Today, day 2, was a mess of hearing "Amanda what will you do with your car? It's all up to you. We don't want to push you. You have to get rid of it today. It's all up to you" over and over again. That is not what I call "not" pushing me. I wanted to yell, "JUST LEAVE ME ALONE so I can think!!" My office wouldn't let me breathe. And amid all this stress, I am two days into the cleanse. Yet, it wasn't the cleanse stressing me out. It was simply the office. The cleanse helped keep me calm because interestingly enough, I feel like Japan makes this food fast easier for me.
How could the cleanse be easy anywhere? It's not but Japan offers a vegan far less temptations than America. In this country going out to eat for me is... Well, it is a never. There have been occasions that I have been able to head out. In places like Hiroshima/Tokyo there are countless Vegan restaurants. Even in Kochi City, there are a countless number of indian restaurants whose amazing curries I can have. That is if they agree to cook them without the animal cream/milk (not found in traditional indian curry, but that's Japan for you). In the city there are also two vegan restaurants but I have yet to greet their doors and spy on their menus as they maintain awkward opening hours. In other words, they are open weekdays only and for short hours.
So why not eat in Kochi? For me, Kochi city is a three hour drive away. I visit regularly but it is impossible to make the trek on a weekday. That would mean to drive six hours in one day. But when you work until 4 or 5 O'clock that trek becomes impossible. So on most days, going out to eat means cold とふ と ごはん tofu to gohan (tofu and rice). And on a number of occasions it has meant simply eating ごはん gohan (rice) with soy sauce. For some reason that I can not explain, restaurants in Japan do not have untainted tofu or veggies on stand by. They are almost always already sitting in a massive amount of fish broth. (Yes for me any amount of fish broth would be considered a massive amount ;) ). My options are limited and I build up my patience.
As a vegan in Japan, going out to eat is not a regular experience. It is more like it were for the 1950s American family: an occasional, an event. This is in heavy constrast to my daily eating habits back home. In America, going to a restaurant was a weekly occurrence. If my family and I chose to stay in and still forego the cooking, we'd order a pizza from Papa John's or any place. It was never an issue to find a red pizza (no cheese pizza) or even a pizza with vegan cheese. When I was living on my own for 2.5 years in Boston, skipping the home cooking was also made easy with a plethora of vegan friendly take out options. In Japan, even the pizza dough has milk (not a traditional ingredient either). Since arriving in Japan nearly six months ago, I have had pizza once. It was a red pizza cooked by a good friend. Basically, I have gotten use to living without these luxuries. I don't want to accept them forever. I have known a better vegan lifestyle and I am eager to return to it but I can live in Japan as a vegan. I have made it work. I cook from scratch: spaghetti sauce, curries, bread, even cookies, and so on. I order an annoying amount of overpriced vegan products offline in order to accomplish these deeds. But I make it work. The simply fact is being a vegan in Japan means not always eating what you want, and having to search high and low to figure out how to have it.
This sort of deprivation has made the cleanse easier than it could ever be in America, who's vegan awareness offers countless temptations. I simply have less to loose in Japan's vegan meal market. So what if I don't cook my five hour speghetti sauce or go through the trouble to find substitutes to make massaman curry a reality for 10 days. It will be there next week. And there no real going out to eat occasions I am being teased with because I live alone in this town. There are no restaurants or friends close by to tempt me.
So it's easy then? NO. Even in Japan, the cleanse has not been without it's cravings and struggles. I have a smoker's addiction to gum and yesterday at 4:15 as I was leaving work I desperately wanted a piece of chewing gum. And today, I want to bite into anything edible, just to chew. This was so bad that as I was cleaning my car in order to send it off to it's final resting place, I thought that the stale peanuts on its uncleaned floor looked amazing. I could feel the crunch and salt undoing themselves in my month. Don't worry, I maintain my composure, I didn't not eat the stale nuts (no pun intended. Alright maybe it was intended a little ;0) ). It is still a struggle, just simply less of a battle on the day to day. Yet all day even as I felt stress out by my co-workers, I could feel that I had more energy than in past days. And just knowing that this diet is easier here, kept me calm. It allowed me to ignore all the bull shit and just simply focus on anything else.
Cravings: Strawberry smoothie,spaghetti, massaman curry, peanuts, baked chips, and gum. Basically these are all the things I ate right before I started the diet.
Symptoms: My conjestion feels as if it is clearing, my stomach hurt at night, I feel a bit colder than usual (but for all I know the tempature dropped).
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