Meet Hideko, our Japanese granny

(Look at that joyful face!)

Back in January, during my first week volunteering at Friendship International, I sat at a table of strangers-to-me who would soon become my friends. Never would I have guessed that nine months later, the mom of one of those new friends would be at our Osaka house on our first full day, helping me shop and cook our first Japanese dinner.

Nanako was one of the friends I met on that first day back in January. She’s from Osaka and speaks English well, so it’s easy to talk with her. When I asked for popular Japanese song recommendations, she gave me several that I worked on for months (and Japanese people, like our Uber driver in Hakodate, are impressed when I burst into song in their language!). (Note: here’s the bilingual singalong I did with some of those songs). We had park play dates with our kids. 

Her mom Hideko came to Lexington when Nanako was about to have her second baby boy. I saw Hideko multiple times—when they all came over for a birthday dinner for Nanako, when I dropped off a meal when Kaito was born, when I helped them on their moving day, and when we came over to celebrate Shohei turning two. She was in Lexington for three months before returning to Osaka (right before we arrived!).

(Hideko cooked okonomiyaki for us at Nanako’s new house)

(helping the boys learn to use chopsticks)

When we said goodbye in Lexington, it was a “See you in Osaka!” 

Well, we got to Osaka Wednesday night the 21st. I sent her a message that night, and she replied that she was off the next day. Would we need help with anything? Um…yes, please! I asked if she could come to our place to help me navigate the supermarket, answer questions about Japanese appliances, and help me cook dinner.

We live on a different side of town, but she was happy to make the trek, and I so appreciated her help. She met us at 5 (we were a little late after getting turned around in Umeda), and we got right to work!

First step: rinsing the rice! She showed me how to rinsing until the water was clear.

We didn’t have a measuring cup, so she showed me how to “hand measure” the water level.

Once the rice was cooking, we walked to the grocery store! We bought some supplies for the meal that night and also a milder, sweeter curry (since I randomly grabbed one that turned out to be spicy). We also stopped at a 100 yen shop (like our dollar store) for a measuring cup and cooking chopsticks.

She wanted to bring Carter along to help carry our bags!

The boys watched Japanese TV shows while we worked.

Here she is cooking the ginger pork.

and plating it with the cabbage and onions

We (she) also made miso soup

Itadakimasu!

After we were finished eating dinner and our ice cream treats, she helped with some dishes and started on the curry for us to eat the next day. She stayed with us for 3.5 hours on our first full day in Osaka! I’m so, so grateful for her willingness to serve us on her day off! I hope we can get together many more times while we’re here (and then we’ll see her the next time she’s in Lexington!).

 I asked her if we could call her “obaasan” which means grandma (or elderly woman), but she said we can just call her Hideko (after all, she doesn’t seem very elderly, huh?!). Still, I’m claiming her as our Japanese granny because she did exactly what grannies do—gave of herself, helped pass on wisdom, and cooked for people!

Grateful that back in January, I met the daughter of our Japanese granny. Thanks be to God!

Bullet train to Osaka!

Van from Lexington Indianapolis

Plane from Indianapolis to Los Angeles

Ship from Los Angeles to Yokohama/Tokyo

Bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka

(and a bunch of shuttles, buses, trains, and even a water bus in between!)

What a journey!

My friend Natsumi had helped us purchase Shinkansen tickets when we got to Tokyo on Sunday, and on Wednesday, we packed up and said goodbye to our little “duplex” (3rd and 4th floor apartments). We left with plenty of time since we were loaded down with our luggage. 

Cooper loves birdies of all types, and the penguin is the mascot for Suica (transit cards)

This way to Osaka!

We walked ten minutes to the Akihabara station, then rode two stops on the Yamanote line to Tokyo station, which handles 500,000 passengers daily. We got there almost two hours early, so we headed to the waiting room. It was tiny and cramped and kind of hot (since there were open air escalators leading to the platforms). We ended up seeing another family from our worldschooling group. This same family was at the Denver airport the same time as us, too.

One step closer!

Butter sandwich, anyone?

Finally, we saw the Shinkansen bullet train pull in. There was plenty of space to put our luggage overhead and/or by our feet. No one checked our tickets (though we had to scan them at the terminal entrance), and the train had already started moving by the time we had all sat down !

I was with Cooper and Colson. Lucas was with Calvin and Chance, and Carter was by a stranger. We had purchased eki (station) bento boxes and ate them on the way. We also spent a lot of time looking out the window although unfortunately Mt. Fuji was not visible when we rode by. 

I bought them what I thought was milk, but it was a banana flavored protein drink

Leg room for these long legs of mine!

Tokyo Station to Shin-Osaka Station is 308 miles and would take us 6 hours, 40 minutes by car. But the bullet train took only 2.5 hours (up to 175 mph!).

A famous souvenir is Tokyo Banana, which is like a banana-flavored twinkie with banana cream.

There were only a few stops, but one of them was Nagoya where many of my Japanese friends in Lexington are from. 

In a tight elevator at the station.

From the Shin-Osaka station, we rode one stop on the Midosuji line, then walked to Minamikata station, where we rode one stop to our home station Juso. (we normally wouldn’t do one-station rides when we could just walk but with all our luggage, we went for the trains!).

Our first spotting of the most common Osaka manhole cover

Juso is our home station!

The first restaurant we saw at our Juso station was a taste of home—Kentucky Fried Chicken (though the boys said we’ve never taken them there, so they don’t even know what it tastes like)

From Juso station, it was a 3 minute walk to our home away from home! We were 30 minutes before check-in time but went on in since we had instructions to get the key from our mailbox. Our house is perfect for us! More on that later

We went out the East exit, so we had to go under the tracks to the other side

Our little international traveler!

Here’s the vending machine right outside our door (this could be dangerous with Chance’s new obsession with Orange Fanta)

Getting into our house for the first time!

We’ll give you a complete tour later…

Tokyo: Where We Stayed

Hotel rooms in Japan are very tiny— like barely room for the bed, so we opted for an AirBNB to have a little more room. We felt like we got a true Japanese experience in our quirky place. It was a “duplex” which meant we had the third floor apartment and the fourth floor apartment with separate entrances and of course, no elevator (this was difficult to accept when we arrived with our luggage after walking a lot that day). The location was great—walkable to Akihabara (electric town) and Ueno Park. Convenience stores were nearby. Minutes away from the action, but calm on our actual street. 

I shared this room with the little three boys. It was a traditional tatami room with tatami straw-like mats and cushions on the floor. 

This was the tiny table in the 3rd floor apartment (no table at all in the 4th). No countertops, no shelves, no beds, no couches, no sit-around-the-dinner-table, no seats except these stools (and the toilet!). Where am I supposed to sit? Where am I supposed to set things down?

Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes were the few books we packed.

Here’s the kitchen/living area.

Another complicating factor that made this area even more cluttered was that I wasn’t sure how the trash worked. Japan has very specific trash-sorting laws that vary by region. Instead of trash and recycling like in Lexington, there’s “burnable” and “not burnable”. But what makes something burnable or not? I’ve read conflicting things. I’ve read that plastics are not burnable. But does that mean plastic wrappers? Or just bottles? Or thicker things like spatulas. Paralyzed, I just didn’t throw anything away for awhile.

The washing machine was on the balcony! And sadly, mo dryer. Carter was excited to wash his clothes after dealing with handwashing on the cruise.

The doorways were a little short for him!

 Video games is one thing they all bond over

One of my nightly trips to My Basket, a small grocery store a few minutes away

It’s crazy how many people live within a short radius of our place. Tokyo is the largest city in the world! That window on the left across the street, I could see into from the bathroom one night. There was a meeting with people sitting around the table.

Good morning, Tokyo!

Getting all out ducks in a row…

At first, we weren’t going to let them keep all the ducks they found on the cruise, but they enjoyed playing with the. so much that we let them tag along on our adventure

The little kitchenette (there was also a microwave on top of the mini fridge)

Working on developing our “Japan legs” — lots of walking and lots of stairs!

I appreciate the little sprigs of green here and there