Happy Birthday Colleen, Gyoza making, Nakamichi visit.

Last week the children had some time off from school, that continues in to this week. The reason for the time off is that they are now changing grades in school. Soon we will have both a 5th and 3rd grader on our hands. It is amazing how fast time goes by...

While I was at work, Kate and the children went to the Shionome's to make homemade gyoza. We have made gyoza at home with help 2x's before, but we bought the wraps and then filled them with the ingredients. This time they even made the wraps from scratch. Here everyone is pitching in to mix the dough.

Of course the next step is to roll the dough into the thin flat wraps. Chopsticks were used as mini rolling pins to roll them out.

Then everyone filled them with a variety of different ingredients. Liam, Colleen and Chika made some mega gyoza. They put sausage and cheese in these instead of the regular filler. I have no idea how long these took to cook.

Here are the children with the finished gyoza. The Shionome sans sent some gyoza home with Kate. They were delicious!

This is the proof that somehow it is possible to cook supersize gyoza.

Colleen's 9th birthday.

To kick off the celebration the children's sensei , Noriko, gave Colleen pastries for her birthday. Colleen was very protective of them and said that they were for her birthday and so she should get to eat them all... She did agree to let me and Kate split one.

Friday, the Shionome sans came over to celebrate. During the day Liam, Colleen, Chika and Chihiro made cupcakes for everyone to decorate as they wished. The children went crazy with the toppings and it didn't take long before the majority of the toppings were all used up.

Colleen asked to have the candles stuck into her cupcake. We successfully stuck all nine into two cupcakes and lit them. The cupcakes worked well, in the end it limited everyones portion of cake to a reasonable amount and everyone could top them as they wished. Also the cupcakes were not so difficult for Kate to make in the small electric oven.

The Shionomes brought poppers and a ball with a string on it that they hung in in our doorway. When Colleen pulled the string a paper rolled out that said "omedetou" which means congratulations in Japanese.

For added entertainment Taka san and Chika chan sang a song and played the guitar for everyone.

I think I have already put it on here, but Colleen has really taken a liking to Kewpie dolls. The Shionome sans gave her an entire box set of Kewpies. She was very excited to have more of them to play with.

The kids acting silly.

On Saturday the Nakamichi sans came to our home. We first met the Nakamichis in America, their son Masa was in Liam's gymnastic group. Before coming to Japan we had the opportunity to visit with them a number of times. They stayed in America for 10 years, but recently returned to Japan and happen to live relatively close to us (about 1 hr by car). They arrived around lunch time and so Kate prepared a number of things including tacos. We were a little unsure if everyone would like them, but in the end they were a hit. Their older son Koki even invented a new dish that was dubbed taco rice. He put all the toppings on a bowl of rice. It was pretty good.

For fun we decided to go to green park, a big park close to our home where the children could play. The children took nets and containers so they could catch wildlife and explore. When we got to the park they all ran off to see what they could find.

The adults followed behind and chatted. The wind was surprisingly strong and cold. We bought some hot coffee cans from a vending machine and held them a little before drinking them to stay warm.

Eventually, Yuta slipped into the water and got his pants, shoe, and sock all wet.

Literally 10 seconds later Liam did the same thing with the same leg. The cold wind and wet feet brought our time at the park to an end and we headed home for another round of personalized cupcake making. In the picture below you can see the two children with wet legs making the cold trek back to the cars.

Everyone joined in decorating their cupcakes. Here, Hiro san is putting a delicious Tochigi strawberry on top of his.

After the cupcakes both Koki and Yuta did some magic to entertain everyone. Colleen was thrilled to get another Kewpie for her collection too!

To finish out the visit we broke out the Jenga for a couple of rounds. We have found that Jenga can be a fun game for everyone. The children can join in and play and it doesn't require an extensive explanation of how to play or complex rules. This time we did not enforce the loser must dance rule and just played for fun. I was able to keep my Jenga streak alive and avoided toppling the stack.

Masa and Liam tried to use some kind of bad vibe telekinetic dance to make the tower fall when it was someone else's turn other than their own. I remember when I was a child staring at a salt shaker and trying to get it to move like I had seen in the movies. I never did get it to work and neither did they, but they had fun trying..

Have a good week..

Tako Yaki, Fair well to the neighbor, 宇都宮 Science Museum.

Kate went to Yagishita san's our neighbor's home to make tako yaki. I have had tako yaki on the web site before, but it it the fried bread ball with an octopus center. Kate said these were the best she has had since arriving in Japan. She got the recipe to make them so we will have to try making them a few times before we return to the states to hone our tako yaki skills a little.

Also this week was a fair well party for one of the other neighbors Komine san. The party was at a local restaurant and so when the party was over all the ladies walked home. There was a variety of food including a huge pot of nabe.

They also had natto, fermented soybean. Kate said this kind did not have such a strong odor and so it was easier to eat. I am at the point that I can eat natto, but I can not honestly say that I enjoy it. Colleen on the other hand loves it and eats it regularly.

Komine san is on the right in the picture below. The home they were living in was a rental. The previously lived in the US (Alabama) for a number of years. Recently they purchased a new home so they are moving away.

On Sunday we went with the Shionome sans to the Utsunomiya science museum. It actually reminded me a little of COSI in Columbus. While walking in there were cut outs for taking pictures.

Colleen went crazy during her picture.

There were a number of different displays to see. This was in the area with optical illusions.

In the same area they had one of the rooms that are made at crazy angles. The rooms can be very disorienting and both Kate and I felt a little ill after walking through it. They also had many displays on energy and transportation. There was even a mini mag lev train that was pretty cool to watch. The children also got to experience what it was like to be on TV.

This display was an old Japanese mechanical toy. It only operated at certain times throughout the day, but we only had to wait about 7 minutes to watch it go. The children really enjoyed watching it operate.

After eating lunch we headed outside to the playground. There were a number of things to play on outside, one of which was this crazy tube slide. We all walked to the top of the hill to watch the children play. They would have played for hours, but all the adults got too cold from the wind. When we couldn't take it anymore we rounded up the children and then slid down the slide to get back to the museum. It was a great day to get out and enjoy.

Finally , I thought our Diva was pimp with the spoiler, sports suspension, and blue foot lighting.

When we were out and about recently we saw this Diva.. It puts ours to shame with the huge wing and awesome body kit. Unfortunately with only 660cc of engine I don't think the huge wing will help make it go faster..

Have a good week...

Pikachu, Earthquake, Big America, and Crazy expensive pets...

We really didn't have a lot of energy left this week to generate exceptional content for the blog. Work has been busy and the weather is just now breaking. I think soon we will get some energy back and get out to do things. The plum trees are already blooming, but the cherry trees are not yet. There is a noticeable difference in the trees, but no blooms. The cherry blossoms are typically the sign that you have lasted another winter.

Last week we made a trip to Yamada denki (electronics store) to get a phone. Our wireless from America no longer works. It must be about the same time we went last year as Pikachu was there again for a photo opportunity. There is actually someone in the suit, but they must be tiny. You can see in the picture that Pikachu is not much taller than the children. We stopped for the picture and were successful in purchasing a cheap working phone for the home.

This week there were two very noticeable earth quakes. The first was on Friday night while we were sitting watching the office on the computer. The intensity was low, but it lasted for what felt like 2-3 minutes. The second was today (Sunday) while we were at the grocery store. This one was very noticeable. The racks and lights in the store were shaking and we could hear bottles clanging together. The people around us stopped in there tracks and waited for it to stop before continuing their shopping. Liam said he saw they were cleaning up a broken bottle that fell from the shaking and when we got home some things had fallen in his room. After getting home I checked the internet to see the intensity. This is an article taken the internet.

After an earthquake there is always official information available from the Japan Meteorological Agency.

http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/

The information is given in the form of a map with dots indicating the severity of the quake in different locations as well as the epicenter marked with an X. Below is from todays relatively small quake.

In our area it was ranked at a Shindo 4. This is not the same as the Richter scale ranking. I attached the description of a level 4 below. If the image is too small you can double click it to enlarge it.

Also if you are interested to see the other rankings and descriptions you can click this link.

Japanese Shindo Earthquake Scale

When an earthquake hits it can be a little unnerving. In the states we had a number of tornado and bad storm warnings. The main difference is that with a storm you can tell from the news where the storm is and how intense so you can prepare a little. With an earthquake you don't know when it will come or how intense it will be. They always seem to start soft and build in intensity. You have to wait to see how bad it will get and that is the uneasy part.

Now in Japan there is a Big America campaign.

Every month they have introduced a new burger that is supposed to be the taste of America. Someone at worked asked me if we had these burgers in America. I had to tell him that we did not. He was a little surprised. They all have a huge beef patty and bacon but from there the ingredients vary. The only one I tried out of the four was the Hawaiian burger. It has a disk shaped fried egg, brown gravy, bacon, and cheese. When I ate it I did not get that Hawaiian feeling. Maybe it needed a slice of pineapple or something...anyway if you come to Japan in the near future you can give one of these a go.

While out today we stopped at a store called Joyful Honda (not affiliated with the auto manufacturer). There is a pet store inside and the children asked if we could look around. We agreed for fun, but warned them that we were not coming home with any pets. It was fun to look around but the pets in Japan are really expensive. The typical dog is usually over $1000.00. Pictured below is a toy poodle from the store coming in at around $2100.00

What is even more surprising is the price of the cats. In the US with little effort I could get a free cat, but here they can be quite expensive. This one is a Scottish Fold cat and it can be yours for a mere $1660.00 US. These prices make it really easy to say no to purchasing a pet while in Japan. It is even more expensive if you want to take a pet back to the states with you.

Finally I have not grown while in Japan even though I look giant in the picture below. Some of the doorways are not the same as the US standard door, they are much shorter. Actually for me it has never been an issue as I am a bit on the short side, but some of the other Americans have been caught off guard and smashed their foreheads on this style of door.

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

Girls day activity, Sakura making, and Bouldering..

This week June-san invited me to go with her to make dolls for girls day. When we arrived they had 2 rooms set up with many beautiful Japanese dolls, quilts etc. Unfortunately I don't know the names of many of the things I saw. These are called Hagoita. They were once used to play a game similar to Badminton but are now used for decoration around New Years.

This is an antique doll from one of the sets. I absolutely loved this...The whole set was quite impressive.

These were impressive antiques as well....

This set up was showing how they made these dolls. It looks like hard work and the out come is incredible. Molds were used to cast the heads.

After casting the heads are painted.

Next the details are added to the heads.

And the finished product.

These were the dolls June-san and I made. I am not much of a sewer so I was happy there was glue involved too.

June san hard at work..

My helpful and friendly sensei.

The finished product! :) I knew the kids would love these so I bought the materials so that Colleen could make the princess and Liam could make the prince.

After making these dolls, June-san took me to a wonderful restaurant. In this town there were 83 shops that had the Hinamatsuri dolls on display.....It was truly festive. The food was oishii(tasty) and as always any time I get to spend time with June-san is enjoyable

On Monday when making the dolls,the sensei told us about a class to make silk sakura flowers.

Unfortunately neither June-san or myself are sewers. On Thursday, two hours into the class June-san and I were laughing. There was no glue involved this time. It took us along time and we had a lot of fun trying to keep our needle threaded. 3 hours into the class we were the last ones remaining and a woman from the afternoon class was beginning her flower. We decided to finish on our own.... Fortunately the sensei gave me a finished product. I am hoping to enlist my mother-in-law into helping me make some when I return. She can REALLY sew!

That was Kate's activity for the week. This is Larry, on Sunday I was originally invited to snowboard with a couple of coworkers. Unfortunately it rained all day on Saturday and continued on into Sunday. As a result we scrapped the plans to snowboard and decided to go bouldering (climbing) in a local gym. Hoshi san, Ohbayashi san, Sagawa san and I all went together. Hoshi san was a member of the gym so he walked the rest of us through the process. There are no ropes in the gym, all the walls are shorter and so they are not needed. There are a number of different routes to climb and the difficulty is color coded. Hoshi san had the most skill out of everyone and was able to scale some pretty difficult routes.

In this picture of Sagawa san you can see that there are many different holds, each route is numbered and colored and so the intent is that you follow only one path and not just pick any that look good.

Ohbayashi san just starting his route.

And me with my incredibly painful tiny rental shoes climbing the wall. It was good exercise. I could tell I was finished when my grip faded to the point that I could no longer hang on to the wall. After that even putting on my shoes was a difficult task.

Finally for this week I bought some (プリン) pudding kit kats. In Japan the pudding is pretty popular. It tastes a bit like creme brulee. The children have really taken a liking to it. This is what the pudding looks like.

And here are the Kit Kats. There are actually a variety of flavors available, but this is the only kind I could find at the store currently. They taste like the real pudding. Pretty tasty.

That is all for this week, have a great week.