I had my niece came over a week ago.

It was so lovely to see her!! We talked until 4 in the morning one night XD.

I never imagined that we would be this close at her age 20. I feel so blessed!!

Some kids were mean to my niece

I was just remembering about when my niece was about four or five the other night.

My brother decided to move from a small apartment they were living to a bigger apartment complex.

After they moved to the new place, my brother noticed that some of the kids in the area were being kind of mean to my niece. They were mean to her but when my brother showed up they stopped and greeted my brother like they were not doing anything bad. He did not talk to the kids about it though, my niece told him that the kids were “dodgy”. She was probably expressing the situation that the kids were being mean when no adults around but changed the attitude when he showed up.

My brother listened what she said and asked her “what do you want to do about it?” Her reply was “I will just leave it”. He told me that “I was so glad I did not say anything” XDDDD. Because that was something he never came up with by himself he said.

Other options

Let’s think what you can do if someone is mean to you, or your kid.

There are probably many possible counter-measures for it.

I will list those that I came up with.

1. Learn martial art or physical trick so I will be more confident if something similar happens to me next time.
2. Find some influential person who can protect me.
3. Talk to them and tell that what they did was not fun for me.
4. Punch them in the face so they will know what’s gonna happen if they do the same thing.

I guess there are many other options but I will just stop it here.

I guess what I do will be different with my goal. If I want to be friends with them, I would probably go with No.3 tell them that it wasn’t fun. But if my goal was not to become friends with them, I guess the things they did to me wouldn’t really matter. I think just let it go is the best choice……

Give false meanings on things

I had a boyfriend who was bullied when he was little.

He told me that when he was bullied at school, his father used to scold him and tell him that it was his fault that he got bullied. He used to be bullied because of his parents disability (both of his parents were blind), so his father’s reaction might have been that way because his father was also hurt when he found out that his son got bullied because of their disability.

However, what his father mistakenly added the meaning to what happened to him was totally unnecessary.

The fact was simple that some of the kids in school bullied my ex.

It might have been because the kids had a bad day and they wanted to do something to let the steam off. Or the parents didn’t treat the kids nicely so they were doing the same thing to someone else, or their parents were talking bad about my ex family so they thought it was OK to be rude to him.

I cannot know why anymore for sure, but I know the fact that he got bullied wasn’t his fault. He was probably weak and made the kids think that it was OK to bully him but I also know that strong people doesn’t always bully weak. They can protect weak if they want to. It is a matter of choice what they do with the strength.

What could his father do?

There were a lot of things my ex’s father could do rather than making him feel that it was his fault. What the kid needed the most was probably being listened and feel safe at home, let out his feeling. His parents could probably ask him what he wanted to do with it. He might have come up with nice solution himself.

He might have found a good martial art class nearby. Trained himself to get the confidence so he would not be bullied any longer. He could be ended up finding good friends at the martial art class and learnt that he could make friends where he felt comfortable at.

Add meanings to things

I came to notice that I have been doing a lot of this “adding unnecessary meaning” to things happened to me or around me.

I have a Japanese friend who lived in NY for several years when she was younger.

When she lived there, she had a fire at her apartment. The sauce was her room.

When we were talking about the fire incident, she said “I was so lucky that I got up that night. I usually sleep till morning and never get up at middle of the night.” “I felt so protected.”

When I heard that story, I went like “Wait, wait, you felt ‘protected‘ because you didn’t die in the fire??”

I noticed that she see things very differently from I do. IF my apartment was on the fire, the first thing I would think would be “Man! Why fire in my room??” I might have felt unlucky but not other way around.

Lucky or Unlucky?

I heard a similar story on a famous Japanese businessman named Konosuke Matsushita.

He is a founder of Panasonic, one of the largest consumer electronics company. He is also known as “the god of management”.

I heard that when Konosuke was young, he fell into the sea from a ship and almost got killed. He fell from the ship because someone who stood next to him grabbed him accidentally when he was going to fall off from the ship and had Konosuke involved.

Konosuke couldn’t swim so he could have died.

When people pulled Konosuke out of the sea and saved him, he said “I was very lucky to be saved. I can’t swim so I could have died but I didn’t because of the people who helped me”.

When I heard about this, I had the same feeling as I heard the fire story from my friend. Wasn’t it supposed to be “Damn, I was almost got killed by that douche bag.” * mad*

Some people look at things as “lucky” while some look at them as “unlucky”.

I have believed I was so inferior

I don’t think we have to have that positive attitude.

It would probably be nice to be able to look at the positive aspect all the time, because it would help us feel happy all the time, but that is not something I want to try. If I try to be that way, I can see that would be the stress itself. It wouldn’t be my choice, nah— XD!

Anyways, I think being careful not to add unnecessary meaning to the things happen around us is important.

I have been running my business for 14 years. I met so many wonderful people all over the world and it is super cool that I became friends through providing my services.

I have got so close to some of them over the years, that they offered comforts and information that they thought it would help me when I had depression. One time I was talking to my Dad, he was kind of surprised that my customers (meaning friends also to me) know that I am having depression. I really appreciate their friendships and support provided on my hard time.

I know now why I became friends with many people through my business, because I wanted to be friends with peope all over the world. I have accomplished it without knowing it.

Although I became friends with many people and became very close to some of them, I was not making much money, haha. I kind of know now why too.

Anyways, even though I have accomplished my dream part “to become friends with people all over the world” without even aiming or noticing it, my self esteem was very low and it was close to a loser, just because I was not making constant money enough to support my living.

To think back from now, it was very sad that I felt that way. I felt that way mainly because I was not doing what I wanted to do and doing things in the way it is believed good rather than doing in my way.

I know there are people who are very obedient and feel good about all the information surounding them. I believe they do select what to do and what not to do in their standard though.

I came to learn that I am kind of person who wants to do things in my way and also what interest me. I never thought myself as picky because I can eat anything, usually like most of the people I meet. But found out I am very picky on the things to do and how to do those XDDD.

I also know now that the information itself is not that important compare to whom I hear that from. If I trust that person as a indivisual I am eager to learn and would learn a lot more from that person than learning from someone else.

I am aware of my habits now so now I can be nicer to myself and am more confident on the selection on what to learn, what to do and so on and I am very happy about it.

Do what you want to do

OK, this has gotten everywhere so I will sum this up here.

It is not only how to deal with bulling, but for everything out there. We have our own way to handle things. There are so many information out there and if you are away from yourself, you get confused and feel that you don’t know what to choose or what is right.

The tips you see or hear out there, they probably worked for someone so it may work for you, but at the same time, it may not work for you. I think it is important to know that things worked for someone else may not work for you. What you want to find out is test things that attract you and see if they work for you or not.

If you keep watching your feeling, how your body react, you will know what is good for you. If you feel tense in your body or feel weird when you tried to do something, that’s either it is not good for you or it is not good time for you to do it.

IF you feel like you don’t know what is right for you right now though, if you keep paying attention to yourself, you will know it, because I do now (*^^*). I was just in the bush just half a year ago.

OK! Thanks for reading!

Let’s stick to ourselves and be happy!!!

The post Your Unique Way To Handle Things first appeared on Anything About Japan.

Within these 3 days or so, I am starting to discover a lot about myself in enormous speed and this is so much fun!

The change started gradually from October last year but these 3 days are really different.

What that was to me to become an adult

My niece means a lot in my life.

Although I LOVE small people aka babies and children, I never wanted to have my own children in my life, but I am so grateful that I have my niece in my life.

I found this song about 2 weeks ago. I rarely listen to song lyrics but this one caught my attention and I did. I thought the lyrics was very beautiful. So I shared this song to my niece via Line.

I thought it was very beautiful that his mother kept telling him that he was just wonderful as he was and she wanted him to be himself no matter what. Yes, we have moments that we feel like we need to become someone else, don’t we? It must be so comforting to have someone keep telling you that you are OK as the way you are and being yourself makes other people happy.

Anyways my niece looked at the lyrics in a little different way. She thought it is a beautiful family love song, this part wasn’t quite different but she also wrote that “I can relate to him because I get scared to become an adult sometimes”.

I kind of wondered why she thinks that so I asked. She said “I am so happy right now that I am afraid it will be changed”.

Then I remembered that I didn’t want to become an adult when I was younger. To become an adult seems to me that to become boring. Seems that people start to care about many stupid things when they become an adult.

I had no role model that I would think “Oh I want to become an adult like that!”

Niece as my drive

My niece has been a strong drive for me.

She is now 20 and turning 21 this April. She will probably be working soon or later full-time, and I thought I wanted to be someone who she can feel hope for growing old. Haha, just remembered I felt so miserable getting old a few months ago XDDD. I felt becoming old is all about loosing what I can do.

I have believed for some reason that money is not that important for my life, although I also wanted to earn much money so I will be more comfortable and safe. I also believed that I wouldn’t be able to make much money.

Guess I had many complexed feeling on money.

By the way, I have had very low self-esteem.

I will probably write on and off on this blog about my depression though, I have had so many depression in my life. The obvious one started the year when I entered a university.

I went to one of the very prestigious universities in Japan. However, I got depressed in the first autumn in the university. I was depressed three years out of four years in the university between autumn and winter.

The reason I was depressed

I am starting to understand what was happening.

Back at the time, my mother kept telling me “we don’t have money”. All of us her kids were out-of-town studying at universities in every different prefectures. I assume it was so much money my parents needed to spend for our universities, houses, food etc. per year. I don’t know how that was possible.

For my parents education was very important and “education” for them back at the time was to have us get a university diploma.

It was kind of funny that my mother said a couple of months ago that “we believed that ‘education’ was to go to university when you guys were younger”. The conversation didn’t go on but come to think about it, it would be an interesting topic to talk about with her. I am curious what she thinks now o(*^^*)o!

Although I went to a high school that was famous for many of their graduates go to so-called “good” universities, there was one teacher saying “you guys don’t have to go to university”.

So I thought, “yeah I don’t know what I want to learn in university. I would like to work first and if I find something I want to learn, I can probably go to university then. I would probably have more motivation to study that way”. So I told my Mom about it when I was senior in high school.

She doesn’t even remember that I said that (yes, that was obviously not important for her and the memory slipped out from her mind while it was important for me, so I remember it XDD), so we didn’t have proper conversation about it. She said “Oh you can just find what you want to learn in university” or something, that I decided to study for the entrance exam.

The study for entrance exams was pretty tough for me. Looking back from now, I was studying to enter a university but I was not very sure why I was studying and that led me the pain. I was probably depressed then too XDDD.

The sense of making own choices in life

Whether I decided to go to a university or not, if I had proper conversation with my parents about if I should go to a university then or not, things have been a lot different I believe.

There were so many things I chose without having the feeling that I CHOSE it.

This eat up our energy I think. Because if you are the one who made the decision no matter what that is, you won’t lose the goal. You know where you are going and why.

To me back then, hearing my mother saying “we don’t have money” over and over again and all the shitty stuff in her life, “me studying in the university” = “giving our family a burden”.

I was using a lot of family money and didn’t even know what I wanted to study. What fun was that, you know?

Does that worthwhile doing it?

I remember practicing throwing a ball everyday when I was 4th grade. When I came home from school, I practiced over and over so I could throw the ball exactly where I wanted.

Back then, I loved “dodgeball”. The dodgeball is something you play with several people in two teams. There are two courts like soccer and we throw a ball to people in the other court aiming to hit them and kill. If you hit someone with the ball, he/she die in the game. The team with more people left in the court win.

I was so good at dodging the ball that I was almost all the time the last person who was in the court, however I could not catch the ball at all so even if I didn’t get killed until the end, I couldn’t make my team win because all I did was dodging the ball. Needed to catch the ball and kill the opponents to win.

I remember asking guys to have special training after school so I would be able to catch the ball. Once I successfully caught the ball of Kankan, a boy named after a giant panda in Ueno zoo, Tokyo back at the time XD, he was chubby and big could throw the most powerful ball in the class. I caught his ball but it hit my solar plexus and got me not be able to breathe. I fell down the ground after throwing the ball I caught that Kankan threw, but it was so fullfilling. Oh my goodness, dogdeball was really everything in my life then. It is so sweet.

Anyways, let get back to the practice of throwing a ball. There is a park right next to my parents’ house and it has a wall that I can throw a ball and have it bounce back.

I throw the small ball we had in the house to the park wall everyday single day so I can throw exactly where I wanted to. I eventually gained the control. I don’t remember how long I practiced. But I kept practicing until I gained the control I wanted.

I think this is how things work.

I just realised while I write this, I was very lucky that no one told me “What the heck are you doing?” or “What the value of gaining control in throwing a ball” or “That isn’t important for you future”.

Back then, getting that ball control was probably the most important thing in my life. I can tell you this because I was practicing everyday until it got dark so I couldn’t see the ball. I don’t remember having fun over it, but I knew it was what I needed to do to get what I wanted. I was just doing the thing I needed to achieve what I wanted to achieve until I eventually do.

But as I grew older, my parents value started to be involved in my life. I can see now, that my mother lost her faith in raising her children while we grew older. She became not sure what was important. She thought she needed to guide and direct us to certain way so we could be happy. But we knew where we wanted to be headed. We did not need the guidance.

Those are not important

When I am depressed, I feel I am nothing. Of course that is how we feel when we are depressed.

I feel that the things I feel are important aren’t important for real. I feel some things are important because I am weird.

I hate working long hours. I never liked it and hardly did. It is kind of weird since I just heard a friend of mine who works in Japan mentioned about long hours in Japan. I have worked long hours short period of time in my life but usually shorter time even if other work long hours.

Anyways, I saw the fact that I don’t want to work long hours as one of my failures when I was depressed. But for real, it is not my failure. It is just my preference and my sense of values. What I need to do is keep and value that.

I somehow thought that I have to be OK to work for 9AM~5PM to be a proper adult. Efficient worker. I think that is what my parents believed and also most of the adults in Japan believe.

My parents thought that working at a so-called “good” company will lead us a good life. They believed it, but apparently none of us were interested in it, because non of us 3 siblings works at a corporation now.

I have never imagined myself working in a corporation and climbing up the promotional ladder. It have never attracted me. I wanted to become skillful so I don’t have to belong to any organizations. That appeared to me a cool way to live.

I did not believe that working in a big company lead us a happy life because my father worked in a really big company in Japan but I knew my Mom wasn’t happy at all. We were not happy as a family at all either.

Bucause of the fact my Dad was working at a so-called “good” company & us not being happy, I kind of misunderstood that “working in a big corporation is not good”, haha. My mother was telling us one thing but showing the complete opposite by herself. Ironic.

I know now that it wasn’t about the size of companies. Not even the company he worked for. It was all about my family.

The issue of my parents didn’t know how to communicate each other that my Mom did not understand some of the things my Dad did or said to her and to her children.

All the things happened in my life, all the fragments I could never be connected are becoming into one piece now. I feel like I am understanding a lot things in different depth than I did before. Starting to remember a lot of small things I thought, felt when I was younger, and kind of re-discovering myself.

The values I treasure

Freedom means a lot in my life and I kind of have forgotten about that.

No, that is not precise.

I knew freedom was very important for me, but somehow I thought I needed to do things in limited freedom. Most probably because I believed that that is how the life is. But now I know, that is not true. It was that way, because I believed that is how it is supposed be.

What is the most important thing in your life? It is fun to understand that it is OK to follow your heart.

In our educational system, certain things are taught to be good. I think that is the same in most of the countries nowadays. If not, that is great.

In many cases, evaluating things in limited ways discouraged a lot of us while we grow up. The worst part is that we start to believe that it is true. We start to believe that we need to be a certain way to be great as a person, while that is not very true. I think that is making a lot of us lost in our lives.

Is it really important for your life?

What you think is important for you is absolutely important for you. You know it. We all know it.

When I am depressed, I feel so unsure about everything. I cannot trust myself.

I am not sure what I like. I got even not sure if I loved my boyfriend, became not sure if my niece was important for me. All the things became uncertain, it may sound weird if you haven’t been depressed but this is how I feel when I am.

It was because I felt what was important for me was not important in REAL LIFE. I thought things appeared to me are important because I was the weirdo.

I now say to myself. No Nozomi!! What you think is important IS IMPORTANT for you! Remember that dogdeball practice?? You couldn’t catch the ball at all first, but after practice eventually you could even catch Kankan’s ball! You couldn’t throw well at first but eventually you could throw wherever you wanted!!

What matters

What you think is important matters to your life. Actually that all matters! It is all you have to care about.

It doesn’t really matter what someone else think about it, because we are all different from the beginning. We are all weirdo in the first place. We are all weird that means we are all special in our own way.

If someone tells you that something is important for you and if you don’t think that is. That means that is important for that person but probably not for you. If you are careful about what you feel, the answer is there. Your body, your feeling, everything are telling what is important for you. What is important for you now.

OK! That’s all for today. Thanks for reading!!

I have a open-mic at a bar tonight. It is one of the fun stuff I do now.

Enjoy your day too!! Oh and happy Valentine’s day!!

The post Didn’t Want To Become An Adult first appeared on Anything About Japan.

How are you doing?

I am reading a book of Dr. John F. Demartini now.

The title in Japanese is “The Class of Dr. Demartini for becoming best of yourself (Dr. Demartini no Saiko no Jibun ga Mitsukaru Jugyo)”. It is a translated book. I am assuming the original book title is this, “The Values Factor“.

I never like reading in English XDD. Reading is the weakest point of mine in English. Even though I worked as a translator in the past, oooooops XDDDD!!

I am reading this because I was recommended to read it from the person I am taking a seminar next month.

Dream job for me

I was chatting with one of my friends from Argentina Ariel, years back.

When we were chatting, he told me “Oh wow. This job must be your dream job, then”.

I never thought it was, but came to think about it, it was really.

Since 2006, I have been helping people from other countries to buy goods and concert tickets in Japan. I have made so many friends all over the world through this job.

Want to make friends all over the world

When I was a 4th grader, I was walking home from elementary school.

There was long stairs before I reach the house complex where I lived. I don’t remember what happened that day though, when I climbed up that long stairs, I looked back down the stairs and thought “I want to become friends with people all over the world”.

Small bud

English language always seemed to fascinate me.

I don’t remember it since I was very little but my Mom told me that she looked all over to find an English class for me when I was 5 or 6. She said I told her that I wanted to learn English.

There are English schools everywhere nowadays, but back then there were so few of them that she needed to run around to collect information.

I assume Ariel and I were talking about my memory of 4th grade when he said that phrase above about my dream job.

Until then, I really never thought of that I have accomplished something I wanted strongly.

The rules of attraction

Have you heard of the term “the rules of attraction”??

I don’t even know “the rules of attraction” is the right way to say it in English since I never read those stuff in English. It is called “Hikiyose no housoku” in Japanese.

Basically it means we attract what we want. What we are thinking will be shown in the real life.

I have friends in more than 20 countries (it was more than 20 when I counted last time, could count how many but let’s skip it because the number is not important).

However, it is strange that I never tried anything intentionally to accomplish that. I do remember thinking “I want to become friends with people all over the world” when I was in 4th grade, but I have forgotten all about it for a long time verbally. It was probably there so naturally that I did not even have to think about it.

I have never made any effort to make it happen.

What effort meant for me

What image do you have for the word “effort”??

To me it was “do something I don’t want to do to realize something I need to make it happen”. So effort meant chore, pain, something absolutely not fun for me.

I think that was because I have done so many things I didn’t want to do but someone told me that I need to do. Studying for entrance exam for universities was one of them. What else? I cannot think of them at the moment but should be many of them that I have done.

The things happened to me

OK, let’s get back to the topic on “the rules of attraction”.

According to “the rules of attraction”, we get what we want. I also read that “you think about something strongly then you can forget about it”. “It may work better if you don’t persist on it”.

I am writing this from my memory, so may not be precise what they are telling, however what happened to me about making friends all over the world was this “thought about it strongly then forgot about it”.

The passion within me to become friends with people all over the world was very natural, that I didn’t even have to think about it, but it came along.

Went to the US to escape from the hated school

I was in a private girl’s juinor high & high school.

Stupid it may sound, I was not really aware that “girl’s school” means “zero boy”. Yeah, kids can be ignorant, right?

So I went to the “girl’s school” thinking that means few boys.

I don’t remember if that was the first day or several days later entering the school, I was pretty shocked to find out that there were NO BOYS at all in the school.

I was raised in a family with two brothers and fighting with boys in elementary school daily for fun, no boys seemed pretty strange to me. The first year went all right, however from the second year in the school, I started to feel very uncomfortable with stupid rules like stating the width of ribbon we wear, the color of socks we wear etc. and some of the dumb adults aka teachers in the school.

I never broke those stupid rules because I had no interest in clothing and stuff however I felt very strange about that school having those rules and trying to have the students follow them.

From looking back from now, I see there were some teachers that I liked and were close, however I didn’t get along with some of those who had strong influence in the school such as the head teacher of the grade, the feeling of disliking the school gradually grew within me.

I was telling my Mom about it, telling that I want to change the school where my old friends from elementary school go but I think she was too obsessed with bad relationship of her mother-in-law and other stuff with my brother. Most probably what I was telling her did not reached her (<– I came to think this way very recently, and then I could let go of it. Funny it may sound I kind of thought that my life started to go wrong from here).

Anyways, I tried to get out the school from high school (we have entrance exams before entering high school) but for some reason I did not even take entrance exams to other high schools.

It was most probably a combination of these two things.

1. My parents did not want me to take the exam to end up going lower lever school.
   The school I went was kind of “high level” school and believed to have more chances to get in to so-called a “good university”. My brother failed the university entrance exams multiple years at the time, so I assume that influenced my parents wanting me to stay that school I didn’t enjoy.
2. My will was not strong enough.

Anyways one day when I was in the first year in high school, one of my friends who also did not like that school came up to me and said “Hey Nozomi, do you want to take an exam for exchange program? If we pass, we can get out of this school”. It was a great opportunity for me that I can get out of that school for whole year so I took the chance and passed the exam.

I passed it most probably because I studied all the English textbooks I got for three years in junior high the summer prior that year aiming to take the entrance exam for another high school. I was making shit grade in English till then XDDD.

So this was kind of the first step that I took without noticing to have friends outside Japan. Luckily I made many friends that year in the U.S. I still contact with many of my friends from the exchange year through facebook now.

One of my besties had an American boyfriend

Now after entering a university, one of my best friends dated an American guy.

My friend, her boyfriend and I hung out often so I used English on and off. I also went to an English school on weekend for forgot how long but did for sometime in the university.

Found some friends through an international house

After graduating from university, I worked at a computer company. When I had the job interview they said I can use English at work, but there were almost zero chance to speak English at work. There was one American guy in another department one stair down at my work but I don’t remember talking to him in English.

Remember one time I spoke in English at that work was when the American guy’s Mom called from the U.S. and I answered the phone. That was about it.

So I found an international house that had a notice board. There people put up contact info for language exchange and such and I found 3 friends there to hung out back then.

Had an English blog site

At around year 32, I had a blog on a British platform called “20six”.

I was writing on Japan and made several friends through that site. We communicate daily to have just very ordinary conversation like what we did today and stuff but it was very much fun.

Nick from the U.K., one of the friends I made on that site asked me one day.

“Hey Nozomi. Would you do me favor? I am a fan of ‘THE YELLOW MONKEY’. I want to buy their CDs. I looked all over London but couldn’t find them. Will you buy them and send them to me??”

This all started my business helping people from other countries buy things in Japan. I can’t thank Nick enough for asking me that. I made so many great friends through my business. If you know someone named “Nick Lines” from the U.K., will you share this post to him please? I truly want to thank him. I lost contact with him after the platform made major change. Everyone got spread and lost contact with most of them.

Become friends a German at a local post office

Since I started my business on eBay back in 2006 (I don’t have the eBay store running anymore though), I needed to go to the post office nearby my house daily back then.

I saw a non-Japanese at the post office whom I had seem a few times on a bus.

It was very crowded at the post office that day and the guy was sitting and waiting for his turn. I needed to get the waiting ticket and wait too. So I sat besides him and asked him where he was from. The waiting time was too long that he had to leave for class he taught so he asked me the person who he met that day to make the payment for him XDDD. So we exchanged the phone numbers.

Stephan is his name. He is a super friendly, fun person. He had BBQ every Tuesday at his place so people could gather and make friends. He invited me to the BBQ and I made a lot of friends there.

Anyways it is getting too long about my story.

Those things happen without effort

The bottom line is I MADE NO EFFORT TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH ALL THESE PEOPLE.

I hate effort as I mentioned. I didn’t even think that “Oh, I want to become friends with people from other countries”, never.

It was all spontaneous this and that but in the long run, I ended up having all the friends in the world.

I am learning many little things about myself recently and starting to understanding why I was depressed so many times in the past. I was SO OFF from who I really was, what I wanted to be for real.

Hope this discover goes on!! OK! Thanks for reading.

The post What We Get With No Effort first appeared on Anything About Japan.

The day before yesterday, I got my hair cut and having a short hair all after 6 years or so and I feel GREAT!

I always liked my hair short. Wonder why I’ve had my hair long for 5-6 years. So strange.

Anyways as I was working on my computer yesterday, I thought I wanted get my hair washed. So I did.

And I felt SO GOOD the way I am treating myself and this phrase came up to my mind.

Love yourself as you love your baby.

Fulfilling your needs and wants

Right now, I am trying to learn how to enjoy myself everyday. Be happy as much as possible with what I have. So I am trying little that and this.

Washing my hair right at that point I thought about it was one of those things.

I felt so good as if I was taken care of well as I am a little baby. Just like as I claimed “Mama—-! I want my hair washed~!!” then here she comes and fulfill my needs. The only difference was that person who gave that to me was myself =D.

Although I don’t have my own child, I have many lovely experiences with babies as below.

1. My host family had their 4th baby when I was there (I studied in the US when I was 16 and the host mother had the baby when I was there. I was in that very room in the hospital when she came out to this world and it was wonderful). I took part of the daily routines such as changing diaper, feeding, burping and it was fun.
2. My brother had his lovely daughter when I was 26! She is 20 now already but I am still SO GRATEFUL that I have her in my life.
3. Seeing my friend’s baby weekly when he was around 0-1 (I was about 28 or so).

When we are with babies, we don’t really expect much from them because they really cannot do anything except sleeping, eating and crying. But we still enjoy being them by looking at them sleeping, crying or just steering the air with wonder and their simple smile bring us joy and happiness.

We take care of babies as they would be all OK and comfortable. If they cry, we guess, and feed them if we think they are crying because they are hungry. We change diapers if we think it is because the diaper is wet. We do things spontaneously to make them comfortable and happy.

When they stand up, we cheer them with joy, be happy with them with their accomplishment.

The way we treat ourselves

However, do we take care of ourselves as we do to our babies?

Are we happy the way we are as we are happy with babies? Are we happy just the way we are?

Are we happy, even if we don’t do something important that day??

Are we happy, even the job we have now doesn’t seem so great?

For me, the answer was no. Especially on those bad days of my life.

I am middle of the changing process to be happy with just the way I am. With so many things I can do. Even with so many things that I can’t do. Whatsoever. Just accept the fact that I am wonderful as I want all of the people on the earth want to feel.

When I am on my depression, the things I can do look SO SMALL and WORTHLESS. I bully myself so I would feel so miserable. I bully myself far way more than I’d ever do to anyone else. No mercy.

But not anymore. I won’t do it to myself. Isn’t it strange that we do so bad to ourselves that we wouldn’t do to other people? Or is it just me??

Keep your geniusty alive

There are people known as genius, sometimes also known that they were kicked out from school because of their attitude.

I am starting to think that we all are born genius, but while we grew up, our geniusness was bended and discurraged its way by receiving and believing some messages from outside.

In modern world or probably even in the ancient world, there are rules that are believed to be good to follow.

And there are some people who fit with those rules well. Those who are comfortable with those rules.

On the other hand, there are people who don’t fit with those rules, and sometimes, people mistakenly deliver the message that they are not good enough because they cannot follow the rules or they are not comfortable with those rules.

I think those genius are someone who had someone who believed in them constantly even someone else out there said that they were not good enough because of something.

The more important fact I assume is that those genius chose to believe (most probably without intention) that the opinion that they were special was true and not the one that they were not good enough.

We are all different

I had an incident recently that accelerate of the thought that we are all different.

I met up with two friends from university earlier this month. One girl was one of my besties back in the year and the other girl who was close but not that much. Anyways, we united all after 15 years.

When we were talking, a topic of Singapore came up and the friend said “I love rules and I am comfortable following them.” She said she believes Singapore is the most advanced country in the current world.

As you may know, in Singapore everything is set as rules such as “throwing garbage in public, you are fined $$$$”, “eating in train, you are fined $$$$”.

When I heard about it from one of my friends from Singapore, I thought “No way—-! I would never be able to live in Singapore.” “Fined by throwing garbage in public is OK but not eating and drinking in train?!?!”

Nope, I can’t stand starvation.

So when I heard my friend saying “I love rules and love keeping them.” I thought is it even possible, but she seemed being natural, not that she was trying to be unique or anything.

As I had the opportunity to watch two kids in very close age in common period (my niece and my friend’s son who I was seeing every week in the past are a year and half different in age), I know we are ALL DIFFERENT. We are all different from the beginning.

My friend’s son was such a happy child. My friend had hard time back them with her married family, so she was not very happy. She even cried in front of the baby sometimes, but the baby didn’t get unhappy. He wiped his Mom’s tears and tap her head and made her smile. I had some kind of belief that those things are contagious so I was surprised to see him happy despite the fact his Mom was not always happy.

My niece on the other hand was quite tense baby. She got really tense and screamed sometimes. I did not know it back at the time though, my sister-in-law wasn’t happily married. She was not open about it so it might had something to do with my niece mood (cannot know that though).

Since I did not know my sis in law wasn’t happily married at the time, I felt quite odd seeing my friend’s son as a happy baby and my niece as a nervous baby.

Anyways seeing the two different babies in very different personality back then, I used to think how I would be like if I wasn’t taught what I was taught such as going to a prestigious school is important in life etc..

Be happy with ourselves

OK. Let’s get back to the way we are with babies.

When we are with babies, we really don’t judge what they are doing is good or bad. We just enjoy what they are discovering. We enjoy watching what they are doing. Maybe do a little help sometimes to keep them safe like keeping them from swallowing what they are not supposed to.

I think this attitude of our own toward babies is something we can learn and apply to ourselves.

Be happy with what we are doing without judging what we are doing worth or not.

Just observe ourselves and be happy with ourselves.

That is something I am going to do to myself.

Let myself grow in the way I want. Enjoy being myself. Let myself do what please me, give myself what I want and so on. I feel that it will do a lot good to my life. I am kind of excited to see the change from now!!

The post Love Yourself As You Love Your Baby first appeared on Anything About Japan.

You might have the same questions as she had, right ;)?!

OK! Will add more info if there are any questions asked ;)!!

The post Morning Musume. Cheki Event first appeared on Anything About Japan.

Have you heard of “bento“? or “obento“?

That is Japanese boxed lunch.

There are many kind of bentos and “hohuku bento” is one of them.

“hohuku” means “revenge” in Japanese.

If you want to know how to write in Kanji the Chinese character we use in Japanese, it is

If you write in Hiragana, the other character we use in Japanese, it is

A Series of Hohuku Bento

So now let’s see a series of “hohuku bento” aka “revenge boxed lunch” that a husband got by pissing his wife off.

Japanese Words You Want To Learn

Let’s see the messages from the wife in the videos together so you can learn some useful words and phrases in Japanese through it.

Kindly note that in this video most of the words are to insult others due to the aim of the boxed lunch XD! But also fun words to learn, aren’t they :p??

OK~!

You can click on the links on the Seconds on the table below to jump to the video of that seconds.

I am not sure if the Japanese words can be viewed properly on your computer though, if they don’t let me know from the comment column. Thanks!

Summary

Some Japanese wives are sweet enough to make boxed lunch for their husband even they are pissed off at him. However, you may get some messages with cut nori (seaweed) or ugly and bloody figure in the boxed lunch.

Sometimes nori, the seaweed is cut in centipede shape or cockroach shape. But all in all, it is way much better than getting the real ones, right?

If your Japanese is way advance, you can check my Japanese blog sekatomo.com and see if you find any interest ;)!

The post Revenge Boxed Lunch! Terrifying Lunch From Japanese Wife first appeared on Anything About Japan.

Hi there!

I had a request on how to use coin laundry in Japan so will write about that on this post.

If you want to use coin laundry in Japan and do not know Japanese language, then this is the right post to read for you.

There are several types of coin laundry old and new so will write about what are found on the Internet + what is helpful.

Oh there are several useful YouTube videos that you can check.

Sponsored Link

This one is old type that is probably at your hotel in Shinjuku Dina :D!

As you can see, there are laundry machines (white ones) and dryers (yellow ones).

You can bring your detergent (and softener if you want to use it) or buy it at the laundry place.

For this washing machine, it costs 200yen.

1) Check inside of the machine and make sure nothing is in there and inside is not dirty.

___Press “Cleaning washing tub” if there is (orange button on the video below).

2) Put detergent.

3) Put the money.

4) Put your laundry (you can probably put your laundry at step 2). If you want to dissolve detergent well then step 4)).

For the dryer, I could not see the fee.

1) Check inside of the machine and make sure nothing is in there and inside is not dirty.

2) Put your laundry (and softener if you wish).

3) Put your money.
Sponsored Link

Newer type

OK, this one is new type of machine.

Usually there are more than one type of laundry machines with different capacity and price. In this video, there are 700yen laundry machine with 16kg capacity (at 0:50) and 500yen one with capacity 11kg.

The dryer is 100yen for 10 minutes at this place.

Looks detergent is automatically thrown for this machine. If you do not see detergent vending machine, then you can assume it will be thrown automatically.

Washing machine

1) Check inside of the machine and make sure nothing is in there and inside is not dirty.

___Press “Cleaning washing tub” if there is.

2) Put the money.

Dryer

1) Check inside of the machine and make sure nothing is in there and inside is not dirty.

2) Put your money.

It is not in either of the videos but there are machines with laundry and dryer together.

For this type, detergent and softener are thrown automatically.

Here is the steps for washing + dryer machine

1) Check inside of the machine and make sure nothing is in there and inside is not dirty.

___Press “Cleaning washing tub” if there is.

2) Put your laundry and close the door.

3) Choose the course from “Washing only”, “Drying only” or “Wash and dry”.

4) Put the money.

Time & money :

Average time to wash — 30 ~ 40 minutes (200 – 700yen : old machine seems to be cheaper)

Average time to dry — depends on the weight of laundry though,

________________________20 ~ 30 minutes for ordinary clothes (200 ~ 300yen)

________________________35 minutes for jeans (400yen)

Entire time, about 1 hour to 1 hour and half depends on the laundry.

Budget is about 1,000 ~ 2,000yen.

Tips :

Try to bring many 100yen coins (1,000 ~ 2,000yen) since usually they do not take bills (could be money changer but may not).

Bring hangers if there are shirts and such that you do not want to be wrinkled, so you can hang them after drying.

When it is crowded, people may take out your clothes from the machine. If you are washing your underwear you want to be back before the machine will stop. The remaining time is displayed on the machine so you will know what time to be back at.

Drinking and eating are prohibited in most coin laundries to prevent the laundry get dirty.

Japanese letters you may see :

You probably won’t see the last 2 kanji but if there are 2 machines set vertically then you will see this one. You need to choose which machine you will use.

P.S. There are coin laundry for sneaker as well XDD.

I didn’t know until I write this post.

The post Coin Laundry in Japan! How much and How to use? first appeared on Anything About Japan.

Hi there!

I have been thinking about writing Japanese lesson blog but have not done much yet.

I think it will be really fun learning Japanese with lyrics for music lover so today I am going to use Morning Musume. ’16 new song “Sō ja Nai” to learn first 5 basic Japanese alphabet (5 vowels in Japanese) and see how people like it.

If you read & watch this post, let me know what you think!

Pronunciation :

The 1st one pronounce as “a” — maybe close to the word “now”‘s “o”??
(should probably add some sound info later on…)

The 2nd one is “i” — maybe “eat”‘s “ea” sounds?

The 3rd one is “u” — “oops”‘s “oo”

The 4th one is “e” — “edge”‘s first “e”

The 5th one is “o” — “object”‘s “o”

OK! I am going to teach you 5 Japanese basic words & expressions using these first 5 letters. Some of them, you can hear them in the new song :D!!

These first two letters

“ai” means “Love“ in Japanese!

There are many songs about love right? And so as MM. ’16 new song
“Sō ja Nai”. Check out the 1:54 of the above video.

English subtitle is “Love is probably… Love is like…”

Did you catch the word “ai” in Japanese?? Ya~~~y you!!

This word is also in the other new song “Mukidashi de Mukiatte”.

Check it if you can catch them. There are two parts with that word :D!!

All right, then next word.

“iie” is formal “no“ in Japanese.

This is good to remember if you are coming to Japan.

“ue” is “up” in Japanese. It could be “above” “on” as well.

Check out the 2:56 of the above video.

English subtitle is “Those condescending remarks”

hummmm I am not really familiar with the word “condescending” * looking up *

condescending --- characteristic of those who treat others with condescension

condescension - a communication that indicates lack of respect by patronizing the recipient

OK so if condescending is referring someone superior to inferior, it makes sense.

Sine the Japanese lyrics “Ue kara mesen no sono phrase“, “the phrase from looking down from higher position” sort of.

Anyways, let’s just remember “ue” in Japanese means “up” and try to catch the word in the song!

“ee?” is not really a phrase but we say it when we are surprised XD!

You say that in English too right? Guess we have that in common so you can use that in Japan as well. People would understand you :p.

And so as the previous one, this is not really a phrase but

“o-!” (“o” plus bar) we say this one also when we are surprised as you say “Oh-!” in English. I wonder those surprising sounds are universal…

But I know in Chinese people say “aiya—” when they are surprised… well we say “ah—!” as well but not quite the same.

Writing order :

OK! Now let’s write about writing order of each of those five Japanese alphabet.

You can remember, we write basically from left, top, right, down order.

Let’s explain with the first letter “a”

Get it?

The first stroke is from the very left of this letter. And the second stroke is the one at the top. The third stroke start with the next high position.

So the second letter is easy I think. You can try.

Try by yourself :

Probably the last one was a bit difficult. You can check the answer at the very bottom of this post ;)!

Note :

When we write Japanese, we have two ways to write.

One way is like in English, write from left —> right then go down.

Like… this one down here.

Another way is, as you can see on the above 5 basic Japanese, write from top to down and this one goes right to left.

Answer of “Try by yourself”

The word “ai (love)” in song “Mukidashi de Mukiatte” –>  1:06, 2:30  <– Check the answer by dragging the space~~.

OK! Hope this was fun lesson!

Leave comment if you notice something or have some suggestion etc. I will be shedding tears to see your comment ;)!

The post “Sō ja Nai” lyrics Morning Musume. 16 first appeared on Anything About Japan.

Hi there!

Today, I am writing about how to access to the Bellesalle Tokyo Nihonbashi event hall.

This place is often used for artists’ handshake and cheki events.

Morning Musume. 16 is having the release event of their 62nd single “Sexy Cat no Enzetsu / Mukidashi de Mukiatte / Sō ja Nai” on December 17th.

One of my friends Dina from Indonesia is going so I will write about the direction today. Thanks for purchasing the CD box sets + tickets Dina!

OK! Here we go!

There are mainly 2 ways to access to the venue, one is to take metro and another is to take JR train (one of the most popular Japanese train).

A) If you are taking any of the Tokyo Metro lines,

your destination is Nihonbashi station.

At Nihonbashi station, find the B6 exit, and you can pass through to the event hall since it is connected to the station.

Use HyperDia or google map to see the train transaction and the time table.

B) If you are taking JR train,

then your destination will be Tokyo station.

1) At Tokyo station, find “Yaesu North Exit“.

2) Having Tokyo station on your back, take left and walk for 5 blocks.

3) Then you will reach a junction named “Gofukubashi” with a traffic light.

4) Turn right at the “Gofukubashi” junction and walk for 2 blocks, you will see a junction named “Nihonbashi”.

5) Go 1 more block and you will see the venue, Bellesalle Tokyo Nihonbashi on your right.

See the map below for your reference.

CAUTION: There is another Bellesalle hall named “Bellesalle Yaesu” on the way  to “Bellesalle Tokyo Nihonbashi” which is on the first block of “Gofukubashi” junction on the right. So do not hurry in that Bellesalle if you are going to “Bellesalle Tokyo Nihonbashi”.

To see the appearance of the building, check here.

If you want to find some restaurants near this area, check here.

If you click on your desiring cuisine from “Select Cuisine in Nihombashi” on the page or your preference from “Search Features” such as English menu, Non-Smoking and Free Wi-Fi you will be directed to the restaurant with your preference :). Cool isn’t it??

You can also narrow down the restaurants with your budget too.

If you want to eat something right quick before or after the event,

“Nakau (rice bowls restaurant)” looks nice with just 2-3 minutes walk from the hall according to the google map and also average price being 600yen.

OK! Have fun Dina and whoever going to the event!!

The post Bellesalle Tokyo Nihonbashi Access first appeared on Anything About Japan.

Hello there!

In my live venue posts, I use a word “No. of Front Row Audience” so thought about explaining the word.

While I search live venue names, many people use the word “Saizen wari (can literally be translated as “Front row allocation”, but I think “No. of Front Row Audience” is more direct and easy to understand)” combined with live venue name so thought it may be useful to add this info on the live venue info table.

OK, let’s think this is a live venue.

There are a vocalist and a guitarist on the stage and lower part is the audience area.

The front row allocation is where I marked with red arrow.

The very first row of the audience. You see 9 circles there.

In this case, the number of “front row allocation” in my live venue table would be “9”.
If it says “9 to 11” then depends on the lives, the number of front row audience can be 9 or 11.

What is good about knowing this number?

Yes yes, I kind of got confused too XDD.

OK, these three numbers are closely related;

1)  No. of Front Row Audience
2)  Your reference number on the ticket
3)  Venue capacity

would be closely related.

This is only for your reference though,

if your reference No. is either between 1 ~ 10 for capacity 300 ~ 500 venue or

1 ~ 25 for capacity 1,000 ~ 2,000 venue, then you have chance to be at the front row.

If you know the No. of Front Row Audience then, you know where you want to stand depends on your favorite member stands (is your favorite member vocalist?

Does she/he usually stands at the middle of stage?)

So if you are lucky to have good reference No. then you check the venue No. of Front Row Audience before getting into the live venue so you can run and keep the place where you want to stand.

The reference No. in Japanese is “Seiri bango” and looks like this.

OK! Hope this will help!!

The post No. of Front Row Audience first appeared on Anything About Japan.