I just read this article.
Am definitely feeling adrift today.
In the morning I had a long chat with Krista via Skype, which was great, even though it reminds me that I am here and not there, home. Near the end of the conversation Mirah woke up from her nap (it was nice that Krista got to see her), had some lunch, and we were on our way out. It was a beautiful day today, sunny and cool. We headed to a park in Ebina. Decided I didn't want to take the train anywhere today because we had been bustling for the past three days.
The park was good in that Mirah needs an outlet for her energy that's bigger than a hotel room. She's been especially into climbing lately. So we arrived at the park and there's another mom there with her two kids--a boy about 3 years old and a girl in a stroller (I later found out the girl was 10 months old). They were on the other side of the park in the sandbox, but the boy's trike thing was near the equipment where Mirah and I landed. Of course the trike caught Mirah's eye and she went running over to it. I had to divert her because I don't know the rules about sharing trikes in Japan. She was a bit tweaked about that, but got over it. Then she was running happily around by the base of the slides and tripped. Now she has her first skinned knee. It's pretty minor, but definitely a baby-sized skinned knee.
Boy One came over and started playing on the slides. Another mom came later with Boy Two. Mirah seemed happy to be playing with (aka watching and interacting from a slight distance) the boys and it was apparent that she enjoyed following them around. The whole time, though, I was just nervous. Mirah already had her skinned knee and then she was playing on this equipment that wasn't age appropriate. I was having visions of danger, even though I was totally on top of Mirah the entire time.
Which goes to say that I think hyper-vigilance and OCD type behavior might be a culture shock thing.
After the park, we stopped at the grocery store. The entire time there I just felt uncomfortable and out of place. And annoyed that we live in a hotel and don't have a kitchen to cook real food. Argh.
Enough complaints for today. Wait, one more. Mirah has a runny nose and sneezed a few times today. Argh again.
The thing is, I really dig Japan. Think I'm just experiencing some culture shock.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I liked the article you linked to, but I was a little disturbed at the mixture of the voltage and amperage metaphors. Perhaps non-EE's will not mind. One more thought: Surely red wine would be more effective than Snickers.
ReplyDeleteYeah. I had a feeling he was mixing metaphors but didn't know enough to be disturbed. We did have some white wine this evening and it sure was nice. :-) Brian had to buy a corkscrew at the 100 yen store next to the hotel.
ReplyDelete