Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Walking to subway stop to catch school bus

We all went to the subway this morning to go to the bus stop. Ashlynn
is usually sad to be left behind but she did a good job today. Other
than the fact they were walking down the middle of the street.

Monday, September 15, 2008

April's encounter with the law

We are getting closer to finally making into our final residence. I had Monday off while the Bridget and Colleen still had school. It was kind of fun having a day off with two of the kids busy for the day. We spent the day moving stuff from our temporary house over to the permanent apartment. It wasn't without incident. Our final house is in an apartment building with a security system and video entrance camera. After a nice Indian food lunch I took Ashlynn back to the apartment while April ran to get a few last things. When April got back to the apartment she rang the bell I went to let her in but there were three buttons; which one should I push? I tried the first, nothing happened, tried the second one, nothing happened, so I thought it must be the button above the video monitor. I pushed and a red circle started flashing and I could hear an alarm going off. Of course after a short panic pushing all of the buttons I couldn't figure out how to get it to turn off so I just went done to the lobby to let her in. As I get out of the elevator I was greeted with the nice blaring of the horn and lights flashing where the doorman meets people. Not a good sign. I looked around and couldn't see anyone so we just headed upstairs. After fiddling with the monitor for a couple of minutes the alarm turned off and I figured no harm no foul so I was off to pick up the kids from the bus stop and I left April home with a napping Ashlynn. When I got back I was informed that April had a personal visit for the neighbor policeman, baton, bullet proof vest and all. Luckily he didn't speak English and April didn't speak Japanese so all he could do was reset the alarm and April apologized. Some times timing is everything.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

The girls had fun making "soup" with salt and pepper after our dinner was done...

Shabu-Shabu Dinner!




We had a great dinner last Thursday with our friend Megumi! The Japanese call this style of meal shabu-shabu, because you put the raw, thin meat strips and vegetables in boiling pots of water heated by electric plates on your table, and they think it makes a sound that sounds like, "shabu-shabu". What service! The ladies in kimonos were pretty patient with the kids (although I wouldn't mind leaving them home next time). Even the food is very-detail oriented and always a work of art in Japan. The ladies arranged our cooked vegetables with a maple-leaf shaped carrot on top, and I just had to have my soup and eat it, too!


This is a regular hang-out for Ashlynn and I, because my chiropractor is right at this subway stop. There's a nice shopping center here and a place for the little ones to play. This week has been a little bit of a trough in my stay here (I guess it had to hit sometime). I missed the schoolbus twice this week! Once was due to city traffic (took 15 minutes to go 700 meters) and the second time I got lost at TWO subway stations (once I got off too early and once I got confused about where to transfer to a connecting station and realized after a few trips that I was going up the elevator and down the escalator - repeated 3 times). Oh, well, things are still going well overall. We are still in our temporary house, and looking forward to being in our permanent apartment next Monday! Hurray!


Oh, yes, for those of you who wanted to hear about our anniversary dinner, it was wonderful. We ate at a Tempanyaki-style restaurant on the top of the Westin Hotel, overlooking Nagoya Castle. This means Habachi-style cooking (Benihana) without the fancy tricks. Scott's secretary had been kind enough to make us reservations and we got an anniversary package, which included our own personal chef! We had 11 courses in all (maybe someday I'll get the menu and the photo scanned in and posted). The third course included a lobster that had been cut vertically down the center while still alive, and an abalone that was still alive, as well. We only discovered this when the chef sprinkled fresh ground salt on them and they started to move! The rolling action made by the shellfish really took me by surprise, and I think the cook was, too, because the abalone moved so much that the shell rocked a little bit! It's definitely a memory we'll never forget, and I asked if they would wash out the shell for me so I could take it home. Abalone is the material that mother-of-pearl comes from, so it's quite colorful and beautiful. And most important, we'll smile whenever we look at it!

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Kimono shopping

Here's the kimono picture! The first one, anyway; this is a try-on at the street market. We shopped last night at an open-air market in Nagoya called Osu. I can tell you that the Japanese dress a little bit more wild on Saturdays than they do for work the rest of the week. Plus, this place has a reputation for being a little crazy. It has festivals with dancing, music, street food and general community gathering at least once a month.

Church is getting better each week. We have Primary and Relief Society/ Preisthood first, then Sunday School, and last Sacrament meeting, from 10am-1pm. The older girls have an adult interpreting for them in their individual primary classes, and so they just have to get through Sharing Time in Japanese. The primary will even sing a few songs in English just for them. Colleen and Bridget have at least two of their classmates that speak English, so they're making friends and doing well. Bridget's teacher takes the time to write her supplements in both languages, which is just one example of how accommodating the Japanese are. Ashlynn has nursery leaders talking to her in Japanese the whole two hours, which she usually requires a couple of breaks from. Meetings for us are going well; I've been able to make a few comments in Relief Society with the help of a translator (usually missionaries). We have had combined R.S./Priesthood meetings with visiting leaders from the stake or area authorities, who of course give great lessons. I was worried that we wouldn't get enough out of our meetings to be spiritually fed like we're used to, but so far we have been very blessed. Today was fast and testimony meeting and the little kids ALL got up and said the same thing, "I know that God lives. And I say these things in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen." It was quite an experience. The adults gave wonderful testimonies with faith-promoting stories; visiting the temple, being closer to their less active children, the men trying to get home earlier from work. All are saints who are trying to live the commandments the best they can. They even cry at the pulpit like we emotional Americans do.

Ward Choir is a hoot. I had Megumi (my interpreter friend) write down the syllables I'm supposed to be singing next to the kanji on the copy of the hymns we're singing in Stake Conference in a few weeks. Our choir director is a professional, and not your standard Japanese. He's an artist with huge expression and long hair. Megumi says her friends call him Beethoven. She said that he got so into directing when the general authorities came to visit that his glasses fell off during the song. It's amazing how choir directors are the same, no matter where you are in the world.

A couple of things happened to me this week that really made me feel welcomed by the Japanese: first was, Bridget dropped my new I-phone and the screen died, and I only had it a week. I was worried that I would have to pay to replace it (which would have been just) and I told the phone store honestly what happened, and they said they weren't sure. They sent me to the Apple store, and the man was so friendly, that he met me at the door, and said, "I think this is an LCD problem. The warranty will cover this." I patted his arm and told him he was my new best friend. I'll have to be more careful with this one.

The second almost-misunderstanding happened when I tried to order a hamburger for Ashlynn with no toppings on it, and I guess the restaurant thought I wanted a discount for that, or something, so they came back and said that I would have to get the "standard" version of the avocado burger. I was a little frustrated, but just said, fine, I'll take the stuff off myself. I went upstairs while I was waiting to the 300 Yen store, and when I came back they had drawn me a little picture on the back of a receipt. I'm hoping to scan and post it so you all get the full effect, but it said, "We made one burger like this (showing all the toppings) and one with meet only (drawing of a plain burger) and we will give you back 80 Yen". It was so sweet of them to keep trying even though they weren't sure what to do. The Japanese are often torn between keeping the letter of the law and making people happy, especially Gaijin (pronounced "guy-gene", their word for foreigners) like us.

Well, I probably blabbed too long again. I'm still getting used to this blog thing, so forgive while it still sounds more like an e-mail. I loved all who commented last time, so don't be shy! Tell me what I could do better, or what I'm forgetting. I'll try to post more pictures, and of course when the girls wear their new kimonos for a special occasion with their hair done and everything I'll take more. I'll have to write about Scott & my anniversary dinner sometime soon; it was quite an experience! Let's just say our abalone dinner almost got up and walked away from the table when the tenpanyaki chef sprinkled salt on it! Write more soon!

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Meal time




On Friday we decided we were going to try and be authentic. We went to on Japanese restaurant it was full so we just walked into another. They did offer us an English menu but it didn't really help a lot. Even though it is in English I am not sure what beef habuyaki is, or what constitutes pork fondue? After we ordered them we found out that they were dished that you cook at the table and they were actually pretty good. Even Ashlynn enjoyed the egg drop soup.




Saturday came the kids decided that they wanted something American for breakfast, chocolate chip pancakes were on dock. I agreed knowing that April had been shopping and bought some pancake mix I agreed. We got the table cleaned up and I found the mix and flipped over the bag to read the instructions and .........I had no idea what it said. I finally found in the upper left corner a picture that looked like egg, milk, the mix, and a bowl however there were four lines, I couldn't tell if I needed oil or not but we decided to embark. I found the measuring cup for what looked like 200g of mix opened the bag to be reminded that I now live in Japan. The pancake mix bag had four separate bags premeasured and sealed at 200g a piece. We mixed the batter hopeing that fourth line wasn't important. (and it wasn't they were very good pancakes).


We also had our 13th Anniversary this week but I will leave that meal experience for another day, it was one we will never forget.