Hard Day's Work

Today was a busy, busy day.
Russell was leaving on a business trip, so he was up extra early to pack. We got all the clothes and omiyage to fit in his suitcase and then had a late breakfast. Around noon he headed out and I beelined for the fancy grocery store with the good selection of wine and cheese.

Forbidden dinner in hand, it was time to go home and clean. The house hasn't been too bad, but we have really only been straightening up and keeping dishes washed since Lis was here. A great deal of cruft had built up in the corners. Since I'm proud of how much I got done before Russell had even left the country (he had to fly to Tokyo first and is only flying out now) I'm going to list it all:

Washed the bedding and my pajamas
Aired the futon and comforters
Mopped up the dew that had accumulated into puddles around the outside walls of our bedroom.
Swept up all the fuzz and dust that had accumulated around bedroom
Treated the floors and windows with a bleach rinse (mildew has been popping up where the dew forms in the morning)
Brought in the futon, etc. and reassembled the nest.
Straightened, dusted and washed Russell's desk (which was a disaster area)
Swept under the desk (where fuzz especially likes to accumulate)
Put away the clothes that Russell folded this morning
Cleaned the living room table (kotatsu)
Swept and mopped the floors in the kitchen and living room
Washed the remaining dishes

I am now sitting down to relax with a glass of Malbec.
The next couple weeks are off to a tidy start.

Brie, cheddar and pepper gouda for dinner...

New Year 2012 FOOD

My apologies to anyone reading this who is actually Japanese and knows what SHOULD be eaten for New Year in Japan. I did the best I could with the limited knowledge I have. The following food may not be traditionally prepared, but hopefully I was going the right direction with it. Because there is was so much food involved it deserves its own post.

To start things off, we made sure almost every day of Lis's visit was filled with Mochi. Delicious mochi. As you may recall, mochi is a pounded rice cake. It can be eaten savory: grilled or added to soups or eaten sweet, with red bean paste in the middle or red bean AND a strawberry. There are other variations as well. All delicous.


New Year's Eve: Soba
I am not sure how soba is suppose to be prepared for the New Year, but I know you are suppose to eat it. My version was a soup using the stock that came with the noodles plus vegetables that didn't seem too out of place in a Japanese dish. Note that my presentation skills are still somewhat lacking.

Apple Bunnies
This has nothing to do with New Years, but they are a staple of Japanese lunch boxes and I was having no luck describing them verbally to Lis. My solution? Buy and apple and show her. I don't think she was quite seeing how this equalled a plate of bunnies. Can you see them?

A Little Bump for Grandpa Pieterick
While the coming hike kept us off alcohol the evening of New Year's Eve, Russell and I did toast Grandpa Pieterick with our shots of brandy.

New Year's Morning: Toasted Flax Seed Peanut Butter from Trader Joes
Thanks to Lis, we had gloriously delicious peanut butter on our toast, brewed some tea for the thermos and hit the trail. At the top? We had dried persimmons and various other snacks we had hauled up with us. That's a persimmon going down the hatch in the photo. You can tell by the grin. None of our hiking provisions count as traditional.

Plum Wine:
Russell and I finally broke out our plum wine that we set aside last spring. I'm pretty sure we posted about the process at the time. You are suppose to let the wine sit for 6 months to 2 years. 6 months was right at the New Year, and since we had a guest it seemed fitting. The verdict? Wow! Its so easy to make awesome plum wine! It was equal or better than anything we have had before, which gives us confidence to try making more - perhaps with variations.

Osechi: You saw the pictures from the previous post, but here are the boxes in close-up glory. I may not love everything in osechi, but it sure is fun to eat so many tiny and varied things. Maybe next year I'll make it myself? I wouldn't wish that on guests, though, so it will depend on whether anyone is visiting.


This friend is a salted and grilled breen fish - known as Tai in Japan. (I think). These are usually grilled in such a way that their one fin is sticking straight up and their tail is curled up. I'm not sure of the significance, but that is the way its done. Ours followed tradition, but its not easy to see.


This box has honey grilled pork, grilled chicken, boiled oysters, salmon roe, crunchy little fishies, and kurikinton - which is a yellow yam and chestnut paste - this one with three sweet chestnuts sitting on top.


This box had mushrooms, bamboo shoot, some sort of celery-like vegetable, carrots, burdock root, sweet black soybeans (both small and large), lotus root, pink and white fish cake, grated daikon salad and some sort of shoot that is suppose to help with new beginnings.


This final box included different forms of mochi, a form of candied walnut with bonito flakes cooked in, grilled tuna (buri), crunchy fish egg sacs (the long yellow things), a rose made of smoked salmon, several variations on sweet egg omelet and some sort of weird meat roll.

Our osechi was enjoyed with liberal amounts of green tea and plum wine. It was no wonder Russell and I couldn't move afterwards. After a long nap, I suggested going downtown to see Ikuta shrine again, this time in full New Year's swing. I knew there would be food stands, but we were still too full from the osechi. We bought mochi with bean paste and strawberries in the middle and headed home. We saved our treats for breakfast the next day. We also made ozoni on January 2nd. I believe I have pictures posted from last year, but I forgot to take any this year. The version of ozoni I make was learned from a friend last year. Ozoni comes in many forms. it is a soup that you eat around New Years and I'm pretty sure all variations contain savory mochi and red carrots. Probably also some sort of mushroom. From there, though, recipes vary. Ours had thinly sliced pork, white miso, leeks, mushrooms, red carrot and mochi. So delicious.

And that ends the auspicious (and less than auspicious) foods for the New Year. If I get around to it, I will have another food post with other treats we enjoyed during Lis' stay. Japan is all about the food. The ancient temples aren't so bad, either. Stay tuned.

P.S. Thanks to Lis for sharing her photos. She tended to have much nicer ones than I did!

Starting 2012 off right

Our winter break started on December 28th, and that happened to be the day my dear friend Lis came to visit from Minnesota (where she is finishing her PhD).

We have mostly been working in the mornings (Lis had a dissertation deadline to meet) and exploring Kobe in the afternoon. For the last day of the year we got out of the house a little earlier than normal and did some last minute exploring before everything shut down for New Years.

Left on the to do list? A walk through Kitano (the European-style houses on the hill), a mattcha/redbean latte from Starbucks (only spotted the day before) and a swing through Harborland to see the water (and perhaps the pink pirate ship). We managed to hit the first two birds with one stone by drinking our latte at the Starbucks that's IN one of the old houses in Kitano. We not only had the mattcha/ redbean latte, but also the redbean "cube danish" with the mattcha frosting. After a lazy morning chatting, we wandered down the hill towards the water. We stopped in Chinatown for a steamed nikuman and then did a lap around Harborland.

Having done our tourist duty we headed home to prepare for the New Year. We made soba (buckwheat noodle) soup with the fancy red carrots that come out for the New Year and we settled in for an evening of nationally televised musical splendor. They did not disappoint this year. There were many instant costume changes, enka stars rising up on enormous chinese dragons, pop idols playing with interactive decorative screens and a Japanese version of "Mexican" dancing to an enka song called "Mariachi."

At 11:45 the show ended and scenes from famous temples and shrines around Japan started moving across the TV. The Buddhists started ringing the enormous temple bells (108 times?), people were waiting anxiously to pray for good fortune in the coming year, there were bonfires and people skiing with torches in Hokkaido. At midnight the throngs of visitors poured into the temples and shrines to pray, dispose of old luck charms and buy charms for the coming year.

One Japanese tradition is to go to a temple or shrine for midnight and join these throngs. I was up for it, but Russell and Lis couldn't be budged. For good reason, I suppose... we had decided to do hatsu-hinode or the first greeting of the sun. That meant waking up at 4am and hiking up a mountain to get the best view of the sun as it crested above the horizon at 7am. They were looking forward to their full four hours of sleep. It was probably for the best.

We did get up at 4am. We made a thermos of tea and packed snacks and dry underclothes to change into at the top. We managed to hit the street at 4:45 and hiked up behind our house to a trailhead that would take us to the top of Mt Maya. This is the same Mt Maya we swore we would never hike up again after getting the idea to go hiking our first summer in Japan. It was no easy hike, but we did better this time than the first time. Lis (mountain goat she is and dead set on seeing the sun no matter what) followed a more seasoned team of hikers and made it to the top of the mountain before us. Russell and I plodded our way up as well and also managed to arrive about 15-20 minutes before the sun rose. Perfect timing.

After the sunrise we changed into our dry clothes, ate snacks and reassessed. We could go down the way we came up (boring) or try a new route that would take us over to the neighboring mountain and down to the Kobe reservoir and Nunobiki waterfall. We opted for route #2. We were very footsore by the end of the trip, but rather proud of the accomplishment, too. We staggered home and broke out our osechi box. None of us had the energy to shower first, so we opted to just eat.

The osechi box this year was even more awesome than last year. It was three full boxes of bite sized treats with an extra box containing our New Year fish - a grilled fellow in action pose. Notice that, try as we might and appetites that we definitely had, we just couldn't quite polish off the feast. We did a pretty good job, though.

Tummies full, Russell and I proceded to pass out on the floor under the kotatsu. Lis was made of stouter stuff and worked on her dissertation- also under the kotatsu. Even after the nap, Russell was struggling with the crazy wake-up time and 6 hour hike. Around 6pm he went to bed and hasn't been seen since. Lis and I went to Sannomiya (downtown) to see the action at the local shrine. The roads leading the the shrine were cut off to traffic and lined with food stalls. Crowds of people were still streaming into the shrine to pray, get their first New Year fortune and buy lucky charms. The trees on the premises had been surrounded by netting to save them from visitors tying their fortunes off on the branches (which is tradition) and instead the netting was covered with a coat of white paper knots. Picture to come. We bought some ichigo daifuku (strawberries wrapped in sweet bean paste and rice dough) and headed home.

You will notice a bush in this picture. This was taken before New Year when the shrine was setting up for the festivities. People could leave their fortunes and their charms from the year before at this bush. Now check out the bush ON New Years. 12 hours of luck charms later...


I had rolled my ankle just before finishing the hike in the morning, so we stopped at a local store and bought an ankle brace. It helps a lot. Tomorrow we are off to either Kyoto or Nara - and there will be no shortage of walking there. Best to shore up now.

Baked Goods

Unfortunately, we don't have an oven, so I am largely at the mercy of the local bakeries when it comes to getting a baked-good fix. That turns out to work fine for the most part since the local bakeries are far more skilled than I am anyway.

Note how much cuter their baked goods are. That's a Totoro クリームパン (Cream Bread). He's made of delicious sweet bread with cream filling. They also do turtle shaped Melon Bread (which is a kind of sweet bread with a cookie coating that is cut into a square pattern. No melon is involved.

We also recently started frequenting the bagel place just down the street from our apartment. Bagels are still hard to come by in Japan. You can find them occasionally at bakeries, but they don't seem to be as popular as other bread products here. Dense breads in general seem to lose out in Japan. In any case, the lady down the street is making a heroic effort to spread bagel goodness to all. The only problem is that they really require work to eat. Her recipe results in a light weight bagel with a armor of rubber. My jaw hurts after eating one. So why do I keep eating them? Because they're DELICIOUS. She rolls local flavors into the middle of the bagel roll that are inspired. Today I had sesame sweet potato. I also like the pumpkin gratin and curry bean bagel. She has a lot of sweet bagels, too. Chocolate, maple, yuzu. All of them are delicious - you just have to psych yourself up for the work involved in eating one. If she could combine the amazing flavors with a better texture, these would be unbeatable bagels.

She has also recently added homemade old fashioned walnut donuts. Those are just awesome.

FInally, every Wednesday before swing dance I stop for a quick dinner at Vie de France - a local bakery chain. Like most shops in Japan, Vie de France has their regular favorites alongside seasonal specials. Some time at the beginning of winter, the seasonal special was a yuzu cream pastry. Yuzu is a kind of citrus that is popular this time of year. Its not at all unlike a lemon, but it has its own unique flavor. The pastry was a light yuzu flavored cake with cream in the middle. I love yuzu, so I thought I would try it. While eating this creation it suddenly occurred to me that this was a Twinkie. That realization led to a second epiphany: Twinkies must be lemon flavored cake. This had never occurred to me before. They were just yellow and tasted like Twinkies.

Honestly, knowing that Twinkies are lemon cake doesn't make them more appetizing. Knowing that my yuzu cake tasted like a twinkie? Also not appetizing. This is one yuzu creation I'll be passing on from now on.

Yuzu Pringles, however, are awesome.

Getting ready for Christmas

In spite of at least one Christmas party offer, Russell and I decided to play it low-key for Christmas this year. We are hanging around the apartment with a pile of snacks browsing the Internet and attempting to play D&D with only two people. I'm a monk.

We have a neat little stack of Christmas presents - thank mostly to my mom. We are also taking breaks here and there to clean the apartment. By real Christmas we may even have the house sparkling.

As I'm sure I've posted before, Christmas is not really a holiday in Japan. The commercialized version of the holiday does make an appearance. There are Christmas trees decorating lobbys all over the city and shopping malls are decorated with poinsettias and snowflakes. "All I want for Christmas is You" is playing at most venues also.

But how do people in Japan celebrate Christmas?

I suspect I already shared the story, but I'm dusting it off because I like it so much. When asked the above question, my co-worker got a confused look on his face and said,

"What do you mean? We celebrate it like everyone else. We give presents and eat Christmas Cake."

The presents is usually only true if children are involved, but the traditional Christmas Cake does seem to be a central tradition of the holiday for most Japanese people. The traditional Christmas cake is a sponge cake with whipped cream frosting and strawberries on top. Not at all unlike Japanese birthday cakes. Apparently the tradition was first introduced by, as you might expect, a cake shop wishing to drum up business. The Christmas Cake took off and I haven't met anyone in Japan yet who realizes this is Japan's unique contribution to the holiday. For a month in advance you can pre-order your very own Christmas Cake from grocery stores, convenience stores and cake shops around the country. Its big business.

And as long as we're introducing our own traditions, we really must tip our hat to Kentucky Fried Chicken. KFC has capitalized on the vague notion of a Turkey at Christmas to offer special Christmas buckets which include roast chicken legs, a salad with marshmallows on top and, you guessed it, a Christmas cake. Theirs is chocolate this year, though. A bucket for two will run you about $50. If you want a whole roast chicken, you're looking at $75. They usually sell out, so people order in advance. Other department stores, grocery stores and convenience shops sell roast chicken at more reasonable prices, but KFC appears to be the gold standard.

We play with the idea of a KFC Christmas every year, but we just cant pay that kind of money for something we know is going to upset our stomaches.

Instead, this year we bought a fried chicken platter from the grocery store for $10 that did an equally good number on the tummies. Salad for the rest of the week for me!

Update: If you're interested in the contents of the tray pictured above, pop a couple of Tums and keep reading. There were: chicken nuggets, french fries, crab croquettes, fried shrimp in a chili sauce, tempura shrimp, garlic roast chicken, sausages, karaage chicken and an egg surrounded in some sort of fish cake, boiled and cut into quarters. I'll be honest. It was not a good idea.

The Trimming of the Ginkgo

It seemed to stay relatively warm (not warm, warm, but fall temperatures) late this year. The leaves didn't start turning until late november/ early december. The trees just really got down to losing their leaves in the last couple of weeks.

Though they were not remotely bald yet, it was ginkgo trimmin' time for the city. Many of the city roads are lined with ginkgo, which turn a bright yellow color in Fall. (they also drop rather stinky gingko nuts before the leaves go). Every winter, the city trims the limbs way back leaving a very sad looking row of nubbed off trees and a very stark feel for Winter. The ginkgo naturally recover in spring and shoot out a wide canopy of limbs once things start budding again.

Today, the city workers had the less than easy-looking job of trimming back the trees in spite of the full fluff of leaves covering them. There were mountains of limbs and yellow leaves in the street. You could see the branches of the untrimmed trees shaking around, but you couldn't see the worker up in the canopy cutting the branches. This is the first year I've seen them trim while the leaves were still relatively full.

Tomorrow is officially winter in my book.

Round 2 at the consulate

When I look back at the list of things I was worried might go wrong after our first trip to the consulate, I now realize how naive I was being.

We ended up getting snagged on a much smaller detail thank any of those.

Notary's contact information? Not really necessary. No worries.

Rider not attached? Phht. What's a stapler for?

Witnesses? Just ignore those lines. Totally not necessary. Only there for decoration.

What was a problem?

1. No middle initials (you know this one if you spotted my update)
2. Not signed in blue (they wouldn't have rejected the documents based on this, but they REALLY prefer blue.

Apparently we also managed to miss a couple of dates and or initial points in the 50+ page document. I guess I can understand that last one.

So we went back to the consulate today, left all our electronics at the door, went upstairs. Waved hello to the lady who helped us last time, had the new papers notarized, checked and rechecked that we had found all the signature, initial and date lines scattered throughout the document and made sure we signed in blue and included middle initials EVERYWHERE.

I pity whoever has to find Russell's middle initial in his signature. Its essentially illegible in the best of conditions and its no more obvious that there is a middle initial now than before. Though if you turn the signature sideways you have a 50% chance of spotting the P. It is most assuredly there.

A brush with the homeland

So we needed to get some official documents notarized. No big deal, but the only US Notary in the neighborhood is at the consulate in Osaka.

The US consulate today was quite an experience. We had to empty our pockets of anything that had any relationship to electronics. No cell phone, no pedometer, no electronic dictionary, no earphones... The Japanese security guards were 110% on the job.

Once we were stripped off all the electronic devices we didn't know we were carrying, we went up to get our documents signed. We had scheduled an appointment the previous week and we had some time, so we got our documents in order to make things as fast and easy as possible. We only needed two documents notarized. We took them out and got in line.

There was a couple that had arrived ahead of us and were engaged in a very long and earnest conversation with the consulate receptionist about how they just wanted to get married and they had been sent here by someone else and they lived hours away and they didn't know what to do next, etc.

As we waited we kept reaching for our cell phones before remembering they had been taken away. Left with no alternative, we had nothing to do but eavesdrop.

According to Russell, part of the problem was that the information the girl was giving in English did not match the information the guy was giving in Japanese. The receptionist finally kindly asked them to talk to each other first and then come back with their plan. In the meantime another receptionist came and talked with us.

We gave our paperwork. It mostly went fine. The woman notarizing our documents was very nice and clad in a bright red trench coat not at all unlike Carmen SanDiego. The experience, was, however, not without a few snags.

Problem #1: We were suppose to fill out a form that asked for the notary's contact information, the signer's names and the ID they had shown to confirm themselves to the notary.

Apparently the US consulate doesn't DO that.

Not signed.

Problem #2: We had been instructed to attach a rider to the document being notarized, but the rider counted as an additional document in the consulate's eyes and gave no indication that it required notarizing.

Not attachable. No sir.

Problem #3: I had double checked whether they would need witnesses before the documents were sent, because we would have to bring our own. (Clearly stated all over the consulate's website). Since we were told on Friday afternoon that we needed to get said documents notarized by Tuesday, we knew that we would need to book some friends fast if we needed witnesses. The woman preparing the documents assured me that the notary counted as the witness and we didn't need anyone else.

But of course, two witnesses were needed.

Cue the young couple who haven't agreed on the country in which they plan to get married.

Will you solemnly swear that the documents before you are, to the best of your knowledge truthful and untampered with? Even though we haven't told you what the documents are for, who we are or what we're doing? You will?

Its good to be in love.

Russell and I high-tailed it back to our smart phones and out into the suddenly nippy end-of-autumn air.

Update:

The documents reached their destination. The result? We didn't sign with our middle initial - so the whole packet has to be redone.

*%*$*#@#&

Back we go on Monday.

The Oblivious Foodie

Can you make beer bread in your rice cooker?

Of COURSE you can!

Next time I'll buy better beer, though... It was perfectly good with a nice rosemary and garlic taste (seeing as I had added those ingredients) but then I'd think, "What is that bitter alcohol free, calorie free finish?"

Oh All Free. Perfectly respectable in your own way, but just can't stand up to real ingredients.

The texture of the bread was a bit too moist and spongy. I put it in the toaster oven for six minutes and got a passable crust to form - not like fresh from the oven, but not bad. I'll have to try it with "black beer" next time.

I also made a lovely vegan (but not on purpose) bean stew.

Both recipes came from a blog called Farm Girl Fare. I'll have to explore the blog more. So far so good.

A repeatable experiment

I've been very hungry lately. Perhaps its because the weather has been darker and colder, perhaps its from all the activity I got at the Lindy Exhange - I don't know. But hungry.

Over the weekend I made chili and Russell and I figured we could stretch it farther if we ate it with rice. Pair that with our general tendency to throw miscellanea in with the rice (lentils, mung beans, chestnuts, beef, garbanzos) and we had quite a hearty meal worked out for tonight. The rice of the day was brown rice with garbanzos - the garbanzos were thrown in dry, not from a can. The resulting rice was a tad dry and the garbanzos were not yet soft, but cooked all the way through.

Long story short, dinner was good, but I was still hungry. What I really wanted was something sweet, but all we had was a half cooker of brown rice and 3/4 cooked garbanzos. I took a helping of rice and garbanzos, added soy milk and sugar in a pan and some cinnamon. I cooked it until the milk started to thicken a bit.

Turns out the garbanzos totally played along. It was kind of delicious. The milk, sugar and rice made a nice rice pudding studded with chewy little garbanzo nuggets. Not bad at all.

If I had a food processor I would attempt to make a full on pudding by blending it all together and cooling it... but that seems a lot of effort to put in - especially if you are a fan of texture anyway.

A weekend of swing

This weekend was the Osaka Lindy Exchange. Russell and I are dead tired today (a national holiday, at least, so we don't have to rush right back to work) but it was worth it.

Here was the general schedule:

Friday:
1 hour Balboa Lesson + 4 hours of social dance.
I was late for the lesson because I had to run there from work. It was my first introduction to Balboa, though and definitely sparked my interest. Balboa (at least when you are starting) is not a flashy dance, but the movements are so tiny and fast that you really have to stay focused. Not so much fun to watch, but really interesting to dance.

There was a late night dance, but Russell and I opted to head home after the main dance and gear up for the rest of the weekend instead.

Saturday:
4 hours of workshops (intermediate lindy motion, beginner balboa and integrating balboa and lindy hop).
1 hour lesson (oops! too slow! missed this)
4 hour main dance
5 hour late night dance (midnight - 5am) Russell and I couldn't make it. We cut out at 3.

Saturday was awesome. All three lessons we took were very digestible and appropriate for our level. We weren't overwhelmed or bored in any of the classes - which has probably never happened before. Naru and Nao from Yokohama taught all three lessons and did a fabulous job of pacing the lesson with just enough practice and challenge. The Main Dance was packed. It was often difficult to dance, especially if the lead wanted to do real swing outs. There was lots of bumping into people and stepping on feet. Even so, I didn't hit the dance floor as much. Its my fault for being shy about asking people to dance, but there was definitely tons of excellent dancing going on. The late night dance was amazing. The venue was 100 times better than last year and really fun. There was space, there were huge windows looking down to the street below - it was really fun.

Sunday:
4 hours dancing in the Osaka Castle park
1 hour lesson (skipped again! voted for dinner with a new friend instead)
4 hour main dance - with a Jack and Jill contest
5 hour late night dance (made it to 4:00am this time, but still couldn't keep up with the die-hards.

Sunday was also a blast. Russell and I had gotten a hotel for Saturday and Sunday night so we could stay out as late as we wanted, but not have to stay out until the trains started again in the morning - a good balance. Unfortunately, we booked late and since it was a holiday weekend, we couldn't find both nights in the same hotel. We had to check out Sunday morning and then back in at another place. That got us out of the hotel earlier than we would have really chosen if left to our own devices. We went foraging for baked goods and coffee and then headed to Osaka Castle to catch up with the dancing crowd. Everyone was looking a little droopy, but once the live music started around 2:00 everyone was up and dancing. The dancing and musical performance gathered a fair sized crowd, which was nice. It would be great to generate some interest and grow the swing scene in Osaka.

During the dance in the park, we met a woman who was visiting from Florida. She had come to see a friend in Kyoto and was looking to see if she could find any swing in the area when she stumbled on the exchange. We ended up going out to dinner together and chatting for a while. Unfortunately, that meant we missed another lesson, but sitting down for a meal was awfully nice, too. One thing I have to say about swing, you meet the greatest people.

At the main dance there was a Jack and Jill competition. Russell and I had signed up earlier, so we went to get our numbers and start dancing with as many people as possible before the competition began. If you were reading the blog last year, I described Jack and Jill competitions then. The basic idea is that women and men both sign up and are paired randomly with several different partners. All partners are rated by judges as they dance with different partners and the top overall men and women are selected, randomly paired again and then dance for the audience. The interesting thing about the competition is that no one knows who they will be dancing with so there's no choreography. As we fully expected, neither Russell nor I made it to the finals, but it was a ton of fun. A great excuse to give it your all and dance with exceptional dancers.

By the late night dance we were really worn out and foot sore, but it was so much fun we just didn't want to stop. I don't know how the organizers (Mariko, Etsuko, Ishii and others) managed to keep up with everything - they were the first there and the last out as far as I could tell, in addition to the stress of planning and running an event like this. I imagine they will be recovering for quite some time, but they did a fabulous job. It was tons of fun and we're already looking forward to next year.

I do have to apologize for not taking more pictures - I guess I was distracted...

Did you spot Russell?

Just a quick update

I have several posts brewing, but this is just a mini-post.
The weather has significantly cooled down in the last few days. Suddenly it is regrettable to be caught outside after dark without a sweater.

Along with the lovely weather came the lovely persimmons. Right now is sweet persimmon season. I haven't seen the bitter ones yet. The dried bitter persimmons will be in the stores closer to winter. I love both and am enjoying as many as possible while the season is on. They have only been out a week or two and Russell and I have already mowed through two rather large bags. They aren't fully ripe yet, but we aren't waiting.

This weekend is the Osaka Lindy Exchange. Three full days of swing! I even lucked out this time and my school's festival is Sunday and Monday (national holiday) so I can catch the festivities AFTER the exchange instead of trying to run back to Kobe, make an appearance and race back to the dancing. It was quite a chore last year and I'm looking forward to just enjoying each event as it comes this year. I'll have a post in a few weeks.

I am thrilled with the new chilly weather. I love Autumn and am perfectly happy bundled up in winter, so its a win all around. Plus, we get our first New Year's guest this year! My good friend and previous co-worker, Lis, is coming to visit. I have visions of a midnight hike to see the sun rise, praying at the local temple, making nabe while huddling under the kotatsu, eating bags of mandarin oranges while watching the New Years variety show and exploring a box of New Year's auspicious treats together. So much fun. I love New Years in Japan more and more as I learn the ropes.

So two seasons of awesome just getting under way. SO glad summer's time is up.

Letting others do my work

I just stumbled across someone else's blog about Japan (This Japanese Life by someone named Eryk) and the first two articles I read were so good I feel the need to direct you to them.

The first one is about attempting to be vegetarian in Japan. This post is spot on. Click here.


The other is about convenience stores in Japan. The only bit that doesn't ring true in Kobe is the "Get Chodo'd" game. If you give a clerk exact change in Kobe at any store, restaurant, etc. you will 100% get a "Chodo itadakimasu" - which for lack of a better translation I will say means "I accept your exact change." Its not the sort of thing that would inspire a game. Everything else is absolutely true, though. Click here.

According to the information about him on his blog, Eryk is a former newspaper editor - so perhaps I shouldn't be too sad that his posts are so much better than mine. I'm certainly going to enjoy reading more of them.

One soggy, soggy day...

So another typhoon is rolling in and this one dropped an impressive ammount of rain. Most of the typhoons that have come through this year dropped the most water at night (at least in Kobe) so seeing it all in broad daylight was new. On my walk to work today there was a good inch of water on all surfaces, including down the rather steep hill to the train station. The gutters were doing their thing, though.

I've seen rain like this before, but never for more than an hour. The rain today kept it up until around noon, then there was a few hours with nothing, and then it picked up again for a few more hours of massive water dumpage. Luckily it was taking a break again when I left work, so I got home dry.

We haven't had any real wind to speak of, so far. There is more to come, though, so we'll see what happens. This one does not appear to be much of a guster - just lots and lots of rain. There may be landslides in rural areas, thought, so it could turn into a nasty hurricane in other areas. Don't worry about Kobe, though. We're just catching the edge of it.

Now for some pumpkin-sweet potato soup. Its not cold outside - but nor is it hot, which is good enough for me.

Let Fall begin!

USPS Woes

We got a call a few days ago from a distraught mother. She had sent a rather large package full of winter clothing to her daughter in Syracuse, NY but it had never arrived. After a few weeks and no sign of the package she got worried and checked the tracking number.

The records for the package showed it delivered to Batavia, NY (nowhere near Syracuse - different postal code). The person who signed for the package did have a Japanese last name, but not the same last name.

So the USPS managed to take a rather large package and find someone in the same state who might have heritage for the same country and that was good enough for delivery???

I spent yesterday and today on the phone with the USPS. First they had me call a number in Albany, NY which is on perpetual answering machine, then, when I called back, they sent me to their international division, which said we had to submit a claim from Japan - which we tried to do and they said it had nothing to do with them, since they had delivered the package correctly to the USPS.

I tried to look up the last name in Batavia that had received the package and found no listings. I tried to look up my student's last name in Batavia, but again found no listings. I tried to look up my student's street name in Batavia, and it doesn't exist.

How did this even happen????

Update:
After submitting inquiries/complaints in about 5 different places and at different levels of the system, I got an email from the distribution center lady in Albany, NY who asked for the tracking information and promised to get on it. After as week I contacted her again and she told me the package had been found and had just arrived in Syracuse. Hooray for the USPS! It is nice to have a mail service that will (eventually) set things right. I'll take it.

Where's Jaci?

Sorry for the long absence... I totally missed half of July and all of August... ugh.

The short reason is that August I was travelling around the US getting study abroad students settled, and July I was working like mad to tie up loose ends (4 textbooks, 2 journal articles, end of semester tests and grades and a partridge in a pear tree) before heading to the US to get study abroad students settled.

I have several posts I never got around to before I left. Those should be up shortly. In the meantime: A quick update of the past month. I have been traipsing around the US for a month, and I have evidence!

Stop #1: Portland, Oregon

Spent the first few days with the students getting settled at Portland State University. They jumped right in and were off having fun before I was even settled. I therefore felt justified in slipping away one afternoon to have cupcakes with Michelle.

Evidence #1:


I also had some free time in the morning before I met the second group of study abroad students, so I went to breakfast with Michelle at Bertie Lou's. The Chevy was a surprise. Spoiler alert: this was not a low-calorie trip.

Evidence #2:


Stop #2: Corvallis

After meeting the next group of study abroad students (only one lost bag!) we headed South to Corvallis. I stayed with Steve and Anna (current guardians of Mavis and Manu). I have no evidence, but many a fine night was had enjoying the summer evenings on their back porch. I got to visit with some of my awesome teacher friends from the ELI, one morning. The bulk of my days were spent helping students sort out a few interesting quirks in housing, set up cell phones and Internet and helping to shepherd students (not all mine) through registration. We bid farewell over pizza at American Dream.

Evidence #3:


After the students were settled I went down to Eugene, had coffee with my brother and then met up with the UofO crew to make sure things were set for the third Oregon study abroad group which will arrive in September. After business was out of the way, I got to take vacation and spent a couple days with my mom, a day with Russell's parents and a day at the coast with my dad. It all went way too quick, as evidenced by a total lack of evidence.

Stop #3: Back to Portland

After some family time, I headed back to Portland to play with Justin and Michelle. Great food was eaten, great beer drunk and fabulous games were played. Macey and Ronnie were very welcoming as well. No evidence, though. Ooh... I do have some important evidence from the county fair, though. Rhubarb and raspberry... so good...

Evidence #4:


Stop #4: Seattle

Wednesday I caught a train to Seattle where I spent a lovely evening out swing dancing with my sister-in-law. It made it hard to to sleep on the airplane to New Jersey the next day, though. I was flying with my third, and last group to Felician College.

Stop #5: New Jersey

We were a few days ahead of hurricane Irene, so we headed into New York City for some sightseeing.

Evidence #5:


We spent the day exploring Time Square and Soho. My students scattered as soon as we hit Soho, so I was on my own. I wandered about window-shopping, bought a flashlight, poncho and first aid kit for the hurricane, and then found dinner. I had pizza and a beer by myself. I did crosswords at the table and generally relaxed. It was awesome.

Evidence #6:


We spent Saturday at the grocery store buying food and water just to be on the safe side. Between us we probably could have survived a month in a cave. No such ruggedness was required, however. Thankfully, the storm passed Felician with little event. The thick brick walls blocked all noise, so we all slept peacefully through the night and woke up the next morning to only a few soggy spots here and there on the carpet. Unlike many areas, we still had electricity and water. The students did complain that they were bored. Such a pity. Sunday, late afternoon, my dear friend Nicole came to pick me up.

And let me tell you about Nicole.

Nicole had been scheduled to fly into New York from Ecuador on Sunday morning. She got as far as Nashville and her final leg to New York was cancelled due to the hurricane. She was told she could be placed on a flight to New York on Monday. Instead, she rented a car and drove all night from Nashville, Tennessee into a hurricane, to Rutherford, New Jersey. She then picked me up and we made our way to our friend, Gwen's place. It was not a straight shot. While the storm had mostly passed, there were tree branches down and flooded roads blocking our way in the least convenient of places. After circling around a bit, we found a way through. I was really glad the students were bored in the Felician dorms.

Stop #6 New York:

The electricity was out at Gwen's house, but Nicole was able to make a delicious dinner (yay for a gas stove!) and we played games and drank wine by candle light for the rest of the evening.

Being surrounded by people who have and use cameras got me back on track. We spent the next day in New York City (things had dried out considerably). We started the day off with Dunkin' Donuts and a stroll in one of Gwen's favorite parks (picturesque view of the Hudson (?) and a castle that used to be home to nuns...) no evidence. We then went to see the Little Red Lighthouse.

Evidence #7


After all the strolling we headed to Katz's Deli for the biggest corned beef sandwich I've ever seen in my life. And a load of pickles.

Evidence #8


Fortified by meat, we headed to the Staten Island Ferry and a view of the Statue of Liberty (which I had previously never seen). I swear we were closer than the pictures let on... The lovely ladies in the foreground are more interesting, anyway.

Evidence #9:


At the end of the day, we had dinner together and then bid adieu to Nicole, who did the responsible thing and drove home to New Hampshire to start teaching, in spite of protests. More cards, wine and candlelight for Gwen and I. The next day, 1. I slammed my finger in a door, 2. we we visited a lovely property-turned-park near Gwen (I've totally forgotten the name, but it was beautiful and extensive and 3. went with Gwen's friend on her boat to a restaurant on Long Island. It was gorgeous evening to be on the water.

Evidence #10 & #11:












My last day in New York, we met up with my co-worker (who had chaperoned a group to Syracuse before heading to the city for a holiday) and hit the Museum of Natural History. We learned ALL about Sauropods (think brontosaurus - though there never WERE brontosaurus).

Evidence #12 & #13:











We finished the evening over beers (Pumpkin beer for me! Yay Fall!) with Johnny (Russell's roommate of yore). Johnny had also slammed his finger in a door and done a far better job of it than I had. Ouch. I have no evidence.

Gwen drove me to the airport the next morning (4am-ish? Sorry Gwen!) and I made my way home to Kobe. As luck would have it we arrived just ahead of a typhoon, which, just like hurricane Irene, was low grade but really took its time and dumped a crazy amount of rain. We hid out indoors for two full days before it stopped raining. I don't remember much of the first day, having sprawled out in the middle of the living room floor and dozed off for most of the day. I was afraid it would harm my chance of sleeping through the night (and worsening my jet lag) but I needn't have feared.

Apparently I needed the rest.

Typhoon Ma-on

The bad news is there's a large typhoon coming - the most likely trajectory will have the storm glance off the edge of shikoku (the best protective island ever) and wakayama before heading back out to the pacific. The 50 knot wind circumference will likely hit Kobe, though and there's the outside possibility that the storm will head inland farther and hit Kobe dead on. We find out some time around 3am tonight.

The good news is that:

A: School was cancelled for the afternoon (work at home time)
B: School was cancelled for tomorrow (work at home time)
C: I get to focus all my energy and time on the nagging projects that have been building up with no distraction from teaching classes, students being chatty, students wanting to make up missed classes, co-workers (who I love, but who can be a bit chatty as well)
D: I get to eat all sorts of great snacks I stockpiled for the typhoon
E: I get to listen to lots of rain and wind while tucked in nice and snug indoors
F: The weather has cooled down! Its perfect Jaci-temperature! Hooray!

All together, I'm pretty happy with typhoon Ma-on. Of course, I hope nothing happens to make me eat my words, but based on past typhoon experiences, I'm pretty confident. Japan seems to have exceptional typhoon infrastructure - especially in the cities. We weathered a larger typhoon than Ma-on our first year and other than some downed tree branches, there was no damage.

I'l post again if anything exciting happens, but I'm looking forward to 24 hours of cozy, snack-filled, "get-stuff-done" time.

If you want to track Ma-on, I recommend the Japanese Meteorological Agency

Update: Ma-on seems to have bounced off of the tip of Shikoku and is heading back out to sea. Shikoku had massive flooding and Wakayama is still getting pounded, but far less of Japan was hit than expected. Here in Kobe we had heavy rain yesterday with strong gusts of wind every now and again, but nothing more than a regular storm. There was none of the window rattling that kept us awake and nervous during the other big typhoon two years ago. Now the grey storm clouds are heading away from us and the sun is coming out.

Time to get to work!

Earthquake! (Not the scary kind)

Russell and I went out to dinner tonight at a British pub downtown. I think I've mentioned it before - its called Hobgoblin and is, in fact, a chain of the same pub that was down the street from our apartment in Reading, UK a few years ago. The pub is up on the 7th floor and offers a lovely range of british beer at british temperatures and cider. It also offers a delightful range of distinctly British pub fare. We got to choose between bangers and mash, fish and chips, daily pie (as in meat pie in gravy), shepherd's pie and a number of other international pub/bar favorites like burgers, nachos, kebab, steak-filled pita pockets, etc. Its no wonder the place is crawling with foreigners. The waitresses refused to speak to Russell in Japanese.

Right around the last french fry the whole place started swaying. Everyone was a little wide-eyed and the waitresses quickly turned on the TV. Over the top of a TV variety show displaying one restaurants secret yakitori techniques, the TV reported a level 5 earthquake centered in Wakayama (South of Osaka). The tremor in Osaka was reported at a level 3 and I can only guess that Kobe was below that.

Experiencing an earthquake a little higher off the ground made it more notable, though, and added some excitement to our evening. The folks on the train platform across from the pub didn't even seem to register the earthquake, though, so it must have been pretty light close to the ground.

Update: The official earthquake website says it was a 4 at the epicenter and a 1 or lower in Kobe. Nothing to get too excited about.

Goodbye June, Hello July

Apparently this June was the hottest on record since the 60s. The months to come are getting similarly hot predictions. I'll be out of the country for most of August, but even September is shaping up to be torture. Ugh.

Along with the heat comes all the fabulous odor, constant damp state, extra strength viruses, mold, cockroaches and skin disease. Don't bother to try and console me with comments on how wonderful it must be for my skin. I learned better long ago.

The other seasons in Japan are so incredible, though, that I really shouldn't complain. To be honest, I have nothing to really complain about yet this season. I know full well that things will get much worse. We're just getting started. I am still able to wear my work clothes to work (they are 90% dry when I get there and 100% dry before class starts) and the air conditioning still has some effect in the classrooms and in our office. Muggy, hot days are mixed with less humid, breezy days and overcast muggy days with sporadic monsoon-esque water dumps.

Our first summer got to be incredibly miserable, with clothing completely soaked through within a few minutes of stepping outside and classrooms that were hotter than outdoors. All that year, people kept telling us that things had been much worse a few years before and we shouldn't complain.

I guess we're going to get a feel for what that's like after all.

If you don't approve of negative attitude, you may want to skip over my next few months of entries. Feel free to duck back in for August in the USA, though. Things will get back to normal (likely even extra positive) in October when things start to cool down again, too.

Spousal Observations

A few weeks ago I caught an online sale for Eddie Bauer and bought Russell a variety of new T-shirts, etc. to replace the ones that are falling apart. The box came in the mail a few days ago. The first day, Russell opened the box, scattered everything around the living room, and picked out a T-shirt and collared shirt that matched to wear together. He proudly displayed them for me when I got home.

He liked them so much, he wore them again the next day.

Its been four days and I just realized he's still wearing the same blue t-shirt. I also just noticed that there is a perfectly good red t-shirt sitting in plain sight, but still in the packaging.

I guess some people just know what they like.