Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Lake Biwa

Lake Biwa was gorgeous!!

It was the first time I'd been to that part of Japan, and pleasant surprises waited around every corner.

I got a couple of calls from the hotel I stayed at Sunday night, making sure I was on my way and letting me know they would have my dinner ready when I came in. When I got to the station, they sent a shuttle van over to collect me, and dinner--! Well, I was a little worried I had misread the amount I was paying for the hotel. They brought the dinner out in courses, classical music played softly overhead, and Christmas lights twinkled outside. Breakfast wasn't done in quite so formal a manner, but it was all laid out for me at a table with my name on it. The room was lovely. The hotel is right on the lakeside, so the sunlight reflecting off the surface in the morning filled the whole first floor with brilliance.

Then it was time for the translation/interpretation seminar, which really, I suppose, ought to be simply interpretation seminar. We students have ample opportunity to practice the translation part of the course in monthly workbooks and tests that are sent out, but even though there is a CD/cassette portion for interpreting, we can't get much feedback or practice different styles of interpreting well that way.

Truth be told, I was pretty nervous about spending a week in a "training facility" where everything necessary for existence is on campus, and people need to sign out when leaving it. Nevertheless, it was an extremely enjoyable experience. We got a sort of double keynote speech from Mr. Tatsuya Komatsu, who is, if not the most famous, then at least one of the most famous interpreters in Japan. He interpreted for the Apollo 11 landing, and more recently for the Dalai Lama. He told us a little bit about his experiences, in a way that most of us found highly amusing.... except for a couple of students from China/South Korea who somehow managed to take offense at the fact that Mr. Komatsu had friendly words with the Dalai Lama. But after that speech we separated into language groups, and he addressed us again on the topic of note-taking during an interpretation session.

From the next day onward we divided further into classes, and spent the day studying with a professional interpreter.

Meals were in a large cafeteria. It was awesome to have so many people to say hi to and strike up a conversation with! I remembered one of the reasons I really loved living in Japan in the past... here, you can run into all kinds of interesting people, particularly from other English-speaking countries but also of course from anywhere in the world. By the end of the week I felt that all of us, especially with regards to our classes, had bonded, and I wished we had another week to study and share together!

Evenings were free, so sometimes I went to bed early (oh, how heavenly!), once I hopped on a treadmill (hurrah for being able to exercise again!!), one time a few of us borrowed bicycles and ventured out to a convenience store (more for the heck of it than because we actually needed anything, but it was exciting!), one night a bunch of us played volleyball (I could feel my competitive side rising to the surface, but it was just a fun, fun game with no time limits and no scorekeeping), and the last night I worked on a short speech for part of our last class.

I never have a chance to interpret at my current job, but I feel really inspired by last week, and I want to improve my language and interp skills and try to become an interpreter. It's really challenging, but exhilarating at the same time!

Other awesome things... I finally kicked that state of unhealthiness and started exercising again, I started feeling normal and happy again (hey hey!), and I met a few amazing CIRs who encouraged me one way or another to do more with my position and time. Furthermore, I realized again that I won't be in inaka-cho forever, and I don't need to get caught up in the whirlpool of grumpiness that persists here. It was like a curtain lifted and a clean, sharp breeze blew all the murk and the cobwebs away.

I'm so thankful!

Saturday, December 5, 2009

ttyl

I am off to church, and then it's heigh-ho for Lake Biwa!! [study, study, study]

See you next week--

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

my apologies

I've been sick, again. Sigh. I'm quite sure it was something I ate again, just the way it happened in Tokyo.

But you know what? I'm not letting it get me down. Nope. This just means I should stick to coffee shops or conbinis, or perhaps start bringing a stash of PB&J sandwiches with me whenever I go out of town. The other thing is, once I do finally kick all of this under-the-weather business straight into the touchdown zone,* I'll be so mellow and pleasant to be around it will all have been worth it. I might even start giving random people hugs!

I must say, though, a diet of white bread and all the green/herbal tea I can drink is not as hard as I thought it would be.

Please say a prayer for me, because I have a week-long business trip coming up this Sunday.


*I know nothing about football.

Monday, November 23, 2009

of pudding

This afternoon I tried to make a sort of Indian pudding called badam phirni, which seemed quite simple. First, I mixed up a small package of ground almond powder with 4 tablespoons of rice flour and 1/2 cup of milk. In a saucepan, I brought 2 more cups of milk to a boil, and when it was boiling, added 5 tablespoons of sugar. I took out some of the milk to mix with 10 strands of saffron. Then I added the almond-rice paste and the saffron mixture to the simmering milk and stirred for several minutes, until it thickened to a pudding-like consistency. Then I sprinkled in a teaspoon of cardamom and took it off the heat.

Only problem was, the pudding was lumpy.

Should I have dissolved some of the hot milk in the almond-rice mixture before adding it all to the simmering saucepan? Or is it just luck whether or not your pudding turns out smooth?

I don't mind lumpy pudding, myself. It reminds me of one time my dad took some of us canoeing in Canada, and we made instant chocolate pudding over the campstove with powdered milk. It was delicious, especially the lumps. (This was perhaps the third or fourth day of camping.) Absolutely tasty.

But most other people despise lumpy pudding, so I need to figure out how to make this properly.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

home again, home again

I'm back in my regular digs!

I was lucky enough to meet two wonderful bloggers up in the big city, Catholic in Japan and Sue from Living and Learning. I must add that Sue makes the most delicious cranberry-chocolate cookies I've ever tasted (was there oatmeal in there, too?), and it is partly to them that I attribute my recovery. (Had a run-in with a stomach bug, food poisoning, or who-knows-what over the weekend, but it cleared up by Tuesday.)

Oddly enough, the trip to Tokyo seems to have taken a terrific chomp out of my energy reserves, and I'm absolutely exhausted. Today, time seemed to flow around me in eddying streams. This is rather worrying, since I need to lead an aerobics class on Saturday morning, and what with one thing and another, I haven't yet been able to nail down the details.

However, perseverance is a virtue! And I picked up some medicine from the drugstore; I hope it works.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

a trend


Do you sense a trend with the blog these days? Nahhhh...

I made the cauliflower soup and whiskey-glazed carrots from Pioneer Woman's blog tonight! No, I'm not systematically working my way through all her recipes, but I am planning to feature these two dishes in a cooking class later this month, so I figured it would be best to have some direct experience with the pots and pans and white sauce (which took longer than I'd imagined to thicken).

Also, the cold has been making itself felt more than ever, and it's a good motivator. Since summer I just haven't felt like cooking or baking anything, so everything I do make is an accomplishment of sorts.

I am just hoping, with regard to the soup, that the supermarket has enough good heads of cauliflower when we go to buy the ingredients. I stopped there on Saturday, and the four saran-wrapped parts of cauliflower they had were a bit too mushy for my peace of mind. The other night, though, they had more and fresher vegetables, though it was the middle of the week. Anyone know why they would leave the broccoli out in the open air, but saran-wrap the cauliflower?

.....

A big, big thank you to my wonderful family and my awesome aunt and uncle for sending me, the chocolate monster, sweet sweet chocolate for my birthday! :) It won't be long in this world, I say!

Friday, October 30, 2009

sweet chocolate

Chocolate. Cake.


Mwahahahahahaha! As a matter of fact, it's the sheet cake recipe from Pioneer Woman's blog. Just the cake recipe, though, because I improvised my own frosting. The original called for something like a pound of powdered sugar, and anybody in these parts knows that the stores only sell about 1/2 cup, little, fancy packages of powdered sugar for, I don't know, decoratively sprinkling on some fancy little cake. I'm not really sure what you'd call the frosting I made (I call it delicious), but here's how I made it...

I decided to go for a caramel-like base, so I melted about half a stick of butter and added a few generous tablespoons of brown sugar when it was bubbling, then I kept stirring that until the sugar was all melted down. Then I added maybe a tablespoon of cream and kept stirring the lightening, bubbling, frothy mixture. When I thought things had gone far enough, I dropped in some squares of baking chocolate and stirred them around until they'd melted. For some extra flava, I added a few spoonfuls of hazelnut liqueur (the syrup you add to lattes and such) and a wee bit of vanilla. Finally, I stirred in my little 1/2 cup package of powdered sugar until it reached a smooth, albeit thick, consistency.

The recipe said to frost the cake while it was still warm, so that's what I did. The taste was amazing, and still was a couple of days later. The frosting cooled and though it didn't get hard, it firmed up to a nice, fudgey consistency.

So what would you call this frosting?

Saturday, October 24, 2009

two words




Chicken. Soup.

There was a time when I thought I'd never make this. It turned out so lovely and warming, though. Fresh parsley and sage, lots of ginger, lots of garlic, lots of chicken, and carrot, celery, turnip, leek, and onion. Also, a dash of salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper for luck. :)

Thanks for the idea, Mom!!!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

the event

The busy hour before the event... I have a clown hat in my hand, for some reason, and we're checking all the rooms to make sure they're laid out properly.

During the preliminary explanation, I asked the kids what to call this large, orange pumpkin (one of those we got on the memorable day of the flat tire)..... do-te-ka-bo-cha! No one was actually brave enough to carve this one, though.


Staff was stretched pretty thin, but I loved my group of little kids. Here we are trying to come up with pictures to carve into our pumpkin. They had the cutest ideas!


I did convince them to try just reaching in and grabbing a handful of pumpkin guts, but these kids were pretty neat. They mostly used spoons. It slowed us down, but hey, we weren't in a race with the older kids (were we?). ;)


The pumpkins the kids came up with! The one on the top right is supposed to be a kabuto-mushi (a type of large beetle some kids keep as pets).

Happy Halloween! Mwa-hahaha-hahaha-ha....



Monday, October 12, 2009

:-p

I was going to upload the pictures from the Halloween party, but I slowed way down after Saturday and now I'm sure I'm getting sick. No energy to do anything. If I did have some energy, I might try to make myself a bowl of chicken, chickpea, or even miso soup... but I don't. However, I will upload those pictures as soon as I'm back to normal.

Friday, October 2, 2009

around and around


Pretty soon it's going to be this time of year again, at least in inaka-cho. That's right, we celebrate Halloween and we do our celebrating nice and early before the clingy, warm humidity is all gone. Actually, the reason is that last year, the international association had a windfall of large, orange pumpkins in early September and had to use them before they rotted into putrid orange puddles. (A couple of them did anyway.)

Using the same reasoning, I planned the party date this year nice and early, but, due to the flat tire we got on our way to picking up the pumpkins, we were only able to claim four. Therefore, the bulk of our pumpkins this year are going to be native Japanese kabocha, which you can buy any old time all autumn. Ah well. Live and learn.

Speaking of which, in my recent offline endeavors, I've started Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, since it seems to be one of those books you just HAVE to read before you choke. It influenced a lot of educated men in Europe and North America when Smith published it in 1776 (followed by four new versions in rapid succession). It's most often linked with the "invisible hand" theory of economics; that is, markets produce the most wealth for a nation when they are least regulated, because a benevolent "invisible hand" can then guide the process. Smith only wrote the phrase in his ponderous tome once, actually.

It's slow going. I've learned about the division of labor and the efficiency and progress it brings to society; about prices being based on rent, wages, and profits; about the development of metal money and how sovereigns manipulate it; that the true price of a commodity is based on the amount of labor used to produce it; about how corn is a better indicator of a society's affluence than silver; and a lot of things that Smith just seems to speculate on in a rambling, ambling, don't-care-if-I-get-anywhere fashion. So I started to supplement my book-reading with Wikipedia and an online collection of notes.

I laughed out loud when the author of those notes wrote something to this effect: "I'm not really sure what Smith is trying to say here, but I hope my notes are at least less incomprehensible than his."

All this, and Amazon touts the book as being "highly readable."
(By the way, I once tried to read Tristram Shandy, for much the same reasons as this book, but gave up because of its labyrinthine sentences. I'm determined to plough through Smith, though.)


In other news,
Why is it that it's just when you get a mad itch to leave everything behind and start exploring, perhaps holding your magnifying glass to a fascinating object on the ground near a burbling stream in a sunny meadow on a gorgeous day, that something, let's say a pterodactyl, comes rushing at you and lifts you high up into the atmosphere before letting you hurtle back down to earth with stars in your eyes while it goes on its merry way? You can't get it out of your head, and you can't go back to your single-minded exploration, even though you know pterodactyls don't exist and the chances that the one that grabbed you will come back are nonexistent. In other words, well, no, I can't explain it. You either know what I'm talking about or you don't.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Getting offline to live a little

I haven't blogged in a few weeks. Let me tell you about what I've been doing.

Since I've been in inaka-cho, I've been a pretty heavy internet user. Well, I rolled my suitcases into my apartment, stood in the middle, and all I could hear were crickets. Nobody seemed to care what I did or how I lived as long as I showed up to work every day. I already had decided that TV could become an addiction and a waste of time, so instead when I was at home, I created a sort of bridge to America by keeping up with numerous blogs and vlogs and having the iChat program running all the time 'just in case.'

Then it became something of an addiction. I needed my computer time to wind down from a day where the only conversations I had were short exchanges with an immensely unreadable boss who sometimes seemed to have something in for me. It might have been more productive if I had made an effort to connect with more people at work and in the JET network. But after work I was always tired, and I hated to bother people who seemed just as tired as I was.

Anyway, a few weeks ago it finally all came to a head, and I realized that far from relaxing me, the now pervasive internet was making me increasingly impatient and irritable. We all know what it's like to dredge multiple e-mail boxes and come up with just spam, for example. Furthermore, I had less and less to say to people on the occasions I did meet them. I wasn't studying Japanese. I was in a rut.

So I decided to cut myself off. I kept my computer shut down for a week, so when I came home after work, I had to find other things to do.

I put clear packing tape around all my sliding door and window screens to keep bugs from coming through their spacious gaps. I read books. I journaled. I worked out with Billy Blanks and Chalean Johnson. Spent time with some JETs. Slept more. Ate less. Started knitting.

All in all, it's been a most beneficial exercise. The internet is a great tool, but I think it can easily take over your life. People must have had longer attention spans, and been more interested in asking other people about things before Google, YouTube, and Wikipedia came along. (I know it's modern common sense, but nothing irks me like someone saying, "just Google it" in response to a question.)

So while my home is still a bit of a world apart from the rest of inaka-cho, it's no longer so sharply delineated. I like to hear the crickets and cicadas chirping while I read or journal. Even if nobody cares what I do outside of work, I try to keep everything in readiness in case someone should come to the door. And I mostly keep my computer shut off. Try it sometime, if you can!

Sunday, September 6, 2009

fun and games



Well, it seems the time for fun and games is over as a new school year begins. Maybe. It's not a new school year for me, although in some ways I miss that feeling of slinging the backpack over my shoulder, full of blank notebooks and crisp, empty folders, a perfect assortment of writing utensils, and a bus schedule. Except for the bus schedule part. Really never liked the bus.

Today I went driving off with my supervisor to a city several hours away, which was holding its annual pumpkin festival. These are the real deal pumpkins, big and orange and just right for making into creepy (or cute) jack-o-lanterns. However, we'd not been on the highway much more than an hour when we started hearing a sound like a motorcycle riding on our bumper. There wasn't much time to wonder, because in the next couple minutes, there came a noise like a shot and the car slowed down, its left rear dragging.

Thank the Lord we weren't in a tunnel, and that there was a bit of a shoulder we could ease onto to survey the damage. The tire was completely shot, a big strip of it had blown off, and there was a mesh of rubber and wires exposed near the puncture.

The sun blazed down. We considered calling JAF (Japan Automobile Federation, I think), but then she fished the manual out of a compartment and we decided to try changing the tire with the spare ourselves. Fortuitously all the right tools were in the car and the spare tire was still useable. But we spent almost an hour wrenching things here and there, trying to get obstinate levers to rotate. We'd gotten the jack in place and had just given up trying to unscrew the bolts holding the ruined tire on. My supervisor walked down the road to try to find the name of the last tunnel we passed, to let JAF know where to find us. But then I picked up another metal tool of some sort and sort of attached it to the lever already in place, and wonder of wonders, the bolt loosened.

So in the end we were able to change the tire. Then we drove into the big city and found a repair shop, where they showed us a dangerous crack beginning in the rubber of the spare tire as well. We ended up getting both the ruined tire and the spare tire replaced. All's well that ends well!

Unfortunately, we were only able to pick up about 4 pumpkins from the pumpkin festival; all the other manageably-sized, relatively whole ones were already taken. Still, this means we'll have less pumpkin to chop up and throw away when the Halloween carving festivities are over. :) Since the weather is still quite hot and humid here in Japan, you can't just keep a carved pumpkin on your doorstep or wherever-- it'll just turn into putrid mush oozing smelly orange water. I know. We had to clean up a mess like that last year, after we thought it would be a good idea to put a jack-o-lantern at the entrance of the community center. Therefore, after our Halloween party, the kids couldn't take the things home; we had to sit there for a few hours chopping up the pumpkins and wrapping them in newspaper to put out on Monday morning.

I think it's safe to say we're a bit wiser this year! We'll use mostly regular kabocha-- Japanese pumpkins-- for the event, and that way they'll be small enough for the kids to take home or for us to easily dispose of.

A large cup of tea, a kabocha, and a mikan (mandarin orange).
---

I would like to take this opportunity to say "Thanks" to my dad, who made us all demonstrate changing a tire before letting us drive the family vehicle. Thank you, Dad!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

a mess of thoughts

Summer fireworks are wonderful.

A Restful Country Life

Not so much, today. I drove a little over two hours to the nearest "big city" to meet a potential Japanese teacher and go to Mass for the Feast of the Assumption, which meant I got up at 6am. Ugh. I have not been a morning person for several weeks now, although I had a brief and fun run of it in the spring and early summer, when the sun was rising early but the air was still tolerably cool and dry.

Japanese Language Proficiency

The meeting with U-sensei was pleasant, but something that's been nagging me became clearer: what will I do with Japanese after this? It may be a result of where I live and its distance from most everything, or the fact that they usually teach true beginners or intermediate level, but U-sensei and the other teachers were all saying, 'Ah, your Japanese is great already; what else do you need to study?' At work I often get the opposite vibe: 'This is unintelligible and you'll never acquire natural Japanese.' Anyway, though, I showed U-sensei some of the documents I work with and chatted about work and wanting to use Japanese in a non-English-teaching job in the future.

Then the nagging thought came back-- even if I had perfect Japanese, what kind of work can I expect to find in Japan without a degree in business or computer science or finance or engineering? Furthermore, as in the US, the papers say Japanese college grads are having a terrible time finding work.

I want to learn more languages, and see some more countries, but not at the expense of forgetting Japanese. I've already forgotten most of two years of college Mandarin. Yet if I'm ultimately unable to use Japanese in a profitable career, perhaps it's best to move ahead quickly with other things.

The Global Economy

Quite a number of college grads are in a similar, floundering situation, I believe. Part of the reason is the economy, sure. Another part is academic inflation. A college degree means (or meant) a higher salary, so more people go to college, more colleges spring up, academic fields diversify, school administration staff burgeons, and pretty soon you have an expensive degree factory instead of an institution of higher learning. Kids are encouraged to study whatever they like, because it doesn't matter what kind of degree they get in the long run. In the meantime, degree-holders have become a dime a dozen.

Especially now that the job market has become so competitive, many idealistic B.A.s find themselves at a loss to explain their skills to potential employers.

Why wasn't marketing on that list of general education requirements?

The Future

The next generation of students will eventually be forewarned to go after practical, marketable skills, and the variety of dreamy-creamy majors will decrease while fields like medicine, engineering, law, and business see growth and higher competition for admittance. These students will also have to learn to compete for jobs with overseas peers.

I'm hopeful that this will have a jolting effect on K-12 education, and that US kids will be challenged to go far beyond the current expectations of standardized tests.

As for my generation, though, I think a lot of us will have to either get smart or get lost. We aren't on the same cut-and-dried job-hunting field as our predecessors, and we need to learn how to deal with that.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

"Get up and eat"

In the Gospel today, we heard that

"Elijah went a day's journey into the desert, until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it. He prayed for death, saying: "This is enough, O Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers." He lay down and fell asleep under the broom tree, but then an angel touched him and ordered him to get up and eat. Elijah looked and there at his head was a hearth cake and a jug of water. After he ate and drank, he lay down again, but the angel of the Lord came back a second time, touched him, and ordered, "Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!" He got up, ate, and drank; then strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb."

So here is Elijah, running from death at the decree of Jezebel, Ahab, the false prophets & co., and he's determined he can go no further. It's almost comical: he eats and drinks only to shut his eyes again and see if the Lord will take him up this time around. Then the Lord's angel comes and basically tells him to stop lolling around, he's got a journey to make and more work to do. It's a good warning; you might think you're finished, but God may very well have not finished with you, so don't throw in the towel prematurely.

It seems to me that a lot of readings recently depict people who believe they are at the end of their strength, and ask God for death. Moses, for example-

"Where can I get meat to give to all this people? For they are crying to me, 'Give us meat for our food.' I cannot carry all this people by myself, for they are too heavy for me. If this is the way you will deal with me, then please do me the favor of killing me at once, so that I need no longer face this distress."

And the newly-freed-from-Egypt Israelites grumbled, saying "Would that we had died at the Lord's hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread! But you had to lead us into this desert to make the whole community die of famine!"

Yet before all of them there still stretched a long road, and the Lord fed, strengthened, and spurred them on to their tasks.

In today's sermon, Fr. Jorge said that God is always sending us out to the desert to do battle with the devil, with temptation, with our own weaknesses. It would be comfortable for us, no doubt, to sit at the kitchen table (with a nice book, perhaps) and think nice thoughts instead, but there is no victory without a fight. We can not really see ourselves, and all our beliefs and ideas remain untested, until we are in the desert- adversity- faced with hardships and hard decisions.


Meanwhile, I'm re-reading G.K. Chesterton's short book on St. Francis of Assisi, in which he makes several insights into the remarkable saint's life and actions. We have so many strong, courageous, vivacious, joyful role models to look to!

Monday, August 3, 2009

job hunt in 2010?


I have been in inaka-cho for just over one year now, and I think it was time well spent. Because of all the difficulties, I learned some things about myself and, I think, deepened my faith and perseverance. I have another year on contract, but I am starting to wonder about what I'll be doing next year at this time. Should I stay a third year? Or shall I move on?

And if I decide to move on, how shall I proceed? Whether I stay in Japan or go back to the US, I would like a job that would allow me to build some professional skills and learn something new. However, depending on the economy I may not have much choice. In that case, if it looks like I face only the unskilled labor market, it might be just as well to get a working holiday visa for Australia or New Zealand and find the same kind of work there.

There's also grad school, an MBA, law school, art school, traveling, or (*mumbling*) eikaiwa. Lots to think about!

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Road Trip! :)


Since a vacation is not a vacation unless you go somewhere, apparently, I took a little road trip to Takamatsu. As a matter of fact, it was further than I'd imagined. I felt like I was driving all day. At last I rolled into town at around 4pm, spent about an hour driving around, getting lost looking for my hotel, but in the end I found it. I crashed for about an hour and then decided to go out and see what was to be seen-- and to get some dinner. Takamatsu (and Kagawa Prefecture in general, I believe) is famous for its sanuki udon noodles.

I hadn't walked far along the covered shop-lined streets (shoutengai) when I came to a curious intersection. On the corners there were shops like Coach, Louis Vuitton, something, and... ahhh... the Gap! I hadn't seen one since the last time I was in Tokyo, so up I went to see what kind of clothes they were selling now.

By the time I came out again, it was around 7:30 and I thought it was high time for dinner. I kept walking along in the direction I had been going, keeping an eye out for a good-looking noodle shop. But alas, many of the shops had begun to close, turn the lights down, and pull melancholy metal shutters down over their entrances. What was this?! quoth I.

There was a shoe store that was still open, and one of the employees was fixing a display near the entrance.

"Excuse me," I said, "but I'm not in town for long, and I wanted to try some udon, but all the stores are closing."

"Yeah," he said, "Takamatsu closes down fairly early."

"Well," I replied, "I was wondering if you could recommend a good local place that's still open."

So the fellow consulted with his coworker and told me about a place called Goemon, and pointed me in the right direction. Still, I'm amazed I found it; if I hadn't turned to look down a side street I'd never have found the place at all. I walked in on what looked like a family party, but the people were very friendly and even recommended a certain kind of udon-- kamatama; which is a nearly raw egg that you mix up with the udon noodles and top with green onions, fish flakes, spicy red pepper, and a wee bit of soy sauce-- no broth. This is what I wrote while waiting for my dinner...



"A homey, family atmosphere tucked away just off the stark, empty shop streets. There are few customers; the tables aren't half filled, but everyone seems to know each other, and a couple of children run around, pausing briefly to inform the smiling old proprietress behind the counter of their opinions or newfound knowledge. Two ladies with long, permed orange hair and pretty, open faces chat at the bar-- they are hair stylists and sisters. One of them is married, and her hip-looking husband holds a baby girl on his knee as he follows the conversation. A widescreen television mounted prominently on the wall blares on, largely ignored. The elderly proprietor stands across from the young husband, pounding out white dough for another batch of noodles. Small groups of hungry customers dash in and out as if on a tight lunch break, despite the late hour. The family is clearly in no hurry."

So much for Goemon. I was so hungry, I forgot to take a picture of my dinner before it was gone.

The next morning I was up early to take a walk in Takamatsu's famous Ritsurin Kouen, a large park that was once the grounds of a castle. There is still a (substantially shortened, I think) moat around it. The entry fee was 400 yen.

On learning that I understand Japanese, a volunteer tour guide asked if I wanted a tour, but I had to be back at the hotel before 10AM, so I politely declined. I had about 30 minutes to do a whirlwind tour of the park, and though I took nearly 40, I don't think I saw more than 1/3 of it. It's quite large and beautiful.




After I found some kamado treats to bring back to my office, I hopped out of there, jumped back in the car, and made it to the hotel just before 10AM. I checked out without a problem, and then it was back to the car and the open road. I decided to take the expressway to save time and energy. It had been a short, but rather exciting, adventure.



Saturday, July 11, 2009

things I've been up to

Helped out with an event all day today. It went down excellently, and I'm really happy about that. The theme was Hawaii, and yesterday I had a flash of inspiration for some decorations. The tables we'd set up were looking awfully spartan or industrial, so during my lunch break I zoomed off in my car to pick up some artificial stalks of hibiscus and leis at the nearest DAISO. Add some colorful plastic table"cloths", some jars for vases (I've been saving them for the next time I need to mix up egg dye), paper placemats and some confetti, and boom~! Instant mini-makeover. I felt like I wouldn't mind decorating for events as a living, while I was prettying the place up.

Alas, I was too busy and took no photos. Perhaps I'll get some from someone else later.

We made locomoco (rice + hamburger + fried egg and gravy), ahipoke (raw tuna and onion salad with sesame seeds and garlic soy sauce), and mac salad (macaroni, peas, carrots, cucumbers, mayo, salt, and pepper); and we watched the lovely intern's demonstration of how to make haupia (coconut pudding). She also brought some delectable fudge. Everybody was ravenously hungry by the time we sat down to eat (about 1:30), but likewise everyone's stomachs were then filled enough to satisfy, I dare say, even a hobbit.

I'm re-reading the Lord of the Rings these days, and am about 3/4 of the way through The Two Towers. What a fantastic writer Tolkien was!

It's hard to be patient. I think I used to be a fairly patient child, but since graduating high school I seem to be in a greater and greater hurry to do everything. Do you know any good tips, exercises, or prayers for patience?

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

the open road

I got a car.

YAY!!!!!!

It's a used car, and not the newest model, but it gets me where I need to go with tunes and air conditioning (if I use it, which I do only sparingly). I enjoy this newfound independence so much, I've been getting a bit carried away. I drive everywhere. Whereas I used to get stressed out if I didn't leave the house by a certain time, now I think, 'ah, I can drive and I'll be there in two minutes!'

Yes, yes, it's not terribly responsible and I'm sure everyone around here has noticed. But I've noted people who live closer to work than I do driving there and back again. Our streets, you see, are constructed without much consideration for the fact that pedestrians, shopkeepers, delivery trucks, bicyclists, bikers, cars, and buses must all use the same narrow space. I imagine that the people who drive from a short distance do so because they want to avoid blocking traffic or getting sideswiped. Those are my reasons. ;)

I'll have to start walking again soon, though, for health and wellness and because the rainy season appears to be over, thus eliminating my biggest excuse for driving. By the way, we had some quite torrential rains here last week. The culverts and river were gushing with all the muddied water that had flowed down from the mountaintops.

Yet I must say, having a getaway car can be quite important. I once forgot my keys at work, and spent my whole lunch hour walking home, then back to work to fetch the keys, back to my place to get some lunch (wolfed down in five minutes, if I remember correctly), and back to work again. And a few hours later I walked back home. Too much time spent walking.

But it's a small town, and people will talk about the ostentation and frivolity of my driving everywhere...

What do we live for, but to make sport for our neighbors, and to laugh at them in our turn? :)

Sunday, June 28, 2009

hiking and cabin-camping!

Yesterday, three friends and I started a 'camping experience' we'd been planning for a few weeks, well, since working together at the May Basket Matsuri. We decided to first climb the trails to the lighthouse and check out the small rocky beaches en route. By the time we were done with this it was past 3pm and time to check in at our cabin in the mountains!





It was overcast, but warm and humid, and we all worked up quite a sweat, and were thankful that the blazing sun was not out to bear down on us, too.

We spent the evening making lunch/dinner, eating together, walking around the cabin area, playing cards (and having way too much fun slapping doubles!), reading/napping, and talking till late at night.

I had to get up rather early to get out to church on time, but that was no problem with the fast-rising summer sun; I got up around 6:30. The others were all still asleep as I got ready to go, but I snapped a few shots of the amazing sea-and-sky at about 7am and got on the road. It was a lovely time for a drive.





Being up so high, and close to the windmills, we were surprised and delighted to see how quick-moving and beautiful the clouds were; some of them blew into our cabin through open windows and cooled it down nicely. It started raining quite hard at about 11pm, but the morning was as glorious a morning as you could ask for!

It was a great weekend. :)

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Thank you, Father


This week I would like to wish a very happy Father's Day to my dad, good old Pop. He's almost always juggling ten thousand errands and several of my brothers and sisters' urgent requests at once, helping with homework, giving advice, laying down the law ("turn off that TV!"), cleaning/fixing things like nobody's business, and he usually has something to say or sing to lighten the mood, too ("the REAL song, the REAL song"). When I was growing up, even while teasing me about shipping me off to be a nun someday, he always made it clear with and without words that the Faith is the most important thing we have, and I paraphrase: "You can grow up to be a garbageman if you want to, as long as you keep your Faith."

It was encouraging to know that whatever monotonous part-time job I had (or didn't have), through all the what-should-I-major-in stress, Dad was behind me all the time, and still is. I wish he could somehow get the time to come visit me in Japan!

So thank you to Dad, and all thanks be to God our Father in a special way.

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

天におられる私たちの父よ。御名が聖とされますように。御国がきますように。御心が天に行われる通り、地にも行われますように。私たちの日ごとの糧を、今日もお与えください。私たちの罪をお許しください。私たちも人を許します。私たちを誘惑に陥らせず、悪からお救いください。アーメン。

. . .

Getting into my "handyman" stride yesterday, I pried up the tatami mats in my room and vacuumed the depths below. Actually, there was a lot of dust and tatami fall-off, pebbles, and some dead bugs. Luckily, they were dead. I saw only one little silverfish-looking thing that I disposed of immediately. (]:^D

After thoroughly vacuuming the edges and undersides of the mats, the styrofoam beneath them, and the concrete beneath that (and it smelled like a basement, eww), I went to put the mats back down. I thought I would switch up their placements to get more even wear and tear on them, and then I discovered that not all tatami mats are the same size. But I switched where I could, and the room was put back in order. Yay! I set a bug bomb off in there before leaving for church this morning, for good measure.

Next week... the other tatami room. dun dun DUN!

Sunday, June 14, 2009

ear to ear

It was a really great weekend, and I feel like tossing my hat in the air like Mary Tyler Moore! Would be even better if I could be back in big-time Minneapolis for a week or weekend, but the past couple of days have been terrific.

A group called me out to lead "American aerobics/kick-boxing" on Friday, and it went really well. There was a scary moment when the cd I brought wasn't playing past the 3rd track, but luckily I'd also brought backup tunes. Everyone seemed to work up a good sweat (I was dripping, anyway), and enjoy the workout.

Saturday I went, somewhat reluctantly, with some aunties on a drive to a city north of here. We stopped at a hand-made tapestry and crafts shop that is housed in an old temple, and after looking around with them for a while, I stopped to play with a gorgeous black cat. After quite a while, the cat decided to get up and go somewhere else, and it was only then that I noticed it had only 3 legs!!- and a sort of stumpy 4th beginning-of-a-leg. Poor thing, it went hobbling into the kitchen area. My heart just went out to that cat, for some reason.

After that shop, we went into the mountains for a "firefly festival," which simply means that everyone is using the current season (when the fireflies come out in droves by rivers and other wet places) as an excuse for a good time. There was another temple in the mountains, and a couple of guys were dancing kagura to traditional pipe and drum music played by several other men. We stopped by to listen for a song or two, then headed down to the local elementary school, where there was a big enough parking space for everyone's vehicles, and a stream. We got out of the car and walked a few paces, and...... WOW!!! There were probably more than a hundred fireflies floating and glowing here and there all along a stretch of the water. It was amazing. I caught a few that came flying nearby, and it was really lovely to see the insect glowing in my hand and crawling around, just like the ones I used to catch in Chi-town.

Today, Sunday, was Corpus Christi, and so we got to sing some good old Gregorian Chant in church. Holy Communion was also distributed under both kinds.

Later, I went to the hair salon and once again received fabulous service. Those people are amazing! They convinced me to try some kind of treatment with sea mud and herbs in it; sounds iffy, but it has a pretty scent and worked very well. While I was waiting, I read through a book of motivational poetry that reminded me of an English teacher I had in high school (although this poetry was in Japanese). One poem read something like this:

楽しんだから
笑顔できるのではなく
笑顔でいるから
いつでも楽しめるのだ

(It's not because you have had a good time
that you can put a smile on your face;
it's because you have a smile on your face
that good times are always to be had.)


I have got the biggest smile on inside and out right now. :D Have a good one, everybody!

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Reorganizing


I know Easter eggs have nothing to do with June, but this couple was just too cute to pass up. 

I've been thinking a lot, and exercising a lot, and somehow between the two began to realize that, even if the US or possibly the world is going to be hit by a real financial crisis that sends us all back to the 3rd world, even if I never feel like I'm able to do any important or appreciated work while I'm here, and even if these two years have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of my life, well, it'll still be ok. 

I once, once and irrevocably, turned down the chance to finish training and get an education at the Air Force Academy, because I didn't want to have to play the "game" the cadre upperclassmen make of the new recruits. I didn't agree with the idea of some people stripping down all my self respect to have me earn it back from them. It was excruciating training physically, and mentally I couldn't stand all the yelling and bullying. When I left it behind, I thought, I'm free now! I'll never see those cadre again!  It was a wonderful feeling.

But in the years that followed, I find myself having to face the same or more intense difficulties than the ones I balked at then. Slowly it has become clear that, one way or another, God is shaping me like a potter shapes clay. Maybe the process would have been quicker if I'd just buckled down and finished at the AFA, or maybe it would have broken me after all, and I was only brought there to see a sort of foreshadowing of later struggles.  

The point is, again and again you come up against things you can't overcome-- either you really can't, or you only think you can't, both make the thing impossible for the time being. You can choose to step away, run, or hide from it, or you can choose to face just one more hour, one more day. In the end, you will have to deal with it. It's your cross. 

So maybe I can't take on 14 more months of leper-like existence in a town without a particle of food for the soul. 

That's one way of looking at it. 

G.K. Chesterton once wrote that you should try standing on your head and looking at the world upside-down, for it all becomes much clearer then. Standing on my head, I begin to see that none of this is about me at all. It's about the town, where a lot of good, simple people live good, simple lives. It's about the children and the words or smiles that will shape their thinking. Most of all, it's about the gift of being here, now. In this history, I will be only a transparent shadow, forgotten. 

But so have been many millions of men and women who have lived and worked on this earth. The important thing is not making sure that everyone is attending to you; it's that you attend to your work and do your darndest to love the people you encounter, unlovable as some may seem. Someday, if you're blessed, you'll find someone you can work together with for the rest of your life. And then it will end, and God is the judge. 

14 months? No, not 14 seconds by myself. But with Him, one more day, one more week... little by little, until it is finished. Glory to God. 

...

The sister city program should be able to proceed as planned. There was just a moment of emotion over a perceived pandemic on one side, and a perceived irrational fear on the other. Different cultures meet, and these things will happen. 

Sunday, May 31, 2009

May Basket Matsuri


It's the beginning of another week. This last one was pretty crazy; between frenzied talks of canceling the summer international exchange program, apologetic and heated e-mails being exchanged between the sister cities, last-minute recruiting for my end-of-spring event, the first intermediate eikaiwa of the season, and a new preschool to visit, I was almost wiped out before Friday. On Friday, I had to get everything together for the May Basket Matsuri.  I was exhausted, but really excited, because suddenly another three families had decided to come, raising the participant numbers to 30!

Since by necessity the event fell at the end of May, we decided to make it an end-of-spring party incorporating a few notable traditions. We decorated Easter eggs, made May Day baskets, skipped around a May Pole, and went on a plastic egg hunt. With some time to spare, the event wrapped up with duck-duck-goose outside in the sunshine. 

Sunday night

I'm listening to Keane. Keane always reminds me of two things; first, an old friend from college-in-Japan days who introduced me to the band; second, my last (summer) semester of college, when I was slogging through statistics, political science, biosphere geography, and career planning, dreaming about a job in Japan and leaving university and the Minneapolis public transit system behind me forever. 

I did find a job in Japan, at the fabulous small company I'd interned at a year earlier. I excitedly looked for apartments and made plans for about a month, before the dark, dark day when they told me they couldn't follow through on their offer after all. Everything came crashing down then and I thought my only chance to get back to Japan was through AEON or GEOS eikaiwa schools. In the end, though, with the help and advice of some friends, I decided to wait, look for a short-term job in the metro area, study Japanese, and apply for the JET program the next year. 

Over months and months of working and waiting, studying, failing JLPT 1 by a small percentage, sitting for the JET interview and thinking I'd failed, I moved to California to forget about Japan and to start building a new life. Ironically, the very day I moved in, I got an e-mail from JET notifying me of my acceptance. 

The job market in California was tough, to say the least, so the couple of months I was there were spent in nearly fruitless job hunting and frustration. Public transit there is no more pleasant than in Minneapolis, I found. All my hopes and dreams were pinned on my placement in Japan. I found out my placement and tracked down a Catholic church, taking its presence as a sign that this was my path. 

After such a buildup, disappointment was perhaps inevitable, but it came from quarters I'd never suspected when, for example, the two friends I'd been keeping closest contact with over the two years decided one after the other to stomp on those friendships and leave me jetting off to the countryside with no one left to call on. The countryside, in turn, which everyone praised to the skies for its friendliness, didn't turn out that way. Left to my own resources week after week, I began to wonder just how many of my life decisions were mistakes, and whether I would ever again find a real friend or a job I liked. 

...

Isolation is the cross of this rural existence, and although I have found a couple of good friends in outlying areas, loneliness rears its head often, and one is constantly reminded she is only a visitor here. 

Still, I do believe that I become a stronger person with each passing month. I hope that I will be in a better position to find a good job after this one is over, and that I need not always push forward by myself. 

And I still believe, though that belief is often mixed with apprehension and not a little impatience, that I am here for a reason, and that all things will be well in the Lord. 

Thursday, May 28, 2009

5月病 May Sickness

Go-gatsu-byou is the Japanese term for getting completely sick and tired, mentally (and sometimes physically), in May. New hires and transfers came in April, and by now everyone's adjusted just enough that they're tired of the whole situation. Also, Golden Week is over and there's no hope of another renkyuu (3-day weekend) until July 20th. Spring is swiftly passing into the rainy season. 

I'd scoffed when I first came across this in a newsletter article my predecessor wrote. I'll never get that, I thought. Maybe I haven't, and maybe I won't. But there's no denying that my fragile equilibrium has broken down in the depths of melancholy and depression for some weeks. At first I thought it was just an annoying someone I have to deal with every day. Then I noticed myself getting more despondent and next, irrational and irritable. Everything was getting on my nerves. I disliked the whole country and this town most of all, but the US didn't seem much better. I felt like I'd wasted years of study just to come to some poky little town and go crazy. 

But thankfully, it's impossible to keep one emotion going constantly forever, and little by little I'm starting to get back up and see the silver linings again.    
Time to keep going, again.

A bowl on my head,
Some kind of cardboard armour--
Almost a year now.

Write your own original haiku in the combox. 
What are you waiting for? (];^)

I think not


I had to defend the perimeters the other day when I came home in the afternoon to find this beast getting ready to invade my lovely domicile. There is a wet spot around it because I doused it with "kinchouru" mukade-insecticide. It was still sort of twitching, so I took up a trowel and made sure to finish the job. Bleargh!

I took the precaution of spraying also around my door and mail slot. Sometimes when people leave newsletters and things in the slot, they roll them up and leave them sticking out. It's like an invitation for some horrible crawly thing to slide right on in. 

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Baking Day

Yum. A lovely, soft, freeform rosemary focaccia bread fresh from the oven. It's half whole wheat bread flour, which is a lot more than I've ever found in storebought breads here. (Thanks for the inspiration, Sue!) 



As long as I had the oven going, I thought I'd whip up some brownies.... mmmm.
Wish you were here!

stuporific

Fr. Philip recently reports that the administration states its goal is not to "reduce the number" of abortions, but to "reduce the need." Oh ho. It's not surprising to anyone who knows the president's record, but just see how, between the words "numbers" and "need," there is a clear shift from statistically measurable data into vague and unmeasurable ideas. Hence, no one can ever definitively accuse the administration of not accomplishing this goal. Non-goal. 

There are a lot of people upset about abortion, but there are not yet enough people upset enough. Word-smithy like "reduce the need" only furthers torpor and complacence.

Prolifers know exactly how abolitionists felt. 

Pray for an end to abortion and for the conversion of people's hearts and minds to life and love. Be prudent, but please don't mistake prudence for clamming up whenever your friends or colleagues raise the issue. I've got to work on this just as much as the next guy, unfortunately.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Scandal


There are several videos up on YouTube by now that document the bizarre happenings at Notre Dame these past few days. This is only one of them. An elderly priest with some 20 years of service in the armed forces and many arrests for protesting at abortuaries was arrested again at Notre Dame for carrying out a peaceful protest. This is hard to watch.

Why ND didn't want protesters on its private grounds, I get. You have a highly controversial event, lots of protesters, and inevitably some wacko is going to sneak in and take a pot shot at the President. 

But for goodness sake, being arrested for living your pro-life conviction on a Catholic campus is worse than nightmarish. A Catholic university bestowing honors on a politician who unequivocally supports abortion, denial of medical care to babies who survive abortion, the creation of human embryos for scientific "experimentation," etc.,  and then pretending it's all just an opportunity to "dialogue" is horrendous. 

And these praying men and women arrested for trespassing, and those people ejected from the auditorium for shouting out about abortion during Obama's speech.... smacks of repression. Think Nero. 

What about the students who chose not to attend their commencement, and instead gather for Mass and prayer at the Grotto? I would surely love to see some of their videos up on YouTube. You can bet the media won't give them even a sidelong glance; this story is all about how a rabble-rousing rag-tag team of adult activists with graphic representations of the slaughter that is abortion ruined the lovely, happy, triumphant commencement for ND grads and their families while they were feeling so warm and tolerant of everybody, too. 

Please. 

Now, I might be more pragmatic than most, even to a fault; I skipped both high school prom and college graduation ceremonies for the same reason-- I didn't see the point of going. I plowed through college because graduating was what I needed to get out of it and find a place in the real world; I graduated in the summer, and I considered it very much a business deal. I paid tens of thousands in tuition; academia granted me a bronze ticket to help me find a job. Academia got the better end of the bargain, too, money instead of months and months wasted in useless (but Required!) classes that dumbed down the brain instead of honing it. Maybe it would have been better if I'd been after a B.S. degree despite my math/science handicaps. 

Anyway, all of that might have something to do with why I don't really understand ND students who were upset about the protests occurring and "ruining" their big day. Grow up. Everything is not about you, and you should have learned that in college. The sanctioned massacre of countless innocent pre-born human beings ought to be foremost in everyone's minds. It ought to be spoken of and explained to everybody, even if they're just kids and supposedly unconcerned with the 'issue.' Every single one of us is concerned when it comes to this issue. 

"Be fair. Be open-minded. Compromise. Meet us halfway." Hmmm, lemme think if there is any dichotomy sharper than this, the act of killing a child en route to birth, or the act of birthing a child. There is no compromise here. If it is wrong to kill a boy or girl at 5, or 6, or 50, it is equally wrong to kill them at 5 months, or 5 weeks, or 5 hours from conception. 

This is not difficult to figure out. 

Indeed, increasingly news writers and bloggers and 15-minute-celebrities begin to make statements like this: "Sure I know abortion is taking the life of a child. It's a difficult decision and no one's happy about it. But I also know that it was the right choice for me and I stand by that."  How much more sick and twisted can you possibly get?

I'm telling you, though, that that's going to be the refrain heard from every corner of America in coming years. And then who's going to stop the ones in power from advancing further on the rights of the powerless? Sick, handicapped, elderly and special needs people are already on precarious ground. Infanticide carried out on babies outside the womb will follow. There's already a proposed bill about it in Texas. The people in power will do everything they can to permanently silence the voices of the Church and other people of good will who oppose the killing; they'll call it anti-hate-speech legislation or tolerance legislation or something. 

We cannot be silent about abortion. We MUST not. 

Thursday, May 7, 2009

The Hunt!

... for Gollum. Some talented fans have put together a project based on the story of Aragorn's hunt for Gollum between Bilbo's farewell feast and Frodo's 50th birthday. 

Their non-profit, made-for-online movie is viewable at Daily Motion here: The Hunt for Gollum

It's about half an hour, so set some time aside and give it a viewing, won't you? 


There was a (relatively) short, thought-provoking discussion over at Fr. Z's blog concerning the books and the movies; a lot of people seem to love the books but to have disliked the movies for character assassination and too much attention to special effects. I've only ever run into people who either liked both the books and the movies, or neither.

I have to admit, though, that there is a noticeable 'reluctant king' figure set up in Peter Jackson's trilogy that was not in Tolkien's writing. To me, it was just a bit jarring, but I could live with Aragorn's reluctance in Fellowship after seeing his leadership in Return. It's probably also a credit to Viggo Mortensen. When the same mopey figure reappeared, however, in Disney's Narnia series and the portrayal of Peter (the High King), it just seemed graceless and ill-considered. 

Anyway, go watch The Hunt for Gollum! 

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

refreshed!

Not that I wouldn't appreciate Golden Week actually lasting through the week... but I digress. :)

I didn't actually end up doing much walking at all, since I rediscovered the pool!  Hitherto, although I have lifeguard experience, I'd never much enjoyed swimming as an activity,  and when I came to Japan this time around I didn't bring a swimming suit. One became necessary for some function or other. So I went to the sports store and bought the most reasonable one that fit me, which as it turns out is this awesome pro-athlete-like Mizuno creation that's like half of a body suit, or a regular one-piece with biker shorts attached. Anyway, swimming in that is ALWAYS fun. 

It still tickles me somewhere inside, though, that most people here won't do a sport without looking like they're totally serious about it: there seems to be a big focus on having the goods and looking put together. On the flip side, in the States I think a much smaller percentage of people, mostly women, really care what they look like while exercising. The gym, track, and pool become a sort of sanctuary where you don't have to care. Not so much, here. 

First that was amusing, then annoying; then I got my pro-swimmer wet-suit of fabulousness and I started to understand, just a wee bit. 

Well, every time I've procured a long-term pass for the sports center, my attendance drops off after a couple of weeks, so during the past few days I only got hour-long tickets for the pool. If I can manage to keep up a routine for more than a couple of weeks, I'll get one of those passes again. 

For all going back to work tomorrow, 頑張りましょう (ganbarimashou), or, let's get our noses back to the grindstone!

Thursday, April 30, 2009

It's Golden Week for me now, too!

Well, I had half a day of compensatory holiday to use up within two months, so I'm taking it at the last possible moment. Luckily, I managed to get it right on top of Golden Week, so I have five and a half days off in a row now, hurrah!  

A lot of people seem to be traveling within Japan, to Osaka and Tokyo, etc., to spend time with friends. A lot of other people seem to be headed to South Korea, the "new Thailand" for those who don't like being caught up in civil unrest in a foreign country. 

If I had magical golden tickets to go anywhere this week, I'd want to go home for a quick visit, and then maybe fly off to Australia or New Zealand, where I would just miraculously bump into a former professor of mine and hear about a fabulous scholarship at a grad school down there. 

However, I'm saving up for a car-- albeit a used one, since there's no knowing how long I'll be here and I don't want to sink too much money into it-- and so I've decided to stay home this Golden Week. 

Still there's plenty to read, and if the fair weather continues, ample opportunity for long walks. 

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

a spring picnic of sorts

 

Went to a lovely spring lunch down towards the sea today. Except for the bees buzzing about in the plethora of flowers in the garden around us, and the wind blowing out the birthday candles every time K tried to light them, it was an ideal day for it. 

There was salad with tomatoes and boiled eggs, burdock salad with mayonnaise, potato salad with a mentai kick, fresh-squeezed kiyomi mandarin juice and mandarin wedges, two kinds of onigiri (rice balls, actually triangles), a seafood omelette, mushroom soup, a chicken-mushroom stew, and afterwards-- oh, one's poor stomach-- homemade cheesecake with two interesting sides. One was cut fruit and nata de coco in whipped cream, the other was kastera (pound cake) processed very finely into ice cream. 

Let me know if you are ever in the neighborhood, and I will direct you to the wonderful chefs.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

FOOD! From the "old country."

Doing all that research on Czech, Slavic, Bohemian, and otherwise Eastern European things made me really want to go out to a restaurant specializing in that kind of fare... even though I am for the most part vegetarian. The Czechs, it seems, have little use for leafy things, preferring instead to deck their tables out with bread, beer, and lots of meat. 

(From somewhere comes a sound bite of John Rhys-Davies as Gimli the Dwarf: "Roaring fires! Malt beer! Rrrrrred meat off the bone!!")

Of course, to be fair, I once had a Czech penpal who wrote about being vegetarian and interested in studying Buddhism at uni. That was a long time before I became vegetarian or took classes like "Buddhism and Literature," but a short time before our correspondence, for whatever reason, dried up. Pity.

Anyway-- there aren't any Slavic restaurants in these parts, but that never stopped the originators of the Slavic recipes in their humble kitchens, so I was determined not to let it stop me in mine, either. I decided to make gulas (goulash) - though it was developed in Hungary, it spread through Eastern Europe - and hoska.  I was going to make knedliky (dumplings) for soaking up the gulas, but wanted to get dinner on the table before 8pm, and something in that recipe mentioned letting the yeast rise for an hour or two. Yeah, right. 


I made two braids of the hoska, but my oven is too small, so they just sort of pushed together. They separated easily enough, though, when I brought one to my event to thank the participants for signing up. I've been working on the other one since, and it's quite good, though it dries out rather quickly. 

As for the gulas, I think I used almost the entire mini-canister of paprika for it, which amounted to maybe 3 tablespoons. There's also cumin, chili pepper, coriander, pepper, and salt spicing up some beef, 3 diced onions, a can of tomatoes, a small bulb of garlic (from Aomori, no less), green peppers (piman), and potatoes. I forgot if I put anything else in there... :D

another pysanka



I rather like this one. I made it mostly while listening (and singing along) to some Gordon Lightfoot songs. The back is quite simple:


Saturday, April 18, 2009

Czech folk dancing

The Catholic in Japan had a post about Italian folk dancing, and I thought it was great timing, since I've been looking at some videos of traditional Czech dancing recently. I've got a Czech-themed event coming up, and I had to do my homework!

I agree with the CIJ in that the world would probably be a better place if people spent more time doing this kind of thing than sitting around watching the tube. That said, it's hard to teach oneself to dance or to do it alone. Shall I plot a dance event next?? But I think people would claim embarrassment at having to do such an unseemly, intimate thing, so pretty much everything but Western line dance is out, and I have awful memories of doing that in gradeschool gym class. Still...


Saturday

Oh, how I enjoy Saturdays!

It's not just being able to sleep in, although as someone who really despises early rising it is a big bonus. 

On Saturdays, I clean. 

Now, I know what you may be thinking. Now, JT, you live by your onesie and don't have any little kiddies running around causing havoc; what could you possibly do all week to merit a day of cleaning each Saturday? The answer is... I don't know. Somehow things get tossed about and move from their proper places, dust and crumbs and things accumulate on the edges of the floor, and the laundry piles up. 

I don't have a set routine yet, but I might start with a load of laundry, then move to the kitchen to get caught up on the dishes, wipe down the countertops and stove, floors, and go through the refrigerator to thin out anything past its due date or getting overripe. Then it's time to put all the dishes away and hang up the hot mitts. 

Check all the drains and clean up accumulated mold... eewww... but it has to be done.

Sweep. Vacuum. Vacuum tatami, which is a little bit time-consuming, especially going under furniture. But if you don't vacuum that tatami, you get tatami mites. Then, spiders come to eat the mites, and then mukade come to eat the spiders. So, you see, frequent vacuuming is informal insurance against marauding beasts with too many legs. 

Clear up the clutter, tie up the trash, put the books back on their shelves-- and organize the egg-decorating-tool explosion on my table. Do other laundry loads in the meantime.

Ahhhhh, one feels so much better, and there's still some daylight left for reading or praying or taking a walk.