Hughes Family in Japan: Back in Japan, rice field update, new bike, school clean up.

Things are getting back to our normal life in Japan now. It has been 2 weeks since we returned. I am amazed at how quickly time is going by. In the mix of our daily lives Kate somehow found time to get kidney stones. We were in the hospital for almost an entire day trying to find out what was causing her so much pain. She is still working them out of her system and the pain medication in Japan is weaker than the states so it has not been fun for her.

After getting back in Japan we went to our rice field to weed a little and check in on it. We have been meeting with the other families 1 time each month to work on the field and this was another of those planned visits. The rice has really grown since the last time we saw it.

This is really the first time for me to see the rice in the fields. When we arrived in Japan it had already been harvested. I was told that you can tell it is getting close to harvest time by the way the rice is forcing the plant to droop from its weight.

I put my hand in front of the grain to give a size reference.

After finishing with the weeding and generally checking the field we all got in cars and drove to an edamame field. Edamame is soybean. Almost every month after we tend to the rice another activity is planned. This months was picking edamame. Since it was the end of the season for this variety of bean we were told to pull the entire plant and then pick the bean pod off. Since this takes time we were given the option to take the plants home with us to finish picking them.

Here is Colleen giving one of the plants a tug.

And success..

We were allowed to take as many as we wanted, but we didn't want to waste any, so we only took what we could eat and fit in our small fridge. Shown is our pile to take home.

While we were picking the beans a demonstration was given to show the correct way to prepare the edamame. To start, a pot of water with sea salt in it was brought to a boil. The edamame was then dumped in to the water all at one time.

Bring the water back to a boil and then leave it boil for between 5-8 minutes, depending on the style you like (soft or al-dente). Then the beans are removed from the boiling water and immediately thrown into a bowl of ice water to quench them.

Finally the beans are pulled out, drained, and a little more sea salt is sprinkled on the outside of the beans. Now they are ready to eat. These were the best edamame that I have ever eaten. We were told that these beans from Tochigi are quite expensive in the restaurants in Tokyo and I can understand why.

The children also liked them..

After tasting the beans we loaded everything in the car to head home and call it a day.

Before going to the US for our home leave I bought a bicycle frame from ebay and had it shipped to my parents house (in the US). The original intent was to bring it back with me as one of my luggage, but after seeing Warren's luggage and broken items I decided this would be a bad idea. In the end I shipped it USPS at a cost of around $80 (including insurance). The first time I tried to ship it the box was too large for USPS, so I figured I would just go to FedEx or UPS thinking the price would not be that much different. I was told by both that the cheapest option was more than $400.00 so I decided I could reduce the box size to be within the USPS requirements. I was able to put the bike together the first week we got back. Wearing my gear old gear I held the old bike and stood on my scale and then did the same for the new bike. For the old bike photo I tried to look all angry and down like the weight loss before and after photos, but in the end I just look lame...

The new bike is super light. Final weight is about 15.5lbs (by bathroom scale) The difference along with my new gear amounts to just shy of 6lbs weight savings over my old set up.

From evaluating the GPS data it looks like this was worth about 1 mph while climbing at the Shinring Koen course.

Colleen had a school two school activities. In the first they powered a fan by using charcoal, a paper towel soaked in salt water, and aluminum foil. I wasn't there to see it, but Kate said it was pretty impressive.

The second activity was diving fish. Here Kate and Colleen are ready for action..

The first step is to color and decorate the fish as you like.

Then a bottle is filled with water for the fish to swim in. Next each fish has a weight attached to the its mouth so they swim facing down, and finally each fish is ballasted with water so they float, but just slightly.

Then the cap is put on the bottle so that when you squeeze the bottle the pressure builds and the fish will dive to the bottom. The amount of ballast in each fish dictates how much pressure is needed to make them dive.

Another thing both children had to do after we arrived back in Japan is make a poster containing a public service slogan on it.

Colleen 's says basically "Let's eat breakfast, so that we can become energetic."

Liam decided to go with a recycling theme. His says "The world is in our hands so lets recycle."

Finally to close out the week we had clean up day at the children's school. I really enjoy the sense of community that is instilled in the children by the Japanese culture. This activity teaches them that we all have a responsibility to our community. The parents and children all had to go to the school and clean up trash, rocks, and weeds around the school property and in the schools garden. The time alloted was from 7-9 am. Kate got a pass this year because of the kidney stones, but and the children participated.