Oh no, don’t say it’s true
Well, whaddaya know, another month is gone. Spring has well and truly sprung, but it’s been a fairly quiet month for me. But something Spring brings is one of the best things to eat in Japan in the Spring - fresh bamboo shoots!
Fresh bamboo shoot is one of those seasonal delicacies that is only available for a little over a month. It can be prepared in numerous ways, and I’m not sure I can pick which one is my favourite. Plain grilled might just edge it if I had to choose only one way to eat it. If you want to do anything other than grill it, you have to prepare it first by boiling it with rice bran. I think that’s to remove the bitterness but can’t quite recall.
In other news, I finally went and bought myself a bicycle. I’ve been meaning to get one for a while and didn’t get around to it. I wasn’t looking for anything fancy, just something I could ride around town. Ended up getting a second-hand “chari” - a typically Japanese bike that you see most people riding. It does the job, but the saddle is a bit low for me even at the highest setting, and the bars cramp my elbows a bit. And it’s a single speed bike so some times my legs are going like crazy but it’s maxed out. Now that I had a bike, I decided it’s time for a ride! Nozomi borrowed her sister’s bike and we headed off on a path by the river. Just my luck that it was a really windy day. And the path we were on was a bit of a climb. One of those annoying “false flat” paths that slope upwards ever so gently, but relentlessly. With a head wind. It was a bit of a struggle but it was a really nice day and I was glad to be out.
Nozomi had no such trouble because she was cheating. Her sister’s bike had an electric-assist thing so she was just powering along. My original plan was to head to a mountain but the wind, the slope, and the awkward bike made me decide to stop early. We had a rest at a picnic spot, ate our onigiri (rice ball), and headed back. Downhill this time so it was a breeze.
I’ve now had the joy of three separate experiences of Japanese healthcare. I have a condition called pernicious anaemia, which is where my body is unable to absorb vitamin B12 from food. So I have to go to the doctor once every 3 months and get a shot of B12. I got a letter from my GP in the UK before coming here, but it was next to useless. We had to get the letter translated for it to be understood, and that meant a combination of Nozomi and Google. Try as we might we couldn’t really get a proper translation of pernicious anaemia. We tried to explain it to the doctor but didn’t look they really got it. Nevertheless they agreed to give me the B12 shot. The first one was in January, and the next one was due this month. Went and saw the doctor, and she was still confusing this with regular anaeamia and telling me about my red blood cells. We tried to explain again, but she still insists on taking a blood test every time. Stll, she’s OK to give me the shot so I’ll let them take some blood if they want.
I also had the joy of visiting the dentist here. I had a really painful tooth so no option but to go and have it sorted out. With some Japanese, and some gesturing I was able to navigate the whole process, and about 5 visits later the tooth is sorted.
And then of course there was the visit to the doctor in Zao after my snowboarding fall. Nozomi has accompanied me on the non-dentist visits so it does make things a lot easier. If I had to try and explain all of these things myself, I’d be well and truly stuffed.
Another update that I forgot about was our tea and coffee cups! We’d gone to a pottery place in February, and the fired and glazed cups arrived a while back. We’ve been using them regularly and are really pleased with them. Nozomi unfortunately ended up with her tea cup and coffee cup being the same colour. She had written one colour, then scratched it out and written a different one. But clearly didn’t scratch it out well enough because the guy read the old colour and glazed it with that.
