup of tea and an early night are calling me, because I am a rock and roll kind of a gal. What's been going on with you? What books have you read of late that you'd like to recommend?

The Return of Fried Brain Friday!

Please tell me you read the title in the kind of voice they use for old zombie movies! No? Well, read it again, in the kind of voice they use for old zombie movies, it's way more fun. In fact, it makes most things more fun. Really, it does, try it.

Anyway, it's been a few weeks, but here is the contents of my poor little brain this Friday evening.

• I've been watching "The West Wing" a bit recently. I know it's pretty old (in one episode, they were discussing the new millennium...) but I'm quite enjoying it. I feel quite proud of myself when I see places I went with my brother, and I tell myself "I've been there".

• When we were kids, my brother used to go on scout camp almost every weekend (also, his scout leader reads this, so hi!). He went to so many different places, when we watched TV, he'd keep saying, "I've been there". It's a little sad that I still do the same thing even though there's no one here to hear me, and I'm not a teenager either.

• When we were visiting Washington (don't worry, I will stop talking about my holiday eventually, maybe.) I saw something a little odd. There were some food trucks, and a bunch of people from the nearby offices were standing around, waiting for food. A man went up to a friend of his, and they high fived. As a greeting. I'm sorry, but I'm not really a high fiver. Maybe when you do sports, it's unavoidable (it certainly is when you are a runner, at least in Japan, people want to high five you all the time. And, as anyone who grew up in the 90s knows full well, you can't leave 'em hanging.), the same with little kids, I have no choice. But as a greeting? To people my own age? I don't think so. I was very uncomfortable with the whole incident, and I wasn't even involved.

• The cherry blossoms have almost gone, there's still enough pink to enjoy, but it won't be long until it's all gone. It always makes me a bit sad when the cherry blossom's all gone. It means it's not long until it starts getting really hot and humid and sweaty and gross. I should probably have some deeper feeling about it than that, and maybe write a haiku, but, no, I can think only of the upcoming sweatfest that is the Japanese summer.

• I just finished reading a Armistead Maupin book, "MaryAnn In Autumn". It was a really enjoyable read. I've never read any of the Tales of the City books but now I want to read the whole series. "MaryAnn in Autumn" was about the characters later in life, when MaryAnn is in her late 50s, so I want to read about them when they were younger, to see what they were like.

So, what's going on with you? How do you feel about high fiving? Have you ever read any Tales of the City? Do you say "I've been there" when you see familiar places onTV?