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.

Saturday train ride to Utsunomiya, Bike ride to Mashiko.

On Saturday Kate and I decided that we should make a trip to Utsunomiya. Typically we just drive, but it has been a while since Kate and the children have ridden on the train so we decided to take our bicycles to the station and then ride the train in to town. This method can be faster than driving sometimes (especially during rush hour.) We arrived at the station mid day and decided to walk around some of the shopping areas for fun.

Close to the station there are a number of different restaurants and shops so it doesn't take much effort to walk to any number of places.

Our first stop was LaLa Square. It is a multi-level shopping mall with eyes painted on the outside to make it more friendly looking. It also plays music and sings "La La Su-ku-e-ru" which is the katakana equivalent of La La Square. Actually there can be a lot of English around but it is typically disguised as it is written in Katakana.

Sometimes when foreign words are adopted into the language they can lose a little of the meaning. For example we saw the sign below while we were at the mall. Clearance has been split into two separate words..Clea and Rance in the end everyone knows there is a sale, it is just interesting to see it written as two words.

After we finished up at La La Square we stopped at a small restaurant to grab a bite before heading home on the train. We have not had Italian in a long time so when we walked past an Italian restaurant we decided it sounded good. Most times the Italian food in Japan is not exactly the same as we get in the states. It usually has a Japanese twist. My guess is that the American Italian food is also slightly different then true Italian, but I have not yet had true Italian so I can't be sure.

While at the restaurant Liam said "If somebody dared me to eat that Tabasco sauce I would." so I said "OK, I dare you." We put a little in his glass and he actually did drink it.

Afterwords he said he thought his lips were on fire. We all got a pretty good laugh out of it, including him.

It still gets dark pretty early now and so by the time we arrived back at Hoshakuji station it was already dark. 3 out of the 4 bicycles have lights on them with Colleen's being the exception, so we put her in the middle of the line and rode home. That put an end to our day out on the town.

Probably six months ago Liam decided that one of his goals before we leave Japan is to ride his bicycle from our home to the pottery town of Mashiko. I told him he will have to start training a little as the weather warms up. Before he takes on this adventure I wanted to ride it first to understand the road conditions, traffic, and how far it is so today I gave it a go. I was able to do the round trip in about 1 hour 40 min and the distance turned out to be about 17 miles one way.

I snagged a couple of pictures with my cell phone for pictorial evidence.

After doing the ride I think he will be able to do it in the spring. Most of the way has side walks and the route is pretty straight forward. Most likely we will just ride one way and have Kate pick us up in the van about mid day. Should be a good adventure for him.

Finally the children have had two different Japanese tutors since we have been living here. Their current tutor Noriko sensei has been with them since last March. She came today for class to help Liam prepare for a big math test in school tomorrow. Kate grabbed a picture of them as we have never posted a picture of them in the past.

Hope everyone has a great week..I am definitely ready for warmer weather to come our way.

Sake factory tour and visit to Shionome sans family..

This weekend we were able to go to Karasuyama with the Shionome's. They took us to a Sake factory for a tour to see how Sake is made. From the front it looks like a small building, but this building is connected to a large complex where everything happens.

Here is the entire group including our factory tour guides.

Before entering the facility we were required to remove our shoes and put on inside slippers. I have toured a handful of factories through work and about 1/3 of them require separate shoes inside the facility so this is not so unusual for factories in Japan.

Immediately after stepping into the building you could smell the Sake. There are a number of different processes during the making of Sake. First the rice is polished. This process removes the outer layer of the rice. Next is washing and then on to steaming. The picture below is of the steaming process. There is no one in the photo to give a size reference, but it is a huge container. It is similar to making rice for mochi, but on a much larger scale.

Next the rice is cooled and stored in a vat where it molds and ferments. The cooling machine is pictured below.

One of the critical steps is the filtering. There were two methods to filter. This machine was used to produce the expensive Sake. It presses the fermented rice into a screen that separates the Sake from the base rice.

The separated rice doesn't go to waste. It is used to make a number of products including soup, ice cream, and even soap. Next up was the Sake tasting. Kate and Chizuko san got to sample a variety of different types. One of them was blueberry Sake, and another was more than 20 years old at about $400 a bottle. They appeared to enjoy the tasting, Taka san and I were driving and so we were not able to partake.

Next up was a tour of the cave were the Sake is stored for aging. We drove up a small winding road that led us to the cave. The cave was in the side of a hill and the opening was lined with wood to support it. Our tour guide unlocked it and led us in.

Up front was a rack of Sake that is being stored for special occasions.

There were pictures on all of the bottles to designate who's they are and what the occasion will be. The one below was purchased at the birth of a families baby and will be opened and shared when the child turns 20 (the drinking age in Japan).

There were cartons of Sake lining the cave walls at various stages of storage. One area was fenced off and locked. It contained Sake that was more than 40 years old.

There were also a number of bats hibernating in the cave. The children all enjoyed touching them as they slept. I am not so familiar with bats so I was a little uncomfortable at first, but the bats just continued to hang there and slept through it all.

From there we drove to the Karasuyama paper factory. Kate had gone there one time before, but it was the first time for me. It was pretty interesting to see in person. The paper is made from what looked like a shrub. First sticks about 12 inches long are boiled to separate the the wood into different parts. The part under the bark and above the wood center is cleaned to remove the dark portion from it. Below are the different stages.

The material on the right in the above picture is then put into a machine with water and mixed into a pulpy goo that is used to make the paper. That can be seen in the picture below.

Next there are a couple of other steps, but finally it ends up in a vat where a screen is pulled through the mix to separate out a layer of the pulp that becomes the paper. The screen itself has a pattern on it that becomes imprinted in the paper and creates a water mark that can be seen when the paper is held up to light.

Each layer is then stacked on top of each other on a table. The paper below was being created for diplomas and the University's name was written on the screen to form the watermark.

Next the material is pressed to remove the water from the pulp and create the final product.

After the paper factory tour we visited the house that Taka san grew up in. His mother and father still live in the home. It is a very nice older farm house that is much bigger than the home we live in. Actually many of the rooms were quite large.

There were two huge tables lined up in the one room and we were all able to sit together and enjoy lunch. Behind me in the picture there were sliding doors that could be opened to let fresh air into the house. It was really nice to sit in the sun and have dinner with everyone together.

For lunch we had a number of different things. One of the things we had was fresh kiwi. While eating we were informed that the kiwi was grown at their house. We had never actually seen a Kiwi tree so Kate and I asked to see what it looked like. Here is the picture, it looks a lot like a wisteria vine to me.

They also grew their own shiitake mushrooms. The mushrooms are grown on old logs that are stacked against a wooden rack.

After exploring the home the adults sat at a kotatsu (heated table) drinking coffee and visiting while the children played outside. Taka san's father was interested in my I-pod because I was using it to look up words on the dictionary. Pictured he is checking it out with a magnifying glass. On TV behind me was a marathon relay. This time of year marathons are pretty popular and a lot of people watch them on TV. Shiono san told me that for new years his father and brother in law will watch a new years marathon relay for the entire day.

When we finished visiting we drove to a temple on a hill. We parked at the bottom and then hiked a pretty good ways to the top. About half way up there was a little station that had walking sticks for people to borrow during the walk to the top.

There were a lot of log steps to get to the top, but the view was great.

The temple was placed inside a natural cave in the side of the hill, one of the more interesting locations I have seen.

It was a beautiful day for this hike and we stayed at the top for about 15 min to take it in.

But on the way down I had to stop on one of the logs for a quick nap to regenerate enough energy to make it the rest of the way down the hill to the cars.

Hope everyone has a good week..