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...

Catching Up Part 3: Portland

Russell's sister also came down from Seattle on Friday, and his mother came up as well, so we all got to spend time together. With Gwen, Carolyn and Alice joining the group, we spent Friday morning at the Rhododendron Garden in Portland and then hanging out around the Hawthorne district. We stopped in at the Waffle Window and had amazing waffles - this visit we all just got the sugared kind, which let you really appreciate the delicious waffle base. After that, we poked around in several vintage clothing and furniture shops. Gwen found a pretty awesome vintage hair-dressing chair - complete with ash tray in the arm rest. It was a really fun day. When Justin and Michelle were done with work, we all met up and had dinner together. After dinner, we had to say goodbye to Carolyn and Alice and then we started plotting for our Saturday adventure.

After getting students settled and spending time with family in Corvallis, Russell and I decided to head up to Portland and spend a few days hanging out with friends in Portland before we headed home to Japan. As luck would have it, there was also a guest star appearance by one of our good friends from New York. Hooray!


Our hosts, Justin and Michelle, had spotted a wide variety of activities in the Portland area. We started out the day with a "Where's Waldo" search of downtown Portland. It was a fundraiser where teams paid an entry fee, were given a map of the area in downtown where Waldo could potentially be hiding, and a list of Waldo's belongings that would be scattered around downtown, drawn in chalk. To win the game, we only had to find Waldo and take a picture with him, but of course we wanted to find the long list of objects as well. Every 15-20 minutes, Waldo would send a text message with a clue to his whereabouts. He was moving, so he was hard to find. If you somehow missed the Where's Waldo (aka Where's Wally) books of the late 1980's and early '90s, they are worth checking out. It will also make this post easier to understand.

After tracking down all but two of his objects, we finally spotted Waldo outside of Pioneer Place Mall. We had been told that the Mall was off limits and not to look for Waldo there, but we saw him walk inside. What?? We were afraid that it wouldn't count if we caught up with him in the mall, but we didn't want to lose him again. Instead, we stalked him. It turned out it was time for a change of actors and the old Waldo met up with the new Waldo to pass on the hat, glasses and cane. The new Waldo headed back to the same entrance the old one had used (we could have waited outside - alas). The new Waldo did notice me following him in the mall. He asked if I was following him, and I said "no". (Sarcastically, I thought). He asked if we were playing the game and I said we were. He also asked if we had found Waldo yet, and I said we hadn't. He then sped off and gave us quite a chase. We almost lost him, but we did catch up with him shortly after he exited the mall.

His response?

"Wait, you ARE following me?"

Brilliant. We explained that we thought the mall was off limits. He let us take a picture with him and then we headed off to find the last two objects on the list. We were, unfortunately, not the first group to find Waldo. I think we weren't even the first group to find Waldo AND all the objects - though that part I can't remember. It was a really fun way to spend the morning thought. We won two-for-one ice creams at Haagen Daaz and we each got a gift from the grab-bag.

After the Waldo search, we headed across the street to the Italian festival that was going on. We listened to music and shared a bottle of wine in the wine garden. It was fun, but we had bigger plans to come. Around 3:00 we headed to the Oregon Zoo. What was at the zoo? A live performance of Prairie Home Companion! We got to watch Garrison Keillor live. Justin, Michelle and Gwen had seen him before, but this was the first time for Russell and I. We had a great time. If you don't know the Prairie Home Companion radio show, you should definitely check it out. You wouldn't think that watching a radio show would be all that exciting, but of course, this is no regular radio show. We packed more food that we could possibly eat, sad on the blankets in the grass and had a great night.

I was feeling a little sick after the show, so we didn't stay out late afterwards. It had still been a long and exciting day, though.

Sunday, and our last day with Gwen, we dropped in at an Apple computer festival to try our luck at their raffle. No luck - but we did get free hot dogs and burgers. After that, we met up with some of Justin and Michelles friends in Portland and spent the afternoon letterboxing. I'm sure I've described this before - the game with the online clues and the hidden boxes with stamps in them? We found quite a few stamps, though at least one that we searched for was missing.

Of course, we also stopped off at my personal favorite food cart in Portland - Wiffies Fried Pies. I have eaten far too few of Wiffies tasty pie pockets, but I dream about them all year long and make sure a quick pilgrimage is part of my yearly trip to Oregon. Yum.

I'm kind of racing through the last of my Oregon trip because I have bigger posts to come - we had a great time, though. Russell and finished off our time in Portland with some shopping (we found dance shoes in Russell's size!) and I met the last group of exchange students from KSGU that were coming to Oregon. They settled in nicely and I was back on an airplane to Japan a couple days later.

End of our Oregon trip!
Back to Japan!

Catching Up Part 2: Corvallis

So I met up with the OSU students in Portland and rode down to Corvallis with them. Once they were settled in, I headed off to my dad's place. The next few days were mostly student devoted, although I did break away to meet up with some awesome friends. I had lunch with a few at OSU and the old ELI gang - of which sadly many have moved on - was able to get together to have a big bash as well. It was great to see everyone - Even Lis Skyped in from Africa. Sweet! The food was awesome too. The ELI was always blessed with outstanding cooks.

After the students at OSU were all set up, I headed down to UofO to meet with my contacts there. I hadn't been to the campus in ages. It was gorgeous with all the summer flowers and greenery. I had a good visit and got some business done. I think all three Oregon groups will be well taken care of this year. I look forward to following their adventures.

With all the study abroad business finished for a while, I was able to take some real time off. Russell had come in a few days earlier, but he was planning to work for the whole week, so I headed to mom's house and spent a nice long weekend with her. We spent lots of time chatting and even got around to cleaning out her garage to make room for her new car.

But let me back up and talk about THAT. When I first arrived, mom was telling me about how she was looking for a new car and she had found one that she liked, but she couldn't find the model she wanted as a 5-speed in the color she wanted. She had given up on that particular car and was looking at other options. Between every mediocre assessment of other cars, though, she would light up and tell me how cool the Honda Fit was. I heard over and over how the back seat can fold up to fit a bike in the back and how comfortable the seats were. Finally, I suggested we just find a Fit. We were pretty sure we could get one in Seattle (based on info mom had received from a salesperson) so we started hunting up there and looking for a train ticket. Things were going to be tight, but we figured if we could home in on a dealership that definitely had the right car, it would be no problem.

Luckily, in the eleventh hour - just after we had contacted Russell's sister in Seattle to pick us up from the train station, we got a tip from a dealer mom had been working with that a dealer in McMinnville might have the car we were looking for. We called, got the confirmation, and were over there within an hour. Mom gave it a test drive and jumped right into the purchasing negotiations.

At this point we were back in the office and we met the dealer's "closer", a new kitten named Pilot. We were warned that Pilot could be feisty and to be careful. Duly warned, we didn't try to pick Pilot up. He was having none of that, though, and launched himself at Jose right away. Jose passed him to mom, who then snuggled him for about 30 minutes until it was simply not practical to have a cat in her arms. At that point Pilot was passed to me. He continued to snooze in my arms for another hour or so. He seemed totally sweet to us.

Apparently the "feisty" comment had been based on a stunt Pilot had pulled a few days earlier. He was hiding under one of the show cars in the dealership when a family walked by. They had a two year old toddling behind them, and when Pilot spotted her, he decided she was just his size. He jumped out from under the car and grabbed onto the little girl's back. Having had no idea there was anything under the car to begin with, the little girl was understandably terrified and it took everyone a minute to figure out what all the shrieking was about.

Pilot now comes with a warning.

In the end we weren't able to get the car that day - but we were able to drive it home the next. Mission accomplished! And the garage was ready. We were both quite pleased with ourselves, I think. I'm super happy to think of my mom commuting in a car with modern safety standards for once.

After the long weekend with mom, I headed back to Russell's parents' place. They have been slowly but surely turning the outdated, jerry-rigged country home they bought into a country palace. When we last saw them, they were just getting ready to tear the monolith fireplace out of the center of their house. Apparently the fireplace came out and the kitchen as well and they had been living out of a temporary kitchen set up on their back porch for most of the year. They went to great efforts, though, to have the house back together before Russell and I arrived. They pulled it off too. We heard stories of the remodel, but we got to enjoy all the fruits of their labor. The result was really impressive. There's something to be said for being out of the country for a year. I can't wait to see what they tackle after another year.

More to come as we head back to Portland.

Catching Up Part 1: Back in America

As I am trying to get across in my title, I am acutely aware that I am way behind in posts and I am equally aware that it will take me more than one go-'round to catch up.

The good news is that I definitely have good stories to tell.

Since I do seem to have a stubborn linear streak in me, I'm going to start more or less where I left off - just before I traveled to Oregon. That would be around August 15th. I had to work like crazy to get all of my loose ends tied up after the end of the term. I had to leave some colleagues in charge of proctoring my last, last chance tests but for the most part I had all my stuff taken care of.

After a few minor bumps at the airport (so THATS where those sewing scissors had gotten to... I THOUGHT I had brought them to Japan!) and a few bumps in immigration (oh, THAT form... I'm sure the students won't mind waiting) we were on the plane. I was really excited to be heading home to Oregon. I was definitely ready for a visit. Of course, the people I know in the US are way nicer than the flight attendants that were on my flight.

Culture shock #1:
Drinks round #1: Kind-looking Japanese grandfather next to me orders hot tea. After the flight attendant makes a big show of not understanding that "ocha" means "tea" he gets his hot tea.

Drinks round #2: Very concerned with ordering correctly in English this time, the grandfather asks his granddaughter how to say "ocha" in English. She tells him "hot tea." He practices.

Stewardess: "Can I get you a cold drink, sir?"
Grandpa' "Hot tea"
Stewardess: "Is that COLD?"
Grandpa: "Hot tea"
Stewardess: "Is that COLD sir?"
Helpful Japanese business man: "No, ma'am, I think he wants hot tea."
Stewardess: Just hands him water and huffs off.

Now, there was no hot drinks at the time because of turbulence, which was the reason she wasn't giving him hot tea - but let's get real. The poor guy obviously doesn't speak English. He is obviously trying to accommodate this woman by using as good an English as he can. He doesn't know we are heading into turbulence (announcements are only made in English) but he does know she gave him green tea last time. I DO understand why he can't have green tea. I don't understand the need for sarcasm or huffing.

I start to brace myself.

Culture shock #2

Lucky thing, because San Francisco immigration is 100 times worse. The actual immigration agent was just scary, but the helpers in charge of helping jet-lagged foreigners (and non-foreigners) get from immigration to customs were practically frothing at the mouth they were on such a power-trip. Some of my students were trying really hard not to cry by the time we got to immigration. At some point one of my students misplaced his customs card - the one the security lady had practically screamed at everyone to show her before she would let them through her gate - and I thought he was going to have a melt down. He was terrified that he would be deported. The customs folks were much more laid back. A couple students got searched, but not in too scary of a way.

We thankfully did all make it into the country.

We almost missed our second flight though... not because we were short on time, not because the students didn't make their way back to the terminal on time, but because we were all chatting away so happily it almost came and went without us noticing. I don't think the students noticed how close we cut it, but I just about gave myself a heart attack. We made it onto the airplane fine and it closed up right behind us.

The students I was with (heading to PSU) were greeted by friendly staff and unnervingly hot sunny weather. We headed into Portland, they headed off with their host families and I made my way to my friends' new house. It took me a while to figure out that the page about building your own backyard pizza oven was not an advertisement stuffed in their mailbox, but rather a note for me guiding me to the restaurant where they were having dinner, but I did find them eventually.

Spent the evening snuggling with their cat and the next day with the students. They seemed to be taking everything in stride and having a good time. Good thing, because the next day it was back to the airport to greet the OSU-bound students and head down to Corvallis. Of course, there was some letterboxing that was fit in in-between (note pictures of friends poking around potential hidey-holes in trees).

Japan Rocks Video Games

I can't believe its been over a month since I posted. I've been on vacation in the States and just got back a week ago. Now we are in a mad dash at work to get our textbooks finished (Friday was the soft deadline and we didn't come close) so a group of us are working through the weekend. Blog posts may need to wait a few more days... rest assured I have stories to tell.

In the meantime, I felt the following needed to be posted as it took place:

Russell is playing his new video game. Hi character? Chopin (as in the composer). What is Chopin doing? What else? Flighting a winged, two-horned unicorn (bicorn?) with flaming hooves with a sword.... in a top hat.

Hanabi

As I posted before, I had a late night on Friday. As one of my co-workers was leaving, she mentioned that there would be a number of fireworks events that coming weekend. Fireworks had been totally off my radar, and with everything else on my plate, knowing that they were about to get under way still didn't motivate me much.

Russell had band practice Sunday night, so I was doubly prepared to just chill at home and maybe get some cleaning done before I travel home. Russell was opposed to that idea, though. He felt it was unacceptable that I spend the evening alone when there were fun things happening in the city. He suggested I call some friends.

I have friends from work, but I was all jumped up over work that day and kind of wanted to get away as much as possible - even though I love my co-workers. Outside of them, the pickins are pretty slim in the friends category. As in, two. And neither of them ever do anything spur of the moment. One must book ahead. I thought it over, though and decided to email Keiko. I figured she was already probably planning to go to the fireworks and maybe I could tag along.

As luck would have it, that was just how it worked out. I felt bad horning in on her night out with friends, but her friends had both studied with her in Canada, so they were sympathetic to a lonely foreigner. I met them at the train station, had dinner, and we headed to the water front.

Last year, we thought we would be clever and picked a spot out by my school on Port Island. It wasn't in the middle of the action, but it seemed like it would have a good view and might be far enough away that others wouldn't venture there. No such luck. It was very crowded and getting home was difficult.

This time, we decided to throw caution to the wind and go where EVERYONE goes - to Harborland! Harborland is the waterfront park area with all the tourist attractions and landmarks that make up Kobe's skyline. I was expecting a serious scene, but we headed off to a less well marked corner where the crowd was still thin. Of course, we went a couple hours early to stake out a spot, but when we got there we had our pick of sidewalk to sit on and there was a beautiful view of the harbor. The crowd filled in around us, but it never got tight. No one was stepping on us or walking through our group. The crowd was pretty loose and there was room to spread your legs. It was nice.

We had a nice conversation (the whole evening was in Japanese with occasional words translated to English to help me understand or say something. I didn't understand a lot, but I did understand some. It was good practice and everyone was friendly.

I also learned something new! It turns out that the cue that the fireworks are about to begin in Kobe is when they turn off the multi-colored lights on the Ferris Wheel. Once the lights went out, anticipation started to build and pretty soon the show began. It lasted 20-30 minutes with a few pauses in the middle. At one point, after a less than climactic burst everything stopped. We waited, assuming it was another pause. The pause got longer and longer. After about 5 minutes, a number of people decided that we had, in fact, reached the end. They packed up and started to head out. Most of the crowd was die-hard, though. They were sure there would be more. Another minute or two passed. We looked around at each other, agreed that that must have really been the end, and started to shuffle into a standing position as well.

Of course, just then the show started back up again. We hastily sat back down and continued to enjoy the fireworks. The thing that always amazes me about fireworks in Japan is everyone seems to know the grand finale. When it came, everyone cheered and as one hit their feet and headed to the train. Within 30 second of the finale the lights on the Ferris Wheel came up again, so in case there was any doubt, we were all assured that we had, in fact, see the end.

We started heading toward the train with the crowd, but it was pretty clear that we would be waiting for hours to go anywhere. Instead, we made a quick decision to duck into a relatively empty Starbucks. We staked a claim to some comfy chairs (in Japan it is totally normal to just ditch your purse where you plan to sit and wander off to order - it will totally still be there when you get back). We got into line, ordered and were back in our over-stuffed arm chairs before the crowd started to realize that Starbucks was an option. A few minutes later, it was packed, but we were all set. We sat and chatted for another hour or two and then decided to try the trains. The crowd had thinned down to "busy, but not rush-hour busy" levels and we made our way home.

Its nice to have friends!