Halloween 2009

This past weekend was our first celebration of Halloween "American-style." It was perhaps even more exciting for me than it was for my daughter. Where I grew up, in upstate New York, we could pretty much count on freezing cold weather and occasionally snow for Halloween. This made trick-or-treating somewhat less enjoyable because in order to be warm, you often had to sacrifice the cool looking effects of your costume. This year, the temperature was a lovely and mild almost 60 degrees. We dressed up Peanut in her costume and headed off to a local trick-or-treating event. We met up with some friends and their toddler. The kids got a few pieces of hard candy and then wanted to head outside away from the crowds. They sat down (outdoors - with no coats!) and nibbled on their hard candy. Then we walked up and down the street where other local businesses were all handing out goodies. The kids even got to share a free gelato. How cool is that? We were able to enjoy ice cream, outdoors on Halloween!

Afterwards, we headed across the street to a great little izakaya for some korokkes for the kiddos and lots of great tempura, kushikatsu, and yakitori. They also served French fries with wasabi mayonnaise; this is my new favorite dish!

Last year we weren't able to really celebrate Halloween in the same way, since we were in Japan. This year, we had both an American style celebration and great Japanese food too. Who says you can't have it all??

And now, the gratuitous cute kid pic:

Show and Tell: Talking about BOOKS!

I LOVE being a librarian. Okay I'm not technically employed by a library at the moment, but it's sort of hard to stop BEING a librarian when books and the internet are available to me. The switch is always stuck in the "on" position. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with what librarians do these days, I figured I'd share a small part of what we do.


This photo shows me at a convention a few years ago talking to other librarians in children and young adult services (my area of interest) about books I loved reading and would recommend. Remember "Reading Rainbow"? That's basically what a "book talk" is like. You give the person an idea of why they might want to read the book, tell them juuuuust enough to hook them and then leave them hanging so they have to read the book to find out more. In this instance, I was sharing with other librarians so that they could in turn share these books with their patrons. Incidentally, one of my picks Looking for Alaska by John Green had just won the Michael E. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature (2006).

So if you haven't chatted with your local librarian (or any librarian for that matter!) about what to read next - just ask. We love to talk to people about books and what to read! And be sure to see what the rest of the class is sharing for show-and-tell!

Sumo locker room....

Or is it? Okay, it's not the sumo wrestlers' locker room. In fact, 3/4 of the room was the dohyo (or practice ring) and the spectator area and the other 1/4 of the room was the kitchen. I kid you not, the only thing separating the two for a while was a flimsy curtain.

How did I end up there? Good question! Some friends of my husband's family own a sushi restaurant and they're big sumo fans and some of the sumo guys are regular customers when they're here in Osaka. The Osaka tournament will start soon meaning the guys are here already practicing. Our friends managed to get us into a semi-private practice session; there were maybe 75 spectators there including a few members of the press, friends/family etc. After the practice, we got to sit down and enjoy a little chanko-nabe in the same place the sumo wrestlers would be eating (after actually hitting the "locker room"). I saw some of the food they'd be eating and it was impressive. I've never seen that much kimchee all in one place, never mind all the other katsu, rice, noodles, and donuts too (by the dozen!).

Over the last several months I've become something of a sumo fan. When the tournaments are on tv, I love to watch and I'm sad if I miss a day. I confess I still don't know all that much about it, but the basic rules are fairly straightforward making it easy to watch and enjoy.

Oh and to give you some idea of how big this guy is, I'm about 5' 8" tall and weigh about 120 pounds - this guy weighs nearly 3 times as much!

Danjiri!

Have you ever heard of a danjiri? Me either! At least, I hadn't heard of one until a couple of years ago. This video gives you an idea of what it looks like - a big wooden cart of sorts - being pulled along by dozens, maybe even hundreds of people. Kishiwada, a small city not far from here has a big Danjiri Festival each fall. I've never been to the festival in person, but I hear the streets are packed with on-lookers. Sometimes if the danjiri are being pulled too quickly as they rush around a corner the danjiri doesn't quite clear the corner resulting in property damage and occasionally injury. Gboy and I like to think of it like a kind of "running with the bulls". Only without any animals.

Anyway, this past weekend we visited the Danjiri Museum. It's a small museum, but their interactive components made the trip totally worthwhile. Not only did I get to "play" some of the instruments that are on the bottom half of the danjiri, I got to experience what it might be like to stand atop the danjiri (at about half the actual height and minus any movement)! I can safely say that I'd be too chicken to try it for real, but that's the beauty of a museum with interactive elements, I can pretend I have the guts to do something wild and still keep all my teeth (knowing me I'd fall off the thing and lose a tooth!).

Can you tell I was having fun?!

Show and tell

Mel is hosting Show and Tell again this weekend. I've never had anything I wanted to show, but I've enjoyed seeing what others post about and finally, finally it's my turn! I've got something!

I've mentioned before that I'm taking a weekly calligraphy class. My instructor is a wonderful, calm and patient man who is retired and is doing this strictly for the fun of it. He's a friend of the family and I'm incredibly grateful to him. He teaches me entirely in Japanese. This cannot be an easy thing for him since my Japanese is, well, a work in progress. As such, I'm sure it's difficult for him to convey some ideas to me, although the "watch what I do" technique has worked quite well for us thus far. And it surely helps that I'm getting one-on-one instruction.

That's the telling, now on to the showing. My work is on the left and my instructor's work is on the right. I still need quite a bit of practice but this is my best work from my class the other day:



Updated to add: I've been asked about what the words mean. Good question! It's actually part of a larger phrase. Thus, on it's own, this segment doesn't really mean anything. However, it's my understanding that starting from the top right and reading counter-clockwise the characters individually read as: world, taste, usual and gate. As is the case with reading these characters in Japanese, sometimes you combine two words and get a third (often related) new word. Oddly enough, in my Japanese class I find it easier to read than write the Kanji I study, while in calligraphy class I find it easier to write than to read. I'm all a-jumble!

Back from beyond...

Back from a weekend at Hamanaka. I couldn't even tell you where we were for sure. I truly need to learn my geography here! What I do know is that the resort was lovely and amazing. The weather was very windy, but otherwise quite lovely (especially for enjoying the scenery and onsen!) while we were there. The whole family trekked over there after New Year's Day. My BIL and his wife and kids, along with my FIL and MIL all caravanned with us from Osaka while my SIL, her husband and son headed there from Tokyo. Our group included four kids under the age of 2 1/2 years old. On the one hand, they entertained each other at times which was great. On the other, this made for a lot of childcare work for all adults involved!

Peanut enjoyed her first plunge in the "big bath" quite a lot. I'm a pretty modest and shy person in general, especially when I'm in the U.S. But after being introduced to the Japanese onsen, I've discovered that I have no real qualms about sharing a public bath with a bunch of women. There's something quite convivial about the experience, and frankly it makes washing a small child much easier when you've got a lot of experienced mothers helping out! I'm still afraid of making some social faux pas (using the wrong soap for instance, or not rinsing at the proper time etc.). However, as a relatively new mom (when does that title wear off?) I feel that the relaxation from enjoying a nice spa day like that is well worth any potential embarrassment!

Here is Peanut enjoying some of the scenery:





Back to regular life and the start of 2009!

Pumpkin muffins (!) and other food

Baking is relaxing for me, and comforting as well. I decided early on in my stay here that I wanted to bake. Because so many aspects of the baking process would be unfamiliar to me, I thought I should start with a small manageable project. After locating muffin tins (actually I think they are ぷりん tins) along with baking soda and baking powder, I felt ready to tackle some pumpkin muffins. Kabocha is plentiful here at the house as my father-in-law is growing so much of it that we eat it in some fashion with nearly every meal. Luckily I also brought my pumpkin pie spice with me and I was able to replicate GirlJapan's recommended recipe. They were absolutely delicious! While a little on the sweet side for my taste, my mother-in-law swears she loved it. I had to laugh as I was making them because the oven is so small by American standards that it reminds me of an Easy Bake Oven on steroids. However, I am sure it cooks by convection as those muffins were done in no time. Hooray!














Now I just need to replace some of the spices here in the house. My attempt at a chicken tikka masala the other night was slightly less successful. I didn't realize we have no coriander in the house and after some investigating we found out that my mother-in-law's stash of garam masala is easily over five years old. The spices clearly lacked their *zing* when we tasted the final product. The long and short of it is that I'm learning to use the kitchen and tools in it, and we're slowly finding the supplies we like in the grocery stores. Back in the US, Gboy and I both shared the cooking responsibilities. He likes to cook lots of Japanese food and a little Italian now and then. He is also a master of steaks and homemade sausages. I, on the other hand, like to toy with other flavors - Mexican (or at least Southwestern), Thai, Indian, Mediterranean, etc. As a result, those are the things I know best how to cook and I really enjoy having a wide palette of foods and flavors. I'm willing to adapt to living in Japan, but I don't really want to learn to cook exclusively Japanese foods. I enjoy lots of other foods as well. Luckily, as I said, we're slowly finding the foods we like and are toying with new recipes. It's a delicious adventure!　

Mont Blanc = French for "delicious chestnut"?

This post reminded me of all the wonderful and delicious chestnut treats that I've eaten in Japan over the years. We've visited frequently during the winter months and often around New Year's which is when I'm sure the chestnuts are plentiful. I am enamored of the Mont Blanc. I had never tried this delicacy until I visited Japan. Why do we not have more of these in the U.S.?! We even have songs about "chestnuts roasting on an open fire," etc. but still they are hard to come by and rarely sold or cooked with in the U.S. (at least in my experience). Since I'm learning to be something of a foodie as I get older, and I have a major sweet tooth, this is something I'd say I've investigated quite a bit! In fact, this is a photo I took almost 4 years ago. I just love how soft and luscious that chestnut topping looks.