Kobe, New School Year, and Sakura

Oh dear. I've let almost a month lapse since I've written an entry. Shame on me! I apologise for my long hiatus. Things have been busy! Besides school starting back up again, it seems spring has sprouted many events.

New school year means new teachers have come! My school district's been lucky to get 2 new awesome ladies. We went together to a small cherry blossom festival and enjoyed some local food. The cherry blossoms in the area had pretty much bloomed and fallen already, but at least we could take pictures of the lovely seaside.

On another day, the hubby and I took a drive and went to a park with lovely cherry blossoms.

Finally, Golden Week just started here. It's a string of holidays over this week, giving us a few long weekends. Last weekend was spent in Kobe catching up with my college friend Leslie and meeting her boyfriend. We stumbled upon an awesome German festival around the busy port area. We were flabbergasted to see a German festival in Japan, complete with beer, sausages, and a band. We also rode the colorful ferris wheel and enjoyed the view of the city.

The rest of my Golden Week(end) was spent relaxing. We've got one more long weekend coming this weekend that I'm excited for.
In sewing news, I finished a new project last week, but have yet to wear it! I'll do so and take pics this week, I promise. Here's a poorly photographed little teaser of the fabric in the meantime:

Christmas Cake, Cards, and Downton

A belated Merry Christmas and a Happy 2013! I hope you enjoyed the holiday season. We ate our fair share of Christmas cake here:

And I enjoyed another year of doing a secret santa christmas card exchange at my schools. My students drew names of whom they would make a card to in a lottery. My favorite was a 3rd year girl writing to a 1st year boy:

The 3rd years are in the midst of studying for high school entrance exams, and all the grades had lengthy workbooks of homework in each subject to do over the winter vacation. It is not surprising to see the senpai (senior students) scolding the younger students like this.
Meanwhile, yours truly spent the beginning of vacation "studying" in preparation of going to London by watching Downton Abbey.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish for England to be like Downton, or a Jane Austen novel.

My entry about our honeymoon there would make this post lengthy, so I will save it for a separate one. Until then, you can get a preview with my photo album here.

Holiday Challenge #2: Thanksgiving in Japan

Having a Thanksgiving dinner isn't the easiest task here in Japan, but there are resources abound. I hadn't had a Thanksgiving meal in 3,4 years, so I started planning this up about a month ago. I went to Costco here in Japan for the first time and got a membership. I got a small turkey breast there. For some of the other foods, I went to smaller imported food stores like Kaldi Coffee and Jupiter for things like canned cranberry jelly and canned pumpkin for my pumpkin pie. Spices like sage and thyme were also easily available (and some in large quantities) at these stores.

I spent a long time cooking but had 2 guests join us for dinner. We still had leftovers to eat the rest of the weekend. I might do this again in a smaller scale for Christmas.

Here's the recipes I used. Give them a try because they were all delicious:
Turkey marinade
Stuffing
Sweet potatoes
Green bean casserole
Pumpkin pie

Holiday Challenge #1: Christmas

When you live abroad, you miss a lot of things from home during the holidays, but you recreate, reminisce, and make new traditions. It's a chance to evaluate what traditions are important to you, and which ones you want and can do now that you're in a different place. If you're lucky like me, you'll have family who will be there for you, even when they can't do it physically. While I can't gather with them and have a feast, I am always excited to see the package from my mom and set up my Christmas tree with the presents from America.
Christmas is largely commercial here in Japan with its own new takes on traditions. Japanese people go on dates and eat cake and fried chicken on Christmas. They decorate small trees and sometimes give presents, but usually only to their children or sweethearts. Decorated houses can be seen here and there, if you happen to have ambitious neighbors willing to pay high electric bills.

This week I was working on putting up my own illumination: my Christmas tree. My cheap white tree had gotten discolored, so I was a bit excited to go buy a new and bigger one with my husband, thus laying the groundwork for our own holiday traditions. At the nearby home store, they had trees of various sizes, lights, and sets of colorful ornaments. We made our purchases and set up the tree in our living room with carols playing in the background. It looked marvellous and cheerful, the lights having just about any sort of twinkle setting you could imagine. But something was missing.

My family's tree at home wasn't a fashionable, store-bought tree. It was a collection of memories gathered over the years in the form of mismatching ornaments. I remember these little wooden blue birds I loved to put on the tree as a kid, and the personalized apple I received from my first grade teacher. There were candles I made at school, and fragile blown glass ornaments received as gifts. Even the last ornament I bought in America, a goofy pineapple in reference to the TV show Psych, had a special place in my heart.
Looking at my Japan tree, I felt it was a sad shell of a tradition I had unknowingly loved dearly. Here it was my first Christmas married, year 1 of making my own family rituals, and all I did was buy some generic decor. I decided to make a commemoration ornament of our first Christmas together, and since I lacked the ability to easily buy such a thing, I set out to make it. I decided to make it simple, so I sketched something out and turned to my sewing table. I didn't unleash my Martha Stewart elegant craft skills as much as I DIYed something out of existing materials. The result was this:

While it doesn't look like much now, maybe someday the hubby and I can look on this ornament and smile.

This is Halloween

Being in a country that doesn't celebrate Halloween doesn't bother me too much. I'm a bit of a humbug... Halloween is fun when you're a kid or around kids. Halloween in Japan is mostly an excuse for businesses to put up a few decorations and proclaim a Halloween sale. My students, though, are my kids and I've enjoyed giving them a taste of another culture with Halloween parties and activities. This year I held a jack o' lantern drawing contest with hilarious results:

Anime charcters, creepy faces, cuteness, and a tomato too!

Costuming is a bit of a challenge, but I refashioned a dress into a skirt, bought a tie, poofed out my hair, and used a chopstick as a wand to become Hermione. More than a few people thought I was dressed up as a student thanks to the school uniform look.

I figured this is probably the last year I can get away with being a Harry Potter character, which makes me sad.

I caught another cold and am feeling a bit under the weather, but I need to show you a few of my sewing projects I completed, so I'll try harder to get those posts up!

Happy Halloween!

Golden Week 2011 in Shikoku and Sannin

Alas, Golden Week is over and it's back to the grind for me. Golden Week is a string of holidays (Children's Day, the Showa Emperor's Birthday, Greenery Day, and Constitution Memorial Day) at the end of April/beginning of May which usually closely coincide with one another to create a week of well-deserved vacation time for many Japanese. For me, I didn't have a solid week off, but had 2 3-day mini vacations and a normal Sat-Sun weekend.

My first 3 days was spent exploring Shikoku, 1 of the 4 main islands of Japan.

Mister Fugu was excited to cross the bridges over to Shikoku.

In 2 days, I visited all 4 prefectures of Shikoku. First, in Ehime prefecture, my goal was to buy some delicious souvenirs I had seen in a travel guide. I specifically wanted some orange daifuku, which were small oranges encapsulated in a sticky, delicious rice dough. The sweet shop featured in the guide ended up being a small one, tucked away in a small neighborhood. The daifuku were good, but unexpectedly expensive! They were around $3-4 for one, so I definitely couldn't give them out as souvenirs to all my teacher coworkers.

Next was Kochi, the prefecture I was most looking forward to seeing. It's the home of Ryoma Sakamoto, one of the men who helped to abolish the feudal shogunate system and recent popular subject of a tv drama. There's a museum and monument dedicated to him on the lovely coast of Kochi.

 

Statue of Ryoma Sakamoto at Hatsurahama Beach.

 

Katsurahama Beach

Next was Tokushima prefecture, where I enjoyed nice views on the top of Mt. Bizan and delicious ramen.

 

It was worth the trip for good ramen.

Finally, I saw Kagawa prefecture, which is home to a lovely park called Ritsurin Park.

Picturesque view from a hill of the traditional Japanese gardens.

 

I loved the pattern of these trees.

Part 2 of my Golden week was spent in Sanin, the northern region of Yamaguchi, Tottori and Shimane prefectures. In Tottori, a big attraction is the sand dunes.

 

Ludington (Mi) isn't the only place with nice sand dunes.

It was quite crowded. A fun attraction is a chance to ride around on the dunes.

 

Camels in Japan... who would've thought it?

Next on the tour was Shimane prefecture. First stop was Izumi-Taisha shrine, a popular spot because it houses Japan's largest shimenawa, which is straw weaved together into a rope and is a sacred symbol. According to Wiki, the shimenawa there weighs 5 tons and is 13.5 meters long.

People throw coins into the shimenawa, hoping they stick. I'm guessing this is a good luck ritual.

Last on the tour is Matsue, which has a nice castle worth viewing.

 

A nice boat ride on the river moat area that surrounds the castle finished off the day.

My Golden Week was busy and great, plus I outdid all my Japanese coworkers in travel.

The Adventures of Mister Fugu in Oita

Life's been pretty challenging lately. My camera battery died for awhile, preventing me from taking pictures. Winter vacation has finally begun, and for Christmas I took a short weekend trip with Taka around the lower part of Japan. We had a special guest with us, who will be narrating the trip:


Hi! I'm Mister Fugu. Fugu is 'blowfish' in Japanese. The area Ashley lives in is famous for us. I was delighted to take a trip to Beppu, a place known for its hot springs.


It was a chilly winter day, and we started off with a foot hot spring bath. It warmed you all over, and Ashley enjoyed it a little too much.


Taka managed to not fall asleep.


Hanging out with some wise old men of the past. Some of them got a little wild and wouldn't keep their shirts closed.


Had the opportunity to see a geyser that erupts frequently and regularly.


Enjoyed a little cherry sparkling in the hotel on Christmas.


Staying in a traditional Japanese style room means green tea and yukata robes, but I opted for sexy shades.


The view from Beppu's tower was neat: the town on one side and the sea on the other.


I found the tower's small bar and sake collection.


At the famous fish market in Shimonoseki, hoping to not get sold and eaten! I nervously watched Ashley and Taka eat sashimi.


Met up with some relatives of mine.... some very old relatives: the ancient Arapaima.


I made a new friend in Bananaman, who swore he would protect me from those who would want to eat me (apparently he has that problem also)


The llamas thought I was food, so we didn't become fast friends.


I found a cheery snowman chap outside a cafe. He was a very light-hearted fellow (literally)


On the way home, we enjoyed the coziness of the car as we drove through a snowstorm.


So that was our vacation in Beppu and Shimonoseki. I hope you had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Return of the Rice Cooker

New cake made from my rice cooker! Surprised my good friend with this for her birthday yesterday. She's always helped me since I moved here and I wanted to give her something awesome. This was a 2 layer cake so it took longer than the banana bread. Decorated with whipped topping, mandarin oranges, pineapple, and chocolate candy. The writing is written on coconut cookies in chocolate. All done by me and I made it up as I went along. Japanese cakes always look so cute, and this was my first shot at them, besides the ones I helped decorate at the ward Christmas party, which looked like this:

I love the Japanese use of fruit on cakes. It really gives it color and flavor. American birthday cakes are nothing but a ton of overly-sweet frosting. Bleh.