December in Tokyo was a blur of farewells, Christmas parties and karaoke, ending on the 18th when we picked the kids up from the school bus stop, jumped in a cab and headed for Narita. If I was one of my kids, I would have been a little confused by the whole thing. In the morning, we asked them to pack their school bags with whatever they wanted to take on the plane as hand luggage. They had a normal day at school, caught the bus home, said goodbye to our friends and then began the next journey back to Melbourne. Fourteen hours later, they were swimming at the beach near Gold Coast Airport as we waited for our connecting flight.

After Christmas the kids spent some quality time with their grandparents at a Victorian beach, while Michael and I came back to Japan for a couple of weeks travel and to pack up the apartment. I’ll let the pictures tell the story, but we took in Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Kobe before heading to Hakuba for some skiing. And by the way, the ‘brown bath’ pictures? It’s compost. Yes, compost. Hot and smelly and apparently good for your health.

So, that’s that. We’re in Melbourne and I’m scouting around for things to do now that the kids are back at school. I’ve signed up for a Japanese subject at uni and am looking for the perfect job (does it exist?). I’ve recruited some local karaoke tragics and the first Ladies Night was a roaring success. There’s a supermarket down the road where I can buy Pocky and Japanese curry. Unfortunately, now that I can read the list of ingredients, I find the curry is loaded with MSG, but I might keep serving it for old time’s sake.

I miss Tokyo already, but am just biding my time til I go back. Thanks to everyone who helped make our stint so mind-blowingly fabulous! どもありがとございました！またね！

So, I’ve been working on my list of things to do before I go. Some items are fast becoming habit. Take karaoke, for example. A few months ago it was something I’d been hankering for, but there was no real urgency. Now, every opportunity for karaoke simply must be taken. I’ve had several Ladies Nights, with more to come, dragged Michael up there on Date Night (in preference to a Love Hotel!), am trying to squeeze in a night with the kids and, who knows, I might even go solo by the end. Karaoke is good for the soul. Mine, anyway.

Other things on the list, some already ticked off as you’ll see by the photos:

- Watching sumo wrestlers practice at their stable (no, I didn’t make up that word but it does make me wonder about the collective noun for sumo wrestlers – a herd, a bloat?). The sweating and grunting and heaving is much more impressive up close.

- Hiking in the glorious Kiso Valley, the old highway between Tokyo and Kyoto. Done.

- To visit a bento factory. Sadly, will probably remain unrealised. Don’t they ever have open days, like at paper factories and canneries back in Australia?

- To be an illegal entrant in the Omotesando Halloween parade, tick.

- Korean bath at Adam & Eve, scheduled.

- Buying plastic food at Kappabashi, at around 5,000 yen it’s the most expensive bowl of udon in Japan.

- Showing my sister Hayley around – any 24-year-old really should get over here right now if at all possible. We had a great time in Shibuya bar crawling on bikes, not quite as cool when you have a baby seat on the back, but we did our best.

- Winning a six-pack of beer in a public game of jan-ken-pon (paper scissors rock) – still not sure if I cheated, but just happy the crowd didn’t turn nasty. One of those times when being a foreigner works in your favour.

- To pass the Level 4 Japanese language exam – scheduled for next Sunday, but by no means guaranteed.

- To visit Tokyo Disneyland – it wasn’t exactly on the top of my list, unlike some other people in my family, but it had to be done all the same.

- To cross Tokyo Bay on a ferry then take (what seemed to be) the oldest cable car in the world to see the biggest buddha in Japan.

- To drink a kaki (persimmon) cocktail in peak season – tick…and tick, they were delicious.

- Being treated to the ultimate in Japanese customer service at a high-end ryokan (Japanese inn) in Nikko.

- Bending our minds at every museum imaginable – Edo period, fire, earthquake, kite, art, emerging science, space, open-air, sumo, folk crafts, with Hiroshima to come…

- To buy as many vintage Japanese dresses as possible before I get on the plane. In process.

It has been an amazing time and I’d do it all over again. Expect one more sayounara post before December is out and after that, it’s curtains. Here are the visuals:

The short version of the story is that Sakai’s ‘professional surfer’ husband was arrested in Shibuya in August, after police thought he was acting strangely and subsequently found illegal drugs in his pocket. Sakai tried to rescue him, to no avail, then went into hiding. The public worried for her, thinking that the shock of finding out she had a drug-abusing husband was too much to bear.

Six days later, she turns herself in to police, admitting to having used an illegal stimulant 10 times, or ‘usually about once or twice a month’, according to an article in The Asahi Tribune today. In court, prosecutors were unforgiving:

‘The defendant was in the business of giving people dreams and hope, but her crime led to major disappointment among many people and also caused economic losses.’

The verdict will be handed down 9 November, but for her part Sakai is already repentant. She plans to leave showbiz to study nursing so she can care for her mother, who is ill. She also plans to get a divorce. There’s been no mention of plans to remove the small tattoo spotted on her ankle last year (tsk, tsk).

Sakai’s star still seems to be shining bright among at least one part of the community though. There was a typhoon here yesterday but that didn’t stop 6,615 fans waiting outside the court. They know the exact figure because, the Tribune states:

‘Before the trial, numbered wristbands were handed out to 6,615 people hoping to get a seat in the courtroom. Twenty were chosen at random, making the odds – one in 330 – the highest ever.’

There you have it, the local way to measure celebrity stardom – the odds of getting a ringside seat while dreams, hope and economic losses come crashing down all around. A note to Noriko Sakai: Don’t worry, I for one am not holding you responsible for any losses I might have incurred, economic or otherwise.

My first visit to Donki (as they call it) was on the way home from a night out. It was pretty late, but the place was packed with drunken Japanese kids picking and pointing and laughing. I went in for a closer look and found three hectic, chaotic floors choc full of every product imaginable, including the essential Weetabix and Giant Pocky. Once I spotted those, there was no going back: forget the expensive and self-important Kinokuniya, I was a confirmed Donki shopper.

On the weekend I went there with the kids, in search of some black hairspray for our Halloween costumes. In the interests of posterity, I recorded our journey, on video:

Luckily I’m not overly precious about my hair, but when I moved here my more established Tokyo girlfriends hooked me up with Lincoln, a Brit who services the gaijin over at Toni & Guy. He’s lovely and I always get treated like a queen there. At the front desk there are two, sometimes three, people to welcome you, take your coat, compliment you on your outfit and whisper into their headset that another valued customer has arrived. Other people wearing headsets appear like ninjas, escort you to your seat and do their utmost to make you comfortable. They’ve never offered me a glass of wine though, I must say, and often by the time I make it to the hairdresser I need a drink more than a haircut. I usually go there on date night when Michael is out of town. That means I am: A) more stressed than normal and B) not getting out much.

Anyway, despite the absence of alcohol, I usually feel (and hopefully look) better by the time I swan out an hour later. Lincoln does the cut and can translate my instructions to the colourist, no problem. Michael’s not really a Toni & Guy kind of guy, so he generally drops into a local barber (any local barber, not just ours) and has had some interesting experiences. The first time, he didn’t know what he was in for and when the lady asked him questions in Japanese he just generally replied with a ‘Yes’. Soon, his head was snapped back for a wet shave, followed by a swift trim of any visible facial hair, as well as some that wasn’t.

After I stopped laughing at this story, I began to wonder what to do about Eamon and Curtis; the number three shave I’d given them in Australia was growing into a number eight or nine by this stage and my clippers wouldn’t work because of the different voltage here.

We pass a local barber shop on the way to the metro station, so I started taking more notice of what went on in there, without being too conspicuous. It was old-school, with decor unchanged since the 70s and a stripey pole outside. Inside, two older Japanese men held court behind the big old barber chairs, while one even older guy watched daytime soap operas on a portable TV.

Visiting this barber shop has become one of my favourite things to do in Tokyo. At first I brought along a book to read while I waited, but ended up spending the entire time standing up, following proceedings with a huge grin on my face. These three men have been working in this shop seven days-a-week since time began. They barely speak to one another, but work as a finely tuned machine. One’s fast, one’s slow and the other watches TV. Every so often, he shuffles over to the broom, sweeps up, then resumes his position. The system works perfectly.

Eamon and Curtis are particular about their hair and we’ve had to bargain Eamon down from a full-blown mohawk to a regular David Beckham-style one. Once, we showed the barber a picture of Beckham to give him the idea, and now they just say ‘Beckham!’ every time we show up at the door. When we go there, the boys speed off ahead and are in their seats, gowned-up, by the time I’ve managed to park my bike. Last time we went, I asked if we could take some photos:

Yes, if you look closely, that white stuff you see is shaving cream – from their necks, around and above the ears and to the side of the face. As calmly as possible I tell them, ‘Sit still boys, don’t move, don’t sneeze, don’t even breathe.’ And for once they co-operate, perhaps because they know not to mess with a man holding a blade, but also because they get chewing gum at the end. A whole packet. Each.

Every time we leave the barber shop, I love Tokyo just that little bit more. The boys, of course, couldn’t care less. Far from being a unique cultural experience, to them, it’s all about the chewing gum.

However, I can feel the clock ticking on my time in Tokyo and so I went to my first Ikebana class. I neglected to mention it to Michael, not sure why really. This morning we were talking about how I needed him to come home early tonight so I can go to a concert, and then he’s working from home tomorrow morning so I can go to my language class (no school for the kids tomorrow – see below). Dropping into the conversation the fact that today is Ikebana day somehow just wouldn’t work. Of course it’s going to be hard to hide the evidence, it stands about three foot high:

What do you think? Not bad for a first (and probably only) attempt? I actually really enjoyed it and have a new-found respect for those hard-working Ikebana practitioners out there. More than putting flowers in a vase, Ikebana is a highly disciplined, symbolic art form with a 500-year history. Usually you’d practice it in silence, to be at one with nature, although that didn’t happen at my class. You’d have to be quite good at it to get through a session without asking questions. There are rules about height, angles, colour, space – and as a beginner you work from drawings like this:

Got it?

So, apart from Ikebana, I’m getting back into the term time routine, consisting mostly of the kids having days off for something or other. This week it’s Ruby and Eamon’s turn – they have tomorrow off so that parents can meet with teachers to discuss their greatest hopes and anxieties for the year ahead. My greatest hope is that they actually go to school for five days straight at some point, and my greatest anxiety is that they won’t. Tomorrow’s meeting only goes for 15 minutes but the school highly recommends we conduct it face-to-face. In reality this would take up the entire day, getting there and back. We’re doing it by phone. Then Curtis has three days off, just three weeks after starting school. This is how I’ve ended up doing Ikebana instead of getting a job.

I’ve also started back at language classes, writing blog posts and have put my name in the hat for the Tokyo Marathon again. I have a strong sense of deja vu; it’s a year since we arrived. Only this time around, I don’t feel like I’ve landed on another planet. This time, I’m helping a fresh intake of Tokyo newcomers get settled – and drawing an inordinate amount of satisfaction from that, I must admit.

I should make mention of August, since I neglected to post a single blog while we were in Europe. The short version is that we had a great time being tourists and catching up with old friends in London. Thanks to everyone for making the effort to see us with such a small window of opportunity, it was short but sweet. After England, we did little more than eat, drink and go to the beach in France. Here are some photos to better tell the story:

For some summer in Tokyo pictures, see my Japanese blog at www.gochagocha.wordpress.com.

Last week Michael and I ran the Fuji Mountain Race, a form of self-torture on a par with the marathon. It’s only half-marathon length but with a 3000m climb thrown in for good measure. I don’t know why I entered really, apart from Michael wanting to do it and me not wanting to sit on the sidelines looking after the kids.

Before a marathon you have a vague idea how you’ll go, based on the length of your training runs and how you felt. But, living in Tokyo, we had no way of doing hill training at altitude. I did a few sessions on the step machine at the gym and tried to run up the hill in Yoyogi Koen as much as possible, but by race eve I had no idea what would happen the next day. I suspected it wouldn’t be good, though.

It rained all night (a recurring theme), but this time I was happy about it. The race organisers closed the summit, we could only complete the 15km run to the 5th station. Still, this meant a constant climb, half of it on sealed road and the rest a mix of mud, slippery logs, stones and gravel, often in single file. It was surreal in parts, with long stretches where nobody spoke, we were all flat out just getting the thin air into our lungs. By the 15km mark I’d had enough and don’t think I’d have continued to the top even if they let me. To cover those last 6km would have taken me roughly another three hours, then another two to walk/stumble back down to the bus stop. I was done. Next time I’ll sit on the sidelines and look after the kids.

We had our nephew Ben over from Melbourne a while back. He’s 15 and soaked up Tokyo like a sponge. I picked him up from the airport one Thursday night, then we went out exploring on bikes the next morning. As we sat down to lunch at a noodle bar – before he’d even tasted the food – he declared it the best holiday of his life. I could have hugged him. As my friend Emily says, ‘We love guests that love Tokyo’.

While Ben was here, our other friends came, Chris, Nat and their boys Josh and Bailey. It’s always good to catch up, but the highlight for me was karaoke. I had been dying to do karaoke and every night out I’d badger whatever friends (and sometimes people I’d only just met) to join me and they’d agree, but it never came off.

Finally, with Chris, Nat, Ben and Michael, I made it to the Big Echo booth. It took a moment to realise we could order drinks no problem, but had no idea how to read the song menu and choose a song. Somehow we ended up with Steely Dan’s ‘Reeling in the years’ and, not wanting to waste a minute, I volunteered to sing. I didn’t know the words, but that’s okay because it’s karaoke right? Unfortunately, as my first ever Tokyo karaoke song, those lyrics are now seared into my memory and I’ve had Steely Dan on high rotation in my head ever since. Are you reelin’ in the years? Stowin’ away the time?

Here are the best, worst and funniest Tokyo experiences, according to Ben:

Best – being able to do what you like and get totally lost, but feel completely safe
Worst – going home
Funniest – following Michael through traffic on a bike, almost getting hit every time

And Chris, Nat and boys:

Best (note -  I had to edit a few out, they loved the place):

• The heated toilet seats
• The food, the drinks, the trains, the shopping
• Feeling incredibly safe at all times of the day and night
• Singing AC/DC song “Thunderstruck” at Big Echo
• The taxi drivers wearing white gloves and automatically opening the back doors without getting out of the car

Funniest:

• Attempting to buy a tasting plate by accident in a bakery
• Chris “accidentally” going into an adult entertainment shop claiming to think it was a poster shop

Worst:

• Coming home

So over 22,000 people entered a ballot and 2,400 people won. Then they had to decide what to do up there. I’ve been watching the live stream and it’s funny because I usually get to see the graveyard shift and watch as the sun rises. These poor volunteers often only have dedicated family members standing miserably down below, under umbrellas. The person on the plinth has to make the best of it. It’s early days yet and I think the plinth activities will become more outlandish as the 100 days draw to a close. Yesterday a lady took a tree up there and did a nice topiary. Earlier, another lady took her rowing machine and looked quite dramatic from below. You couldn’t see much of the machine, just her scooting back and forth in the spotlight. She kept it up the whole hour too. This morning a guy cut his own hair.

We’ve been trying to decide what we’d do if it was us. Eamon wants to do origami, or make some superior paper aeroplanes at least. Ruby would play basketball, Curtis Lego. I think I’d take my laptop, organise a wireless connection and do something real time – write a blog, answer questions, create a plinth playlist or something. In bad taste, perhaps I’d dress up as Michael Jackson and do a suspended animation version of the moonwalk. Or maybe, if I had an audience, a game of charades would be fun. I’m looking forward to seeing the project in action when we hit London in a few weeks. I foresee us making up many excuses to pass by Trafalgar Square.

I have a lot to catch you up on, so I might split this into two separate entries. We’ve had a few guests in town the last couple of weeks and did lots of fun stuff. Before that, we went to Nikko for the weekend, staying in log cabins in the forest. To get to the forest we needed a rental car and a GPS. It stands to reason that, in Japan, rental cars have GPSs that speak Japanese. The maps are written in Japanese too. This is not such big deal as you can get the rental car guy to program your GPS and then you just try to follow the blue line. You have to be humble though, you must respect the GPS. You can’t then start pressing buttons or touching the screen, thinking you suddenly know how to work it.

We were about 500m from the rental car office when Michael pressed the first button. Another 500m and we pulled over, to focus all our attention on getting it back to where it was. Five minutes later, we decided (wisely) to go back to the office and have the guy re-program it. He also gave us a book of maps and took a photocopy of our accommodation details in case we disappeared off the face of the earth.

Getting out of Tokyo was a challenge similar to navigating the metro here, except instead of holding up crowds of pedestrian commuters as you try to find the right exit, you hold up cars and trucks going motorway speed. The motorways cover Tokyo like spaghetti and you have to pick your way through several interchanges before finally hitting the open road. Japanese service levels hit a new high as we kept driving into the wrong toll lane (electronic chip only, no cash). The operators would sprint across several lanes to our car and collect our cash, without so much as a frown. We just kept smiling and bowing in our seats, apologising yet again for being so clueless.

Eamon threw up about 100 times on the way (car-sick this time, not banana-sick) and once, when I turned to check on him I accidentally put my hand on the GPS screen and it beeped at me. After an initial panic, it seemed okay – we could still see the blue line. Excitement levels peaked as we neared the red dot marking our destination. It turned out to be an empty field. Clearly, covering the screen with my hand, then giving a firm push had changed our course somewhat. By this stage we were on country back roads and made a best guess at where to go. We drove on, did quite a few U-turns and stopped several times for Eamon to throw up again, but finally made it to the Woodsman’s Village. We joined up with some Tokyo friends and had a ball. Here are some photos:

When it was our turn, we each got a different dentist, which is unusual because in Australia you have to take turns and there is only one dentist. When my dentist saw me, she told me to sit down. Then as soon as I sat down she asked me if I wanted to watch a movie. I said, ‘Yes!’ She asked me what flavour toothpaste I wanted and I looked at the toothpaste menu and said, ‘Pink bubblegum.’ Then she asked me what flavour flouride gel I wanted. I looked at the gel menu and said, ‘Orange.’

After that she put on the movie (I chose Happy Feet) and checked my teeth. When it was over we got to choose a prize. I chose a yo-yo kind of thing. Eamon chose a car. Curtis chose a car too, but then he saw something he liked better so he told Mum. Mum tried to swap the car for the parachute but Curtis had already broken the car, so then he got both. That’s my trip to the dentist.

Written by Ruby O’Keeffe, 8

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In every culture, everyone has to make a buck and there are infinite ways of doing so. In Japan, many businesses specialise in one thing and do it very well. Craftsmanship is highly valued, as is tradition. So the soba noodle bar down the road is not there just to serve the maximum number of customers per day, charging the maximum possible price. To the proprietor, this seems almost secondary. As long as he (or she) can continue making the best soba noodles possible, the business is considered a success. There’s no need to expand. No need to advertise. No need to drum up business. If the noodles are good, they will come.

This formula seems to work pretty well and there are many ‘famous’ small businesses where you have to be in the know, or get there really early, to get a look in. The dentist we went to last week takes an entirely different approach. A friend recommended them and I called up and got an appointment almost right away. Before the appointment, they sent some high-end marketing material and freebies (pens, fridge magnets), everything in the shape of a tooth. A quick study of their website revealed the following:

- They are a husband and wife team who studied dentistry in Japan and the US

- One specialises in orthodontics, one in pediatric dentistry

- Their customer-facing staff are continually improving their English skills (unusual in Japan)

- They have two offices, each located in a high-density expat area of Tokyo

- Therefore, they are very smart

Most expats will try to avoid anything medical in Tokyo because it can be quite confusing and horror stories abound (personally I think these are exaggerated, but anyway). People will put off as much as possible until they go home for Christmas or the summer holidays.

Orthodontics, however, can’t be treated this way. You can’t sit back and watch as your kids’ teeth become more and more unruly. Teeth can’t be fixed with a once or twice a year visit home. It has to be done here and now.

That’s where the highly qualified, highly expat-friendly dentists come into the picture. The waiting room, apart from being full of video games, also provides the latest in US and European magazines. In the treatment room, each chair (and there are seven) has a flat screen TV mounted on the ceiling with infra-red iPod remote control. The operations were nothing but slick, an exercise in efficiency. The more highly trained the technician, the less time they spend on you. As a business model, it’s very Western, a far cry from the traditional Japanese soba guy. For the time being though, Japanese business culture has a place for both.

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Post script: just received a personalised thank you note from the dentist. They even spelled our name correctly. That’s service – with a smile…

Do you seem to eat faster than other people?

Do you feel that you walk slower than other people your age?

Do you currently smoke cigarettes on a regular basis? [more than 100 cigarettes per week]

More than 100 cigarettes per week? Is that all? So if you smoke less than 100 a week, you don’t count as a smoker?I also like this one – Has your weight increased by more than 10kg compared to when you were 20 years old? Now there’s a rule to live by, provided you were not already obese at 20.

Today was the last day of school for Eamon and Curtis, complete with concert and graduation ceremony for Eamon, hats and all. What are they called, mortarboards? That’s him second from right.

I’m feeling a bit anxious about the summer break, though. It’s almost three months until the new school year. Contrary to summer holidays in Australia, which I was always gagging for, the thought of entertaining three kids in Tokyo for the summer scares me – suffocating heat, small apartment, no backyard or beach and most of our northern hemisphere friends will be ‘home’ for the summer. So I’ve been making plans, involving summer school, visitors from home, some Japan sight-seeing and an August trip to London and ‘the continent’. Hopefully we make it to September with our sanity intact.

I haven’t posted for a while because…um, well I don’t have any real excuses actually. I’ve been busy, but isn’t everyone? It’s probably more that I’ve been distracted; the marathon in March, holiday in Australia, friends and family over, etc. My most recent visitors were my Melbourne girls Jane and Astrid. It was great to see them after so long, and to share Tokyo with them and laugh at their adventures. I often sent them off alone, with language classes and a family and all I couldn’t keep their schedule, but also because you can have the best time in Tokyo being totally clueless. Here are some photos and some comments from Jane (Astrid, I’m still waiting on yours…)

Jane’s Q and A:

- What three things surprised you the most about Japan?

How clean and tidy and how little pollution there was considering how many bloody people live there.

How few fat and tall people I saw and how not many people wore thongs: Fat people 5 /tall people 3/ and 3 (Westerners, including me) wearing thongs.

Surprise is not the word…I was shocked how nice people were in Japan, like those who led us all the way to our destinations after we simply asked for direction. Impressive.

- What three things would you definitely do again?

Go to Japan.

Spend three days at the Hyatt in Hakone. Loved the onsen, loved the trees, the hills and the little local restaurant with real sake.

Walk into a little, unknown restaurant where no one speaks English, order things off the menu that look like what you want, get a mug of beer, and just try to resemble someone that knows what they’re doing, and eating. The result – one of the best dinners and one of our funniest experiences.

- What would you change about Japan?

More rubbish bins on the streets, so Astrid has somewhere to throw rubbish. I just threw mine on the ground.

Japanese people could be more honest/less shy about how much English they speak, so white honkies like me know what I’m eating.

The vending machines to include a choice of live men  (with photographs) inside them so Astrid and Jane could finally find a boyfriend.

Let the Japanese ladies know they need not suffer for fashion, thongs are okay and 4 inch heels are bad for your feet.

- What would you change about Australia, after seeing Japan?

To generally be more open to quietness. Respect each other more. Perhaps a smile at a stranger every now and then or even a little bow, not too low, just a quick flick.

Thanks for your thoughts Miss Jane, I look forward to your next trip already. Just make sure you come with a half empty suitcase this time (the girl can shop).

What else has been happening? We went to the Lily Allen concert last night, she was so cute and sharp and genki. It’s strange going to concerts here, they start really early. We got there at 6:30 or so, Lily came on just after 7 and we were out on the Shibuya streets again by 8:30. She’s heading to Australia next, go see her if you can. After that she’s playing Fuji Rock here at the end of July. I’d love to go, but we signed up for the Fuji Mountain Race instead, held the same weekend. In hindsight, perhaps the time and money would be better spent moshing with Lily, instead of running up Mt Fuji (21km plus 3000m climb). I really need to work on my priorities, I’ll go do that now. Ja mata.