Kelly Azuma

Had a nice weekend. Saturday while Yasu was at work I got into our bedroom and cleaned it up. Yasu has a tendency to just undress where he is standing and walk out of the clothes leaving them on the floor. So if I don’t pick them up, which I haven’t lately, we end up tripping over his clothes!!

I tidied up our room and bought some vases and some real looking fake flowers to go on our bedside tables, lit some scented candles and rearranged the furniture. I tackled our walk-in-robe and rearranged that, hung up all the clothes and stuff, so now it looks nice. When Yasu came home I lit the candles and took him in and he reckons it looks like a hotel room. I have been making a big effort to keep it nice and tidy, so it will stay looking like that! It’s hard though, with Yasu being so messy.

On Sunday we met a Japanese friend, Yuki, for lunch in the city. She has been here for 1.5 years on a working holiday visa and is now moving up north, and then to Melbourne to study. We farewelled her with a lunch at Miss Maud, and then found out that today is her birthday! So it was a kind of double celebration. Miss Mauds is a Swedish Pastry House and they have a “Viking” all you can eat restaurant and hotel. The food was delicious but the desserts, OMG!! They were divine. I had shuu puffs and princess cake, chocolate torte, lemon tarts, pavlova, lemon torte, fruit…ohhh yummy. Yasu wants to go back for HIS birthday in August.

Afterwards we wandered out, we were all sooo full, and I was almost in pain because my stomach was full to capacity. We took a walk to visit another Japanese friend we knew who was working at a Thai restaurant, who couldn’t make it to the lunch today.

This morning I got a message from another Japanese friend and she is coming over for dinner tonight, she has a daughter, who Yasu loves playing with, so it should be fun!! Wow, we are having a busy social life these days. haha

Oh, as an aside, I stopped in at Utopia today and got some cream cheese pan, man are these yummy!! They are always so popular, and I got the last 2! The cream cheese goes all the way to the bottom, the taste is like cheesecake, and the pan is so soft and fresh. Mmm.

Today I hit the shops. I had to get Otoosan a father’s day present – I am very late! – I’m hoping he won’t mind. It’s also his birthday on the 29th June, so I have to get something for his birthday too.

I managed to get him a knick-knacky thing. It’s a ceramic tea ball that holds leaves and has a little holder that it fits into. Basically you put a serving of tea into the ball, put it to brew in your cup of hot water, and when finished put it into the holder. I also got him some nice premium leaf tea – Orange Pekoe, Chai, and Australian Breakfast. It’s pretty expensive at $3.95 per 25 grams. But I figure it is his special present so it would be nice for him to try something good!

Ceramic Tea Pod

I also bought some “Japanese Evening Mist” tea leaves (for Yasu), but this one was $7.95 per 25 grams, so doubly expensive. It is very nice though. Yasu liked it so much he requested another cup straight after the first one. He never does that!

I bought myself a nice candle I had my eye on too. The best part it was marked down to $5 from $15. Once you use the candle inside, you can put a new candle in the holder. I really just like the holder, but the bonus was it comes with a nice vanilla scented candle inside.

Hmmm…what else. Oh, I got some nice choccies for some friends in Japan. I also got a big jar of decaf coffee. I’m the kind of person who can’t drink coffee after 4pm otherwise I can’t sleep at night. I’m hoping by drinking decaf I can have it later and still get to sleep. The only problem is that here decaf doesn’t come in small bottles, only large ones.

I also bought some softener for Yasu’s sister. I got an email about 2 months ago asking me what kind of softener we have here, and would I be able to send some over. Apparently, she was using some softener called “Downy” but it became popular so she doesn’t want to use it anymore. Then she started driving an hour each way to get to her nearest Don Quixote to buy imported softener from America just because it was different from what everyone else was using. So anyway, I bought a bottle of Huggie, here’s hoping she likes it. I don’t really understand what the big deal is. If I buy something and I like it, I keep using it, whether it is popular or not. Maybe it’s a Japanese thing???

Huggie softener – Jasmine & Tigerlily,
Dove – Green Tea & Cucumber Shampoo

I also picked up some travel brochures for Japan. The Ghibli museum caught my eye but it looks like you have to book well in advance to get a ticket. So no popping in on the spur of the moment.

Oh yeah and I bought a Teppanyaki bar, so I’m waiting for that to get delivered, hopefully early next week! Then we can have Korean bbq style meals at home. I can’t wait!

I’m going to visit my mum tomorrow. It’s about an hours drive each way to her house but because I take public transport and there is no direct route it takes me about 2.5 hours each way (2 trains and a bus)! And it’s meant to be thunderstorms tomorrow. But, I really want to see her because we haven’t seen each other for a few weeks. So I’m not letting the stupid weather stop me.

Hope you all have a marvelous day!! Night

I wasn’t going to blog about this but I decided to as I need to get it off my chest.

Last Friday I got a postive pregnancy test. Yasu and I were over the moon. It was great to finally be able to say I was pregnant, and know what it feels like.

The weekend started out great, we went shopping and were coming home when I started to get cramps. I had cramps all through the pregnancy (6 weeks) so I wasn’t very concerned.

I went to the toilet and noticed a few drops of blood but I thought it was probably nothing to worry about. Later that evening the cramps got worse and bright red blood started to come out. The pain was so bad I took panadeine forte, nurofen, and panadol, all of which did not even touch the pain. Yasu sat up with me all night while my body expelled our precious child.

It has been a very difficult process for both of us, particularly Yasu, who has taken it very hard. He has always wanted kids, and to find out he was going to have one, then immediately lose it, well that was too much.

I have still had alot of pain because it is still coming out to a degree, though is getting less every day.

At the moment I can’t face pregnancy or the prospect of getting pregnant again. It’s all too emotional and raw for me at the moment.

Although Yasu wants to try again, I just don’t have the ability to try at the moment. I need some time to myself to process it, and sort my life out.

Before you say “it will happen when it is meant to”, please reconsider. I have had that said to me over and over by various friends and family members all these years and I’m sick of hearing it. Those that don’t find it hard to fall pregnant, or have not lost a baby, have no idea, the pain and agony those words cause the people who do.

Basically I have been putting on a “happy face” on my blog because I didn’t want to drag others down with my sorrow. This is the first and last post I will talk about this incident. I had to get it out there.

***Warning: If you do not like catchy songs that get in your head and don’t come out, then don’t read this post!

There is a children’s TV show on NHK called Mitsuketa! or みいつけた！ It seems to be on of Yasu’s favourite shows, and while he had time off from work, he had it on every afternoon.

At the end of every show they play a song called みいつけた！which is the kind of theme song. It is a take-off version of a song by the same name by Tortoise Matsumoto (トータス松本) a popular singer in Japan.
This song is so catchy that I can’t get it out of my head for days at a time. Last week I had that and Genghis Khan going round and a round in my head. And every time I get it out of my head, Yasu will start up singing it or it will be on TV again. That said, I do love the song, it’s very cute. The show itself is quite cute too. Here’s the video

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faFsCtib1zU&hl=en&fs=1&]

Another funny character from the show is called Ofroski (it’s meant to sound Russian) but when it is spelt in Japanese you will see why he is in a bath –>
オフロスキー (get it??)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqYjI38XY3E&hl=en&fs=1&]
The show also has a talking chair and a talking cactus. I love the little girl she is super cute.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00cTXKpofhE&hl=en&fs=1&]

Oh, and if you need the words to the song, here they are (just so you can get it stuck in your head abit more!!)

みいつけた！
作詞・作曲・うた：トータス松本

まん丸い　ほそ長い？　どれくらい？　でこぼこざらざら
においはどう？　突いてみ？　おもしろい？　朝から晩まで

さあ探そう　登ったり掘ったり
すべって転んで　どこまでも

愛のタマゴ　タマゴ　あたためよう
きみのタマゴ　なにがでる？

割れたりか枯れたり　いろいろあるけど
気にしない　気にしない
すぐまた見つかる　かならず見つかる　いくらでも

愛のタマゴ　タマゴ　あたためよう
きみのタマゴ　なにがでる？

さあ探そう

Tonight’s dinner was Yaki-udon, though I made it with Hokkien noodles, so I guess it should be called YakiHokki or something It was really yum though and Yasu and I both had seconds. The sauce was just a basic Teriyaki sugar/soy sauce/mirin/sake (real sake not the cooking stuff).

Today there was something on the radio that made me laugh. One of the announcers went to Japan and she brought back some Kit Kats – Apple Vinegar, and Daigaku-Imo. She couldn’t read the outside of the box so she only knew that one was sweet potato, which she liked, and the other, she thought was apple, was the one she hated, because it was Apple Vinegar.

Quite funny though, and it sure put the spotlight on Japanese Kit Kats for the Perth listeners. I guess they’ll be searching for where they can get some now.

I just remembered that Father’s Day was YESTERDAY! OMG. I bet otoosan was waiting for a parcel in the post and one never arrived…

And it’s his birthday in 4 days. Oh.No. We still haven’t thought of what to buy him for Father’s day let alone his birthday!

I have no idea what to get him!! Any ideas??

What did you do for Father’s Day yesterday?

Today was pretty much a blurry day. I spent most of it in bed, in pain, but we won’t go there.

When I got up, Yasu decided he was going to have a lay down, and he ended up sleeping til 4pm. He has been waking up at 4am these past few mornings, he just can’t get back to sleep after that so he usually gets up and goes on the net. I guess he really needed the sleep.

After he got up he decided to prune the pencil pines at the side of our driveway, because one of them had grown taller than the roof of our house, and so because of the stormy weather we have been having, it is bending over in a bad way. Yasu found we didn’t have anything to cut it with so in his ingeniousness he found a grinder in the shed and used that. Luckily the trunks were not too large so it was okay.

Yasu pruning the tree

He pruned them both to the same height and staked them. I know, interesting stuff huh?

Pretty boring.

Let me see….ahh well I cooked Japanese style hamburgs with mashed potato for dinner, that was nice. Oh, and then I made some rocky road!! It never usually lasts long around here because Yasu loves it, so I took some pics before he could eat it all. Usually I make milk chocolate or white, but tonight I made both. Yasu loves white, and the chocolate I used tonight was Cadbury so I knew it would be good, and it is! When it gets cooler in Japan I’m going to make some and send it to mum and dad in law Hope they can enjoy my rocky road too!

My famous Rocky Road )