Cat Socks and Movies

With our stockpile of oats from Costco I made some toasted muesli with coconut, sultanas and mixed nuts. It’s pretty good so I’ll make it again when it gets too hot for poridge in the mornings.

I also made some cashew nut cookies that were so awesome – chewy and sweet – but they all got eaten before a photo could be taken.

Our Japanese top loader washing machine has been attacking our clothes in a way that we are not used to as we had a delicate front loader at home. So we decided we should buy some new clothes. The first store we tried was full of trendy young clothes – bright pink shoes, Engrish oversized t-shirts and short-shorts with suspenders. However, we did find some cute room socks.

We went to UNIQLO and found a store that was more conservative in its fashion expressions, although the slogan t-shirts were still in abundance. We each got a new outfit to last us a while – quick dry shorts, long pants, colourful t-shirts, linen pants, linen work shirt, pleated singlet top. Not bad for 8000 yen (I figure UNIQLO clothing is a bit like Target.)

It was a bit depressing finding the right size. Although I’m not big, I am a large here. The linen pants were L (hard to find as most of the clothes on the rack were only S or M) and the tops were M. I’m used to being a S or XS in Australia. Shoes also are quite narrow with a maximum size around 25 cm (fortunately that’s about my size) and always have heels.

Benno's colourful t-shirts, quick dry shorts and soft green long pants.

Lara's linen pants size L, black linen shirt and brown pleated singlet top, size M.

Lately we have been going to the Tsutaya video store each week to watch a Japanese movie (with English subtitles) to improve our language skills. We have watched a kids movie called Panda Kopanda. It was Hayao Miyazaki’s first produced work in the 70s about a young girl called Mimiko who has no parents but is looked after by her grandmother. Her grandmother go away for a short while and she is looking after herself. One day a giant panda and his baby panda called Panny escape from the Zoo and come to her house as there is a nice bamboo grove outside. They become a family, mama Panda (Mimiko), Pa Panda and Kopanda (Panny). It was very cute and had a catchy theme song that you can listen to here.

Everyone playing their brass instruments outside Mimiko's house.

Last week we watched a strange movie called Kamome Diner (seagull diner) about a Japanese woman who opens up a diner in Finland that specialises in homestyle Japanese food. Two other Japanese women end up helping in the diner – one because she knows the Gatchaman song, and one because her luggage was lost by the airline. It didn’t always make sense but it was a nice feel-good movie.

The lady who lost her luggage, the owner of Kamome diner and a woman who knows the Gatchaman theme song.

Last night we watched ‘Gou-Gou datte neko de aru’ or ‘Gu Gu the cat’. A famous female manga artist becomes depressed and stops drawing manga after her cat Ne Ca dies. After a while she gets a new cat called Gu Gu, maybe finds love, gets ovarian cancer, battles on, lets Gu Gu loose in the park and takes photos of it frolicking and has to chase the cat several times when it runs away…and finally she makes another manga. This movie also features Marty Friedman (guitarist from Megadeth who is now a Japanophile living in Shinjuku, wearing only platform shoes) as an English language teacher who happens to be Death.

Gu Gu the cat movie

I’m not sure if any of the movies we watch will make sense – only about 1 in 10 videos have English subtitles and we have been grabbing random movies to watch, not knowing what they are about apart from the front cover image.