December 16th
Homonculus - Trepenate and Illuminate
At present I'm reading a great manga. I spoke about it one my homepage and I want to tell you a bit more about it. Nakoshi's life, you can see him below as well, is documented in 'Homonculus', without question one of the most scintilating mangas around.
Whereas most mangas seems to disintergrate into some epic (i.e. lasts for bloody-ever) battle scene, Homonculus is an engaging psychological thriller, a storyline with plenty of brain-tingling surprises.
The story picks up with Nakoshi living in his car just outside the main gates of a park in Tokyo. He is homeless and in order to eat he decides to take up the offer of a mysterious young stranger to undergo an operation for a substantial reward. The operation involves drilling a hole into his head, what they call trepanation, and observing the changes it brings about. Soon Nakoshi starts to see things differently and the warped nature of people and modern life comes into focus. If only he could understand what it all meant...
This isn't a classic good against evil yarn, it's full of the murky grey we have to navigate in reality: manipulators get manipulated, oppressors get oppressed and good friends give you a slap when you start talking shit.
I seriously recommend you take a look. Unfortunately it's only available in Japanese at the moment.
December 24-25th
Full-on Family Christmas
On Christmas Eve Mari finally managed to escape the house and go to church for the candle service. I think she might have gone crazy if she hadn't managed to get some 'fresh, child-free air'.
I stayed in with Aya and Kiyo and just watched 'Totoro' on DVD. Aya and I love watching that. Then I put too Kiyo and Aya upstairs, rested Kiyo in her chair and read stories to Aya until she slept.
By the time I got downstairs Mari had returned and so we gave Kiyo a bath and a bottle. Kiyo loves the bath - she always seems so calm and happy. I remember Aya was a little bit dubious about the whole thing when she was a baby, but then maybe she just didn't trust Mari and me! Second time around things seem that much easier, don't they!?
Then we got all the presents down from upstairs and put them under the tree. I stood amazed - it looked great. This year is the first year Aya has really 'understood' Christmas and I must admit her wonder has kind of changed my slightly 'Baa-Humbug, it's all commercial crap' approach to festivities.
Father Christmas and his desire that all children be good has also come in useful over the last couple of weeks too! Although his power will probably wane for another 11 months as of tomorrow.
On Christmas morning Aya and I got up and went downstairs to check if Father Christmas had been. Low and behold he had! So we took all the presents upstairs to Mari and Kiyo in bed and opened them all together.
Aya was overjoyed. You can see some of the clothes she got here. After that it was downstairs and time to play with the toys.
I made dinner. A simple affair with pre-roasted (but very tasty) chicken, roast potatoes, sugar-snap peas and carrots and homemade nut, apricot and sage stuffing (forget paxo this really kicks arse - fully vegetarian). Aya was starting to get really bored and needed to burn off some energy so we went outside for a run / footie session in the car park. When we got back we had dinner. We didn't have hats and crackers, but the food was good and Aya ate all her vegetables. For a carnivore of Aya's stature that is quite impressive.
After that we settled down to watch 'Madagascar'. Later on Mari's brother and his wife came, so we went over to the parents' house and had Christmas Cake. Japanese Christmas Cake is a strawberry sponge - not exactly Christmas pudding hey!? Aya and the rest of the family didn't seem to mind too much.
Then it was online to see the folks and have a chat. Christmas is one of those time that you need the family around and to see Steve and Ju-ju making stupid faces for Aya on the video link up cheered me up. Funny really, even though it was Christmas back home it was really just another day in Japan. The trams and buses were running on time as usual, all the shops were open and the roads were busy, but on the computer the English Christmas full of crackers, stupid hats, wine fuelled giggling was smiling right at me.
December 30th
Mochizukuri Party
Went over to my friend's family's house with my daughter Aya. It was a mochi zukuri (making rice balls) party.
During winter and especially over the New Year rice cakes are an essential part of Japanese cuisine. Some cakes are savoury, such plain or black soya bean varieties; others are sweet such as those with red bean paste inside, or ones coated with a sweet soya sauce.
They are hard at room temperature, but lovely and gooey when warm. My favourite way to eat them is to toast them (brown on the outside and gooey in) and eat them with the sweet soya sauce.
Eating them is fun. but making them is even better. Click here to see the photos.
December 31st
New Year's Eve
Did Hatsumode (first visit of the year to a temple) with a mate, Phil. Going to a temple at midnight is pretty special. Everything is lit up and everybody is happy, regardless of the long wait to give thanks. Little stalls selling food line the way to the temple.
Neither Phil nor me are Bhuddists or Shintoists, so we ended up avoiding the huge queue to pray and went to find out what our luck will be for the coming year. I'm going to have a sudden rise in luck apparently. Phil mentioned that we should actually pray at some point, to satiate his superstitious nature.
I said I wasn't superstitious, but now I've got great luck I don't want to lose out...that being said, I'm pretty slack and might not make the temple by the 6th...
After the temple we went back to my place and put the world to rights over a few beers - one of those everything makes sense conversations. Beer's great like that. Shame the bright sunshine of the new year had to come and shine some reality onto proceedings...