Flower Market Redux

I’m not a big fan of plants and flowers.  Of course, they’re pretty to look at and lend your house a certain warmth, but ultimately I just don’t have room for all those vases and I generally find them too high maintenance (who has time to recut flower stems under running water every day?).  To me, flowers are only really useful for inducing jealousy amongst your co-workers that your husband or boyfriend is thoughtful and loves you enough to send you a bouquet at work (implying of course that theirs isn’t), but since I don’t work anymore I haven’t really seen a pressing need to buy any.

Nevertheless, one time of the year that I get really excited for lately is Chinese New Year.  And mostly it’s because they open up the CNY flower market at Victoria Park in Causeway Bay for the week leading up to CNY.  It amazes me that I like the flower market so much.  One, as previously mentioned, I don’t really buy flowers; and two, I hate crowds and this gets to be one of the busiest, most crowded markets around since it’s a once-a-year thing.  But I love the crazy carnival-like atmosphere, being surrounded by the different plants and flowers, the vibrant colors and the aroma of traditional Chinese street food being cooked.

The flower market opened on Tuesday at noon.  Last year we went an hour after they first opened and it was d-e-a-d.  I heard that the market is liveliest in the evenings so we waited until 6 pm and left our apartment for the market.  It was definitely lively — and the later it got, the more packed it became. I didn’t have enough cash with me to buy anything so we were really just there to check it out, enjoy the festive atmosphere and pick up a toy for Noah.  Unfortunately evening isn’t the best time to take pictures — especially if you insist on never using your flash — so all my pictures from that first day are kind of crap.  But here is one of Noah examining the pinwheel I got for him:

A Very Merry Sumo Christmas To You!

Tuesday was the day that Jae, Dave and Nevan moved out of the Oakwood serviced apartments and into their real Tokyo apartment so it was up to me and Mark to keep a Nevanless Noah entertained for an entire day. We had originally planned on heading over to the Imperial Palace that day because it was the Emperor’s Birthday — a national holiday — and one of only two days of the year that they open the palace itself to the public. However one of Mark’s clients invited us to his home for a Christmas party that afternoon and we decided that sounded like more fun (and so much warmer) than standing outside in the cold in a long line with half of Tokyo to see someone’s big ol’ house. So after a leisurely morning back at the creperie, we hopped into a car and made our way to the party in Setagaya.

The chairman threw one of these parties every year. And every year, they spent a good part of the time pounding rice and then forming it into mochi (or rice cakes) in a traditional Japanese ceremony called mochitsuki. The cool thing about the chairman’s mochitsuki though was that he got a few sumo wrestlers to come over from their stable and do all the pounding. (And for those of you with really good memories, the chairman is the same one who invited us to the dinner back in April when I had a sumo wrestler for an eating partner.)

It was very cool getting the chance to watch the ceremony. The sumo guys would take turns pounding the rice with wooden mallets and later on, one of them would turn the rice with his hands in between poundings to a steady rhythm of pound — turn — pound — turn — pound — turn. There were a few moments where I was sure someone was going to lose a hand but they managed to keep pretty good time, occasionally breaking out into song to keep the rhythm.

People Watching at Yoyogi-Koen

Yoyogi-Koen is one of Tokyo’s largest parks. Although it lies adjacent to the Meiji shrine, which Mark and I have been to a few times, we’ve never ventured into the park. Saturday was bright and sunny so we thought it would be a good time to check it out for ourselves.

Besides just being an incredible expanse of green space, it was a great place to just chill out and people watch. It was full of people out for a walk, tossing frisbees, having picnics and impromptu jam sessions. There is no way I can do justice to the atmosphere at the park so I’m just going to post a lot of pictures instead.

Plan B

Mark had another late working day last Wednesday, so it was just me and Noah again hitting the town on our own. Among other things, the boy loves boats so I thought it would be fun to take a boat ride down the Sumida river in northern Tokyo to the Hama Detached Palace Garden in Central Tokyo. Noah took another late afternoon nap so we didn’t get to Asakusa, where the Sumida Pier is, until 3 pm — well after the last boat had departed for Hamarikyu.

Rather than mope around that my plan had fallen through, I told my disappointed son that we missed the boat and were moving on to Plan B. He seemed to take it in stride although I had no idea what Plan B was (the little stinker now likes to go around telling random people “Mommy missed the boat”). Luckily for me, Noah caught sight of the boats off the pier so we took a little stroll and terrorized some birds for a while:

Imperial Palace Garden

Mark and I took Noah to the Imperial Palace on Thursday. We’d been there once before, but the last time we went it was on the day we were leaving Tokyo to go to Kyoto so we spent a rushed half hour zipping through the grounds. This time around we had the whole day to loll away so we took our time. At one point we came across a big grassy expanse bordered by some gorgeous cherry blossoms:

So we thought it would be a good place to hunker down. We found a comfy spot, plopped ourselves down and let Noah run wild.

Oh, to be young and carefree again. It was such a blast just sitting and watching Noah play and enjoy himself. Kids at play are just so different than adults. They don’t have that self-consciousness and dread of doing something embarrassing that seems to hamper my enjoyment at times — they’re just out to have fun.

Baseball in Japan, part II

My last baseball post was a little incomplete. In the retelling of events, I sort of left out just how cool Tokyo Dome really is. I refuse to play favorites and say Japanese stadiums rock harder than U.S. stadiums or vice versa, but let me share what I think were some of the awesome things about it:

1. Security
Ok, not really something that’s usually on anyone’s list, but the security guards there were so nice. They were very polite when they realized I didn’t understand a word that they were saying and one of them actually asked me for permission to search my bag. “Awww, well since you asked so nicely, of course you can search me for explosive devices.”

2. Alcohol and Beer Girls

Ok, can you see what’s in her hand? Liquor. In those little bottles you find in minibars and airplanes. That’s how they sell them! And you see the girl in green directly in front of her? She’s a beer girl. She walks around the stadium with a keg on her back selling beer on tap. How cool is that?! In another life I want to be a beer girl…or at least I want that backpack.

Day Three — An American in Tokyo

Like I said before, I am not assimilating very well.

Yes, at Day Three, it may be too early to tell for sure, but the early warning signs are not looking too good.

Mark had to work all day today so Noah and I hit the town on our own. Our first stop of the day…nice, American Starbucks…where I managed to place my order for a latte, hot cocoa, muffin and cinnamon roll completely in English. Thank god for bilingual Japanese workers.

After a late nap and lunch, we headed out to another great Japanese site: Tokyo Midtown — an upscale shopping complex a couple of blocks from my apartment with wonderful Japanese standards such as Manhattan Deli, Madison Park Cafe, and Nirvana New York.

Here is Noah having a Strawberry Milk at Dean & Deluca:

And later, I let him run around like a maniac to burn off some steam:

You might think this is a play structure but it’s not. In fact, before Noah and his new playmate decided to defile it, I’m pretty sure it was an important piece of art at some point:

I also managed my first Japanese earthquake today just like a hardened Californian…which is to say, I didn’t budge. Unless something is falling I usually don’t move for anything less than a 6.0 (today’s quake clocked in at 5.3). In fact I was chatting with a friend on YIM when it happened. I waited out the ten seconds for it to pass and then continued my chat (Mom, don’t freak out — Noah was safe in bed and slept through it). My friend, a California expat living in Australia, responded to my news of the quake by saying “I miss earthquakes.” See? Hardened Californians, I tell ya.

Anyway, on the plus side, I did end my nice American day with a home-cooked meal of tonkatsu. Plus I made Noah watch all his regular Disney shows in Japanese rather than turning on the English audio track. So it’s not like I’m not trying. I’m sure tomorrow will be better.

Cherry Blossoms

I’m a little confused as to when peak cherry blossom season is. A lot of sources I’ve read indicate that I’ve missed it by about a week. We went to Ueno Park today though and apparently I haven’t missed it completely:

On Assimilation

Before we left for Japan, the biggest thing that I was worried about was the language barrier. Actually, “language barrier” is a bit of a misnomer since it’s really my inability to speak anything besides English that I was worried about. I did make an honest attempt to learn Japanese before we left though — three different Japanese language cds and two language books attest to this — but it just isn’t sticking. Actually, I’m pretty sure that I can speak Japanese. I have many, many Japanese words and phrases floating around in my head just waiting for me to blurt them out. Unfortunately, what they mean is completely lost to me.

Another problem for me has to do with the fact that any time someone speaks to me in Japanese my brain completely goes to pieces. For example, we had dinner a couple weeks ago with one of Mark’s Japanese clients who was in Hong Kong. I had my introduction ready and had been practicing it all day long.

My Trip to the Flower Market

Thursday is Chinese New Year’s, which you probably already know, is a really big deal here in Hong Kong. In fact, it’s such a big deal that every year, they set up a huge Flower Market for the six days leading up to CNY so people can buy all the lucky plants they could possibly need for the New Year.

On Friday, I took Noah to the Flower Market on a class field trip. The market is normally packed (as is most of Hong Kong), but because it was the first day and the middle of the afternoon, it wasn’t too crowded:

Compare that to the massive crowd when I went back five days later. Keep in mind, this is the afternoon and still well before the peak times (6 – 9 pm):

Anyway, we had a blast. The market was amazing. While it’s called the Lunar New Year Flower Market, half of it is dedicated to stalls selling balloons, toys, souvenirs, CNY decorations and of course, food. It’s got such a carnival-like atmosphere though — with the food, the amazing colors, the shouting and bargaining going on around you — and while it was uncomfortably packed at times, it was still a lot fun.

Seeing as I am a glutton for punishment, I went back a couple more times to take some pictures. I wish I could’ve captured the beauty and the excitement of the market, but it was really hard to get good pictures with so many people around. Here are some pictures anyway…

For some reason, one of the stalls was selling nutcracker toys:

One of many pinwheel stands:

Noah, testing out his new toy:

Orange trees, which are considered to be auspicious CNY plants:

I have no idea what these are (because all the signs were in Chinese). But I just liked the colors:

Tinted pussywillow branches:

I have no idea what these are even though they were everywhere. They definitely aren’t lemons though:

And they also come on the branch:

My bargain buy. I went back on the last day of the market when they had slashed all the prices and picked up some Narcissus (Narcissusses? Narcissi? Who knows…) and some orchids. Here are the bargain basement orchids that I picked up for US$10: