Merry Christmas from Kobe

First, a Christmas warm up. A few weeks ago, we had our last Sunday Swing lesson of the year (more next year!). We had an especially large group for the lessons and afterwards, we went do lunch together. On our way back to the train, we remembered that the German Christmas Festival was going on at the Sky Tower. (That's the place with the circular observation deck and terrifying escalators that I went to with my dad last spring.)



The festival is at the ground level. There were tons of treats from Germany. Some, like mulled wine and gingerbread, were holiday favorites of mine - others (several German-style doughnuts, for example) were new to me. We basically ate everything we could get our hands on - or rather, I did and shared around so as to save room for more. We all had a lot of fun. You will note my co-worker Janet (who introduced us to the Osaka swing group) wearing a seasonal Santa cotton candy (aka fairy floss) beard. Most of the group also enjoyed the rickety Carousel.


On Tuesday before Christmas, we had our school Christmas Party. There were a number of really good performances put on by students and some awesome hand made treats. These pictures are of the food (homemade chinese potstickers and madeleine cakes) and some of my students singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." They did a great job. One felt a little more fearless when well concealed by a Santa beard. She was quick to point out that she was a VERY cute Santa.


On Wednesday, we head a Christmas Swing party. Everyone wore Santa costumes. Unfortunately, my phone can't take pictures in the dim lighting, so I have nothing to show. If I can get a copy from someone else. I'll post it later. It was a lot of fun.

Thursday was a national holiday here - I think it was the emperor's birthday? In any case, we had no school. Russell and I had planned to have a Christmas party, but in the end all but one friend cancelled or couldn't make it, so we changed to a low-key nabe-party. We spent most of the day Christmas shopping and cleaning after a nice sleep-in. Unfortunately, our last friend also had to cancel due to a dental emergency - so there was no nabe after all.

Christmas eve I had to work. We had another Christmas party planned for some other friends, so I raced home from work to help Russell with cooking and cleaning. He had almost everything covered, though, so I had time to put up this highly questionable Christmas tree and wrap gift exchange gifts.


Almost everyone cancelled or decided against this party also (there seriously must be something wrong with Russell and I). The one couple that didn't cancel were late due to work delays, but they did come and we had a lovely dinner. I bought a roast chicken on my way home from work and russell made dressing, mashed yams and Waldorf salad. He also made the annual favorite: eggnog. We have our technique down this year - no floating cream blobs. This nog was smooth and delicious - especially when one chooses to ignore what goes into it.

The gift exchange, unfortunately, was a little lame - four people isn't quite enough to make that work, but the gifts THEY brought were great! Russell and I made out like bandits. :D
Russell got a stack of twelved boxes of a candy that is apparently a fairly nostalgic chocolate. It comes in a box with a cartoon bird on the front. The trick, which our friend let us in on, is that one of the lid flaps sometimes has a symbol stamped on it. If you get a stamped flap, you should save it. Once you have 12 stamps you get something good. Along with the twelve boxes of chocolates he included a stack of 8 stamped flaps. Four more and we get a prize! He informed us that this was every Japanese child's dream. We have eaten about half of the boxes so far and found no further stamped flaps... this may take some effort.

My gift was a zhuzhu pet - for those not aware of this new-ish toy trend, zhuzhu pets were the big Christmas gift to get last year (according to CNN, so who knows...). The toys are battery powered hamsters and roll around your house, switching directions and designed to get themselves out of trouble when they run into a wall or another obstacle. They also make all sorts of little sounds. While the noises do make it impossible to keep the hamster on for more than 5 minutes, they are pretty cute. I never would have bought one for myself, but I'm looking forward to letting him run around the office on Monday.

While our party may not have been the boisterous event we had hoped for, it was fun. We wished our guests a Merry Christmas and sat down to watch pirated Christmas specials. I had horrible memories of that Rudolf stop action special, but watching it now as an adult was totally different. I had forgotten the story completely and it had Russell and I laughing almost the whole way through. I didn't expect to say this, but I am now a fan. We also gave up waiting for Christmas and opened our gifts early. Russell got an ipod to replace the one he washed and I got a video camera. Students be warned.

The next morning we slept in and then made pancakes. The pancakes were especially important because I had managed to find strawberry rhubarb jam at a local shop. Rhubarb is nearly impossible to come by here, and I had long given up on strawberry rhubarb anything. I was so excited I bought a jar for all my co-workers too. The jam lady was a bit taken aback. I saved my jam for Christmas morning to have on pancakes with yogurt. It was delicious. We spent the morning videotaping ourselves swing dancing in our pajamas. Those videos may not get posted.

Why NORAD tracks Santa

I found this link through BoingBoing. Many of you may already have seen it. I hadn't every thought to deeply about NORAD's participation in Christmas, but the story is awesome.

http://www.noradsanta.org/en/whytrack.html

Pocky Day

Just a quick post before I forget. I need to make sure we all have this on our calendar for next year. I was informed by my students at school that November 11th is Pocky Day.

Pocky, for those who don't know, is a kind of Japanese sweet you can get just about anywhere. It is basically a cookie-stick dipped in chocolate. The chocolate can be any flavor you want, though the traditional Pocky are chocolate and strawberry flavored. Pocky is a cult classic with teenagers in the US who have fallen in love with Japanese animation and comics. It travels easily, its fun to eat, and its pretty tasty.

Since the shape is a long cylinder, Pocky has apparently been adopted as the mascot for November 11th (11/11). As you have probably guessed, next year, (11/11/11) is MEGA Pocky Day. You won't see this again in your lifetime, so make sure your 2011 calendars are well marked and you know where to get Pocky in your neighborhood.

You're welcome.

Goodbye 2010

One of the more charming end of year traditions in Japan is the bonenkai (忘年会) or "forget the year gathering". This is a chance for any group of people who can claim a reason to know each other to go out and drink together in December. Of course, work groups do this, so do clubs and social groups. Groups of friends, neighbors, anyone takes advantage of the opportunity to go out and party.

Last night, Russell and I were invited to the swing bonenkai. One of the head people for the swing group found a restaurant in her neighborhood and invited us all to come out on Saturday night. Only a small group could make it (many were already booked for other bonenkai) but it was a lot of fun. The restaurant she chose was a Korean restaurant and it turned out to be a real find.

When we walked in, there were already two other large bonenkai groups going. The tables had been lined up into three long rows with a party at each row of tables. We wound our way around our own table and ordered drinks. Our fearless leader offered to do the ordering for us, which suited us all fine. In short order, two portable grills were being set up at our table. The owner came over, slapped a couple thick slabs of pork and a pile of kimchee and garlic on each grill and let things cook for a while. He came back later to flip the meat, and once everything was starting to brown, he snipped the meat and kimchi into bite-sized pieces.

At this point the responsibility for the meal shifted to us. We had a basket full of lettuce leaves and sesame plant leaves. We had to take a leaf, put a bed of bean sprout salad on it (to insulate our fingers from the meat), then add a piece of meat, some kimchi, spicy sauce and bird chilies if we wanted and then we rolled our creation up and chowed down. It was absolutely delicious. I would say this ranked among the top meals I've ever eaten in my life. Everything was so good.

Once the grills had been picked clean, the owner came back with white rice, some green onions and more spicy sauce. He mixed everything together on the grills to pick up the drippings and bits of over-grilled meat that were stuck to the grill pan. The let the rice cook until it was crispy and golden brown. Another delicious course. After that we got to try pajeon- or korean pancake. This is a vegetable pancake not unlike okonomiyaki, but it is much thinner with more chewy dough to it than vegetables. If you know what mochi is, it has a similar consistency. Of course, also delicous. Along side the pajeon came some plates of liver sashimi. I hadn't ever had raw liver before, but that was good too. It came withe a sesame dipping sauce and was really quite good. Finally, we got some sort of vegetable stir fry. At this point we had been at the "bonenkai" part of the bonenkai for quite some time and weren't really able to focus enough to know what was in the stir fry. It was vegetables and meat - and had it come before everything else, I would have been in love with it. After all its friends, though, this was the least stand out of the group. Poor little stir fry. It deserved more attention.

Another nice thing about group parties like this in Japan is that everyone just splits the bill evenly. No one worries about figuring out exactly what they owe. Our total for the feast and all we could drink came out to about $30. Seriously. While that's more than I would pay on my own for dinner, for something like this that seemed like nothing.

Around this point in the evening, we discovered that Korean food was only round one. We did lose two members of the party but gained two or three more at the bar next door. We continued drinking and ordered some appetizers to share.

The specifics get a little hazy at this point, but a good time was had by all. We were serenaded by one of our Japanese members with "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" ala Ren and Stimpy. We also discussed Christmas classic specials from America (all of which Russell and I have managed to gather together for our coming Christmas parties. We had a good night. We managed to catch one of the last trains home and were in bed by 1am.

Today I was feeling the results of the night before, but I had to go to work, even thought it was Sunday, to get some textbook writing done. Thankfully, it only took a few hours, so I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing for Christmas parties. I now have a rather large number of ginger cookies, an adorable Christmas outfit for the Christmas swing party on Wednesday and several Christmas accessories for the students to wear at the Tuesday Christmas party at school.

Should be fun!

(Oh, Russell has all the photos from this event on his phone, so I will update the post with visuals at a later date).

And then, there's always more food...

I decided to combine two of my November stories together, since, oddly enough, they are related. The first one is okonimiyaki with the band, and the second is Nabe - our new favorite dinner.

At some point, Russell and his Kobe band members (the group he was playing with in the earlier post) decided they wanted to have an okonomiyaki party. The drum player lives in Osaka and the bass player lives in Himeji, so we are in the middle in Kobe. Plus, it made sense to have dinner close to the rehearsal venue. Of course, we are always happy to have guests over.

There was one problem, though. Our previous attempts at okonomiyaki - those recorded last year at this time when Russell's sister was visiting - hadn't gone so well. The food was delicious, but its hard to make okonomiyaki in a small, rounded fry pan. Its really much nicer if you have a flat surface that you can get around easily for flipping. The drummer said she would bring her okonomiyaki hotplate, but in the end it was deemed too heavy. Russell and I decided it was time we had a hotplate - especially since it seemed likely to increase our house party potential.

Russell went off to band practice, and I headed to the big electronics store downtown. There were quite a few options. There was the basic, cheap, plain hotplate. Unfortunately, its only settings were on and off, and I had specific instructions to get something that could be adjusted. It was also possible to get hotplates that had interchangeable plates. There was a flat plate for things like okonomiyaki or hot cakes, there were plates with grill ridges for yakiniku (grilled meat), there were plates with half circle indentions for making takoyaki (octopus balls), there were bowls that could be used for nabe, and there was every combination of those plates in between. I needed the flat plate and I really wanted a nabe bowl, too. I searched around and the only combination I could find with both of those options was the full four plate option that was on special. It was a bit extravagant, but it wasn't too expensive and it did expand our range of dinner party options significantly. Plus, the temperature was totally adjustable.

I went ahead and bought it - though getting it home was another task entirely. With three heavy metal plates and a big stoneware bowl, the resulting box was HEAVY. The person helping me at the shop put double plastic handles on it and wrapped it in bubble wrap. She also triple checked that I could make it home and did not look convinced. In the end, I did make it home, but I had sore muscles and bruises for the next week. My choice did prove to be a good one, though, and has been used regularly ever since.

Its maiden voyage, of course, was as an okonomiyaki pan. It had come up at some point that Russell's bass player was a rock-solid okonomiyaki chef. He had apparently developed his talents as an underclassman in charge of feeding the upper classmen in his high school karate club. We have it on good authority that one does not want to disappoint one's upper classmen in a karate club. After band practice, the band went to the grocery store and got everything they would need. When they got to our place, the bass player got right to work. He was a clearly good at what he was doing. He was working fast, cleaning up after himself (shock!) and even providing regular appetizers for us while we waited like a bunch of impatient baby birds.

The result was delicious. He grated a bunch of mountain yam and threw that in to make the okonomiyaki more fluffy. Mountain yam is this funny vegetable that we get here. Every time I have seen it, it has been grated up. The grating turns the tuber into a kind of white, mucousy slime. Its totally unappetizing. It doesn't have a strong taste - I think the main draw is the texture. There are a number of slimy foods in Japan - things like okra, natto (fermented soybeans) and mountain yam are a solid corner of traditional japanese cooking. Of course, all of them are extremely healthy, and they do grow on you after a while. The mountain yam slime also has the benefit of trapping a lot of air during the grating process, so the resulting goo made the okonomiyaki super light and moist. Typical okonomiyaki around here tends to be much heavier.

Once it got down to eating the bass player and drum player took turns flipping the resulting vegetable pancakes. In the end, however there was a little more batter left than expected. The resulting okonomiyaki stretched out to cover the entire hot plate thoroughly. Its made flipping a real challenge. The final flipping responsibility was given to the drummer, who decided it might be wise to cut the okonomiyaki in half and only flip half at a time. That's what she's up to in the picture. It worked pretty well, and in the end all the feast was eaten.

We are lucky to have such skilled friends.

About a week after the okonomiyaki party, I was talking with some co-workers, and they were telling me how easy it was to make nabe. I now had a nabe bowl that went with my hot plate, so I decided to give it a try. My co-workers told me that all I would need was some fish and vegetables. I put it all in the bowl. add about a half inch of water and let the whole thing simmer down into a kind if stew. I bought salmon, two kinds of mushrooms, carrot, greens, sweet potato and some fish-based meatballs. I threw everything in the pot ( took less than 10 minutes) waited 15-20 minutes, and we were feasting on steamy fish and veggie goodness. It was delicious, healthy and fast. All things we like in a new recipe.

We had so much fun that we tried again the next day. This time we tried different mushrooms, potatoes, different greens, a white fish, and kimchi. The kimchi really made the nabe. It was lightly spicy and the salt (something we never add on our own) really made the soup nice.

It now became hard not to have nabe every night. We were worried we would get tired of it, though, so now we save it for one or two nights a week. Sitting around our heated table with the blanket over our laps and a a hot pot of vegetables in the middle of the table is pretty awesome. Especially now that the temperatures are dropping. This was definitely one of our better purchases.

Osechi order is in

Last year, Russell and I didn't really know what to expect for New Years. We knew everyone had time off and was going to be with their family. That was about it. Since we had had vacation time to burn, we decided at the last minute to head into Tokyo. It was our first trip north and neither of us had been there. I can't remember our reasoning, but we decided to start trekking home on New Year's Eve. We ended up spending the evening in a hotel in Nagoya. As you may remember from the post last year, New Years is not a party holiday in Japan. It is a quiet day spent with the family visiting the local shrine, praying and eating auspicious treats.

This year, Russell and I are better prepared for New Years.

We learned at some point that families eat "osechi" at New Years. What is osechi? I still can't give a thorough explanation (more will come, I'm sure) but from what I can tell, osechi are a variety of traditional foods that bring different kinds of luck to the eater. For example: Hoping for money in the coming year? Eat a special chestnut yam mash (it has 金 in its name, which alone means "gold"). Hoping to have children? Eat a certain kind of fish egg. General health? Sweetened black soy beans. You get the idea.

While the classic housewife would carefully slave away creating lavish renditions of these annual treats, many modern families now opt to buy a box of the treats. Orders are taken as early as November and prices are - ahem - a little steep. The cheapest box I've seen was about $60 for one person. It seems that about $100 - $150 was the rate for a good osechi box for two. We did see 4 person boxes reach as high as $1,000 (we saw two of those...).

We talked to some friends to see if this was the sort of thing we should make for ourselves or just buy. Since we didn't really know what we were doing, everyone agreed that buying was the best option - at least for the first year. The local high end department store was recommended as a good place to procure osechi.

We found the seasonal osechi corner and started browsing our options. Keep in mind, this is not something you eat until new years. Unlike Christmas pastries, you don't start eating boxes of osechi for weeks before the big day. Instead of displaying actual osechi boxes, the department store had highly elaborate plastic models on display. They really were beautiful. At first we didn't know where to start. Then, we noticed that each box was labeled for the number of people it served and the regional specialties it represented. And of course, we were keeping en eye on price.

We finally settled on a two person box in the Osaka tradition. It had all the osechi musts that my Japanese teacher had taught me about. We took a ticket from the display with the name and number of our choice. We then payed for the box at the osechi table and arranged for it to be delivered (between 4 and 6) on New Year's Eve.

I'm really excited. I promise there will be proud pictures to come.

Out of Order

This one is a REALLY old story now... If I hadn't run across the picture of the sink, I probably would have forgotten all about it.

You may remember that during the Osaka Lindy Exchange I had to run home on Sunday morning to attend our school festival and eat lots of food in support of our school clubs. (It was a good think I was spending every other moment of the weekend dancing).



After the festival, the students and staff helped tear down all the tents and put the cafeteria and other areas back in order for school. The Monday after the Exchange, I walked to work as usual. When I got to work, I went to the bathroom to change into my work clothes. I didn't get more than two steps in and abandoned that venue for changing clothes. It was absolutely disgusting.

There was mud (maybe not just mud?) smeared all over the floors and sinks, there were muddy, waterlogged toilet paper rolls stacked in a pyramid on the sink counter and there was an "out of order" sign on one of the sinks. I changed in another bathroom and assumed the janitors would get to our bathroom that morning.

Just before classes started, one of my coworkers came into the office with a shocked look on her face. The conversation went something like this:

"Did you SEE the bathroom?"
"Yeah, pretty gross, huh?"
"How did they manage to break a hole in the sink?"
"Wait, what?"

I went and took a closer look. Sure enough, there was a large hole in one of the sinks.

The rumor I heard later was that a lot of high schoolers from the marching bands were all muddy after performing in the rain. Apparently they decided to wash off, but couldn't figure out how to get the mud off their feet. They ended up trying to stand in the sink to get the mud off, and, well, you can guess how well that went.

Of course, I also heard that they never found the person who broke the sink - so I don't know how the person got pegged as a high schooler. I also don't know where the pyramid of toilet paper rolls came from.

Very mysterious.

I do know our bathroom became a code red, and within an hour everything but the broken sink was cleaned and sweet smelling again. The sink was repaired a week or two later.

Beer Belly

For once, Russell and found ourselves with an open weekend. Saturday we cleaned up the house and then started looking for something interesting to do. Russell remembered that he had seen a blog about a microbrew place in Osaka. He suggested we go check it out.

This was actually a pretty significant find. We've been here for almost two years now, and while there are three major brands of pale ale on the market, we haven't really been able to find anything else. There are pubs with import beer (starting at $7 a pint and going up from there). There are also a few major brands that make a "dark beer," but if we really want good beer, we have to go home to Oregon.

The promise of an actual microbrewery was hard to pass up. We set out to find it. According to the blog, the actual brewery is in Minoh - kind of a suburb of Osaka. It is run by three sisters who were given the brewery by their father. They make very small batches but they really experiment with flavors, too (not just reproducing international favorites - though they do some of that, too.) The only problem is that this place is Very small batch, so you have to grab it while you can.

We were advised by the blog to skip the brewery and go to one of the pubs Minoh beer runs if we actually want to sample their beer. We looked online and found their two pubs - both called Beer Belly - right in downtown Osaka. In fact, we walked right by them when we went to the art museum a year ago. Russell and I headed back, now better informed.

The bar was small but cozy. The menu had a variety of beers from Minot and other local Japanese microbreweries. There were at least 14 beers on tap and at least 4 of them were stouts. There was a WIPA, a dark porter, a cabernet ale, a yuzu pale ale, and a number of others. Everything we tried was excellent - and not just because we were desperate. The food was good too. At some point I realized that there was malt vinegar on the bar, so of course we had to order french fries. We also got to watch the bartender grilling oysters for one customer and making fresh beer (stout) batter for fish and chips.

I'm kind of bummed that we don't live across the street from this place.

For more about the brewery, there is a really nice write up on this blog

The Great Pumpkin Pie Hunt

This summer, when I was back in the states, it became very obvious that one thing I miss from home is pie. Now, I can make my own pie from scratch, but I am somewhat limited by the lack of an oven. There is an oven setting on our microwave (which is generally how one goes about baking in this country) but our oven setting doesn't seem to work - so no oven.

As I'm sure you are all aware, last week was Thanksgiving. Of course, Thanksgiving isn't even on the radar over here. Even my native English speaking colleagues are generally disinterested in Thanksgiving. There are two other American's, though, and one is new to Japan this year and the lack of Thanksgiving was really getting to him. All the native English speakers at work decided to band together - even if it was their first Thanksgiving ever - and pull it off.

Of course, I volunteered to figure out the pies. I had a few options in mind.

1. Cafe Piranha recently started advertising pies, so that seemed best. The owner loves to bake and makes really tasty pastries. We figured anything he came up with would be great. He even already had a pumpkin pie on the menu! (Of course, pumpkin was our top choice for the dinner).

2. We found a company that buys things (like pumpkin pies) from Costco and mails them to people without Costco cards.

3. We do know of one bakery that does make awfully tasty apple and sweet potato pies. Its not like sweet potato pie in the U.S., but it does have a real crust and the filling is delicious.

Something had to work!

Unfortunately, last week was a monster and we didn't start investigating these options more closely until, well, Friday. That's not as bad as it sounds, because dinner had been moved back to Sunday to accommodate schedules and allow for some real slow cooking. Still, Friday didn't leave much time for error.

Plan #1 was an error.

We went to Cafe Piranha on Friday evening and ordered a slice of pumpkin (actually sweet potato) pie and a slice of apple pie. What came to the table was not actually slices of anything recognizable as pie. In fact, they looked like perfectly baked cream puffs. We tried to dig in with our forks, but the puffs were wrapped in paper, so it was a little challenging. We hadn't even managed to wrangle one bite out of the pies when the owner hurried over to top off our water and delicately suggest that THESE pies could be eaten just like hamburgers. なるほど! How silly of us! We grabbed onto our cream puffs with both hands and chowed down. While the "pies" were absolutely decadent, there was little about them I would normally associate with pie. I thoroughly enjoyed the treat (the monster puffs were only $2.50 each!) but I was starting to worry about how successful our pumpkin pie hunt was going to be.

Plan #2: Costco
Russell jumped online as soon as we got back and went about ordering the pies online. We got all the way to the end when we had to select a delivery date - starting after Tuesday. Damn! Foiled again.

Plan #3 was tried and true, so I knew there would be pie... but not pumpkin pie!

Saturday was my rest day. I haven't had one in several weeks - even our surprise national holiday was spent cleaning the house all day. Saturday was much anticipated and greatly appreciated. I slept in, didn't do any work, wandered around Kobe with Russell and spent a great deal of time chatting in a cafe over enormous coffees. Not bad.

By the end of my relaxing day, I was getting over mourning for our lack of pumpkin pie and trying to figure out how to still make it happen.

Then it hit me - if you can cook cake in a rice cooker, you should CERTAINLY be able to cook custard, right?

I looked up a recipe for home-made pumpkin. There was even a reported success story with kabocha (local Japanese pumpkin and the highlight of my Fall). I ran down to the grocery store, bought eggs, whipping cream, kabocha and some spices and ran home again. I steamed the kabocha and scraped the meat away from the skin and mashed the kabocha up. Kabocha, unlike real pumpkin, is perfect for pumpkin pie. Its mostly meat with a very thin skin and small cavity with seeds, its perfectly sweet and it mashes up smooth with a fork - no need to food process. Its also relatively dry. Even after sitting all night no extra liquid pressed out. Perfect. Unfortuantely, 3/4 of a kabocha added up to too much pumpkin for my rice cooker (it only makes 3 cups of rice). I decided to split the pumpkin into two portions, halve the recipe and save the rest in case this all worked out.

So 3/8 of a kabocha, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup of sugar, a small carton of whipping cream (4-6 oz?) and spices to taste. I dumped the resulting mixture in the rice cooker, hit the cake setting and waited 45 minutes to see what would come out. When I opened the lid, the center still hadn't puffed up, so I decided to run the cake cycle one more time (a tip I had seen online). After another 45 minutes, the center had fully risen, so I turned it off and once it was a bit cooler, Russell and I dug in. (You'll note the large dent we made before I realized I should really take a picture).

Success! There was a nice flavorful skin over a light and fluffy pumpkin pie custard. We deemed it a bit too fluffy and not spicy enough, but we still managed to eat the whole darn thing between us in one sitting. Tummy aches aside, we were back in business for Thanksgiving. Russell suggested I make pie crust and bake it tortilla chip style so we could do pumpkin pie nachos. It was tempting, but the oven was pretty well spoken for at my friend's house. After starting up the rice cooker with a significantly spicier custard mix and on the hot rice setting instead of a cake setting, I went out and bought a bunch of small butter cookies to act as make-shift crust. We also make homemade, unsweetened whipped cream, assembled into pumpkin pie towers and enjoyed. It definitely hit the spot. I also brought along a couple of the apple-sweet potato pies I had tried before - no sense on skimping on dessert, right?

I was also very pleased by the positive reviews from my Japanese colleagues and students the next day at work. We were all so stuffed from dinner that there was at least half a rice cooker's worth of pumpkin pie left the next day, so I spread the goodness around. Now, in the U.S. Japanese students never seem to like pumpkin pie, so I wasn't expecting much success. Everyone seemed to sincerely enjoy the little pie towers, though. Maybe because I didn't use as much sugar, maybe because I still wasn't to American standards of spiciness, maybe because pairing anything with fresh-baked butter cookies and fresh whipped cream is bound to be a winner. In any case, it was a total success.

Rice cookers are clearly way under-rated.

And now you know.

Russell finally gets to rock!

Ms. Denniston has requested more information on Russell's big concert, so here we go!

The 23rd was a national holiday here in Japan, so even though it was a Tuesday, it was a good pick for the Kobe band to have their first live. Russell is in two bands, but the Kobe band is the first off the blocks in terms of concerts. Their name is Off Limits and they are mostly a cover band. They have several Green Day songs, Pretty Woman a la Van Halen, so generally loud and fast. They are fun to listen to.

Japan is full of garage bands and groups hoping to become the next big thing. Ever wondered where they practice? I mean, the apartments are tiny and everyone lives very close together - at least in the cities. So where are people nurturing these heavy metal start ups? As it turns out, there is a rather large network of rehearsal studios that bands can rent for a few hours. They prices are very reasonable and the practice rooms provide Marshall stacks (or similar) with microphones and a full drum set. Its fairly common to see people on the trains and on the street toting an electric guitar with them, and the music stores have row after row of guitars to choose from. Its clearly a popular pass time. The practice studio that Russell goes to also has a venue for live performances.

Bands are obligated to sell 30 tickets and then get a cut of anything beyond 30 that they sell. Off Limits definitely passed the 30 ticket mark, so there was a nice crowd ready to rock out on Tuesday night. The concert was awesome and the band and crowd had a lot of energy. It was super fun. Russell, of course, sees lots of room for improvement, and is embarrassed to have the concert online, but I insisted, so without further adieu, Off Limits' first gig:

Off Limits 2010-11-23 from Jaci Mull on Vimeo.

After the big event, there was a professional band from Tokyo playing, but all the Off Limits fans left to have dinner with the band, so... well, it got pretty quiet in the venue. Oops!

Among those attending dinner were the bass player (and band leader's) friends, the drummer's family, some friends from dancing in Osaka and all my co-workers. We were a pretty rowdy group. At one point we were asked by one friend to take a group picture holding up a sign for someone who was just getting married (I think that was the story. In any case, its a cute picture of most of us together. From here we went and had a 2 hour all-you-can-drink with dinner party at a local Japanese style bar. It was really fun.

Lame November

I can't believe its already the end of November - and I definitely can't believe this is my first post this month! Ugh! I sincerely apologize. It has been a crazy month full of midterms, textbook writing, illness and exciting adventures, too. (Don't worry about the "illness" bit, we're both perfectly healthy again, now).

Since I was rotten about posting, I have gathered a great number of tales to tell. However, I'm both lazy and busy and don't have time to tell them all right now. I thought it would be more fun to let you vote for the stories that sound most interesting. I have posted a picture of each potential story below with a title. If you want to hear more, publish a post or send me an email. I will try to write about them in order of popularity. If I ever get some free time, I will try to cover them all in more detail - but more things keep happening!

Here's the current selection:

← 1. Out of Order






2. A little off-school drilling →






← 3. Bowling with the neighbors






4. Okonomiyaki party with the band→






← 5. Halloween Swing Party






6. Halloween at school→







← 7. Halloween booth for our sister school






8. Nabe - our new favorite dinner →







← 9. Live band swing dance in Kobe






10. Mystery hike to a...? →






← 11. English Teacher's conference in Nagoya






12. Russell finally gets to rock! DONE!→






←13. Pumpkin Pie at our local cafe? Alas, no. DONE!






14. Pumpkin Pie in a rice cooker? Yes! DONE!→






Not pictured:

15. Expat Thanksgiving

16. Pocky Day



So there you have it. What do you want to know more about first? Leave a comment! I'll do my best to accommodate.

Osaka Lindy Exchange 2010

I've finally gotten around to writing about the Lindy Exchange in Osaka. This was back in early October and was greatly anticipated by both Russell and myself. We have been learning swing dancing since May, but this was our first exchange. Apparently there are Lindy Exchanges all over the world. From what we can tell common elements are weekends devoted entirely to swing dancing (especially Lindy Hop). The dancing goes all afternoon and late into the night. People come from far and wide to attend.

This exchange was in Osaka and was set for three days. It started on Friday at a club called the Cell Block. There was a better than average one hour lesson to start things off around 6pm and then dancing until late. The lesson was packed with beginning women (follows), but very few men (leads). Several women agreed to learn the lead part and I decided to try my hand at it too. It was my first time leading, but the lesson was great so I learned a lot of practical stuff. Things were off to a great start. I was recovering from a cold, though, so I decided not to push things too far. I only stayed out until about 9:30 or 10pm on the first night and then decided to turn in for a decent night's sleep before Saturday. Russell came home about an hour later. As far as I know, everyone else danced until 11:00pm and then switched to a late night venue where they danced until they couldn't anymore.

Saturday started at 1:00pm with dance workshops. There were two workshops running at once. Russell and I both did 1920's Charlston for the first workshop, but then Russell and I split for the next two workshops. Russell went to beginner Balboa 1 and 2 while I opted for flare outs (a bit too complicated for me) and Tranky-doo (an fairly complicated line-dance based on a dance choreographed for a movie by one of the masters of swing). Russell and I both finished our workshops around 5:00pm soaked in sweat and ready to collapse. Not to mention hungry. Everyone broke for dinner before the main dance started at 6:00.

For Saturday, Russell and I had been clever and got a cheap hotel room in Osaka so we could stay out as late as we wanted. We retreated to our room to change into dry clothing. It had started raining outside, so I decided to wear my rain boots and carry my dancing shoes with me. The resulting ensemble made quite the fashion statement. I made Russell take a picture. After we were all ready to keep dancing, we met some friends at a bar near the dance for hamburgers and beers. Incidentally, I highly recommend Lion Stout to anyone willing to try dark beer. I had heard of it before, but its now one of my favorites. I believe it hails from Sri Lanka.

We made it to the dance around 7:00. The dance was already well under way. This time we were at a local dive club famous as a pick-up spot with foreigners. This particular night the crowd was all about swing, though. The live band and enthusiastic dancers in full period costume did not match the half-naked pop music videos playing silently on the flat screens around the club. Some time around 10pm the live band played their last set and everyone stopped for an entertainment break. We saw a Charlston performance by two of the regular teachers and a traditional, Edo-period performance involving inter-woven sticks that was incredibly entertaining and pretty much impossible for me to describe in writing. It was great. More dancing to DJ swing music followed the performances and some time around midnight the swing dancers made room for the regular clubbers milling around outside ( looking very confused). We all headed to the late-night venue and kept dancing. Russell and I decided to bow out around 3am, but some of our friends stayed until the last - some time around 6am.

Sunday I had to run back to Kobe for our school festival. The festival (for me) consisted of lots of eating. The food was not exactly healthy, but I couldn't say no to all of my students begging me (in very decent English, I might add) to try their booth's specialty. I had paella, handmade gyoza (chinese potstickers), a crepe. yakitori (chicken skewers), a hotdog, lots of tea and some mochi sweets. I pretty much rolled back to Osaka. I figured I was burning it off, though.

Back at the exchange everyone had met at Osaka castle park to start the dancing back up. There was a live band playing while the dancers at picnic lunches and danced in the park. Russell attended the first couple hours but then had to go play with one of his bands. I made it back in time for the last hour, but wasn't as assertive as I needed to be (not realizing there were only four songs left) and never actually got to dance. I waited for Russell to finish band practiced, then met up with him, had dinner and headed to the main dance of the evening.

We arrived just in time for another beginner lesson. There were fewer follows, but still a shortage of leads, so I continued to practice the lead part. Turns out, lead is pretty fun. Its hard to get started, but fun. This time we worked on some Charlston - not the 1920's kind, but the more modern, basic kind they teach beginners nowadays. This dance was the climax of the weekend. It had the highest attendance, the best period costumes and the Jack and Jill contest. Russell and I didn't know what a Jack and Jill performance was before that weekend, but assuming Osaka is following standard procedure, the rules seem to be that all the leads who sign up get numbers and all the follows that sign up get numbers. At our exchange there were about 12 of each - or 24 participants. The competition we saw split everyone into two groups of 6 pairs. The first 6 lined up according to numbers, then a dice was thrown and based on the numbers, the follows rotated down the line to be with a new partner. At that point the music started and the contestants danced. The first song was a slow dance, then the dice was thrown, everyone changed partners again and danced a medium speed dance, then rotated again and danced a slow dance. All the while there was group of six judges walking around the edge assessing the partners and how they all danced with different partners and at different speeds. After the first 6 partners finished, the second 6 partners took to the floor and did the same thing. From what I have read, lifts are generally not allowed during Jack and Jill performances. What makes this competition interesting, though is that you aren't (usually) dancing with an established partner. You have to do a good job no matter who you are paired with. It was fun to watch.

While the scores were being tallied the social dance resumed. We danced for about another hour and then we started to hear an odd thumping noise. The live band finished their song and the thumping got louder. We thought maybe there was a problem with the amplifiers or something. By that time the sound started to sound distinctly like a helicopter. Everyone was starting to notice and look around when the lights went out. The door opened and four men dressed in swat uniforms with replica guns came storming into the dance. We were all really confused at this point, but then a man walked in and started walking towards the stage. Everyone started screaming. It turned out it was one of Osaka's more famous comedians (Osaka is famous for comedians). We didn't catch his name, but the cameras were flashing and our Japanese dancers clearly had stars in their eyes. The comedian told a few jokes (I was able to understand one! Hooray!) and then sang some swing standards with gusto. Apparently singing is not part of his normal repertoire on TV, so everyone started screaming again. Everyone was very excited. After about 30 minutes, he wished us well and he and the Swat team ran out again.

The dance continued and around 10pm the finalists for the Jack and Jill competition were announced - three leads and three follows. They were then randomly paired together and had to dance once more time through three songs, taking turns this time so only one couple was dancing at any given time. They were really good, as you might expect.They all had very different styles, too, which was interesting. I believe there was another round of social dancing while the judges debated. Finally, at the end of the evening, the winners were announced. They then lead off a round of Snowball - a dance in which two people start and then the announcer yells "Snowball!" periodically and the dancing couples split up and grab one of the spectators. This continues until everyone is dancing and then everyone just switches around until the music ends.

Finally, the main dance came to an end, and Russell and I decided to head home. We were seriously footsore and worn out from three days of dancing, but we both had a great time. The exchange wasn't over yet and many people continued on to the late night dance - which lasted once again until the early morning. We both had to work the next day, though, so we headed home. Needless to say, we slept very well.

If you don't know much about Swing, click here to see a Jack and Jill competition I found on YouTube. Of course, these guys are REALLY good.

Play Ball!

Not long after I got back from my trip to Oregon, one of my co-workers sent out an email asking if the men in our office would be willing to come play on the KSGU pick-up baseball team and if the women in the office would be willing to come cheer. (This is Japan, after all). The guys were happy to join the team and we women-folk swallowed our pride and agreed to think about coming to cheer. I'm not sure that any of us were too enthusiastic as cheerleaders, but in the end talk of wearing the school colors and cheering together won out. Three of us decided to attend as spectators. Keep in mind that I was the only one that new the rules for baseball. My Canadian and Australian co-workers either aren't interested in sports or simply hadn't ever seen a baseball game. It made for some interesting cheering. Their habit of suddenly screaming out just as our pitcher was letting go of the ball or our batter was swinging may not have helped so much, but the general enthusiasm was greatly appreciated and led to a great deal of blushing.

The game was between our school and the neighboring school. Only staff and teachers were playing (no students). It was suppose to be a friendly pick-up game, but it was clearly more than that to most of the players. Keep in mind that KSGU (my school) has never won one of these games. Things didn't look too good from the start. The first pitcher for our team was a older, highly respected man who could barely get the ball over the plate. He would lob it up high and hope for the best. I can't remember if he pitched one or two innings, but he was eventually replaced. We were happy to see that the starting pitcher was not the star pitcher.

The other team took a very different strategy. They had a guy pitching who was probably capable of pitching a no-hitter if he really tried. He pitched for 8 innings uninterrupted and our team got very few hits off of him. We did manage to score a couple runs in the first 8 innings, but that really didn't compare to their 6 runs. Things weren't looking good. Around the 4th inning someone on the other team decided to let his 8 year old son bat. It didn't quite seem fair to be playing super competitive with the pitching but then let the 8 year old bat. I was annoyed. Every one else thought it was cute.

Our English office staff started in the outfield (being largely untested) but soon took over the infield and did a fine job. After a bumpy start our team started to work together well and the game became a fun one to watch.


We started the 9th inning down by 4 runs. We, the cheerleaders, encouraged our team, saying they could still make a comeback, but maybe not really believing it. Then something interesting happened. The other team switched pitchers. All of the sudden our team started getting hit after hit. Their fielding was not as strong as their first pitcher - possibly because they hadn't really needed to do much for the previous 8 innings. KSGU managed to get 4 runs to tie the game. We then got three more runs for good measure. We were up by 3 at the top of the 9th. The other team managed to score once, but didn't catch us. KSGU won! We were very excited.


The next day we were challenged to a rematch.

Hunkerin' Down

Wicked wind storm going on tonight. This morning it was a bit too warm for a coat (hence regretting mine) but the temperature dropped significantly over the day and was pretty darn chilly by evening. I was glad I had my coat in the end. There were a couple times I was simply unable to take a step due to the strong winds coming off the mountains. Getting home was quite the chore.

To celebrate the new low on the thermometer I decided to try making nabe. Nabe, as you may remember from last year, is like a vegetable hotpot. I recently acquired a multi-use hotplate (I'll explain in a post to come) and I wanted to try the giant nabe bowl.

The nice thing about the hotplate is we can put it in the middle of our living room table and cook from there. We turned on the TV (a rarity), huddled up around the table and nabe-fied our ingredients. I don't know that what we cooked would be recognizable to others as nabe, but the result was quite edible and certainly healthy. We put mackerel, fish meatballs, carrot, shitake, bell pepper, udon noodles and a variety of other greens in the pot. Once it was all hot, we dug in. The only seasoning was from the fish and veggies and a bit of mirin (sweet vinegar) added at the end. It was a nice dinner on such a blustery night.

Tastes of Fall

Fall is definitely my favorite season in Japan for food. The persimmons are perfect right now, we are starting to see baked Japanese yams, everything is pumpkin flavored (the local pumpkin is called "kabocha" and tastes like pumpkin pie with no sugar needed). There's also a lot of toasted sesame seed (kinako) treats and chestnuts. Mandarin Oranges (mikan) are just coming out again and there are many apples and pears to be had. I fully support Fall.

On the way home today, there was a guy selling piles of persimmons out of the back of his truck. One pile was about $5. I jumped on them and he threw in a persimmon from his misshapen pile and tiny pile as a bonus. Thanks, dude.

One of my co-workers recently took me to an out-of-the-way international grocer. There were all sorts of imported goods at fairly reasonable prices. Its easy to find import stores in the center of town, but everything is too expensive. This place had better selection, too. They even had real, hearty, chunky peanut butter - the kind with oil on top when you buy it.They also had homemade marzipan, all kinds of cheese, and a whole 10 pound turkey. I was hoping to find canned rhubarb, but no luck. We asked the owners and they had never heard of it. Alas. However, I went back again this weekend and, lo and behold, there was a jar of rhubarb pulp available. They had stocked it for me! Of course, I had to buy a jar. Later, I found a jar of rhubarb ginger jam also. I bought it to share with my students. I'm excited for Monday.

All week is going to be a mix of crazy fun and extra work. Of course, its the week before Halloween, and we can't just let that slide by unnoticed! On Wednesday, our swing dance is costume themed, then on Friday we are having an impromptu Halloween party at school. Later, on the 30th, we are volunteering at a school festival for our sister college so, of course, that will be Halloween themed too. I need to go out today and see if I can track down some face paint. Wish me luck!

The work part is going to be the extra work for all these parties all while being down two hands. Our study abroad coordinator is taking a much deserved vacation for the week and my boss is out for medical reasons - oh, and another co-worker is taking most of the week off to prepare for her wedding this coming weekend. Ugh. Hopefully things will stay relatively quiet this week. Let there be no drama!

I'm off to shop for face paint. I will try to post again soon. I have several big events still in the hold list, waiting for a nice quiet afternoon or evening so I can do them justice. More coming...

Fall Cleaning

The weather in Kobe has finally cooled down to "fall" temperature. It feels like an average summer day in Oregon. Not humid, not too hot, but you still don't need a coat. Even at night. This, and the appearance of all the things I love to eat most, makes Fall my favorite season in Japan. Hands down.

Fall is sandwiched between two fairly inconvenient seasons, though. Late summer and winter. Summer is horribly hot and humid. It is hard to keep your clothes from mildewing and bugs find there way in from all angles. With the cooler weather, I have started wearing some outfits that haven't been out of the closet in a while and they didn't smell so good. Unfortunately, there is really only a short window of time when I can do anything about that. After fall is winter - which I also like, but it takes forever to dry wet clothes outside and you never get enough sun to really feel like you are frying the little friends that multiply in your futon.

With all of this in mind, I decided to use my lovely, sunny Fall Saturday to clean out the closet. First, I hung our spare futons outside in the morning sun to make sure they were baked through and hopefully friend-free. While they were out of the closet, I dusted everything down. Once the futons felt warmed through and smelled better I put them back in their dust bag and hung all of our clothes - especially winter clothes that haven't been out of the closet in more than 6 months - out in the sun. I let them air out and dusted off the rest of the shelves in our closet. I also organized a bit and finished all the hand washing I've been putting off.

Incidentally, all this dusting kept me sneezing and blowing my nose for the rest of the afternoon.

After a good airing-out, everything went back in the closet and the great laundry undertaking began. I did three loads (the absolute maximum I could fit on our back porch to dry) and our laundry basket is still piled high.

At least the laundry is no longer carpeting the kitchen as it has been. Hopefully I can take care of the rest of it tomorrow.

Between all of these activities, I also got the bathroom, bedroom and entrance cleaned. Its a huge relief to have all the nooks and crannies finally cleaned out, especially before we have to close up the house for winter. The only other seasonal cleaning I need to get done is to have the kotatsu [heated table] blanket dry cleaned before we actually want to use it. It tends to collect crumbs and drips during winter when we practically live under it. We really should have just cleaned it before storing it away in the spring. Oh well.

The trouble with spending the day working on closets and bathrooms, etc. is that our main living space is still pretty gruesome. I'll be tackling that next.

Not done yet.

Boo.

Curious...

One thing I forgot to mention... when I got back from Oregon, a tiny place setting had appeared on the meeting table at work. No one I talked to knew where it had come from. And what's for dinner? In French, the menu explains the main course is melon with ham.

Very curious...

Trip to Nagoya

Right after we got back from Oregon, I jumped into textbook writing. I arrived just in time for the last gasp before the books went to the publisher, so I was not a key writer this year. There was a lot to be done, though, and we were down to the wire. We worked through the weekend and technically missed the deadline by a few days, but it all worked out in the end and so far it seems the books turned out quite well. Hopefully well enough that we can reuse almost all the material next year and don't need to start over from scratch AGAIN. That would be the ultimate goal, of course, and we all dream of the day...

Just after textbooks were due, there was a public holiday in Japan so we had a long weekend to play with. Russell and I decided to jump on it and we set off for Nagoya.

We had a great time in Nagoya over New Years last year and we have always wanted to go back and explore it when the city was open. This is something that our Japanese friends don't seem to understand. Nagoya is something like the 4th largest city in Japan, but it is not seen as a place worth visiting for fun. It has traditionally been the industrial heart of Japan - and as such it was bombed very heavily during World War II. In rebuilding the city, though, Nagoya really pushed to be cutting edge. They have really interesting architecture and art all over the city. The city also feels very organized and easy to navigate.

This time around, Russell and I weren't sure what we wanted to do, but we were pretty sure we would find something. We booked a hotel and headed over on the bullet train. We arrived late in the afternoon, stopped in at the tourist center to get maps and advice for local attractions, and then set off to explore the area around our hotel. The first night, we went to the orchid garden. It was a little disappointing - we weren't big orchid fans going in, and there wasn't much there to convert the unaware. I'm sure its awesome if you know and love orchids. After the garden we checked into our hotel and then headed out for dinner.

As I mentioned before, our Japanese friends tend to respond to our interest in Nagoya with, "why??" They also always seem to come to the conclusion that while the city may not be interesting, they have to admit that Nagoya does have some awesome food. They are known for a variety of grilled eel dishes, miso sauce on pork cutlets and spicy chicken wings. Our first dinner we were looking for a cutlet restaurant, but after failing to locate it, we stumbled on an izakaya that, judging from the caricature of the dude out front wearing chicken wings, could help us out with Nagoya special #3. As it turned out, this was a rather large chain of izakaya that are well known in Nagoya. The place was huge (unusual for restaurants in Kobe). The individual booths were in a fairly traditional-made-modern style that gave the sense of privacy. On the more modern end, though, they also had touch screens in each enclosure where you could browse their menu and place your orders. It also automatically split the bill for you at the end in however many parts you wanted. Very cool.

We, of course, ordered the wings. They were super good and we ate far too many of them. Most foods in Japan are not even remotely spicy, but these were nice. Russell lamented that they were not quite as good as buffalo wings, but good enough to really make him wish he had some buffalo wings. Poor Russell. We make due with what we have. In all honesty, we thoroughly enjoyed the restaurant and had a hard time not just going there for every meal.

The next day was the public holiday, so all the museums were open for visitors. After agonizing over which places to go to, we narrowed our list down to two must-sees. One was the Toyota factory museum and the other was the Tokugawa museum.

The Toyota museum was way more than we expected. Half of the museum had nothing to do with cars, but rather with textiles. The Toyota family made its name by inventing automatic looms and continuing to invent better and better technology for making fabric. The museum started out by showing how fabric had traditionally been made, early looms and then the increasingly complex automatic looms that Toyota invented. We tagged along with a tour and were really impressed. Some of the more modern technologies include a machine that passes the thread from one shuttle to another to allow for wider fabrics, a loom that mades synthetic fabric by shooting the light nylon fibers through the loom on a jet of water, and a multi-color loom that can weave photograph images into cloth. Two hours of looms later, we still hadn't seen anything about cars, and we didn't care at all. It was great.

After the looms, the cars did take over, though. After Toyota senior passed the loom business onto his son (also an accomplished engineer) the son started to explore the possibility of using the Toyota company's industrial abilities to introduce the first domestically made car in Japan. Several other companies had tried this, but there had been very little success and there was a lot of skepticism that it was possible. Toyota Jr. set out to make it work, though. Eventually, he managed to start making domestic cars and the Japanese automotive industry has, of course, surged forward from there. The museum included history about how this was possible and the different hurdles Toyota had to overcome (they had to do extensive studies into metallurgy to make sure the vehicles' parts would be sound, etc). Then the museum moved onto a history of Japanese cars and how they are made. We got to watch a guy stamping engine parts to show the process and we got to play with all the different parts of the car to see what they did and how they worked. It was really interesting and nicely interactive. We spent another couple of hours in the automotive part of the museum, though we did have to step out for lunch before we both fell over. A+ for the Toyota Museum. I highly recommend it.

Having chewed through most of the day, we were a little rushed at the second stop, the Tokugawa Museum. The Tokugawa Shogunate was the feudal regime that ruled Japan during the Edo period, from 1603 until 1868. Many of their personal belongings and a history of the Edo period are on display there. We saw some of the Tokugawa armor and swords, costumes for Noh plays, including some of the most outstanding Noh masks I have yet come across, and personal effects. Things like fancy lacquer picnic boxes, vases and art from China and the biggest treasure - an illustrated Tale of Genji book. The Tale of Genji is sometimes called the world's oldest novel. It was written by a nobel woman in Japan in the early eleventh century. Early copies of the book are extremely rare and illustrated copies are even more rare. The actual text is only on display one day out of the year to help preserve it, but images of it and analysis of the story and illustrations are a core part of the museum.

We were more than a little footsore after a very full day wandering through museums, but both museums were outstanding. There are still a lot of places we would like to go in Nagoya. It looks like we will need to make a third trip one of these days. Our friends are never going to understand...