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What’s it like being a dad? The main thing I notice apart from there being a beautiful female mini version of myself is the lack of free time to do anything I want to do.

I enjoy reading and when the mood hits me I can read a couple of books a week using every free moment I have to do so. Nowadays my reading time is limited to when I’m on a train to work or after Belle has gone to bed. I rarely watch movies at home or have the extended Western internet time I crave in a life immersed in Japanese.

I come home from a gruelling day teaching whining kids to a crying baby and I’ll sigh. I’ll admit it.

There are many things vying for my attention. The gaping time-wasting rabbit trail of the internet, my other new baby the Macbook I bought myself for Christmas or Reiko. The internet usually wins.

My schedule is still pretty unfriendly towards family life. I work two evenings a week and leave the house those days at 7:00am.

Reiko is of course magnificent. Sacrificing everything with no complaints, breastfeeding at godforsaken hours of the night and being the model housewife.

But then I’m watching a stunning baby grow up and it’s amazing. She’s hit 7 months. She’s on solids and likes sucking on a banana or strawberry. She also likes pumpkins and liver. Her favourite hobbies are inserting things into her mouth and staring at people. And I think she’s beautiful.

I don’t regret being father at all although I sometimes yearn for the freedom and peace of last year. This isn’t a very easy post for me to write - I’m a crap father. Some nice comments would be cool.

Teaching

Reading my feeds

Reading about how to be productive (instead of actually being productive)

Surfing YouTube

Searching for a new career

Finishing the excellent Dark Tower by Stephen King

Being a father

hello. still alive

A clothes shop in Namba taken with my Lomo.

We get a lot of cold calls at our house here in Japan. Far more anyway than I ever did in England. On our phone, we can see what the number is and if we don’t recognise it or it’s a local number, Reiko will tell me to answer it.

I”ve covered this theme before in Do I look like S.-san? Now **** off before I call the police

I actually throw them off guard with my Japanese, “Yes?” and then a few seconds later we both discover we have no idea what the other one is saying and one of us hangs up.

You see there are advantages to not knowing Japanese.

Kansai Time Out is a very high brow publication but sometimes they go too far in their superiority complex. They seem to assume that if you read this magazine, you are all-knowledgeable about Asian affairs.

Japanzine, a competing magazine, has articles on how to drink for cheap in Japan and previews of upcoming music festivals. Kansai Time Out has articles about why obscure Korean politicians should be the next UN General Secretary, obscure Japanese historical figures and a primer on Korean food whose author is so eager to show his complete mastery of Asian food that when talking about how they eat raw fish, he writes:

They dip their hwae in cho kochu jong

?????????????????????????

You’re expected to understand this without any further explanation. You see the problem here is that my knowledge of Korean food is limited to kimchi and great hunks of meat grilled over a flaming barbecue preferably acompanied by beer.

I`m sure he sticks his hwae in the cho kochu jong himself and jacks off thinking about all the people reading his gibberish in the magazine. Sadistic ecstasy it may be but a good article about Korean food it does not make.

A Happy New Year to all Undercover in Japan readers! I hope you have a great one.