100, Forces of Yen

  

The end of the month has arrived, as a student and a house wife, I always try to be economical about the spending. The month always starts happily, I pay the rent, the bills, buy some pantry items, go to dinner, and do a little personal shopping… The usual… I don’t have a fancy life… At the end of the month, it feels like I had a fancy life and it was over… There is little money left, there are much more to consider…

When I first came to Japan, I was naïve, I didn’t know where to buy cheaper products, or how much yen to spend…  I am still in a learning process… If you go to a supermarket, you may feel like you can’t buy anything with a 100 yen. I had this feeling for couple of months

Then I have discovered the 100-yen-shop, Lawson 100 shop, and other markets… Those shops are lifesavers. 100 yen shop is a concept that I must talk more in the future. Each one of the products of the shop is 100 yen plus tax.

I have learned one crucial thing: do not underestimate force of 100 yen.

100yen makes many candy

all for 100 yen, a section in a small market

100 yen is around 0.80 Dollar, or 0.75 Euro.

100 yen is not just change of your bills.

100 yen doesn’t always need spending together with other coins.

100 yen can buy you different things.

100 yen can have the force to you happy.

If you have 108 yen though it can buy more, because 8 yen is the tax. But the Japanese idea is that with a single coin, with 100 yen buy things.

100 yen is a Mc hamburger.

100 yen is a donut.

100 yen is some bread.

100 yen is a pack of chips.

100 yen is a force in my purse.

Cheers,

Ece

Earthquake alert

Well, I was planning to do a post about earthquakes in Japan in the future, but the universe had other plans…

An earthquake occurred with 5.3 magnitude on Richter scale on Monday 25^th of May. With all the major alarms went off and the epicenter of the earthquake was very close to Tokyo, so everyone in Tokyo felt, it was a big one, and hard to miss.

Thankfully, no one is hurt, no damage and no tsunami…

It was in the afternoon around 2.30 pm, I was working on my desk. Everything became shaky, I was like okay it is an earthquake, and it will pass. It frequently occurs in Japan. I try not to make a fuss over it. I think because that I am on 7^th floor I feel stronger hit, so I was cool. My colleagues also said oh earthquake and just waited it to pass…

I don’t know how long it took but, at one point we realized that it was still happening, and getting stronger. Oh dangerous they said.

And within seconds all the emergency alarms on the phones went off, loud scary sounds… Oh screaming alarms, alarms wake you up in the mornings, and you would know that something important is coming. I feel the tension of a scary movie. You just wait a couple of seconds to see what is coming an earthquake, a meteor, a dinosaur…

The big hit of the quake came. And everybody became worried about the earthquake. There is nothing to do but to grab the helmet and start evacuating… It was high time.

I try to deal with it as a Japanese people do about an earthquake. But when they freak out, I can’t help it. From my perspective, when Japanese people freak out about earthquake, it means that it is very very serious. So I freak out more.

I put my helmet on. Yes, we all have our personal helmets at work, grabbed my bag… The guides say don’t worry about your belongings, and it is acceptable to grab only your purse. In my defense, taking my purse from my bag would consume so much time… I have one of those rabbit hole kind of bags….

I realized that I was the only one who was completely prepared. Most of them had their purse or bag, there were a couple of them who had helmets, no one had worn them… So, I also followed the crowd and took the helmet off. We talked about how big it was, how the alarms went crazy…

All passed unharmed… It will happen again and pass again, this is a classic example of Japan.

Cheers,

Ece

Hocus-pocus of a chocolate

 Who does not have a stressful life?

Who does not want to be mentally calmer?

I and all of the Japanese people, and all of the world….

The stress management tool of my life… I did not know how to handle of my daily stress until I discover chocolate around the age of 14. There is also GABA chocolate, that I have met around a year ago. Meet the GABA chocolate

I would prefer the milk GABA chocolate, there is also the bitter GABA chocolate.

I believe the power is coming from chocolate, chocolate makes me happy, chocolate understands me… On a stressful day, when I eat a piece of chocolate I suddenly feel better.

The speculation on chemicals though is a heavy topic. When you overwork your brain, you need a break, you need some inhibition. I agree on that.

I think the idea of the placebo effect is significant. You can’t blame me. There are days that I just want my inner troubles end instantly. I feel the stress is all in my head.

If I believe that I can make it go. So some chocolate does help.  The actual effect though, may depend on many things and I can’t comment on that scientifically without any data.  I think it is a long way from digestion to my neurons to be calm, some meditation can make wonders…. :)

You may want to try GABA chocolate as a Japanese experience. A Japanese stress reducing chocolate… 

Cheers,

Ece

Unearthed Tokyo

 I have been living in Tokyo since 2013. There are some monuments of ancient times of Tokyo, there are still many more under Tokyo.

As a historical fact, cities were built on remnant layers of ancient cities. The first version of the city is the one on the lowest layer, then after a certain period of time a new city was built on this layer and this goes on and on. Finally now, we live in modern Tokyo which is on the surface.

When there are some construction works, and excavations, if it is digged deep enough to build buildings or metro lines, people come across those old layers and remnants of historical cities. Thanks to the archaeologies those are well preserved.

On a daily basis, I don’t pay attention to the historical layers of the city. There is one station that I know makes you consider that.

The Ichigaya station in center of Tokyo, has an historical corner. It is just on the way of daily commuters. It is also in a subway when I am underground and I have a glimpse of an ancient layer.

 

That layer was from Edo period (1603-1868), the place that I am walking on, the area was a samurai residential area during Edo period…

There are some rocks once used as a wall, some paintings about how it looked like at that time, there is a map on the floor with samurai family names and territories, there is also a model of modern Tokyo, just above the samurai residents. 

Wow samurais were here.  

Cheers,

Ece