birder

As I posted earlier, my infant daughter has a severe dairy allergy and since I'm nursing her, I have to avoid all dairy (including hidden dairy). Thank you to everyone for your help with that issue.

Here's my other issue. I need to have oatmeal at least once a day (it's a galactagogue) and I drink Mother's Milk tea several times a day. I only need hot water for both. My question is, can I get hot water at restaurants and then just use my own tea? Or would this been seen as inexcusably rude? And how I am going to eat my oatmeal? I can bring the little packets that you just add hot water to. I think they normally have hot water kettles in hotel rooms, but not bowls. Any ideas?

Thanks!

KimJapan

You shouldn't have any trouble getting hot water. Hotel rooms usually have a pot of it, either thermos style or the type that will heat it as well. You can easily get a bowl from the restaurant in the hotel/room service, though it is good if you also order food as well. Or you could bring a small bowl with you and wash it after you use it if you don't think you'd be comfortable asking for a bowl. Or just use the cup provided, no problem...do rinse it out afterwards.

Enjoy your trip!

Also, if your daughter is like mine, she will outgrow the dairy problem. When she was a newborn, if I consumed any dairy at all, she would fuss, refuse to nurse, and when she did nurse she'd vomit soon afterwards. Eliminating all dairy from my diet solved the problems and was easy enough to do. Around age 1 she could eat cheese and yogurt but not straight milk. By the time she started elementary school, milk was fine, too.

birder

KimJapan, thanks so much. I definitely hope she outgrows her dairy allergy like your daughter!

What do you think about getting hot water in a restaurant and then using my own tea bag? Too tacky, right? I know it, I just am trying to think of ways to drink enough of my tea! Plus I'm allergic to caffeine, so I can't have regular tea unfortunately.

KimJapan

Many restaurants have herbal tea. I don't drink caffeinated coffee or tea either, and I get by.

I don't think it's too tacky to ask for hot water in restaurants...depending on the restaurant. I'm guessing anywhere you'd take a baby would be quite relaxed.

You could make a cup of your tea, cool it and pour it into an emptied water bottle and carry it with you all day...make a few bottles of it at a time. I do this with rooibos tea and soba tea all the time. You could also fill a lightweight thermos for yourself. Personal thermoses are totally normal in Japan...not in restaurants, but on trains, in parks, etc.

TokachiM

Just FYI, but the Japanese consider mochi (pounded rice, and often wrapped around sweet bean paste) a galactagogue. They really pushed those "daifuku" sweets on me when my daughters were born.

The Japanese in general have a real fondness for mothers and babies, and you should have no problem ordering hot water in a restaurant. Most major department stores will also have a nursing station (ju-nyu-shitsu), where they will often have very hot water available (it's meant for formula, but I should imagine you could make tea or oatmeal with it, too). Bring a cup and spoon, and pack it in your baby-bag.

mrwunrfl

So, would "hot water" be "hotto mizu"?
hot toe me zu
(not "hautoh" but more like or exactly like "hot toe" spoken quickly)

mari808

O-yu, spoken v quickly.

Mizu refers to cold or room-temperature water.

TokachiM

I'm sorry -- I've done that -- sat in a hot bath, trying to make conversation and saying the "mizu" was very "atsui." It just doesn't compute -- the Japanese absolutely don't get it (unless they've been around a lot of foreigners). They looked at me like I was nuts (and this is a bad thing when you sitting naked with strangers in a bath.)

It's like saying "the snow is tepid today." Mizu is never hot. Once it gets above about body temperature, it's "o-yu." But, you could try "hotto wa-ta-." Almost every Japanese has six years of English education, and more if they went to college. Try writing it, too, if you can't make yourself understood.

By the way, baby formula is "miruku." Yep, say it fast, it sounds a little like "milk." Breast milk is "bo'nyuu" (mother's milk). Allergy is a-le-lu-gi (gi is like the g in gift). Cow's milk is "gyuunyuu."

Hope that is helpful.

kappa

It's a little bit tricky, isn't it ? to transcript Japanese (or foreign words pronounced in Japanese) phonetically

> Hotto wa-ta

The Japanese pronouciation is more like "Hotto wotah". Wa-Ta, they might understand as wata (cotton).

> baby formula is "miruku."

They usually say "kona-milk" meaning powder-milk and that's usually for the babies. They might write "miruku" but actually you hear it as closer to miluk as there is no "r" sound in Japanese.

mrwunrfl

Hot toe wah tah.

I would have thought that "o yu" would be referring specifically to hot springs water, but ok. I get the mizu/snow comparison.

kappa, it is funny that you actually wrote "you hear it as closer to miluk". I am pretty sure that I wouldn't. I read an article about brain scans of native Japanese and English speakers and how they recognize words. Anyway, the study showed that the Japanese didn't differentiate between two pronunciations of a word but the English speakers did. The word(s) were something like "miluku" vs "miruku". The Japanese heard both of those pronunciations but they sounded exactly the same. The English speakers heard differently, they heard both (and would distinguish between an R, a rolled-R and an L).

That r in miruku is going to be a rolled-R, isn't it? Is a Nihonjin going to understand the word with a "normal" R? I was just telling someone today about my first night ever in Japan. I told a taxi driver that I wanted to go to the Hilton Hotel, and I pronounced it in Japanese: "hear tone ho teh ru sheen ju ku" but the guy wouldn't understand his own language.

kappa

Sorry to op, it's getting a bit away from the original topic of the thread.

I say it again
wah-tah, no. wOh-tah yes. Or "Oo(like woo) - Oh - Tah" is even closer. My mother would be able to say only like that.

> the study showed that the Japanese didn't differentiate between two pronunciations of a word....

That's true (nothing new) but that's nothing against what I wrote. I said about what the Japanese pronouce. Above you wrote is about what they hear.

> I pronounced it in Japanese: "hear tone ho teh ru sheen ju ku" but the guy wouldn't understand his own language.

I'm not sure about above, perhaps I would symphasize with the driver
What is not clear is you pronounced those words "in Japanese", did you say those words with the Japanese L sound ? As I said there is no R sound in Japanese. Espceially "heaR tone" and "hoteRu"? I would rather transcript : " Hiluton Hotelu Shinjuku". Even this is not perfect. The misleading thing is the Japanese use R instead of L when WRITING in roma-ji (miruku). However when they PRONOUNCE milk, l sound is closer to English L than Englsish R because with the Japanese L, the tip of your tongue touches the back of your upper teeth like English L (but only very lightly). You say rolled R sound, but that's not a natural sound in the Japanese language. If by chance you hear a japanese use the rolled R, possibly he is trying to imitate your R sound.

TokachiM

I teach English in Japan, and I'm rolling my eyes at the u-o-ta- business, but also nodding my head, because that is how watering mint, or lemon water, or any of a number of Japanese products are pronounced.

The best thing to do is get a brochure or business card from where you want to go, and show it to the driver. Or the guidebook.

Hear-tone does not translate into Hilton readily.

Some kids in my classes go around yelling "Mayonnaise Takashi" because they heard somewhere that mayonnaise sounds just like "my name is." It's the same thing -- you will need to study the Japanese language with a native speaker or a good CD/tape for at least a week or two before you can hope to approximate the sounds. Unless you are a super-gifted linguist.

However, many Japanese can read the written English pretty well. Younger people have had "communicative English" -- which means they *may* be able to understand "Hilton Hotel" -- but unfortunately, it may mean that they can't hear it, and they can't read it either )-:.

Anyway, you'll need a bit of tenacity to overcome the language barrier, but if you both are working at it, it shouldn't be impossible.