Pre-Hinamatsuri, more bento, and a couple of beers..

March 3 is Hinamatsuri, it is also known as girls day. In preparation for that day mothers and daughters set up elaborate doll displays. These displays vary in size and detail. Some of them can be very expensive (upwards of $2500). Kate got to go to Kimi chans house and observe the doll set up experience.

Here is the finished display, this one has seven tiers. Level 1 is for displaying the Imperial dolls. The lamps to the right and left of the Prince and Princess are called hibukuro and have cherry blossoms printed on them.

The picture below shows some of the detail in the dolls. This is the princess doll.

Here is another from one of the other tiers, I think a Samurai.

Level 2 is to display the court ladies. They are holding sake cups and sake.

Level 3 has 5 male musicians all holding an instrument with the exception of the singer. The instruments are 3 drums (1 small, 1 medium, and 1 large) as well as a flute.

Level 4 contains two ministers one old and one young. (I am not sure the significance of that)

Level 5 has 2 samurai to protect the emperor and empress.

Level 6 and 7 have a variety of things used by the emperor and empress.

A friend once told me that the set up and tear down of the doll display is also important. If it is not done in a timely fashion then the daughters marriage can be delayed.

Also as part of Girl's day there is a traditional dish that is eaten. Kate went to June sans and had the opportunity to experience it. The rice dish is called Chirashizushi. It is sushi rice with sugar, vinegar, and a variety of other things including raw fish. There is also a salty soup (ushiojiru). It contains clams in the shell. Clam shells fit perfectly together, but only with the original set. This represents the desire to find the perfect match for the daughter in the future.

Kate has still been making bentos for the children on Monday's for them to eat on their way to the English tutor in Utsunomiya. Her latest creation includes a smiling clementine orange, and smiling meatballs.

Finally last week I stumbled onto a couple of interesting beers that I had to try. The first is a chocolate beer. It sounded strange and it was. It is very dark and bitter. The initial taste is of chocolate, but that taste is quickly replaced by a very bitter beer taste. Interesting, but in the end not so tasty to me.

The last was US Select Beer taste. I was curious to find out what US beer taste tasted like. The answer.... really cheap US beer. I really hope this is not intended to represent what an American beer is supposed to be, because it was not at all good. I won't be trying either of these again..

That is all for this post.. The weather is starting to get warmer, but now it is also raining.

Hope everyone has a good week.

Flower sushi, Cultural festival, Children's art, etc..

This week Kate went with the neighbor to a cooking class on making fancy sushi. There were a number of different ingredients needed to make the final product. To start egg was cooked with sugar in a pan to make the outer layer of the sushi.

After the egg is cooked it is removed from the pan and cooled. It takes on a nice yellow color when it is finished.

The egg is placed on a mat and then the other ingredients are placed on top in a pattern. The picture below shows the egg and rice base layer.

Next each additional ingredient is strategically placed on top of the rice base layer. There is seaweed, kelp, root, etc..

Once everything is in position everything is rolled in the mat too give it a nice cylindrical shape.

When everything is rolled and compressed tightly the outer mat is removed and the cylinder is cut into thin portion sized slices.

Here is the finished product wrapped and ready for eating. The end result is pretty impressive, but Kate said it took so much work that she most likely will not make it a second time in the near future.

The children have been working on different art projects at school recently. Liam is using a carving set to make stamps. The picture below is one of his finished pieces. The negative shape was cut into a wooden plate and then ink was rolled on the surface to produce the print. This is an image of him holding a starfish. Probably influenced by our trip to the Philippines .

Colleen made two different. The one below was made by cutting paper and then like Liam's it was rolled with ink to create a stamp print. This is an image of her holding a Kewpie doll. She has really taken a liking to them and has collected a handful of different ones.

Here is her other piece of work. It is of her being surprised by a lobster. I think living here has really helped foster creativity in both children.

On Sunday we went to the Utsunomiya cultural festival. We went last year and wore kimonos at this same event, this year we decided to just enjoy the different activities. We all got to try our hand at calligraphy. Liam has taken this in school and is pretty familiar with it, but the rest of us have not so it is fun to try.

Both Liam and Colleen made flower arrangements.

They were able to bring the flowers home, but not the pot so when we got home they organized them again into some of the vases we had.

The children also tried their hand at hanamusubi (decorative knot tying) Different colors of stiff string are used to produce colorful decorations. We have received gifts before with these applied in place of bows for decoration.

There was also an origami station. We were told the group of cranes below were made from one piece of paper. I am not sure how that would be done, but they were all connected together.

While we made our way from station to station there was a stage that had a variety of different cultural activities for viewing. I was able to tape a little with my cell phone of an O-Koto (Japanese harp) performance by school aged girls. The sound of the harps is very calming.

After leaving the festival we went bowling with the Shionome sans. Bowling is basically the same regardless of where you go. One thing that did stand out for me was the smoke. When I was young I remember watching my parents bowl in a smokey bowling alley. Today smoking is no longer allowed in the bowling alleys in the states, but it is still OK here and that brought back some memories.

The bowling alley was on the second floor of a large building, on the first floor was a gaming area. As we walked in to bowl I noticed an Initial D video game. When we finished bowling I talked Kate and Chizuko san into playing the game with me. We tried the Irohizaka which is the mountain road in Nikko that I have both driven on and ridden my bicycle on. It was interesting to drive in the game because I can remember the majority of the course. Kate said it was actually a pretty fun game to play, and of course we all had to drive the AE86 of Takumi while playing.

That is all for this week, next week looks like we may see 60°, I can't wait..

Liam is now 11, birthday skiing, Kiwi vending, etc..

Liam turned 11 this week....

(Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes)

Over winter vacation we went skiing and Liam has talked about wanting to go again ever since that trip. We received a letter from the Takanezawa community center about a ski trip with the town. Kate and I discussed it and decided it would be a pretty cool birthday present for him and as a bonus the trip was scheduled on his birthday. Liam talked about it the entire week before. Finally the day arrived and Liam and I loaded onto a bus from the Takanezawa community center at 5:45 heading toward the Nikko mountains.

The ski resort was very nice and had some more gradual hills to practice on before trying a little more difficult hills. There was also some instruction available to help teach him better skiing technique. The weather was perfect and it snowed on and off through the day with very little wind.

There were a number of different runs available including a snowboard park. Through the day Liam and I talked about some of the jumps and there was one run with 3 more reasonable jumps on it. I told Liam I should try that run and he got excited so I figured I should follow through and try it. I handled the first two fairly well but the 3rd was very steep and caught me a little off guard. I at least landed skis down but bailed at the bottom. We both got a pretty good laugh out of it.

While we were gone Kate and Colleen hung out through the day and Colleen made the birthday cake for Liam.

When we got home Liam was shocked because the Shionome sans came over to surprise him and blasted him with confetti.

Colleen did a great job on the cake. It was basically gone by the time everyone left.

Everyone but Kate as she took the picture.

For Liam's birthday the Shionome sans gave him a number of gifts they made themselves. One was a hanko they carved from stone with his name in Kanji on it that he can use to stamp his artwork. It was all very impressive and he has already used it to stamp a number of his handmade art. They even gave Colleen two with her name that they carved out of erasures, one in Hiragana and one in Kanji.

Last week the book "Where the Wild Things Are" released in Japan. I guess there is a movie out and that has elevated the interest in the book. While at the bookstore there was a huge cut out that you could put your face in both children wanted to do it and so here is Colleen's in the cut out.

To close out the post, while Liam and I were on a bike ride this weekend we passed a kiwi vending machine. This is the first kiwi vending I have seen so I had to take a picture of it. There truly is a wide variety of things available from vending machines in Japan.

Have a good week..

Snow storm, Bento, Setsubun..

For my new years resolution I decided that I would make it my goal to ride to work everyday by bicycle as long as we were still in Japan. Since making that resolution I have not really been watching the weather forecast as my intent is to ride regardless of the weather. This week on Wednesday while I was at work a number of people asked if I came to work by bike. When I said yes they mostly laughed and said it was going to snow. When I walked out of the office I also laughed as there was about 2 inches of snow on the ground and huge snow flakes were falling. The ride home was both fun and not so fun at the same time. The snow flakes stuck to my glasses and after a short time I couldn't tell if I was even on the road or not. On two occasions I almost ran into bamboo that had fallen into the street from the weight of the snow. I had to pull my glasses down and look over the top of them in order to see the road.

This is the walk in front of our home.

The Gios was packed with snow by the time I got home. It was making all kinds of rubbing noises from all the snow. Finally I was able to make it home in one piece.

The next day I knew it would be icy and the Gios with the little road tires and clip pedals would not be so safe so I decided to take the mama-cheri to work. That is the bike we use to leave at the train station or run errands around town. The mama comes from mother and cheri is short for chariot as it is a common form of transportation for mothers in the cities of Japan. It has larger tires and standard pedals as well as a lower seat. All of those things make it a little safer and if I wrecked it I wouldn't really care. I snagged a couple of pictures from my cell phone on the way.

This is the view from the mama-cheri. The roads were pretty slippery but I faired pretty well on the bike. On the way home I was able to tear up a couple of other cyclist on standard bikes.

Now on Mondays Kate is taking the children to Utsunomiya for English tutoring. As a result the children have to be in the car and on the way shortly after school. Kate has started to make them bento boxes so they can eat on the way in the car. In Japan some of the bento boxes can get pretty elaborate, it is basically a form of food art. The children have been excited each week to see what she was able to put together for them. Kate said they are even eating all their vegetables.

The faces in Colleen's rice are made from seaweed.

This week was our second Setsubun. Setsubun technically marks the end of winter, unfortunately I think the day after Setsubun it got 10 degrees colder. I talked with a couple Japanese friends about that and they told me it was from an old calendar and that now is actually the coldest time of year. Last year I wore the Oni mask and the children threw the beans at me so this year I decided to have them wear the mask and I pelted them with the beans. "Oni wa soto, Fuku wa uchi." Bad things out good things in...

Liam in the mask.

And Colleen on her turn.

I am definitely ready for the cold to come to an end.

That is all for this post.. have a good week.