Birthday Boy

"The big 6...where has the time gone?"

Cian celebrated his 6th birthday earlier this month. He marked the occasion by losing his two front teeth, so had to gum his way through his birthday cake. As is typical here in Japan it was a low key affair; only myself, Sanae and Sanae's mother were present (though, yes, you were all there in spirit).

Families here don't do birthday parties - it is not an established custom and even presents are usually given in the singular. To be honest (and Scrooge like), I quite like this. The time and energy put into birthday parties always strikes me as being disproportionate to the enjoyment derived. And yes, I do conceive of birthday parties as a type of mathematical formula. To wit:

E = PxHxPB(WtI)
                  T

E - Enjoyment
P - Preparation
H - Hassle 
PB - Present Buying
WtI - Who to Invite
T - Time

To make another one of those sweeping generalizations about my adopted country, I think the Japanese tend to avoid birthday celebrations for fear of the offense given should you not invite someone. It is, relatively speaking, fine to invite Cian's 10 classmates from the nursery school...actually, it's not. Ten 6 year olds gathered in our home, sugared out of their young minds, whizzing around like fizzy drink powered small hadrons in our kitchen's version of CERN, sweet Jesus...but should you mad enough to contemplate such a scenario (hello Eimear), then matters only escalate when Cian gets into primary school. Then he'll have 30 classmates and the fundamental laws of physics require that some kids be left uninvited or a giant black hole with be created and the world will cease to exist as we know it.
So who do you spurn? How do you tell those undesirables that they are unworthy of what passes for high society in Muroran? And why would you put yourself in such a position when it is so much easier to maintain social harmony and keep our continuing existence in this world safe?
Which was the course we took with Cian. Plus it meant he didn't have to share his birthday cake with anyone.

Whuuuhhh!!!

Yesterday we got one of those phone calls all parents dread: "Your son is vomiting and has a fever. Can you please come to the school immediately". Panic sets in and mindless of the icy roads we speed to the nursery school. Or at least Sanae did. Despite being literally a three minute quick jog away, Mammy rather than Daddy is the default contact for any Cian related emergencies as (a) she speaks Japanese so understands better than I what is going on; and (b) does panic much better than me. This is important as it is perversely reassuring to the nursery school teachers as it indicates that things are being taken seriously. Daddy, on the other hand, tends to be a little too laid back for local tastes with my 'Arrrah, sure he'll be fine" approach to everything bar a full blown outbreak of ebola virus.
According to Sanae her panic was magnified several times over at the school where a rampant gastroenteritis bug was laying, spectacular, multi-hued rice-and-vegetable waste to a fair share of the kids. Apparently throughout the day the bug had been claiming victim after up-chucking victim. I could write that "the sickly stench of vomit hung heavy over the classrooms", but thankfully I wasn't there, and it's the weekend before Christmas and turkeys need to be stuffed, so I won't write it.
Thankfully Cian woke up this morning a couple of pounds lighter but looking and feeling much better. We have him on a diet of dry toast and bananas for the day and he seems to be responding well, so hopefully by tomorrow he will be back to his usual meals of yoghurt, fruit, jelly beans, cereal, rice and more fruit.

After the hiatus

My apologies: I think three weeks is the longest I have ever gone without posting something and it is a record I am in no rush to break. The past 21 days have been a tad busy in the same way that the Titanic is a tad submerged. We have had Cian's birthday, his school play, a trip to Hong King, a national election, snowstorms and, well, just 'stuff to do'. This blog was part of that 'stuff' but unfortunately it fell into the 'undone' category. However, I am still determined to at least reach 80 posts before the year is out - I was gunning for the ton, but I'm afraid that landmark will just have to wait until next year. Along with the above topics, I will also be regaling you with my as of yet not-very-together-thoughts on:
Our Christmas tree
Japan's demographics (again)
The year in film
The year in books
The year in music
The year in haberdashery
Cram schools (Juku)
When golfers go bad
Japanese pensions - the country for old men
And some other stuff.
The above is a kind of ongoing checklist of potential blog topics. These usually occur to me when I am walking up to the university in the morning and the combination of breakfast fruits and fresh air stimulate all sorts of insightful thinking about all sorts of interesting things. By mid morning my blood sugars plunge and the morning's insights have been dissipated, to be replaced for the rest of the day by an overpowering need to stay warm. 
It was -5 today with a biting wind. That sort of cold seeps into your bones and withers your will to stay conscious. Should this cold spell continue (and it looks like it will last right through the festive season - we may yet have to burn the Christmas tree), then the 80 target may well be cast aside in favour of hibernation.

Winter arrives

On Saturday the men-folk in the Gaynor-Takahashi family got busy doing what men-folk ought to be doing: changing tires. In Hokkaido snow, ice, constant sub-zero temperatures and insistent TV commercials by the Yokohama tire company mean that cars come with two sets of tires, one for summer and one for winter. The latter are made of softer rubber, are slightly wider and have deeper threads, which technically makes them more suitable for winter conditions. However, as any policeman here will tell you, it's the driver not the tires that makes the most difference.

Usually I get the tires changed down at the local garage along with an oil change and replacement oil filter. But under the withering scorn of my father - "Think of the impression you are making on Cian. He's half Gaynor. He's got Castrol oil in his blood. For God's sake, man up and change the tires yourself!" - I decided to do it myself.
So off to Homac we went (think Woody's but with way more cool stuff) and bought a socket wrench and a decent car jack. And some winter wipers (they have heavier blades for the snow). And a pretty damn cool flashing yo-yo, which we didn't really need at all.



So, we changed the tires and wipers, and emboldened by our lack of serious injuries doing same, we decided to go up on the roof to clean out the gutter.



Well I did. Cian got three rungs up the ladder before deciding he was better off down at ground level. Plus, he wanted to give one last torque check to the wheel nuts.
Up on the roof I marveled at (a) the view (yes, that's Sanae in the hot pink ski pants); and (b) the small shrub that had sprouted in the gutter.

Saturday afternoon

After cleaning the gutter, I was on a roll, so I also buried my bonsai plants, moved all the big potted trees to the lee side of the house under the kitchen and other stuff I won't bore you any more with.
And all just in time too as on Tuesday evening we had an almighty storm blow through. 140km/h winds, a meter of snow in 12 hours, trees felled, power lines down, over 50,000 homes without electricity, and Sanae's school closed until next Monday as they reckon it will take that long to restore power to that area. Which is great for Sanae but not so great for the people living there as they have no light, heat, water,  nor means of cooking. And the temperature is well below zero at night.

Tuesday morning

The (blocked) entrance to Cian's nursery school

Those of who you a bit 'jouzu' with the auld 'nihongo' can enjoy the link to the news report below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GOmyY-IpC4&feature=relmfu

Deep in the enchanted forest...

Events at Forest Kozan last Sunday put me in mind of the 80's and the surreal European art house movies I used to stay up late on a Friday night to watch on Channel 4 in the hope of seeing some, well, things you certainly wouldn't see on RTE. Invariably I would be equally disappointed and fascinated; disappointed at the lead actresses innate velcro-like ability to keep her clothes on, fascinated by continental filmmakers' haughty disdain for anything that might even remotely resemble a plot. It was all about imagery, mood and incomprehension. To this day I still have no idea what the film Visszaesők  (Forbidden relations) is about, but that turkey-swan thing, surely, it's more than just a turkey-swan, right.

Anyway, the fine folk up in Forest Kozan seemed to have tapped into that same vein of multi-colored madness, for how else to explain the otherwise inexplicable. (Well, either that or this year's harvest of Uncle Satoshi's crop of home grown mellow gold was particularly good).
We had a not very convincing Bolivian flute player, a man with a cardboard face, slow, charcoal baked sweet potatoes and the sudden, unsparing onset of winter. All combined to push reason aside and made us embrace our inner arts-n-crafts pagan child.
That and it was too cold outside.

When it got to stage when we were all following the faux Bolivian flute player as he led us on a merry dance, I really did begin to wonder if this was turning into a Japanese version of the Wicker Man.

But no, thankfully, the fire they had built outside was to slow roast the sweet potatoes, not the foreign outsider.

Cian, by the way, was a Caribou. But you knew that already from the stunning authenticity of his costume.

The caribou, feeling the irrepressible call of the wild, yearns to be outside. The caribou's Daddy, keenly aware of his offspring's desire, says, "not a feckin chance, pal. It's feckin freezing out there".

Late Autumn

We are having a somewhat strange Autumn this year, climatically speaking. It has been unseasonably warm but also unseasonably wet, so that what the Japanese call koyo (the changing of the leaf colours), has been strangely muted.
Today though the sky cleared, the sun shone and the maple trees around the house got busy trying to reach out and touch the glory.

Bullit

As Cian so incisively pointed out, while it is all very well "composing scathingly incisive critiques of Japan's political establishment" (his words), there comes a time when you have to put down the pen, pick up the car keys and burn some goddamned Goodyear rubber!!
YEAH!! ALRIGHT!! WHO B DE MAN?! U B DE MAN!!! etc.
So it was earlier today when World Rally Championship came to hitherto sleepy, suburban Muroran. For those of you who have the terminal misfortune to come from a country where driving in elongated circles 500 freakin times is regarded as the ultimate in automotive accomplishment, WRC is basically legalized high speed car chases down narrow, windy country roads.
And it is big in Europe. Yes, Europe, that continent of molly-coddled social welfare recipients and eh, Greece. So this, parkour and hurling is how we get our rocks off in the old world.
It takes cojones my Yankee friends, la boule, liathróidí, great big brass ones.
Anyway, me and Cian, proud genetic bearers of the Gaynor liathróidí (though a shout out to the Moss man down Clon way. And to John up in Helsinki. Maith na fir), hit the open road this morning in preparation for the start of next year's championship in Monte Carlo.
By coincidence I had just rewatched Bullit the night before and, as it turns out, the hills of Muroran make a fair substitute for San Francisco.
Topographically speaking.
In all other aspects Muroan and 'Frisco are as about as far apart as, well, two cities on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean.
Those of you easily alarmed should look away; those of you who believe that the only place for the pedal is firmly down on the metal, should clink on the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdhadmldP2c&feature=youtu.be