Then & Now

I was browsing Google Maps the other day and thought of looking at the house where I grew up. It's interesting how much you forget when you haven't been somewhere in a while. Compared to where I live now in Japan it's pretty different. I took two screen captures to show the difference. Both are on the same scale.

The Old:

Aww swimming pools how I miss thee (I still haven't found one here but I'm told they exist). Grass and trees are also things only found in parks here.

The New:

City life! There's a ramen store across the street. The owner Matsui-san has my order remembered now (chaashu shio ramen and gyoza) so I just have to walk in and he makes it. Theres a meat shop up the block that sells some delicious black pork that I buy every now and then to snack on. My bank is that light blue building on the top left of the picture so if I ever need cash I can run there. Though sadly ATMs aren't open 24 hours here. They are only open when the bank is.

To be fair there used to be more trees here. That is until WWII and firebombing found its way to Japan. My city though small as it is was one of the most bombed cities in the country. It's position in the middle of the Osaka-Tokyo railway, its many factories and the Army Air corps training base made it a prime target. It also had the luck of being one of the cities the bombers would fly over on their way back from missions to Tokyo and Nagoya so it was a secondary target for many bomb runs. Thus the no trees part! Aside from parks they never bothered to replant them after the war.

Here's an after war pic to illustrate what happened to the trees:

This 1945 image shows the area around the train station in the center of the city. About a 15 min walk from where I am now.

Oh, the Humidity!

Rainy season is in full swing.  It started mid June or so and probably will last till mid July I'm guessing.  With the rain came the humidity.  Oh humidity.  What fun it is.  I never knew 82F weather would make me want to turn on the AC.  It was worse last year because I had to ride the bike to work.  Soon the rain will end though and the real fun of summer heat will begin! 

The car in the picture is a Suzuki Cappuccino.  It's a 2 seater 'kei' class car that is powered by a 3-cylinder 660cc turbo charged engine. 

and 50lbs lighter!

At the end of 2008 I weighed in at about 225lbs.  At the Mazda R&D center I worked at there was an old digital car scale that I would sometimes go stand on to make myself cry.  I remember the horror when that scale went over 220lbs the first time and didn't stop there.  225lbs is the highest I really remember it ever being.

But then February '09 came and I was no longer working at Mazda.  I had two months to liquidate a lifetime of being a pack-rat/collector.  The liquidation of stuff not only included our 2 bedroom condo but a 10x10 storage unit packed full of junk.  Those were probably among the toughest months of my life as I had to sell or throw away one prized possession after another.  But that's another post for another day.

Those two months of hard moving shaved a few lbs off my gut.  The first sign that I had lost some weight came on moving D-day.  The size 40 jeans I was wearing (and used to be about the only pair I had that fit!) just wouldn't stay up.  I had a belt in the suitcase but due to it being so packed I couldn't dare open it and ruin my perfect Tetris packing that took me the better part of a day to accomplish.  Sadly they don't sell belts at LAX either I found out.  

After making it to Japan I found a scale in the bathroom.  95kg is what I clocked in at.  kg?  What the heck, dang metric system.  Turns out thats about 210lbs.  Hey not bad 15lbs in 2 months!

Over the next few months more and more of my clothes became too big and too loose.  Sounds great right?  Well turned out to be a double edged sword.  In the two months before we moved I spent a good bit of money buying new clothes figuring (and at the time rightly so) that finding clothes my size in Japan would be a bit difficult.  My $300 Calvin Klein suit got used once before becoming way to big.  The size 40 jeans I had were the first to go.  Then the 38's.  Now I don't have a single pair of pants that I brought with me that I can wear.

The good news is I can find clothes that fit me in pretty much every Japanese clothes store now.  My size 34 Uniqlo jeans fit fine if not a bit tight at first but now require a belt.  I'll have to try on some 32's eventually just to see.

That same scale that weighed me at 95kg when I first arrived over a year ago now has me at about 78.5kg.  Or about 173lbs!  The how and why I'll have to save for another post!

3 years later...

Well it's been 3 years really since I did anything with this blog.  A lot has happened!  I went from being a tourist in Japan to a resident.  Been here for over a year now.  My how time flies.