Hello, this is Miholly, writing from Kyoto, Japan.
Just as an introduction, we are a couple (nickname , Miholly) living in Kyoto, blogging to share some experiences or any subtle knowledges to add some happiness into your life.
In Japan, Corona virus new infection counts are on a steady decline, and finally, the state of emergency declaration have been lifted from May, 21.
This means that we are allowed to go out, with the conditon to keep our alert level high to prevent the spread of the Corona Virus.
The past 3 month of Stay-Home period was quite tough period for us requiring patience and endurance to give up many of our usual outdoor activities. But looking back to our lifestyle during this period, not only negative, but alsor there were many positive changes that impaceted our lifestyle.
In this blog, we would like to summarize 10 positive changes that Stay-Home period brought to us.
1) Gained more time to spend time as couple
After Corona, basically we are spending time as a couple far more longer than before Corona, which is the most important positive effect so far. My husband frequently, almost every month, had a business trip abroad, and frankly there were not much time to do something together.
But after Corona outbreak, almost all company in Japan restricted overseas business trip and instructed employee to execute WFH (work from home).
This give good impact for us to have more time to do activities together, and we are enjoying it :)
2) We made a habit to wake up early
We did not want to have negative routine during stay home time, such as waking up late, and losing some time to do daily activity, and finishing the day with sense of regret. That is why we made a commitment to wake up at 6 am everyday, nevertheless weekday or weekend.
It was kind of tough to do this on Saturday and Sunday, because we tend to slept over.
But gradually, it has worked out and by now it is already quite regular habit wake up at 6 am.
Following this commitment by myself is difficult since I know I will procrastinate, but commiting this to my wife helped me alot to keep my word.
3) Daily excercise at morning and afternoon
Thanks to extra free time that I used to use communting to office, now we go for a walk and small excersize at nearby park everyday.
It's just a park, but it takes about 1 hour going back and forth, and if we do this twice a day, we will be walking at least 13,000 steps everyday! (I can count this with my iPhone)
We have been continuing this excersize for 2month plus already, and we are seeing many positive changes.
- Walking and watching dogs, cats and birds in the park, help to refresh yourself.
- We are more fit and gained stamina.
- Feel more in shape despite that we eat more during stay home time.
We are looking forward to continuing this daily excersize.
4) Maximized experience at our "Inhouse Cafe"
Since we cannot go to Starbucks or any of our favorite coffee shop, we have invested to make better experiences at our Inhouse Cafe in the balcony.
It is very comfortable and relaxing to have a cup of coffee and homemade cakes, while enjoying the view outside.
Our room and balcony are not big at all, but we were able to decorate the space using affordabable outdoor tables and chairs from IKEA.
My husband is using this cafe during work at home TV meeting as well.
5) Cooking more at home. Expanded our menus!
Now that me and my husband is staying home all day long, we are having at least 3 meals together (breakfast / lunch / dinner). And it is a good opportunity to challenge to try more cooking at home.
Cooking itself can be troublesome, but we use very useful cooking appliance, which help us alot to cook tasty and healthy food. They are our VIP parteners!
- Healsio (Supersteam Cooking Oven)
- Hotcook (Automatic Cooking Pot)
- Healsio Grie (Toaster)
Just as an example, recently we have learned that home-made yogurt and cream cheese can be easily prepared with Hotcook. By now our breakfast is always served with them with crispy piece of toast! Honey and home made yogurt is a best match.
We also cook pudding and cheesecake with Healsio, for our "Inhouse Cafe" as well. It's affordable, fun, and delicious!
6) My husband learned to cook
One of surprising and very welcoming change was that my husband are now spontaneously willing to cook on his own! His specialty seems to be pasta, and now he have learned around four pasta menu (bolognase, carbonara, tomate, Japanese style), and cheese rissotto.
Not only the menu itself, but he seems to be also having interest for the iron frying pan that I recently purchased.
Iron frying pan is durable and endures strong heat to cook your food, and finishing become more tasty compared to other tefron frying pan.
However, unlike the easy-to-use tefron frying pan, iron frying pan need some maintenance before and after usage. I feel a bit troublesome, but it seems my husband like it, resembling his periodic maintenance for his leather business shoes.
7) We are sharing house chores
Stay home period request us to maintain and clean up our rooms even more.
Ofcourse I cannot due everything on my own, so I have discussed with my husband, staying home as well, to classify the house chores and appointing who will do what.
For example, mostly I will be incharge for cooking, cleaning the floors, and laundry, while my husband is in charge for cleaning the dishes, trashes, and toilets.
With out some discussion or soft rules, some one will feel subtle stress, so it's always better to discuss, and share anything that can be done.
8) Our town became more familiar
After going for a walk every morning and evening, we always discover new routes, shops, people, flowers, and animals (pets).
It's fun to observe them periodically, and we can find out the slight changes every day.
9) Discover our families are closer than we think
Too bad we cannot go across the prefecture, like from Kyoto to Tokyo, to meet our parents, which was very common habit especially during long holiday.
Instead, we are forced to stay at home, but this is the time we have tried out Zoom meeting with my parents and siblings.
Each of the member chose their own dinner meals, and alcohol for cheers. And we pretty much enjoyed conversation through the camera and screen. Of couse it's not same experience as we meet face to face, but it is enough to feel the connection between them.
10) We have started our blog
Stay home period provided us with time to for many new activities, and that's why naturally we thought to start a blog to send out any experiences that may be useful and interesting to people.
It's also additional learning for us to summarize any thing to output to all.
So far we are starting fine, and hopefully can continue for long time.
Mostly Japanese... but eventually I want to write more English blog as well :)
Summary
Corona virus impacted our lifestyles drastically and for many they make negative impact. But if we try to list up some positive point of view, these were things that were not able to get so easily, if we are still in before Corona world. And we think these positive change will greaty effect our life for the better future in a long term.
Hope all of you will also find positive impact from this transition period, and let's try our very best to overcome this crisis together!
See you from MIholly @ Kyoto
