lioness in japan

Last night I had to pop down to the post office along Aoyama-dori to post Beauty Box orders and I was in a trance of sorts.

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Yes, we all know that being your own boss is great. I’ve read so many blog posts and articles about working for yourself and all the perks: flexi-time, you answer to no one, and you make all the decisions. Cool, your self-esteem is rockin’ and you’ll never go back to slaving for someone else.

But how about the process of switching your mindset from being a life-long employee to boss lady? What’s that like? Is it easy?

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I always feel a mixture of excitement and dread before I fly back to the Lion City. Why? A fellow expat friend described the expat experience as a transforming one: you’re a weird hybrid creature and you don’t fit in anymore.

Singapore is no longer my stomping ground, but Tokyo, while being my new home, can be familiar but strange all at once even after three years. I have new habits, new friends, a new outlook, new job, but some of the old still hangs around. I can’t put my finger on it but I don’t want to say stuff like Singlish and laksa is still my number one love.

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There’s actually under-the-table “tipping” in Japanese hospitals. How do I know this? I got the inside scoop from a student of mine. We were doing a fairly easy chapter on restaurant lingo and we were discussing Japan’s tipping culture.

“So no tipping in Japan at all?” I pretended not to know.

“Yes, except in hospitals!”

“What?!” I gasped in surprise. Hey, I thought I knew this town.

“My mother paid 10,000JPY to her doctor when she was in hospital recently.”

Why? Apparently, patients hope to get “better” treatment from busy, harried doctors. Do nurses get “tips”, too? Sometimes, but doctors are the ones you should be gunning for.

“If you press the emergency button when you feel sick in the hospital, the doctor might go to the one who gave him the tip first.”

Good advice if I ever get shipped off to a hospital here.

Photo: mmmfruit

This is a question I get all the time when people get to know that I’m a raw vegan, especially since I’m catching up with many friends in Singapore right now. It is a challenge and my answer is usually, “I try to order a salad or if I can’t I will go cooked vegetarian. I won’t freak out if I have a bit of cheese.”

But sometimes, I will bring my own food if the situation allows.

When I was in Izu (will blog about this soon), I prepared a huge bag full of raw goodies because I knew we were going to hang out by the beach and barbecue all afternoon long. I made this salad:

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It’s just a plain red hoop for now but feels good enough to do some serious spinning on my terrace.

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Still in hot hot hot Singapore but loving it. I’m always surprised by how much I miss it when I come back but I don’t think about it when I’m in Japan.

A large part of gardening involves getting rid of pests that eat your goodies. We have since zapped the aphids but another hungry foe has been lurking in our midst.

The kangaroo put on his headlight and found three munching caterpillars on our parsley (which is very bald at the moment). He plucked them off and shoved them into a ziplock bag. I think they were squirming in fright and pooed a ton of green balls. Yup, what comes out is a variation of what you ate.

But with all this love and care, we get great results like this:

Our first strawberry! It was smaller than a thumbnail. I popped it into my mouth and it was so sour I scrunched my eyes up.

The next challenge is to go all organic. A friend recommended chilli and ginger blended in water as a repellent — can’t wait to try it when I get back to Tokes.

“Babe, let’s get out of the apartment and DO something!” suggested the kangaroo in his towel as he emerged from his shower around noon last Saturday. He had a good week back in Tokyo and was itching to get out of our comfort zone.

Dates are rare for us so I was looking forward to hanging out just the two of us. But we didn’t want to spend too much money and just picked a neighbourhood to explore an hour before sunset and then hunt for a good place to chow down.

I chose Junkadelic, an authentic Mexican restaurant in Nakameguro so we took the subway down there. We wandered along the river and took in the cool breeze and sights.

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As promised, I will blog about the kangaroo’s birthday bash at our place. It was definitely a night to remember that rounded up with crazy shenanigans — you know who you are!

I couldn’t really get the kangaroo a super nice present this year, so I thought I would make him a South Beach bonanza spread for his birthday. He lost over 10kg since the day after Christmas Day 2008 and has had to buy new pants to fit his leaner frame. He’s still on it but is more lax on weekends.

People who know us probably think we are diet-crazy folks but it’s just the way we eat. It’s a good thing he likes salads or I would be slaving away in the kitchen all day making separate meals all the time.

Anyway, it was very heartening to have so many friends come by — I feel like this is our home because we’ve got an awesome set of friends and home is where the heart is. The kangaroo got showered with gifts from running gear, to gardening tools, to fancy whiskey.

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The kangaroo is home after a 7-week round the world business trip and when he chills out, he likes putting nice touches to our apartment.

Our wild strawberries were planted the last time he was in town so it was fantastic to see the first little fruit dangling just behind a curtain of leaves.

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