Lioness in Japan

I’ve been trying to walk around a bit more just to get more physical activity outta my bones. I sometimes take photos as I walk or jog.

Pictured above is a temple less than 50m from my house. I’m always pleasantly surprised at these spots of serenity built randomly from the quietest of corners to standing proudly along a main road. You can’t see it in this photo but there’s like a mini fire station on the left to the temple.

And the other evening, I walked from my Japanese school to my bootcamp class and was also surprised to see Christmas lighting was still on along Roppongi Hills. Or maybe they look like this all year round.

I know I post a lot of food pictures and you’re probably like, “Does she ever separate her stomach from her brain?”

But this one is not really about the pink leopard print cake above but about the place I go to occasionally to work out and have fun and be with really nice open non-judgemental folks. It was a post-class birthday party for two girls and it was just a wonderful sparkly time with pina coladas and pink leopard print cheesecake which felt like a reward after busting our glutes during the bootcamp class.

As much as I’m a lone warrior when it comes to exercising, I actually enjoy working out with others sometimes and feels a lot less like “work”, as cliche as it sounds.

It’s an alternative dance studio at first glance but it’s one of the few places in Japan I feel 100% comfortable.

I was sad to leave the Imperial Palace behind but I have a new running path to explore along the Meguro River just 5 minutes away from my place. I either go all the way up to Meguro station or take the more chic route down towards Daikanyama. I feel so refreshed having a new neighbourhood to explore now.

We still don’t know what type of tree it is, but it is definitely not a sakura or plum tree. We had high hopes it would be a cherry blossom tree so we could have our own hanami picnic right at our house. We can only dream. But there is Meguro River (which has an awesome stretch cherry blossom trees) just five minutes away on foot so I can’t complain.

It still lends a very rustic feel to our house though which I like very much…

In recent months, I had been invited to play with the kangaroo’s tennis group which is actually organized by his Japanese language teacher. I’m not sure how long he had been playing with them but definitely for a few years — and they even came to our wedding in Singapore!

They are excellent players and are totally rocking it even though they are over 60. The kangaroo’s mum plays tennis three times a week in Sydney and my dad plays golf twice a week and hikes twice a week. It makes you think you want to be like them when you’re older. Being slow, tired, dispirited, and uninspired are all in the mind.

My tennis is godawful and hope to take up proper lessons when I’m not so swamped with work.

It’s really fun playing with them — lots of laughs and they always head off for nomihoudai (all-you-can-drink) after playing for two to three hours. I always feel refreshed from the clean suburban air and the simpleness of these happy sessions.

We held a really small housewarming dinner with some close friends and they got us a straw kangaroo with a big hollow belly. This lil guy makes me laugh whenever I look at him…My friend said, “It’s sort of like something you would get Derek.” How true!

And they tied an Aussie flag to the nape of his neck — so cute…

Methinks I’ll fill the belly with house slippers for guests. A touch of Japanese in something Australian?

My local supermarket is called Life or ライフ. It’s bigger than the tiny ones in Akasaka where I used to live and this is great news for someone like me who loves to cook.

There are properly spaced aisles instead of narrow passages. If you’ve been to a hole-in-the-wall supermarket in Japan, you’ll know what I mean. They even have shopping trolleys if you need to buy more stuff.

This joint is just five minutes away from my house. Cool.

Well, the kangaroo is anyway. In a dusty Vietnamese bookshop in Nha Trang, he picked up this book by Moe Oshikiri, an ex-model, who wrote a book that is part memoir and part “how to be happy” manual. He thought it was just a self-help book on how to improve your attitude in life and little did he know it was written by a fashion model.

But it’s still highly commendable that he has been ploughing away at this book. He says the vocab is fairly simple since the target audience must be teenage girls. Perhaps the kangaroo will learn a thing or two about women from this book. I have high hopes.

At last, my very own office. My personal cave…except the kangaroo put his weights here as well but he doesn’t use them very often, so I pretend the whole room is mine. I could even start using the weights so it’s really all mine in this room.

The flowers are actually real, believe it or not. They were given to me last August for my birthday and they are still looking quite alive and fresh. It’s got something to do with it being soaked in a special chemical substance that keeps this small bouquet going for up to nine months apparently — amazing!

I’m still always filled with disbelief when I see snow like this in Tokyo. That’s the view from my living room the morning after it bucketed down tonnes of snow through the night. It may be cold but there are blue skies almost everyday.