Change of Things – Perth and Japan

It started to be cold and windy since the second day. It’s raining, and the wind outside sounds like it will be snowing anytime soon. The air is cold – but the thing is that inside the shops, restaurants, or trains is quite warm and I don’t know what to wear. I only brought just few clothes because I wasn’t gonna go out much during the stay and also I thought I could always buy nice clothes here if I want to.

We did a bit of shopping yesterday coz we needed something urgently for Hiro. Things here are pretty much different from those in Perth. We had to change some of our rutine. First, we brought our microwave sterilizer to sterilize the bottles and pump, but the microwave in my house is too small to fit the sterilizer! I can’t even put a microwave sterilizing bag. It ‘s very short too. I don’t know why my dad bought such small microwave… I guess they don’t have anything big to warm up? Hmmm… so we can’t use microwave sterilizer, we decided to do the basic method – sterilizing in boiling water. We needed a tray, drying rack, sponge etc to wash Hiro’s bottles so we headed to Daiso nearby and bought several stuff. Men, things at 100 yen shop always remind me how cheap I could get things around the house.

As I mentioned earlier, I brought my electric pump to express milk here in Japan.  Hiro is almost 9 months old, and I think I did a good job feeding him EBM (expressed breast milk) since he was born (considering the trouble of extra cleaning and time consuming).  And I’m still thinking to continue this until my milk dries out.  But, on the day I arrived my home in Shiga, I found that the electric pump is weird.  It kept stopping while pumping. I thought it’s broken due to the air pressure on the plane or something, but it turned out that the batteries needed to be replaced.  I guess it uses lots of power.  I was using this pump connected to power while in Perth, so I didn’t know how quickly I had to replace the batteries.  When I thought the pump was broken, I was actually thinking of stoping giving breast milk to Hiro.  Somewhere in my head I want to stop because it’s troublesome to express milk.  But I also think that I want to breastfeed him as long as I have milk.  So, the broken pump could be the opportunity for me to stop, but I guess I will keep continue doing what I do now until the time comes.

By the way, Hiro loves crawling on tatami!  The house is cold, and he escapes from blanket while sleeping, so he wears pretty warm (not too warm though) clothes on this futon.  Lucky I bought this baby circle crib thing from Amazon… otherwise he would be somewhere else (not on his futon) in the morning.  All the rooms are connected in my house (just separated with paper sliding doors (sho-ji), so he could be anywhere.  He seems to enjoy sleeping on futon, and has been pretty happy since we arrived here

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First Flight with 8 Month Old Baby

It’s 2AM, and dark and raining outside.  I should be tired and sleepy, but I’m writing this with a bottle of warm milk next to me in case Hiro wakes up for his feed anytime soon.  Everyone in this house is sleeping, except me and my bro.  I hear tv sound from his room.  It’s Saturday night (Sunday morning?) and I guess it’s the only time he can enjoy staying late during a week.

I arrived Kansai airport yesterday afternoon.  I must say I’m very happy and relieved that we are here finally.  Japan is not as cold as I thought – it’s raining, and it gets dark around 6:00 PM, but the temperature is not cold and I was kinda sweating when I arrived airport.  I’m not even wearing a jacket or pair of socks right now. (even at 2AM!)

The flight …..   was AWEFUL.  It wasn’t the worst because Hiro did sleep pretty well on the plane, but D and I (and maybe Hiro too) were exhausted.  We left Perth home around 9PM – Hiro was sleeping in his cot, but woke up in the car and stayed awake in the airport.  He seemed to be calm and quiet, and we thought he’d fell asleep with warm milk as soon as we get on the plane.  But, it didn’t happen.  He was obviously tired and sleepy, but couldn’t go to sleep and that made him very uncomfortable and irritated.  He wasn’t crying though – just wiggly and rubbing his eyes many many times.  I was trying to pad him to sleep, but you know the airplane seat is very narrow and I couldn’t really move around like I do at home.  I was moving him up to down, left to right….. and then, he started to gag and threw up everything he ate since 5PM, including pumpkin and all the milk.

It was a LOT of vomit.  He kept throwing up every 2 seconds for about 10 seconds, and I thought he was choking.  All the food came out through his mouth and nose, and my seat and clothes were completely soaked with his vomit.  I could hear everyone around me was saying “OH MY GOD…!”  I was in panic, and tried to settle him down quickly.  When I saw his smile, I was very relieved.

Luckily I brought a change clothes for him so I could change him, but I didn’t have my own.  I had to take my tops off and wear a cardigan on top of a camisole I was wearing.  Smelly….!  After changing his clothes he was still active, but in the end I managed to put him to sleep around 2AM – 2 hours after departure.  The flight was midnight so everyone was sleeping by then.  Then D and I could sleep a bit.  We book a basinet seat in advance – the seat is at the front so there’s lots of leg room, but we couldn’t put any baggage underneath or front of our seat.  We had to put everything in compartment above us.  That was bit troublesome when we wanted to get something from our bags.  This is what basinet looks like (Cathay Pacific) ↓

The another thing which was difficult during the flight was preparing milk for him.  As I don’t do breastfeed (express milk in a bottle) I had to bring formula in case I can’t express on the plane.  As soon as he sees a bottle he wanted to drink and started crying.  He didn’t stop crying so I had to feed him before the plane took off/landed.  He had to suck on something while taking-off/landing for preventing earache and he doesn’t take dummies all the time (only when he is sleepy and tired), so I was bit worried that he might finish the milk before the air pressure changed.  He cried a little, but it was ok on both flight.

From these 2 flights I learnt some lessons and now I know what I should and shouldn’t bring to an airplane when flying with a baby.  I actually had lots of baggages – 4 big bags + a baby carrier –  and some of the things I brought weren’t necessary at all. Everything was in different bags and it was so messy and stressful when I needed something and couldn’t find where it was and in which bag.  So from now on, I will prepare the followings for carry-on luggage.  Especially when using bassinet seat you’ll only get a net on the all to store your things.

• a pouch with 1 diaper, wet wipe, 1 disposable changing mat to put in a net in front of you … when you need to rush to toilet to change his diaper, you can just garb it and go.
• a pouch with a pair of socks, dummies, moisturizer and 1 or 2 toys

I will also prepare 1 bag containing baby bottles with 180ml of sterilized water and measured formula.  I brought few empty baby bottles and an empty thermo bottle, and got hot water from a cafe inside airport to make formula, but it was hard to cool down the boiling water when Hiro wanted milk.  It just took too long.  I found that I could ask flight attendant to warm up the water on the plane, so I thought I should have divided the sterilized water in bottles in advance and ask them to warm up to desired temperature.  It is much easier and stressless.

I brought too many diapers to the airplane.  I just used 3 diapers during 2 flights, but there’re more than 10 diapers in my carry-on luggage!  I brought an electric pump (which can be used with batteries) so I could pump at airport and on the plane, but I just didn’t have time for it.  I did it once on the plane from Perth to Hong Kong, but it was bit messy and I had to worry about washing the pumps.  I brought microwave sterilizing bags, but didn’t use it on the plane and at airport either.

We arrived Kansai airport around 3:30m PM, and reached home around 6PM.  My dad, mum and bro came to airpot to pick us up in a big car (to fit extra parson).  Hiro was awake after 6PM feed, but slept from 9PM until 6AM next morning!  He must have been so tired.   But thanks to that, D and I could get a good sleep

Eating Bread Everyday

I do eat rice too, of course, but, I’ve been hunting on bakeries here.  I love bread ( well, I love any food :p ) especially Japanese bread ♪

A photo from a cafe.  Going to a cafe with dad for breakfast on weekend is my routine

Normally Japanese bread loaves are sold thickly cut.  I love thick cut toast.  And, Japanese bread sold at supermarkets are somehow much tastier than those here… (to me)  There are many kinds, such as “chewy”, “double aged dough” etc  I love the chewy one (もっちり)

Here is my another favorite bread “melon-pan”.  You can buy it at most bakeries, supermarkets, convenience stores and other shops that sell bread in Japan.  You can guess how popular this bread is.

Melon-pan contains two different dough – the base is normal bread dough (sweetened) and the top is cookie dough.  It’s sweet bread and it tastes different depending on the bakery/brand.  Personally I like the cookie-part to be very crusty.  Some of them are pretty soft.

The reason why it’s called “melon-pan” is that the bread has patterns and it looks similar to a melon.  There is a character in Japanese cartoon called “melon-pan-na chan” too .

Japan is “sugoi”

There are so many thing I feel “sugoi” about Japan.  “Sugoi” means … well, “unbelievable” “great” “wow” “very” etc etc.  We use this word quite often.

One of them is the service in Japan.  Someone who’s been to Japan should know how good the hospitality service in Japan is.  Even at the plat home in train station, people who work there greet every passenger by bowing and saying “itterashaimase” “arigato-gozaimasu”.

The other day I went to a bakery shop by car.  As it was Saturday and the shop is located in a famous tourist place, there’re so many people walking around.  Luckily there were three traffic officers at the entrance and the exit in the bakery car park.  After finishing my shopping, I proceeded to the exit, then a traffic officer was giving me a sign “please wait” with body language.  As I waited, the officer suddenly walked towards the road and stop all cars coming, then waved his hands to me while bowing and screaming “arigato-gozaimashita!”.   It was only for me.

By the way,

Yesterday was my dad’s 60th birthday.  We had dinner at a sushi bar near the house, and had birthday cake together at home. It was a good day

Trying to Enjoy This Moment…

This morning, I made breakfast for Pooh (my cat) and left home to go to an electric shop to have a browse.  I wanted to buy something (enough shopping? I know! ><) but couldn’t find anything good.  On the way back I went to a shopping mall to buy something for my grandma, then ended up buying something for myself too :p  At home, I woke my brother up and had lunch together (with grandma too).  Now I’m relaxing near the window typing this.

I love the moment like this.  Just relaxing, watching Pooh…  I don’t want to go back to Perth!

… well, I have to.

I had a bite on baumkuchen that I got from my friend’s wedding. This baumkuchen is coated with white chocolate..  yum!

I love baumkuchen.  There is a famous shop near my house Club Harie and its baumkuchen is available at department stores such as Takashimaya, Hankyu and Daimaru.

Tomorrow is my dad’s 60th birthday, so we are celebrating with a big birthday cake