shinshu life

you know you want one

2012-01-21T09:51:00.002+09:00

Haven't you always wanted a pretend pair of underpants to stick your fingers in to clean the screen of your mobile phone?

Go on! It's the most talked about mobile phone cleaner out there!

And only 504 yen including tax!

whatever the weather

2012-01-20T09:44:00.000+09:00

Hey S. I know we said we'd go for a walk today but have you looked outside? It's belting down with snow. Let's go to the pool instead.

Ehhh? The pool? We can still walk. It's only snow.

Hmm, Ok......

S is from Wisconsin. All I know about that state is that it's where Little House in the Big Woods was set. And Ma and Pa and Laura get snowed in again and again and again.

Me? I'm from an island where people surf year round and we don't even get frost. I call 'Snow Day' every time the stuff sticks.

But I'm no piker so we headed out.

And it was actually really beautiful.

Freezing cold and the snow was battering my face but beautiful. And we walked on pristine snow and left the only tracks on the walking path.

Unsurprisingly, really.

But it was just as exciting as being the first person to leave footprints on the beach.

And you don't need to get up and out there half as early!

Amy's sports day

2012-01-19T09:16:00.010+09:00

Was not held today.

Or yesterday.

Or even this month.

Not even this year.

But while it's old new I have had these pictures on my computer for so long (since September!) and so she can't grow up, read this blog and ask why her kinder events missed the boat when her sister's didn't I am going to post them anyway.

And for my mum and dad to see.

As the oldest kids in the kinder Amy's class had lots of extra roles at Sport's Day. Here she is chanting out the athlete's oath. Yes, we take Sport's Day pretty seriously here. The oath is cute though- we're all going to have fun and be careful and not get hurt.

They carried a festival float around. These are used at religious festivals but the kinder one is all fun and colourful without any religious symbols. An interesting balance!

Stilt walking. This year we went very 'everyone is the same' with the stilts. No decorations whatsoever and noone's stilts were raised no matter how well they could use them. This is a bit of a contrast from when Meg was at kinder.

They led the little kids in a dance. I love this picture. That little boy is clearly thinking 'What is that thing on your head?'. He doesn't know Amy and her unique sense of style obviously. This was a lace hair ornament she made. Of course.

Action shot from her dance.

The dance finale pose. Amy is a dancer who take after mummy.....

They did synchronised skipping with two kids leaving from different corners of the ground before crossing over and joining a line at the other side. Amy loves skipping and I hadn't realised how much of a challenge it is for some kids her age. But they all tried sooo hard and they were really so cute about it!

The kid in this next picture gets my award for awesomeness:

He'd only gone about a third of the course when that happened and he made it all the way to the end. What determination!

And that was our very last kinder Sports Day.

Wow.

I'm a little sad actually. No more watching the 2 year olds bumble around and bump into each other? Ohhhhhh....

Then again, one less morning of sitting on the ground for hours on end while a PA system screeches feedback at us!

Not forgetting 3/11

2012-01-18T08:18:00.003+09:00

Living here in Azusagawa it is really easy to go about life without thinking about the earthquake, the tsunami and even to some extent the radiation threat. We grow our own veggies, the water we use comes from the mountain behind us, the local testing station puts our radiation readings at minimal, life just goes on as it always has.

But that's not true for everyone.

And that's something we can't forget.

Even K's parents who are lucky enough to be living in their own house which is structurally sound have to queue if they want to buy vegetables from outside the prefecture. That's if there are any available that day. We are still sending them rice and some winter veggies and, while they live with the uncertainty of not knowing what their environment is doing to them they are typically fatalistic and say they are too old to need to worry about it and similarly too old to want to start a new life somewhere else.

The Mayor of Matsumoto, Akira Sugenoya, is a leading researcher on Thyroid cancer and spent five years in Belarus treating children after the fallout from Chernobyl. He has been really busy doing talks and media work explaining the risks and the situation. He has been to Fukushima to do talks there, addressed parliament and done public addresses all around the prefecture including right here in Azusagawa. As well as being very knowledgable he has a very reassuring and calming way of talking that I really appreciate and makes me think I would have liked to have him as a doctor when he was still doing that!

If anything good has come out of this tragedy I really think it is the raising of consciousness of so many citizens. I have often felt that the average Japanese person is staggeringly politically apathetic. The frequent change of Prime Minister, inbrededness of the political parties and lack of much real difference between the two main parties don't help for sure but it always amazes me how many people don't vote and aren't interested in the issues.

Since 3/11 though there are a plethora of new grass roots organisations and movements that are making noise and drawing attention to their cause and demanding action from their government.

And even at very local, neighbourhood level, people are banding together to improve their lot rather than just wait for the government to help them.

Like the people in this video from Ishinomaki. It's sad to see how much there is that still needs to be done but encouraging to see people moving forward and thinking of a future while still surrounded by the evidence of so much loss and devastation.

yummy cat food

2012-01-17T00:24:00.002+09:00

I have lived in Japan for about 11 years now.

I can sit kneeling for hours.

I can eat quail eggs, beans and slippery noodles with chopsticks.

I have slept on a futon and I don't even blink at a Japanese squat toilet.

I eat seaweed, prawn heads, raw fish and fermented natto beans.

But until now I have never eaten these little dried fish.

I don't know why. I guess they just look like cat snacks or something. Or I couldn't imagine that the meat to bone ratio in them would be worth it. A mouth full of dried guts and dried bones and dried fish brains? Mmmmm, no thanks.

But one of my students made this for me and I put it on the table while I made dinner and Meg and Amy started in and just kept eating and eating.

They were raving about how yummy they were.

It got me a little worried that I was missing out on something and the pace they were going I was looking to miss out entirely.

So, without looking at it too hard or thinking too deeply about what I was eating I put one in my mouth.

Closed my eyes and chew, chew, chewed.

Wow.

They are really good!!

In the spirit of full disclosure these had a yummy soy sauce and crystal sugar coating with those red Chinese fruits in there as well. They were really, really moreish.

But I still can't believe I am eating cat food.

It's yummy cat food but it's still cat food.

observation day

2012-01-16T00:05:00.003+09:00

Ohhh another observation day for Meggie.

This one was called 'The mysteries of my belly button' and was about babies and where they come from (starting 8 weeks after conception- we are still in Grade 2!) and how important mummy's are and how your mummy carried you around in her tummy for all that time as you got bigger and bigger and heavier and heavier. The teacher used classroom objects to represent the weight of the fetus at each stage and it was great watching the kids reactions. When he got to the end and it was 'And then you were as heavy as a pianica AND a tape dispenser and your mummy was walking around like this all day and all night' and one boy piped up 'she should have just used a school bag- I carry my pianica like that and it's not heavy at all!' ohhhh so sweet.

Then we sang sekai ni hitotsu dake no hana by SMAP. I love this song and it was great having the kids sing it. Ohhhhh.... I love observation day.

I love Meg's school.

I love Meg's class.

I love Meg's teacher.

I am gonna be bawling my eyes out come April when we have a new class and new teacher....

cool kids class activity

2012-01-15T08:47:00.008+09:00

I know I haven't written about the garden in ages but honestly Winter is the very off-season garden-wise. It's just too cold to want to be out there! Anyway:

There's a Japanese New Year's game called fukuwarai where you are blindfolded and you try to put a face together.

Meg and Amy had a lot of fun playing over New Year and it gave me an idea for class.

The 2 year olds had to ask me for what colour/ shape and face part they wanted and then their mums helped with the gluing:

I really like their pictures and I was really happy that so many chose blue eyes as I have run up against a lot of 'Eyes are black. Only black.' before.

In my phonics class we had a three part activity:

First they made a word bank matching words to pictures.

Then they had to ask me for the colour/ shape and size of which body part they wanted. 'Two small pink cheeks please.'

Then finally the used their word bank to write sentences about their person:

This was the first time some of them had written a whole sentence without copying straight from the text or any key words. They were so proud of themselves and I was so proud of them.

Ohhhhh my students rock!

lesson map

2012-01-14T08:39:00.004+09:00

When I teach adult classes I sit with the whiteboard behind me and facing the students. When a new word comes up I lean back and write it on the board. At the end of class when I turn around and clean the board I am often interested and surprised at the variety of words that are up there and try to remember what the jumps were that got us from this word to that one.

I mean celibacy, water buffalo and karma in an hour? That's pretty random, huh?

Here's today's lesson map from a seniors' English class:

Don't you want to know what on earth we were talking about?

Happy chooks

2012-01-13T08:30:00.002+09:00

Don't you think it's a good life being a Fukase family chook? When we're working outside we let the chooks out and they free range it around and have a ball scratching and pecking and exploring and foraging and doing silly stuff like trying to eat the pattern off the tiles and skiddig around on the ice and stuff.

The sound in the back of the video is K chainsawing and the chook looks startled at the start of the video as my phone makes a loud sound when you start recording (so you can't take pervy videos without the subject knowing I guess?) and the poor chook got a fright.

And haven't the chooks got big, huh?

Amy still calls the brown ones 'the chicks' but it's been a long time since they looked like this, huh?

getting better very very slowly

2012-01-12T08:12:00.002+09:00

We went bowling again.

The most amazing part of this is that the bowling alley let us go bowling again.

Amy has some kind of bowling Murphy's Law thing going on.

Whenever we bowl we end up getting a lot of personal attention from the staff. So far she has got a ball stuck behind the pins, had the automatic pin placer machine not replace the pins, had a ball stop before it even got to the pins and had a ball get stuck at the very end of the gutter. I swear it's a miracle we're not black listed!

Meg is getting the rhythm of the bowling thing slowly:

While Amy is still working on testing out the durability of bowling balls. I think we should try basketball next time!

I love the way she uses gestures to 'direct' the ball the way she wants it to go and she jumps up and down happily even after hitting a whole 2 pins. And we're bowling with the bumpers up so there's no such thing as a gutter ball.

off to school

2012-01-11T21:02:00.002+09:00

I will never be able to tell Meg not to complain about her walk to school as I had it so much harder when I was a kid.

Because I didn't.

I never walked near enough to 4km each way.

I never literally climbed a mountain on the way home.

I never had to watch out for a rogue monkey gang exerting their rights to the road I had to walk up.

I never had a bear bell (let alone two!) on my school bag.

I never slid on ice patches walking down the road and skidded around corners on black ice.

I certainly never needed a down jacket, knit cap, neck warmer, gloves, leg warmers and snow shoes- with spikes- to get to school.

And I didn't even realise that frost bite could occur anywhere but Mt Everest and Antarctica.

But you know, I don't think I ever had half as much fun as she does getting to school either. A 7 minute drive in mum's car with my brother and sister doesn't really compare to an hour walking and talking and collecting icicles or frogs or chestnuts depending on the season. Or taking a break at the park half way and having a drink at the fountain and getting wet and lying around drying out before continuing the journey. And checking out what's happening in everyone's gardens and discussing everything and anything with her walking buddies and having yelling competitions (sure the neighbours love that one) and getting daily updates on the kittens that were born under a barn half way to school and so much more.

She loves walking to school and is disappointed when it's raining or blizzarding and she goes in the car.

From April Amy will join the walking group and I have my fingers crossed she will enjoy it as much and manage to get to school and back as unscathed as her sister has so far.

Touch wood.

For Granny

2012-01-10T20:50:00.002+09:00

We LOVE the Christmas PJs:

And no, Amy wasn't under arrest. Just doing double peace signs under her PJ sleeves. And they're 8 and 6 and still LOVE their dolls. Long may it last as the non-doll conversation around here recently has been along these lines:

But when will I get big breasts?

How big will they get?

I want to be a boy so I can have a willy.

I'm having my babies at Marunouchi hospital because they're nice there.

I'm only having five babies because I think they will cost too much money.

I'm marrying my husband and we're going to sleep in my room so mummy can cook and clean for us.

I'm going to marry someone with a motorbike. They're cool.

I don't want to get married and have a husband- then you have to look after them. I just want a baby.

So yes, let's hope playing house and playing with dolls and playing dress-ups continues for a long, long time to come!

Sankuro

2012-01-09T22:38:00.018+09:00

This year Meg went to kids' club at 8 and was gone pretty much all day. They collected 300 yen from each household, gathered up all the New Year decorations from the neighbourhood, built a pyre and had lunch and party games at the community centre. She came back for an hour before lunch but that was it.

K was working outside so Amy and I decided to make the traditional mayudama ourselves. Because we wanted something to do so we wouldn't feel left out rather than to save us the 398 yen of buying ready-made ones at the supermarket.

The ingredients were only rice flour and water- how hard could it be, huh?

Hahahahahaha!

First we mixed it all together till it got combined.

Then we added food colouring and kneaded that in. Amy chose the colours:

Then we had to steam it for 10 minutes sitting on greaseproof paper:

Then cut it in half and check the colour was transparent (not cloudy) all the way through.

Then we had to cool them in a bowl of chilled water.

Then we kneaded them until they were the same consistency as our ear lobes. This is a pretty common description in Japanese cooking and one that always makes me nervous- I don't really go around touching people's earlobes- what if mine are not the average texture? What if my cooking doesn't work out because I have defective ear lobes???? Anyway, we kneaded the dough until it felt ok to someone with questionable earlobes and no idea what the finished product should feel like.

Then it was time to roll the mayudama into balls.

And Meg came home just in time to make some before heading back to kids' club.

Predictably she didn't want to make standard boring old balls and instead made hamburgers and hot dogs and stars and peas in a pod and ice-creams and a dice.

K cut down a branch of bamboo for the girls and they used secaturs to cut off the leaves and then mold/ spear the mayudama on. It's actually supposed to be a branch of a different tree and you can even buy branches at the supermarket this time of the year but we have bamboo and anything green will work so we make do.

At 5:00 we geared up in our snow suits (after a mini-meltdown from Amy who only wanted to wear a padded vest but this time I was insisting on snow wear as sankuro is held at the top of the mountain and it's windy, dark and frigid and I was not going to be handing over my snow wear to keep her warm after 10 minutes!

When we got there the pyre was all ready and the grade 6 student (just one this year...) and her dad walked around with torches starting the fire. This fire play is a big deal for the men as well as the kids and my nose tells me there's a little kero in the mix to ensure a roaring fire. Not really necessary this year as clearing for the monkey fence meant we have masses of pine and cypress cuttings that went up with a whoooof!

It really is quite an impressive bonfire and I heard that our district has one of the biggest bonfires as we have a big open space to do it in. Many of the newer districts can't make big fires as they are surrounded by houses etc. Poor newer districts was the general consensus.

I looked around for the girls and Meg was off sliding down a steep incline from the temple cemetery to the baseball ground on her butt in the snow. It was nearly dark, freezing and they were all wearing two piece snow suits so over active butt-sledding results in snow down your pants but the squeals and laughs told me she wasn't that worried.

I couldn't find Amy though....

Not near the big fire.

Not with the butt-sledders.

Not with the other kinder kids.

Then I heard a plaintive 'Muuummmyyyyyyyyy!' from behind me.

Amy was hiding behind a truck in the very corner of the ground. She was worried the fire would get out of control and burn everyone, the cars and all our houses. I explained that it was ok and that the men with the long forked sticks were there to keep the fire in one place. She didn't look too convinced but then they were standing around drinking beer and laughing so I could kind of get why she wasn't too confident...

And after it burnt down Amy was relieved and Meg was tired and sweaty and hungry and we roasted our mayudama and some marshmallows. Some people roasted mochi and one family had three squid on a piece of wire and roasted them. We ate bowls of pork and veggie soup that the kids had all taken a bag of veggies to contribute to at kids' club and then headed home in the dark and the wind and the cold.

Home for a hot bath and warm pajamas.

Sankuro over for another year.

mix'n'match dinner

2012-01-08T22:16:00.003+09:00

Fabulous friend and neighbour A brought dinner over today.

Yeah!

I'm sure it would have looked a whole lot better if we weren't in our PJs when she brought it over but hey, that's what you get for turning up at the kitchen door at 8am.

And so for dinner we had feijoa. Brazilian bean stew with sausage, bacon, onion, white beans, carrot, garlic, parsley and oh yeah, tripe.

There was rice in the rice cooker but I wanted to eat mine with something else. So I made polenta.

And so we had the most mixed up dinner you can think of- polenta, pickled greens, rice and feijoa.

And it made me think again that I love bringing my kids up here. Without the idea of 'kid's menus' that dictate that kids eat mini pizza, fish and chips or chicken nuggets with fries on the side of course.

Prawn brains, squid guts, strange and unusual mushrooms, fish with their heads on and guts in, slimy mountain potatoes, chewy kelp seaweed, liver and kidneys, greens of every shape and kind and now tripe have all made appearances on the girls dinner plates (and many of the above in their kinder/ school lunch as well.) As a result they are really adventurous eaters (just ask my family who shudder when they eat natto or kimchi for brekky) and give new foods a go when they met them. And they like most of them, too.

Well except for chicken nuggets.

After being served them on an airplane they turned up their noses and complained bitterly:

"You said it was chicken!"

Guess I'll ask for the tripe stew kid's meal next time, hey?

Yum!

How important am I?

2012-01-07T22:46:00.002+09:00

I get mail from Australia.

Not from someone in Australia.

From Australia:

My brother rocks

2012-01-06T23:32:00.000+09:00

Seriously.

He sent me this for my birthday:

What's that you ask?

Why this:

It peals, cores and slices all in one turn of the handle.

Really.

Can you think of a better present for someone living in apple country?

The girls love it.

They call the product of the amazing machine's process 'super apples' and we have a new favourite dessert around here. I was a bit disappointed at first as they always ate the peel until now but then I realised the poor hard-done-by-by-the-eat-everything-and-then-lick-the-plate Fukase girls now get a smidgen when we eat apples.

It makes apple crumble, apple pie and apple pudding a breeze! And stewed apples? Pah- no challenge these days!

And K? K just likes gadgets so he's sold from the time he saw the picture on the box.

Everyone's a winner!

The festive food finale!

2012-01-05T11:37:00.000+09:00

Phew... it's been a foodie festive season this year. From impromptu turkeys and obaachan sending us the entire osechi New Year food and enough mochi to build a small mochi-igloo (it's whit, right?) and then the whole 'Fukase Family Feast' series of meals it has been quite the gourmet corner of Nagano here.

Today's meal is a little embarrassing though.

It started off innocently enough. Amy noticed the picture of chocolate fondue on the side of the fondue set box and was very interested and googly eyed that people would dip things in melted chocolate. Oooooooo- can we do that??

Why not, hey? So we went to the supermarket and bought sinful amounts of chocolate and cream and then some strawberries and marshmallows and castella pieces and we had bananas and kiwifruit and apple at home already and Amy made a beautiful display:

And then we melted the chocolate in the cream and Amy was horrified at how much there was- "too much chocolate mummy!!" even though it was a third of the original US recipe!

We set up the burners and the fondue pot:

(soft focus effect courtesy of freezing cold Nagano winter and camera lens)

And that's when it got downright shameful! I pulled out the healthy veggie soup and brown rice I was planning for a light, pre-fondue first course.

Eh?

That's right, all three of them thought we would have just chocolate fondue for dinner.

Seriously!

I know K has various thoughts on the comparative lack of health benefits of Western food but really- did he honestly think chocolate fondue was a meal and not a dessert?

Yup.

So, I had my veggie soup and rice and they started straight in on the chocolate fondue.

Hey, it's the holidays!

And so we ended Fukase Family Festive Feasts Week with a true gala performance- chocolate fondue for dinner.

And astonishingly both girls retired before the chocolate ran out. There really is such thing as too much chocolate, huh?

Culinary tour of Europe

2012-01-04T23:36:00.001+09:00

From pasta and Italy yesterday to dragging the fondue sets out of the cupboard I discovered them in and fondue today.

Yet again the preparation wore Amy out (she and Meg cut and arranged the veggies and bread while I poached the chicken and sauted the prawns.

We had one version with wine and one without. Not because I'm terribly concerned about the girls drinking wine in cooking but because they both put on a theatrical display of discomfort when they smelt the wine and I decided better to make a wine-less version from the start than have to make do after we all sat down!

And yet again Amy perked up when it got to the actual eating side of things.

The verdict? "Super cheesey!!" and "Cool forks!!"

One more holiday tea to go. Phew. I'm almost out of culinary inspiration!

for dad

2012-01-03T23:27:00.003+09:00

My dad's pretty hardcore when it comes to working hard. I remember when we were kids and we'd go out to 'help' him clear a tree from somewhere and the working day would seem to last forever.

But even Dad didn't go to these lengths I think:

Keen to get wood cut in a bizarrely un-snowy New Year holiday where we miraculously didn't have other obligations K got stuck into chopping wood while I carted it around from the front carpark.

He started in the morning and stopped for lunch. Then kept going in the afternoon before taking a break to go shopping with the girls and I. Then while we made dinner he kept chopping until finally when I went to call him for tea I found him chainsawing by torchlight.

I reckon not even Dad got that hardcore.

Mind you the sun doesn't set at 5 in Australia either, huh?

Italians are awesome

2012-01-02T23:47:00.009+09:00

Massive respect for Italians tonight.

It's the winter holidays.

It's freezing cold outside.

We're all a little over eating rice cakes and traditional New Year's foods three meals a day.

What to have for tea.....

I have an under-utilised pasta maker....

Hey girls- lets make pasta for tea!!

So at about 5 o'clock Amy and I headed to the kitchen.

Meg wanted to finish her picture she was drawing first and K was outside in the gloaming chopping wood.

Amy was very impressed that I was pouring flour straight on the table and then cracking eggs into it.

Impressed and a little excited at how naughty it was- you forgot the BOWL mummy!!!

By the time we'd got a dough and were kneading half each for three minutes then swapping so that I could make sure Amy's half got a good go over too Meg had joined us.

While resting the dough we started the sauce with me finding a frozen block of tomatoes in the big freezer and the girls chopping onions and pumpkin, and I went on a high and low search for the pasta machine. Three cupboards and a couple of discoveries later (I found and discarded a sippy cup that hasn't been used for at least four years and realised we have not one but two fondue sets that have not only never been used but that I didn't even realise we had!) I found the pasta machine.

It won't attach to our table so we attach it to the benchseat and just work at thigh height.

It went pretty well.

I guess.

As well as cooking with a 6 and 8 year old goes.

They took turns putting the dough through, cranking the handle and helping the dough out the other side of the machine.

What I forgot was how long it takes.

All that resting and rolling and folding and rolling and etc.

Amy reading her book while waiting for one of the resting periods to end.

When we had finally cut the first batch of fettucine I realised we had nowhere to hang it. There were pasta sheets drying in various stages of done-ness here there and everywhere and flour absolutely everywhere and we still hadn't finished the sauce and we had about four strands of undried and uncooked pasta each to show for ourselves.

Aghhhhh!!

Luckily K had given up on chainsawing in the dark and come in. Credit to him he didn't faint when he saw the state of the kitchen and washed up and rolled up his sleeves and helped out. We now had a sauce maker and pasta drier maker. Gaffer taped some bars to the table and ran them to the hutch and we were in business.

The poor kitchen

Set Amy up making pumpkin ravioli (she is very precise and patient and perfect for fiddly jobs) and Meg and I continued fettucine production. K made sauce from the tomatoes I froze in the summer and the onion the girls had cut up and forgot to add the garlic Amy brought in from the storage but hey.

fettucine and ravioli and the empty plate after we ate the first batch of ravioli in brown butter as a chef's snack to get us through the end of the process

We had a couple of disasters- Amy over egged the ravioli wrappers and some of them glued themselves to the table and Meg put unfloured dough through the pasta machine and gummed it up and I forgot to season the pumpkin but hey. Nothing we couldn't fix with a little intuition and a lot of time.

And so at almost eight o'clock, two hours past tea time, an hour past bedtime and almost three hours after we started we finally sat down to pasta:

Poor Amy was so exhausted she was just over everything

It looked pretty authentic...

And even Amy perked up!

Phew. It was really yum. Even if I do say so myself. And we all had fun. The girls were thrilled and it was a real family production.

But when we were talking about how (some) Italian people do that every day and I mentioned that pasta isn't even the main meal in Italy and that they would make 'Il secondo' as well as pasta and salad and of course dessert they just looked at me bug-eyed.

And we all took a moment of silence in respect of Italians who are seriously awesome to manage all that.

Because while we loved our yummy fresh pasta meal, our pasta machine has been lovingly wiped down and safely packed away again and I can assure you it won't be coming out again for the next little while at least!

forgive us for being impure

2012-01-01T23:33:00.004+09:00

Happy New Year!

We started it off with a walk to the local shrine to be blessed for the coming year.

We being the girls, me and neighbour W. K and neighbour W's husband were of course at the annual New Year's Day Official Drinking Party For Men that starts at 9:00am.

The girls led the way as we went to purify ourselves at the water basin at the entrance.

But it wasn't to be.

We remained impure.

But I think everyone else there must have, too.

Safety in numbers, hey?

Well indoctrinated in the Japanese education system Meg decreed that pretending to purify yourself is just as good. It's the process not the end product.

And so they did.

And we went and prayed and got the girls their New Year's Fortunes.

Amy got Luck and the all important education line said 'if you put in the effort you'll get results.' She was quite happy with this and brought it home.

Meg got Small Luck and the education line was 'there will be too many regrets.' She was horrified and tied her fortune to the wires outside the shrine to be burnt by the priests and have her bad fortune waft heavenwards and release her from its grip.

And me?

I forgot my wallet and had to use the 200 yen my neighbour returned to me on our walk to buy the girl's fortunes. I'm really not sure what kind of omen that is for my year ahead....

I think I have until the 7th to get my fortune so will just have to try again.

It's a nice walk anyway!

representing ALL her heritage

2011-12-31T23:15:00.002+09:00

I'm half Canadian/ half Australian but grew up culturally 99.9% Australian. No Thanksgiving, no Halloween, no perogies or poutine (thankfully!) It never felt like we were missing out on anything though as we have a big Aussie family and lots of celebrations of our own.

K grew up celebrating all the Japanese events the full-on traditional way and is very committed to having the girls knowing about and being proud of all their heritage. We do Japanese festivals and Australian foods and customs and the girls heads are just a whirling with it all. Especially at this time of the year when we get the incredible double whammy of a big full on Christmas followed a week later by the equal excesses of Japanese New Year. We almost need to adopt a culture that fasts for the week after that!

It can all get a bit jumbled up in the mix sometimes. The girls have come to their own understanding of why Santa comes to our house and not some of their friends. Or why we have birthday parties and their friends don't. K and I are both really careful to be respectful of both cultures when explaining why I do some things that he doesn't (eat polenta or raw mushrooms, walk around barefoot) or vice versa (eat squid guts and fish heads, say itadakimasu even when eating alone) and pretty much let the girls pick and choose.

Sometimes they go Japanese style, sometimes Aussie, and sometimes they forge their own path down a route neither of us are prepared to brave.

And that's what Meg did here:

That's a big thumbs up to a waffle with banana,

kiwi,

sweet red bean,

maple syrup and...

wait for it......

Vegemite!!

Seriously.

And she said it was fabulous.

10 points for a truly Canadian/Australian/Japanese combo but I'll take your word for it on the taste!

snack time country style

2011-12-30T23:02:00.000+09:00

Whenever three or more women of a certain age gather you can guarantee pickles are going to make an appearance. My MIL honestly carries them with her whenever she is going to be away from home for more than a meal. I have seen her bring them out of her handbag at friend's houses, at ryokan's and even plonk a tupperware of pickles on the table at a restaurant.

I thought it was just my MIL until I moved here and started hanging out with older people. It's not that I don't have friends my own age. I do. It's just that I also teach Senior's English classes and learn postcard painting at a senior citizen's centre and live in a neighbourhood with a lot of retirees so yeah, I hang with the pensioner discount set.

And so I eat a fair few pickles.

Here's an example of what happened when three women and I got together:

From bottom left- soy sauce pickled greens, pickled turnips, salt pickled greens and pickled quince. Then cinnamon iced biscuits (my contribution incase you needed explanation), more soy sauce pickled greens (with ginger this time) then more salt pickled greens, pickled red turnips, pickled daikon, more soy sauce pickled greens and some apple slices- salted of course.

Is it any wonder we each go through about 5 cups of tea with that?

What I've been doing recently

2011-12-29T23:29:00.003+09:00

The reason I have been sadly neglecting my blog?

I've been working nose to the grindstone with a small but incredibly dedicated and talented women to produce a calendar for AFWJ.

And here it is!!

That's right- it's ready!!!

And I'm back!

unintentional good fortune

2011-12-28T23:17:00.000+09:00

I'm the only Fukase who eats more than about 100 grams of meat at a sitting. So I wasn't planning on doing the big turkey dinner. I bought a small chicken and was going to fill the rest of the baking tray with vegetables.

Then I was wandering around a supermarket across town Christmas Eve afternoon and

WHAT??

A fair dinkum all-imported, brined, all American turkey.

Whole.

Huge.

Defrosted.

No postage fees at all.

And who else was going to buy it really? It would be wasteful NOT to buy it.

And so there was a very last minute very drastic change to Christmas Dinner.

The turkey was so big there was no room for many veggies and I had to make stuffing in the oven toaster.

The turkey was so big it took an age to cook and dinner was quite late.

The turkey was so big we ate leftovers for three more days.

The turkey was so big noone (even me!) was interested in looking at meat anymore. What to do with the poor little forgotten chook for roasting?

And that's when I found this:

drunken chicken.

I really can't recommend this recipe more. Not only does it taste FABULOUS, is juicy and fragrant and yummy and light (just what you need after Christmas!) but it also only takes 10 minutes to cook.

You read that right- 10 minutes!! (just what you need after Christmas!)

Ok, so there is 1 hour salting time and about 5 hours cooling time but actual hands-on cooking time is really only 10 minutes.

Go on try it- it's worth all 10 minutes of your time!

This season's MVP activity

2011-12-27T22:59:00.003+09:00

This season I had the most multi-purpose Christmas activity. It rocked so much I almost hope my schedule gets completely changed around and I get new classes so I can do it again next year (I said almost!)

It was sooo simple, too- paper chains!

But not some fluff activity. Noooo this was English learning paperchains! Tailored to each age/ ability group.

2yo mummy and me class- ask for the colour they want next and I am the paper shop. Mummy helps glue.

kinder class- answer a question (review stuff) and tell me how many of what colour they would like.

experienced kinder class- practice their writing on a worksheet then search for the corresponding letter on pre-written strips. Write names on last strip.

grade 1-2, practice their handwriting on a worksheet then write the letter of the alphabet on a strip before joining it to the chain so they end up with an alphabet chain. The last link they wrote their names.

phonics class- write the letter/ cvc word on a strip and then draw a picture of it on the next one.

four classes of 36 grade 2kids at the elementary school. After learning the Super Simple Songs S-A-N-T-A song (think B-I-N-G-O) I distributed randomly envelopes containing strips of paper with one of the five letters written on the outside (the A's were different colours). As a group of 6 the kids checked all together whether they had a S A N T A. Noone did. Some had 4 T's etc. Then a nominated member of the group (this is Japan so this was easy- group leader, deputy leader, cleaning leader, lunch leader etc) would stand up if they had doubles and the corresponding nominated person from a group without it would come over and say 'S please' then the whole group would chant here you are then 'thank you' etc. Sit down and we start on the next letter. Once each group had S A N T A they opened their enevelopes and made a chain with what they had. If they wanted more they came to me and asked 'more please'. Once each member of a group was finished they made a group chain, then approached the neighbouring group and asked 'together please' (crappy English I know but 'Can we join our chain with yours?' was beyond what I can achieve in 50 minutes!) and then it continued until the entire class had a huge chain.

Phew.... all that for 105 yen worth of paper strips (pre-cut to boot!)

Paper chains were definitely the MVP of this season's classes!

Experienced kinder class at work.

Christmas is making me nostalgic

2011-12-26T11:28:00.007+09:00

Last then and now pictures I swear but look at these two monkeys:

Just 4 and almost 2.

3 and 5

3 1/2 and 5 1/2

6 and 8.

Last year, this year, the year before that, too!

2011-12-26T09:44:00.008+09:00

We went to the Alps Azumino Park illuminations again. We go every year. The sky is so black. The air is so crisp. The lights are so twinkly. So beautiful!

I just remembered, I posted about going here way back in 2007. And 2008. I can't find 2009 but we definitely went again in 2010.

I was looking at how much the girls have changed in a year. And so here is last year's and this year's illuminations pictures:

And yes, Meg and I are wearing snowsuits while Amy is wearing Autumn weight fleece. But Meg and I value warmth and Amy values style. In fact Amy's outfit was even worse than it looks....

She's wearing tights, leg warmers and a mini-dress. The fleece had to be open so you could see her dress and the only reason she has a hat on at all is because K gave her the 'choice' of hat or his skimask. We carried her snowsuit with us thinking she'd get cold and go for comfort over fashion but nope. Must be the Nagano in her but she rocked that outfit to the end. I was a little worried we'd get a lot of disapproving looks but forgot that Christmas in Japan is for couples not families and 80% of the people at the illuminations were young couples with the girls wearing itty bitty shorts and high heal boots and tottering around the park squealing and grabbing their boyfriend's arm for support. Rather than looking out of place Amy just looked 12 years ahead of her time.

Not that Meg and I minded looking overdressed- we definitely choose warm over stylish!

Merry Christmas to all!

2011-12-25T23:59:00.002+09:00

Ever try to remember what life was like before you had kids?

Something not like this, huh?

Toppling sheep for Christmas

2011-12-24T22:25:00.001+09:00

I love the local missionaries' Christmas Party.

I love the felt storyboard nativity.

I love the sing-a-long Christmas Carols.

I love the ice-breaker games.

I love the pot-luck dinner.

I love the warmth and love and Christmas spirit that radiates from it all.

But most of all I love the Christmas play put on by the adults' English class.

It is priceless!

This year there were toppling sheep, an archangel whose wings were getting in the way, a lamb-burger eating shepherd and you could just tell they were all loving being involved.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

sign of the times

2011-12-09T22:17:00.002+09:00

The snow dump signs have gone up.

When there's lots of snow and it doesn't melt you run out of room to put it in your yard when you're shovelling. You're not supposed to chuck it on the road for the snow ploughs to pick up. Around here we have big yards and a big snow year just means kids get their own snow parks with snowslides and snow mountains and sled runs etc etc.

But closer to the city where yards are smaller they open snow dumps. This one is the back-up carpark for the castle. People schlep their snow to the snow dump and there it stays gray and grotty until it melts.

A few years ago we had a year of really heavy snow and lots of it. The snow dumps filled up. The snow kept falling. The city designated a whole swathe of playgrounds as emergency snow dumps. This saved money as they didn't have to transport the snow to some other city with more space or pay to melt their snow on private land.

That Spring the council used all that money they saved and then some fixing the play equipment in the parks that were used as snow dumps. The combination of truckloads of heavy snow, salt from the roads and metal play equipment turned out not to be a good one!

Here's to this year being light on snow.

Ultra-light even!

no chance

2011-12-08T00:46:00.003+09:00

I am not really known for my DIY skills.

At all.

But I wanted to set up the indoor plant shelving myself as K is really overworked and under the weather at the moment and doesn't really need to be building a mini greenhouse kit to house my friend S's plants that I'm plant sitting.

So, I got the pieces out of the box.

I got the instructions out.

I started putting stuff together.

I re-checked the instructions.

They were talking about screws and washers and nuts.

I re-checked the box.

Nope. We definitely didn't have screws or washers or nuts.

I told K the problem and he said we should go look for something to use instead as it would be a hassle dismantling and re-boxing and returning our greenhouse for eight screws.

Now, I might not be good at DIY but I used to work at a big hardware store and I know how stuff works. I promised him that a receipt was all we would need as the product we bought was the store's home brand and they would just steal a screw kit from a different box.

I also suggested that we take in the mystery wire that was in the box but that wasn't mentioned anywhere in the instructions.

So, off to the hardware store and indeed they opened up a new kit and gave us the screws no problem. When I puled out the mystery wire and showed the guy at the service counter he looked confused and then turned over the instruction sheet and pointed out where the wire was quite clearly explained.

So, how did K and I both miss that?

Well, that's the store's instruction sheet side 2 at the top. And our original version at the bottom.

Oops.

so, the fact that it took me three days to put together a simple wire shelving unit? Less than stellar DIY skills sure.

But what chance did I have without the screws and half the instructions?

No chance!

This is what's wrong with the picture

2011-12-07T00:28:00.006+09:00

Yesterday's picture?

Was taken at Sunday's monkey-fence-building working bee.

Each household 'volunteers' four half days of labour. I say 'volunteer' as while there's no fine for non-participation this time there is a definite air of chip in and do your bit. You know- the sign up sheet where we all have to sign our names against what dates we will attend? Usually K does these jobs. I am not sure what the balance of shielding me from neighbourhood drudgery and shielding the neighbourhood from my frank opinions on drudge work is but I think it's a win-win situation either way!

But this time we have other commitments on on Sundays and couldn't block out four weeks worth so we did double duty to increase our working hours.

Well, quadruple duty really as where we go the girls go, too.

We arrived:

Another sunny Autumn day in k-truck paradise...

And went to work.

The job was thrashing and cutting and hacking a three metre wide clear zone between the forrest and the adjoining farms. Apparently monkeys don't like open spaces and this will deter them. I'm not so convinced but anyway.

all clear

We started at 8:30.

And had our first tea break at 9:20:

That's no mushroom cloud, it's a glove cosvered fingertop

I was a bit miffed as I knew we would be stopping at 10 for official tea time (complete with PA announcement) and felt it was a bit of a waste of time.

So in an act of passive rebellion I continued working.

"Fukase-san. Fukase-san!"

"Yes?"

"It's tea time!"

"I'm fine. Thanks."
"No, no, no, no. You need to stop!"

So I did. It was sounding like a decree. Don't want to upset the tea- gods.

Back to work.

Well almost.

That picture? One man working while half a dozen watch?

It was interspersed with one man working while half a dozen stand around talking about apples.

How about watching a man climb a tree?

Despite all the breaks we were finished over an hour early of the designated time.

So we all congratulated each other and went home early.

Yeah right!

We stood around doing more apple discussing, we found three more trees to chop down (including that one up there, where yes, the man was in danger of dropping a tree on himself while six of his neighbours watch...) we faffed about cleaning up pine needles and spent quite a long time discussing the prospect of snow.

So by the time we did get to go home I was thinking there was an awful lot wrong with that picture!

What's wrong with this picture?

2011-12-06T23:28:00.003+09:00

Any guesses?

In case the picture is too small to see, the man on the right has a chainsaw.

So... what's wrong with this picture?

I'll tell you tomorrow. ;P

Helen's Brandy and Ginger Fruitcake

2011-12-05T22:00:00.003+09:00

There are some people I have never met in real life who I have 'known' for many years online. Some of these are the kind of great writers who just have a knack of expressing things in a way that you laugh along with them and get annoyed along with them and feel their pain when life throws them a dodgy one and I really feel quite close to some of them. One woman who I have 'known' since her late teenage sons were still in elementary school is the Helen of this recipe. I've never met her, I've never even seen her picture. I don't think I've ever even written to her privately. But I have bucket loads of respect for her and the way she lives her life and raises her kids and just all round rocks. (I'm pretty sure she doesn't know about this blog which is why I can write this! I considered just calling her H, but I figure if you're reprinting someone's recipe you should probably give them credit, huh?)

When she posted this recipe on a yahoo group we're both on of course I had to try it and it's now one of our family's Christmas traditions as, while my mum's Christmas cake is still my absolute favourite, this one is doable in Japan without mortgaging the house to buy the ingredients or hitching to Gina's to use a real sized oven which is always a plus, hey? (Not that I wouldn't love to meet Gina- another woman I have grown to 'know' without knowing!)

So.... without further ado here is Helen's amazing Brandy and Ginger Christmas cake:

*Preparation*

100g raisins
100g sultanas or green raisins
200g total other dried fruit (pineapple, dates, figs, cranberries)

*50-100g raw almonds if liked, I don't bother skinning them
*extra 50-100g dried fruit if you like your fruitcake to be practically
solid fruit, or for decorating.
30ml brandy (or shochu or rum or umeshu or...)
120ml ginger ale

Cut up any really huge fruits, soak in brandy and ginger ale (overnight,
or till you are ready to bake).

*To Bake*
Preheat oven to 160C and set for 90 minutes.

20g ginger (about half a knob) shredded
Shredded zest and juice of half a lemon

100g butter
60-100g sugar
2 large eggs, slightly beaten
Cream butter and sugar till white, beat in eggs. Add 1 tablespoon from
your measured flour if it looks like it's going to separate/does separate.

170g chuuriki flour (the type that has a picture of udon on the front -
or use kyouriki camellia flour in the yellow pack)
1/2 tsp baking powder
Fold flour into creamed butter/sugar/eggs, then fold in fruit and
liquid. If you used less sugar, your mixture may be dry - add a
tablespoon or two of milk.

Spoon into paper cake mold (they are silicon-coated, no need to grease),
and with the back of a spoon dipped in milk, smooth over the top. Cover

loosely with foil, butter paper etc. Into the oven with it!

When baked, cool in the mold. Not immediately, but while still warm,
pour over 50ml of ginger ale (and/or brandy if liked) , cover with a
teatowel (preferably not toweling, they stick) and pop in a plastic bag

(yep, before it's cold). Next day, pour over more ginger ale and/or
brandy if you like. Should be ready to eat the next day, but if you care
to wrap it in foil and keep it in a plastic bag for a week or two,
giving it a spoon of brandy about twice a week, you won't regret it.

My comments- for Meg's sake I have never made it with nuts so I can't tell you what it tastes like as printed. What I can tell you is that it rocks even without nuts!

I don't know what butter paper is so always cover with foil.

I don't have a paper cake case so get all crafty and fashion a little ring and bottom of paper for my two part cake tin. This works fine but is a bit fiddly. Ok, a lot fiddly!

I am not sure whether you are supposed to cover just the cake or the whole tin with foil but the former seems like it might get messy so I always do the latter and love the result.

I always take the foil off for the last 10 minutes to colour it up a bit.

And here is one I prepared earlier:

Love my neighbour

2011-12-04T00:49:00.002+09:00

Pretend you can't see the mess around it and the unswept hearth and check out my new possie by the fire:

I'm in love!!

I usually type kneeling on the floor with my computer on my knee. But now? Lady of leisure that's me.

Rocking chair by the fire?

Just need to learn how to knit and I'll be set, huh?

Neighbour A gave me the chair.

Her brother in law gave it to her.

To give to her mother in law.

But MIL didn't like it.

So neighbour A gave it to me.

And I'm going to be it's forever family.

When I can pry Amy out of it that is!

Before and after 2

2011-12-03T00:39:00.004+09:00

On a cold and windy morning I headed in for a haircut. Between my hairdresser's schedule and mine it had been a whole five months between cuts. I was getting really annoyed by having long (for me) hair but- love my hairdresser- the style still didn't look too terrible:

(I really suck at the ubiquitous phone self-portrait. Must be too old, huh?)

and after:

(I suck at webcam self portraits, too. Oh well.)

The most exciting thing for boring old me is she added pink highlights.

Pink!

I was terrified I was going to look like this:

But I actually quite like it.

It's makes me feel quite festive really.

Which is fitting for this time of year, hey?

Darn cold stuff

2011-12-02T00:34:00.002+09:00

Dec 2.

First snow.

Meg's thrilled.

I'm less than thrilled.

Way less than thrilled.

My first-snow-blues lasted ages longer than the first snow.

Sigh

How many sleeps till Summer?

before and after 1

2011-12-01T00:15:00.004+09:00

Yick right?

Post-frost tomatoes scrounged from neighbour A's garden. 20 kilos of them. Why on earth would I want those?

For this of course:

(Sigh, I need to learn how to use photoshop to crop out the crap in the background of my pictures!)

Inside the jar though? Magic. Tomato chutney. It's tomatoes and onions and sultanas and vinegar and sugar and it's fabulous!! In Australia I wouldn't eat a cheese sandwich without it. Or a ham one. Definitely not a ham and cheese one. Here? I love it on rice. I love it on rice with scrambled eggs and bacon and mushrooms. I love it on toast. And ok, I'll be honest, I love it on a teaspoon straight out of the jar. Yummmmmmm!

Definitely not yick anymore.

Two bentos

2011-11-15T08:33:00.004+09:00

Meg had her walking excursion.

She needed a bento.

I made teriyaki fish and meatballs the night before.

Meg woke up and decided she didn't like fish or meatballs in her bento as when she walked the sauce went everywhere.

I was disappointed but had to admit that I probably wouldn't be thrilled at teriyaki everything either.

So an emergency menu change was necessary:

ham and cheese skewers, broccoli, mikan, grapefruit, mini tomatoes, enoki mushroom omelette, parmesan cheese potato wedges, pumpkin, picked plum and shiso leaves, three fruit jelly cups and two brown rice rice balls with seaweed and konbu filling.

A little heavy on the fruit but otherwise ok.

And I used the fish for K:

Who doesn't like fruit in his lunch at all and only eats broccoli if it is diluted with equal parts mayonnaise.

Seriously, this family needs an "Aussie lunch week" where they get a ham and cheese sandwich and an apple every day to fully appreciate how complete my cultural conversion has become in the realm of lunch making!

First Dance Recital!!!!

2011-11-14T23:25:00.009+09:00

I was such a proud mummy today.

Our little darlings had their first dance performance.

Ohhh they're so grown up........

They did so well......

I remember when they were just this big ad all they did was cry and eat and poop and sleep.....

And now look at them.....!

Ok. Nostalgia done with.

First a disclaimer. this is not our dance group:

They are a local hip-hop troupe and very talented. Amy's classmate's mum dances here. Wow... They also dance to songs with lyrics like 'I don't give a f+@#.' Yeah, that's not our group.

This isn't our group either:

They re soooo organised, there are sooo many of them, they know soooo many dances and have soooo many costumes (and mid concert costume changes) that I'm in awe. In awe and a little bit pleased for my sake that that's not our dance group.

So, what is our dance group?

Firstly it's taught as a fitness-dance group ratherthan jazz or hiphop or whatever so there is more aerobic type stuff and less difficult footwork. Maybe because of this we have a lot of boys in the class. About half the class in fact.

Secondly it is a community centre class that started out as a free class sponsored by the city. It's still ridiculously cheap- 500 yen per family per class and you don't pay at all if you don't go so I'm not sure how the teacher makes any money at all out of it...

Thirdly it's the epitomy of laidback. No costumes, no performances,no presentation days, no advertising (other than the community centre notice board) and lots of running around playing tag with balls wedged between your legs or playing withhoops and a big circle of parachute material or doing pilates type core work balancing on squishy balls etc etc.

But this year we were asked to be a part of the community centre Autumn extravaganza. And so we took to the stage along with the hip hoppers, the jazz dances, a taiko troupe, men's accapella group, innumerable Japanese traditional dancing groups and a koto group.

I was a bit worried ho the girls would go but they had a blast and came home all excited and aready planning their next performance. Yeah!!

And now for some pictures. :)

The dress code was black t-shirt and whateveryou like on the bottom. As you can see Meg and Amy were the only ones who decided dancers need frilly skirts. Oh well!

Meg and the other Grade 2 girl (yes, they're the same age...) had the job of introducing the group. This put Meg through the wringer in practice as she was so shy she kept mumbling andlooking at her feet so I was well chuffed when she looked up and said all her lines in a big clear voice- go Meg!

Love the power in this shot. And something weird- the kid behind her? I have probably 10 pictures of him and he has his eyes closed in all of them! weird huh?

Go Amy! Her ponytail was dancing all around the shop!

The one and only shot out of 200 (Hey, it was my first time seeing my kids perform!) with both girls in the same shot and both unobscured. I guess that's the nature of dance photography, huh?

Very wonky but this is my favourite pic of the performance. Aren't they cute?

Ohhhhhh.....

And having made it through this blatant I-think-my-kid-is-wonderful-a-thon be grateful that the video K took is too big to upload. :)

One I won't be writing on my resume

2011-11-13T12:03:00.002+09:00

I'm quite proud of my leaf picking abilities.

So I was pretty cocky as I headed off to help pick the first of the apples.

This warm November we've been having and I've been enjoying so much is not good for the apples. We need colder nights to get the mitsu to happen. This is a clear like area around the core that is the be all and end all of the Fuji apple industry and is the reason why they often have a halved apple on display at the apple aisle.

You can't see the mitsu when you're picking of course. Cutting each apple in half before deciding whether or not to pick it would work but then again not.

So you check the apple's butt. If the dimple downthere is yellow it is ripe and highly likely there'll be mitsu.

But under-ripe yellow-green and ripe yellow are not exactly a world apart from each other so it's slow going carefully upending apples to check their bottoms. You have to be gentle, too or you will pick the apple accidentally and then what good is it, huh?

So, because we're waiting for mitsu we aren't into picking full bore yet. And the prices are still low for all but the kodama- little ball- apples. So the brief today was to pick ripe, yellow bottomed small apples. To check the size I was given a stencil. If the apple fitted through the second smallest hole it was ok. Any bigger and we need to leave it and wait.

I picked for 2 1/2 hours and managed 1 1/2 small blue baskets of apples. Well those were the ones I intentionally picked. I also brought home six apples that were not ripe enough/ too big but that had fallen off as I approached. I swear!

So yeah, I don't think I will add apple selection to my resume. Much better at the end of the season pick-everything system!

Meg's observation day

2011-11-12T11:46:00.004+09:00

Today was Meg's observation Day.

K and Amy and I all went along.

The night before we got a letter from Meg xplaining that we would be participating rather than just observing the first lesson.

In the gym.

Please bring your inside shoes rather than slippers.

Great. I love Meg's teacher and his energy and his unusually active method of teaching. (They stand and freestyle sway to their times table chant or walk around as they read aloud.)

I love this energy when it's directed at kids.

Last year's marathon observation day we dedicated mums who turned up to watch our kids run laps of the school in the biting wind were rewarded with an impromptu rousing game of tag. Us vs the kids.

At least this year we got warning I guess!

So there are no pictures of first period as we were busy doing train races in the gym.

Second period was moral education.

All the little sisters and brothers were invited to sit down together with the students.

Amy was thrilled!

Meg's BFF is the youngest kid in her family so joined in and claimed Amy as her sister as well.

The class was about words that are soft and fluffy and make you feel warm and words that are prickly and cold and make you feel sad.

The kids had a great time thinking up words and calling them out. The board says No way! Who do you think you are? Idiot, Stupid, I hate you, I'm never going to >>>> for as long as I live.

It was quite cute as they were really shouting out the nice words- THANK YOU! LET'S PLAY! GOOD MORNING! GOOD WORK!

But when it came to the naughty words they all got quiet and muttered them or explained that they don't use that word but they just know it. They're really good kids, hey?

I was really chuffed that Meg raised her hand and stood and gave her answer, too. She's a bit shy and doesn't tend to want to stand out much and the classroom was packed with parents and grandparents and little brothers and sisters and people wandering in because they'd heard that Meg's teacher is a bit of a character and video cameras and cameras and it was quite the circus!

Go Meg!!

Next year we'll be split up trying to see Meg and Amy's class so this was the last relaxed observation day for us for another six years!

11/11

2011-11-11T11:29:00.001+09:00

It's November 11th.

Remembrance Day.

It is quite a challenge discussing WWII with a Japanese-Australian eight year old.

Her Aussie great- grandpa didn't serve as he was in an essential industry researching and developing petrol. Petrol that would have been used to run the machines that helped the Allies fight the Japanese.

Her Japanese great-grandpa died in a ship that was bombed on its way to fight at Iwojima. He never met his youngest child- her grandma as she wasn't born when he died. No remains were ever identified and the family was given a box of sand in lieu of ashes.

I explained all this and why people go to war and war is horrible and no, daddy won't be going to war and yes there are still wars in the world and that's terrible and Japan and Australia are now friends again and Remembrance Day is important to say thank you for all the people who made sacrifices for the world we live in today and to remember how much everyone suffered so we don't rush into war again.

I was quite proud of this explanation and when Meg was silent and nodding with her head on the side as I finished I was thinking it had all gone pretty well.

"Mummy?"

"Yes?"

"In Japan November 11 is pocky day because 11/11 looks like 4 pocky in a row. Can we eat pocky today?"

"........"

Well, at least she wasn't too traumatised by all the war talk, huh?

I can't sleep

2011-11-10T11:24:00.003+09:00

"I can't sleep." said Amy.

My bed is hard.

It's cold.

My sleeping sister is too noisy.

The moon is too bright.

My blanket keeps slipping.

My pajamas are scratchy.

I can't sleep.

"Just wait while I finish this email." said mummy.

But Amy didn't wait.

She fell asleep.

On the cold, hard, un-blanketted, slippery, bright, noisy kitchen bench in her scratchy pajamas.

Amy can sleep.

She can sleep anywhere!

thieves in the neighbourhood

2011-11-09T09:36:00.002+09:00

Bad picture but the monkeys have moved in again. A big gang of 20 of them this time. Males, females and babies. They have taken up residence in a plum position at the foothills of the forest just across the road from the apple fields, this open area where the babies play and right in front of a veggie garden. They are wreaking havoc climbing the apple trees playing chasey and raiding the place for apples. I guess the mum monkeys have been worried about the high sugar content of a fuji apple only diet as they have now moved onto daikon theft. It's pretty amazing to see- they literally yank the daikon out of the ground, wipe the mud off and eat it like a cob of corn.

It has created quite a bit of extra work as, as well as scaring monkeys away, the farmers are now cleaning p all the windfall and rotten apples that they usually just leave under the trees to try and deter the monkeys.

They really are pretty cute but I can see how the cuteness is lost on you when they're stealing your crops.... kind of...

Rough louts pee outside, please

2011-11-08T09:34:00.002+09:00

A sign at the hotel we ate lunch at in Kamikochi made me smile.

I'm sure I looked a little odd furtively taking a picture of the men's loo but how could I not?

My hidden talent

2011-11-07T09:24:00.002+09:00

Growing apples? Nope.

Picking apples? Nope. (Not yet anyway.)

Keep looking......

Really hard......

See the mottled look of the apples? (If you live anywhere but Japan you're thinking so what?)

The mottled yellow patches are the shadows from leaves.

The leaves that I picked off. The non-leaf shaped mottled yellow bits are from where two apples rested against each other and created shadows that way. Those apples I carefully turned a quarter turn to expose their yellow bits to the reddening sun.

This leaf picking is called hatsumi which confused me at first as I thought it was hatsu- first mi- fruit but it's ha- leaf and tsumi- pick- oops. Oh well.

Leaf picking is a very slow job as you have to pick carefully and turn even more carefully so you don't damage any apples. It is a pretty low skilled job though as the instructions are simple- see leaf in front of apple? Pick. I can do that! And doing it while chatting away to my neighbour made the time fly to boot.

Thinking of adding hatsumi to my resume.

But worried that 'expert leaf picker' might get misconstrued in some circles....

theory vs reality- a family day out

2011-11-06T08:35:00.002+09:00

So, Meg's old babysitter comes to visit and wants to go see Kamikochi.

Sounds like a nice family fun day out, right? And the pace of an old lady with a dodgy knee and a tired 6 year old should be pretty much the same- bonus!

Well....

In a picture this was our day:

That's the babysitter at the front staring into her camera trying to work out the gazillion or so settings so she can take (another) picture.

In the light pink in the middle distance? Meg. She has a huge piece of dried out driftwood and two sticks. She was mounting a petition to take her 'drum' home. On a bus. Yeah....

In the distance on the right in black?

K. Who is ever so patiently (because he values harmony and peace over schedules and discipline) waiting for Amy.

Where's Amy?

You can't see her?

Why she's the teensy weensy light blue speck in the back centre of the picture. She was hurrying to catch up, right?

Wrong.

The rocks kind of squeak and make noises as they rub against each other as you walk. That was just too much for Amy to be able to simply walk over and she was banging two rocks together as she held her own one girl corroboree there. I swear the Aboriginal dancers at Currumbine Bird Sanctuary had no idea the long range effects of M and A watching their dance show back in August!

So, there you go.

A family day out Fukase style.

That's the reason that I don't really enjoy family outings to places-other-than-playgrounds. It's just too stressful!

what a load of rubbish

2011-11-05T11:29:00.003+09:00

These grapes? Rubbish.

According to the market anyway.

Too many grapes missing from each bunch. Missing because we had too much rain at the wrong end of the season and some grapes went moldy.

They were removed and this is what was left.

Still plenty of grapes and all perfect.

But not a perfect bunch and so the farmer couldn't sell them.

Which I think is a lot of rubbish.

Not the grapes the way of thinking.

But all was not lost and our family was very grateful to help friend J with her rubbish problem.

Coming form a country where you buy fruit by the kilo and a few non-perfect grapes, a bruised apple, a squishy mandarin is disappointing but not a deal breaker I find the Japanese obsession with agricultural perfection very hard to understand.

Especially when it means so much perfectly edible produce is wasted as it doesn't meet the ridiculously high standards.

The whole thing's a load of rubbish really.

eating with your eyes

2011-11-04T10:53:00.002+09:00

I watch a lot of cooking shows and cooking related reality tv. A lot of the chefs rave on about eating with your eyes and the importance of presentation and colour etc etc.

I always listened with a yeah, yeah, whatever attitude until we started eating these beauties:

Purple sweet potatoes. The picture was taken with my phone at night so it's a bit washed out. The potatoes are actually a really shocking, Halloween type deep purple.

The flavour is not quite as sweet as regular yellow sweet potatoes but a little more flavour-other-than-sweet-some if that makes sense.

I usually just steam or bake sweet potatoes and we eat them as is as a snack or a vegetable with dinner.

But today I used these to make miso soup. Onion and sweet potato miso soup is probably the whole family's favourite kind of miso soup.

But today it was less than a raging success.

The problem is the potatoes leeched colour into the water.

The onions went purple.

The miso soup went a gray- black colour.

It really was very Halloween.

I kept thinking I should have sent some to Jo for her amazing Halloween feasts!

Like I said I am not one who really believes in the whole eat with your eyes thing but even I had a difficult time looking at my grey-black soup and thinking 'yum!'

The girls were very put off and pulled all the veggies out and ate them from their plates leaving the murky soup untouched.

And K?

Well I had to point out the odd colour to him.

He had already drunk half his soup.

I guess he really doesn't eat with his eyes!

It's the thought that counts

2011-11-03T17:58:00.002+09:00

Meg is shy.

She doesn't like talking to people she doesn't know.

While I find this difficult to comprehend being that meeting new people is something I always look forward to I have to respect it and work with it.

Because I love her of course but also because K is pretty similar and is pretty strong in his opinion that not getting into a long and involved chat with every person who has the good fortune to stand next to you in line somewhere is perfectly ok. I think he even goes as far as to use the revolting word 'normal.'

So, anyway, Meg doesn't really go out of her way to talk to people.

That includes saying hello and good morning.

And that's where we hit a problem as greetings are considered really important here. Not that they aren't in Australia either but I din't think Aussies are quite such a stickler for a loud, clear child-led hellofest on the way to school each morning.

One of the safety measures around here is to encourage all the farmers and older residents to be out and about when the kids walk to school (they are anyway so that part is not much of an ask!) and for them to notice who walks past and just see that all is as should be. I like this idea and I've seen the benefits when a boy didn't come home and his mother was searching for him they managed to pinpoint how far up the hill he got before he went AWOL by which neighbours had seen him walk past. (He was fine- he'd ducked under the monkey fence to look for beatles in the forest. OK, he was physically fine but he got in a whole heap of trouble for breaking about a hundred rules regarding going under the monkey fence alone, without going home first, at dusk and when a bear warning was in force...)

Anyway, there is this whole patrol of senior citizens out and about checking on the kids. And they are of the generation that takes greetings very, very seriously. So seriously that they put in a discussion item to the PTA AGM that the kids need to be taught to do their greetings better as they either mumble, look away or don't say anything until spoken too.

The head of the neighbourhood is a particular stickler about this.

He is also our neighbour directly across the road.

And he is a bit of a gruff old thing. Booming voice and big laugh.

Needless to say Meg doesn't exactly shout out a cheery 'good morning!' when she sees him. Which I can really sympathise with.

Sympathise with but think it would be easier all around if she could say good morning...

So today we had our annual visit with Meg's old babysitter from Saitama.

Her babysitter we said goodbye to when she was 11 months old.

And who still comes and visits once a year to catch up with the kid who doesn't remember her at all.

It's all a bit comical really but she is the sweetest woman and really looks forward to coming each year so here we are 7 years later still meeting up.

Today she wanted to go to Kamikochi. It's a beautiful area but I am a little turned off by the 3,200 yen taxi ride or 1,200 yen each bus ticket you need to get there as it's a no car zone. Oh and all the masses of busses that descend spewing out tourists from the cities to tramp around the lake in 30 minutes, buy their mementoes and get out again.

But it was a nice day and being that the Autumn colours have all but finished for the season and it was grey and overcast it was the least crowded I've ever seen it. Being that we had a senior cit with a dodgy knee and two tired kids we just did the round the lake tour.

Oh and had lunch at a hotel.

And bought souvenirs.

And stopped for umpteen pictures.

You know, the usual tour fun.

When we were finally back walking again, we started passing quite a number of people who were on a bus tour walking the track in the opposite direction to us.

It was a narrow track and we would exchange greetings with each group as we passed.

We being the babysitter and I.

K is a lost cause but I decided it was time for some greetings training for the girls.

I challenged them to say 'konnichiwa' to 10 people in a row.

Done.

Then it was 20.

Done.

Then Meg wanted to see how many she could do before we got to the busstop at the other end.

And so there we had Meg and Amy skipping down the path carolling out 'konnichiwa!' every time they passed someone.

They were really chuffed at all the smiles and nods and return greetings they got. I was really chuffed at how well they were doing.

Right at the end Amy trilled out 'konnichiwa' to an older man and his wife.

After we passed them she ran up beaming and hugged me.

"He said I did that really good!"

I smiled and agreed that she was doing a great job.

The babysitter and I looked at each other and shrugged.

What could we say?

The man had actually said "Her Japanese is really good."

Oh well. It's the thought that counts, hey?

having fun- really!

2011-11-02T20:10:00.000+09:00

I love this shot. The mummy is a grade 1 boy. He was thrilled. Giddy with it. He had to keep being reminded to stay still.

His wrappers are Meg and a grade 4 girl. They just didn't quite get the whole thing. It's toilet paper. Yuck. Why does he want us to do this? Why does Heather??

And I should have turned around and taken a shot the other way as all the mums (this is a community centre English 'circle' so the mums are here too) were really excited and laughing and giggling and taking umpteen shots on their phones.

But for all that the 'make a mummy' was a little less than wildly received the consequent 'pack up and discard of your mummy' race was a bundle of laughter and giggles and all the kids had a blast.

Cleaning up.

One of the challenging and yet motivating and enjoyable things about teaching kids- you really can't predict what will work and what won't hey?

Sooo behind!

2011-11-01T23:02:00.003+09:00

Crazy busy here. As well as Autumn madness in the garden I took on a volunteer job making a photographc calendar for AFWJ. It's a committee job but I'm the chair and it is a whooooollle lot more work than I imagined but we are going great guns, down to the wire time-wise but moving ahead so no panicking but no time to do anything else of an evening either. I am also tutoring a HS girl which is a first for me and I am spending hours researching the grammar I need to teach her as I have no flipping clue how to explain when you say 'It seemed he had been a singer in China' and when 'It seems he had been a singer in China' is more appropriate. And what about 'He seemed to have been a singer in China'? Heck, I would probably say 'I think he was a singer in China' and skip the whole thing. You know in one of the many conversations I have about people who once were Chinese singers.

Anyway, all that is to say I realy shouldn't be blogging as there are still many mails to write but I miss it and promised myself I would start again come November (because the calendar was going to be all done and packed away by now- snort snort) and I have so much to catch up on including the gripping finale that is the rice saga and Sport's Day and all sorts of good stuff.

For now though I'll leave you with a random picture that made my commute the other week:

It's a bit hard to see but look very closely.....

the rice chronicles part 17- harvest time end of day 2

2011-10-02T22:57:00.001+09:00

the rice chronicles part 16- harvest time

2011-10-01T16:03:00.004+09:00

phewwwwwww- that is rice.

Our rice.

Our rice drying on the drying racks after being cut and tied and hung by us.

The grains are plump and plentiful, the rice prolific and the job never ending!

This was the scene at the end of day 1:

Everything to the left of screen is rice.

Our rice.

Our yet to be harvested and cut and hung and dried on the drying racks rice.

Phew......

chook commandos

2011-09-30T07:40:00.001+09:00

We have seven chooks now and they get along pretty well. The big two have grudgingly accepted that they are to share their living space with the five young upstarts. For their part the five young chooks have realised that the only thing they have to lose getting in there and fighting for the kitchen scraps is a couple of tail feathers. Not perfect but worth it for some rotten tomatoes or left over spaghetti.

Whenever I'm home I let them out of the cage to free range a bit and scratch up some bugs and eat some weeds and all that good stuff. And hopefully not eat all the cabbage and broccoli.

When the big chooks have a go at the little chooks they scatter in all directions though so, worrying that they would disappear, I erected a deterrent fence that works for the little five. It's no real fence, just a metre high bit of plastic netting, they can definitely fly higher than that should they wish. But they're happy with their bigger run and not very adventurous and still a little skittish (as I'm sure I'd be too if doing something adventurous caused tail feather loss!) so they stay in there and enjoy the peace.

The peace that is a result of the two big chooks and their sense of adventure, above average intelligence and commando chook skills. Seriously. Yes, I'm bragging about my chooks now and that's a little odd but check this out. I have been trying to work out how to get the video for a while now because they race down and do this literally as soon as I open the door to their cage so I don't have time to get down their first to set up for the shoot. Today I outsmarted them though- left some cabbage leaves in the path to freedom and bought myself two minutes setup time.

And so, now that I have rambled on for this long about commando chooks for the intro to a seven second video, I present, for your viewing pleasure and the proof that a week hanging out with the chooks while not working was way too long for my sanity:

Come on, that's pretty cool, huh?

It's the law

2011-09-29T22:58:00.001+09:00

Good morning.

This is Azusagawa Branch Office Public Address System.

There have been complaints of burning off of agricultural materials causing nuisance.

Please note that burning off is prohibited by law.

When burning off please do so as little as possible and be aware of wind direction and neighbouring residences.

Thank you.

*************

I hear that every morning at 6:00.

And every morning at 6:01 I shake my head and smile.

This sure is a crazy country some days.

The littlest diva

2011-09-28T10:17:00.000+09:00

I know Amy is my kid.

I have very vivid memories to that end.

But personality wise?

I wonder.

I really wonder.

She is all about the fashion. The styling. The co-ordinating and the hair styles.

Me? I'm a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl. Black pants and drressy t-shirts for work.

I like novelty socks. That's the extent of my fashionising.

K? Hahaha! He's a jeans and t-shirt guy from way back.

Literally. He wears his High School festival t-shirt still.

So dealing with Amy's hairstyle hystrionics on a daily basis is really hard to understand for both of us.

It starts out calm enough:

How do you want your hair today- ponytail or plait?

Hmmmm... plaits. Two please.

Ok, hold still.

Mmmmm... I think one plait here (wave of hand in dramatic fashion towards the side of her head) and one here (matching wave to top of head) and then the rest swept up kind of but down a bit, too.

Amy- it's a kinder day. You need your hair tied back properly. I'll do two plaits but just normal ones.

No! Two plaits only is ok but only the ones from here (left ear) to here (right ear).

Ok. Heidi style. We have to hurry though as that takes time.

......

(Hair finished Amy looks in the mirror)

Noooooo!!!! Not like that!!! It looks terrible!! I hate it!! Agghhhhhh I can't go to kinder like this!

Amy, we talked about your hair, I did what you asked and now it's time to go. Get your shoes.

Aghhhhhhhhhhh you made me look not cute!!!!!

.............

And invariably she goes to kinder most put out and comes home having re-done her hair at naptime. Quite productive use of a naptime I'm pretty sure 6 year olds could well do without but still...

So, I decided I'd had enough and discussed with Amy what we could do to avoid hairstyle hysteria.

We tried my idea of doing her hair in front of the mirror to no avail.

Her ideas? She has two.

One is to take her hairbrush and hair ties and ribbons and scrunchies and clips over the road to the neighbour Y who is a hairdresser each morning. Nice try kid but Y has three kids to chase around and get ready for school before she goes off to her fulltime job for the day.

So, idea two? Get my sister's bridesmaid E to do her hair like she did at the wedding.

The bridesmaids- all gorgeous and all really, really sweet to Meg and Amy while they hung out in the 'big girls' room' getting ready with the bride.

Not a great picture of it but just to show Amy's wedding day hair. It was curled and sprayed and held on with a hairband. E really did treat her like a princess and made her look like one to boot. Nothing too technical but unfortunately not very suitable for a day of running and jumping and playing at kinder. And I think not even Princess Aiko flies in a hairdresser to get ready for school...

And my effort that definitely didn't please madam?

Little ponytail on her fringe? check.

Sparkly butterfly clip? check.

plait on the side at the back and then curled into a bun? check.

Hot pink scrunchy to match her other hairtie? check.

But the bun wasn't perfectly round!!!!

And the little ponytail at the front was sticky-uppy! The horror!

Aghhhhhhh!!

I'm going to have to drag out my old school photos for one of those 'you don't now how good you got it kid' talks. I mean my mum gave me one plait or one ponytail each morning. And tied it off with one forest green ribbon to match my school uniform. The end.

And I never went to school with this look on my face, either:

If I didn't work...

2011-09-27T09:35:00.002+09:00

I got my first part-time job in a bakery when I was 14. I loved it.

And I loved getting money as my pocket money definitely didn't keep pace with the CPI.

I was trying to remember but I think I have worked ever since then. In high school I worked in the bakery in the day, at an Italian restaurant in the evening and babysitting in all my free time- phew!

I worked until I was 8 months pregnant with Meg- then we moved prefecture.

I only worked one morning a week until Amy was two but you know- looking after a two year old and a baby was pretty full time work as far as I'm concerned!

This last week I had a taste of not working.

The English school I work at had a week's break. Well, there were two national holidays so it was really only three days off but still...

Three days home with no kids and no husband (everyone else was life as normal). I was all excited.

And you know it wasn't quite what I expected.

And so.... in answer to all my wondering of what life would be like if I didn't work:

I would be the size of a house- there is just so much more time for drinking coffee when you are at home. And coffee goes so well with bikkies, or cake, or toast and jam...

The house would be a lot less cluttered- it is so much easier to sort out and throw out stuff without three hoarders at my elbow saying 'nooooo! don't throw out that 5 year old half missing broken toy- we neeeed it!'

The house wouldn't be that much cleaner- I always tell myself that the reason I don't vacuum every day is because I'm too busy. It's a lie.

The garden would look fabulous!-usually I just pull out some weeds on my way to somewhere else and try to avoid looking at the rest of it too hard. With all that free time I pulled up every weed everywhere. I also tidied and raked and burnt off and even planted the Autumn veggies on schedule. Seriously, the garden would rock if I didn't work.

I would be a hermit- hmmm the downside of lots of time in the garden is a lot, lot less time talking to people. Even if most of my students are pre-schoolers they're still (mostly) verbal. The same can't be said for onions and cabbages. I think I need human interaction to keep sane!

My English would rock- I'd be dropping words like Qat and Qi and Vint and Iritis and Heid in conversation. I discovered online scrabble and I'm hooked!

I'd be looking for a job- for all the fun I had in the garden I really missed working during my week off and am glad to be back again!

car adornments

2011-09-26T22:52:00.002+09:00

I have become quite desensitized to car embellishments since living here.

My neighbour's sweet young daughter in law drives their 2 yo granddaughter around in a car with a marijuana leaf air freshener swinging from her rear vision mirror.

Amy's kinder teacher's car looks like kittychan threw up in there. The entire interior is pink, lacy, frilly and emblazoned with pictures of the mouthless cat.

Neighbour A's 18 year old daughter's car on the other hand looks like she could rent it out as a mobile satanic altar. If it's not black it's dark purple. If it doesn't have a skull on it it has two. Or a cross. Or both and a dagger.

And that's just the cars I see regularly. Really, it seems anything goes here. I have seen curtains on the front passenger windows of a car, I've seen kids hanging out the windows, dogs being 'walked' behind k- trucks etc etc. I thought I'd seen it all.

Until this morning when I was stopped at a red light here in the village. Waiting to cross an intersection I was trying to make out what the car opposite had on their dash. It looked like not one but two boxes of tissues in furry tissue box covers.

Quite possible, really.

Until one of the tissue box covers moved.

And not in a bobble-head dash ornament kind of way.

It scratched itself.

That's when the light changed and as I passed the car I realised what I was looking at.

Cats!

The guy had two cats basking in the sunshine on his dashboard as he drove around town at 8:30 in the morning.

As you do.

Or rather as you hopefully don't!

Amy's Birthday

2011-09-25T07:56:00.006+09:00

Happy Birthday Amy!

Six today.

Well "Thikth" poor thing as six really is pretty rough to try and say with no front teeth!

While Meg wanted to go bowling for her birthday Amy wanted a party.

Yeah! Thought me. I love birthday parties. My sister is five years younger than me and I remember 'producing' her birthday parties too. The un-partying Japan is a bit of a disappointment for my creative desires.

So yeah! A party! Pirate theme? Fairy theme? Animal theme? What do you want? Guest list? Party games? Tell me what you want!

Well, seems "party" is a pretty all encompassing word. Amy wanted no theme, no games, one friend, free play and lots of balloons.

That's not a party- that's a play date....

Oh well, it's her day not mine (you're all invited to my pirate themed, dress up, scavenger hunting, pinata bashing, pass the parcelling, no holdsbarred birthday party next July!) so we invited S-kun and his sister as his sister is Meg's friend and by inviting her we doubled our guest list!

Before everyone arrived we opened presents with Grandpa chiming in on skype:

This is a shocking picture and K is so talented at taking them that I honestly wonder how it could possibly be accidental sometimes but he's too nice a guy for it not to be but anyway, I like it as Amy is jumping up and down in her new shoes from Obaachan and singing 'fast shoes! fast shoes! I got fast shoes, too!'

The guests arrived at 10 and I forgot to take pictures. Oops. The kids made their own place mats (stickers and glitter and pictures on paper that I laminated and walah! place mats.) and then played outside in the sandpit and cubby while I set up the lunch of egg salad sandwiches, a DIY hotdog bar, guacamole and veggie sticks, fairy bread and cake. It was such a very bready meal I was worried the Japanese kids would be a bit put off but woah baby, no problems! We went through 3 packs of hotdog rolls and even the fairy bread and guacamole was lapped up.

The request for the cake was 'chocolate and very pink and lots and lots ofhearts'. This is what I came up with:

Shocking photo. Guess it's not just K, huh?

Amy was thrilled and a little speechless:

And after I reassured the guests and their mum that food dye is not poisonous and that while colourful the cake was indeed edible it was a great time.

I'm hoping so much fun was has we can go for at least six kids, a pirate theme, a scavenger hunt and why not even tractor rides next time!

rain

2011-09-24T21:25:00.002+09:00

This one's for mum and dad. It's sideways because that's the extent of my computer skills.

This is the rain the day after the typhoon. The day that's supposed to be nice and clear and sunny.

Coming from a country of water restrictions, no watering days, failed crops, green droughts, droughts etc it still surprises me, even after 12 years, the sheer volume of rain we get here.

On day two of the typhoon I left a bucket outside when I fed the chooks in the morning. When I went out to lock them in for the night around 9 hours later the bucket was full. In one day!

My grandma has buckets dotted all over hr property in which she collects any precipitation there is, drop by precious drop, and eke it out watering her plants.

If only I could share the bounty, huh?

Maybe even give away the bit that washed away the seeds I just planted...

Age old problem

2011-09-23T20:37:00.003+09:00

Public holiday today. Autumnal Equinox Day. K is still on a business trip so we decided to have a girls' day out and go shopping. Woo hoo. Honestly I'd much rather be mucking around in the garden than hanging out at the local shopping centre but the girls love putting their dresses on and packing their bags (hankie, snacks, wet towel in a ziploc, pencil, paper, toy- I swear if we were ever stranded anywhere I would be relying on them to get me through!) and going shopping.

So off we headed to the local-ish Jusco. Got Meg's incredibly pedantic maths book (13 grid squares across, horizontal, dotted lines) picked up some stuff for Amy's birthday and some multi-coloured indelible markers that were on the chuckout table just because I love the idea of labeling all the girls stuff in purple or blue or orange just because I can!

I went to the register and was kind of zoning out listening to the usual prattle (the register operators her don't actually chat to you but they tell you what you're buying and how much it is as they ring it up) when I was jolted back to the moment when the woman asked 'do you have one of these cards?'

It was a picture of two loyalty cards- one for pregnant women and one for grandparents. Sheesh. I was kind of dumbstruck, sure I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt but surely I didn't look either pregnant or grandmotherly????

Fast forward to night time and wewere at a local festival. Not ours this time as ours is a Spring fertility festival. My friend S invited the girls and I to her neighbourhood's Autumn Harvest festival. It was really beuatiful. Quiet and peaceful and the roads were lined with these beautiful hand painted lanterns:

There were all sorts of designs but of course I had to take a picture of this one!

Anyway, S and her husband were introducing me to their friends and neighbours and one of the men asked where I lived.

Okubo.

Ahhhh!!! Mizutani's wife!

No...

Yeah, yeah! Mizutani Techan's wife!

No.

Mizutani's wife? She's my friend and co-farmer A. She's a kickass woman and I'd be happy to think I'm like her in many ways. Like her. But to have someone think I am her? Well, she's 100% ethnically Japanese for one thing.

Oh and she turned 60 this year.

SIXTY.

Sheeeeeesh!

After a day like today I am heading back to the shopping centre tomorrow.

In a dress.

And make-up.

And buying some Oil of Ulay.

Family size.

the no notice bento

2011-09-22T14:02:00.002+09:00

Hmmm well, it's kind of healthy....

steamed pumpkin, mysterious processed squid things, cheese, omelette slices, grapes, frozen jellies, apple cubes and cucumber sticks with mayonnaise. At the back are two seaweed wrapped rice balls with pickled plums. She wanted to use K's bento box and as he's away I said why not. But it's huge! And if you don't fill the bento pretty well everything rattles around in there and turns into a right mess before lunch.

The mystery squid things are definitely not something I usually feed the girls in such quantities as I'm pretty iffy on processed meat but it was protein in a pinch and beggars can't be choosers, huh?

The verdict?

"Everyone said my bento was HUGE! It was bigger than the TEACHERS! It was yummy! But I got so full I had to leave a cucumber stick. Sorry mummy."

No apologies necessary and I'm impressed that's all she left!

Typhoon Day

2011-09-21T11:55:00.003+09:00

Woke up at 5:55 and it was bucketing down. By the time I painfully typed out the text to Meg's little co-walker's mum that I would drive them to school it had stopped. By the time I had read her no, no, no I'll do it mail it was pouring again.

By the time I got Meg into her wet weather gear and boots with all her gear (school bag, umbrella, water bottle) under that and opened the front door it had stopped raining and she kept little H's mum waiting as she determinedly shucked her jacket off and strode purposefully out the door calling back at me "You lied! It's NOT raining!!"

Oh well...

The morning was spent listening to the half hourly reminders to conserve water and clearing the yard. In the rain. All the news reports were saying the typhoon was heading straight for us so I checked some typhoon sites on the net and it said you should secure or pack up anything that might get caught up in the storm and cause damage.

Geee.... things like the bicycles, scooters, lawn chairs, plant pots, bbqs, watering cans, stilts, washing poles and the like? Sheesh.... So I put on my Drizabone coat and knee high gumboots and set to cleaning everything up.

Then I remembered that the chook cage roofing wasn't all nailed down. Some of the tin was just set up there with rocks on top. Just as I was toing and froing on what to do about that one the outside PA kicked in:

"This is Azusagawa Branch Office. Typhoon 15 is approaching. Please secure all agricultural materials including greenhouses. Please remember you will be responsible for any damage caused by your property."

Guess I'm going to nail that tin down then... Every typhoon there are two things you can almost guarantee you will hear on the news: someone climbed on their roof to dislodge debris/ unblock gutters/ secure something and fell and died and someone went down to check their rice paddy and drowned/ was washed away in the culvert. So, climbing up on the rickety and recycled chook house which is at the far end of our property a very big holler from any neighbours was just about the stupidest thing I could think of to do. But then if a piece of tin flew somewhere and damaged someone's house or injured someone?? I came to a compromise and just nailed the edges I could do from the ground. It's the thought that counts, right?

I was just doing the final check of the property and looking forward to a coffee when my phone rang. It was the school. Agghhhhhhhh!!! What's happened to Meg???

Ran inside to answer (not sure how waterproof the phone is) and it was Meg's class teacher.

Thanking me for the nice note I wrote about Sport's Day.

Huh??? Shouldn't he be in class????

By the way- the kids are getting out at 12:30 today because of the typhoon. You wrote that Meg is walking today. Will you be able to collect her at 12:30 instead or do you want her to go to after school care?

After explaining that I had arranged with Meg to meet her at the school carpark and take her home anyway he thanked me again for my comments on Sport's Day, told me where to buy the new maths workbook Meg needs and hung up. All in all a rather bizarre call!

Changed clothes and went down to get Meg.

I found out from Meg how the operation went. The principal decided school would finish at 12:30 and ordered school buses to arrive then. A letter was drafted to be taken home explaining the decision. The students were set to silent reading and the teachers called to the staff room where every household was contacted regarding what to do with their kids. The after school centre was opened two hours early for kids going there. Kids not registered at the centre and/ or whose parents couldn't be contacted had supervised free play in the gym (active kids?) and the library (quieter ones?) Teachers then passed on information about younger brothers/ sisters to their respective class teachers and all non bus/ gym/ library/ after school care students and teachers congregated in the school courtyard waiting for their parents.

Up till here it was a really smooth operation and I was pretty impressed.

But then?

Well remember it was bucketing down?

And windy to boot?

And there are 860 odd kids at Meg's school?

This is what the school looked like 5 minutes before pickup time:

All those cars are parked. Their owners are the parents with the umbrellas on the left. Just next to the yellow sign? One of the school busses. It was honking up a storm as the road was impassable. All the roads around the school looked like that.

I met H's mum and the fireman who lives in our neighbourhood down there (coincidentally he's the one with the flattened rice next to our rice). I had passed the fireman standing in the rain with his hazard lights on talking to another neighbour half way down our hill. It was in a little dip and I immediately thought 'Oh no! Flooding!' Seems H's mum thought the same thing. Mr N laughed and said no. He'd been helping out the neighbour who had got a nail in her tire. Poor woman. Crap weather to be changing a tire in!

Anyway grabbed Meg and headed home again. She was miffed as she only had two days of school this week anyway and now she was down to 1 1/2. Driving home with the wipers on full and still not really seeing very well I decided I wanted to see the rice paddy (giving me a two out of two for stupid typhoon behaviour) but you know, the culverts here are so narrow I really think even a skinny old farmer guy would have trouble getting washed away- let alone me! Met co-farmer K there dripping wet and clearing the culverts. Poor guy. I offered to help but he was finished. He had opened the water gates up completely to fill the paddy. This increases the percentage of the rice that's under water so it is more stable and less likely to fall over. I agreed to come back in an hour and turn the water off again.

Got home and started typhoon proofing the house on the inside now. I closed all the window screens so that if the windows did break hopefully the glass would be caught by the screens before they inevitably popped out of their grooves. Filled the bath, filled some bottles of water, lit the fire, made sure all our torches were all working (we have torches everywhere thanks to K's fatalistic attitude towards disasters) filled the coffee pot and charged my phone and computer. If I have to sit through a typhoon without power I am going to want coffee and online scrabble, right?

Back out to the rice paddy with Meg grumbling in the back seat that we've already been out to the rice paddy and she wants to do origami. It was only a 5 minute trip and you now she survived quite well.

Got back and it had stopped raining again. Bizarre.

They repeated the call to secure your agricultural materials. This reassured me as the next level of warning is to stop all agricultural activities and get inside to safety so if we weren't getting that notice then we were still OK.

Went out to get Amy and the kinder was a pool:

Grabbed Amy and raced home. The news was saying the trains were all stopped and the highway was on speed restrictions in some areas and closed in others. I was quite relieved as I thought K would cancel his business trip to Osaka.

Nope.

He came home, changed, grabbed four cans of coffee and a road atlas, took the packed dinner the girls and I made with a big sloppy grin on his face (first time the girls have made daddy's lunch box) and went out into the dark and the rain and the typhoon. Silly idiot.

The phone tree went around saying that they couldn't guarantee there would be water for school lunch the next day so please get your kid to bring a packed lunch and a drink bottle of water.

Sheesh! A make a lunch box directive at 7pm???? This isn't Australia. We're not talking about a vegemite and cheese sandwich and an apple. Nooooo, we need cute and fiddly and I really didn't want to go to the supermarket at this time of night. In a typhoon. When it would probably be crowded with all the other parents from the school anyway. Oh well. Meg will have to make do with what we have here. Apples and grapes and rice. It's almost healthy.

I stayed up until I got the message that K had arrived safely and was going out drinking with guys stuck in the office there. Glad you're ok, honey.

And that was pretty much it for typhoon day here. Bit of a non-event compared to so many other areas but it was still really scary for wimpy little me!

Here's hoping that is the last one for the season and heck, the last disaster for Japan for a good long while thanks!

It's raining, it's pouring

2011-09-20T15:49:00.000+09:00

It's raining, it's pouring it's typhoon #16.

We don't get many typhoons here. We're a fair way inland and North of the main typhoon target areas.

But today we're getting torrential rain.

It's BUCKETING down.

The rivers are up.

The gutters are overflowing.

There is a heavy rain warning and flooding advisory (lesser than a warning but be cautious). And the bizarre thing about all this water?

We may run out of water.

Eh?

Yup.

Our water purification centre uses river water.

On normal river flow it copes just fine.

When the river is all churned up with mud and running fast it can't cope and the filters get blocked up.

Then they turn the water off to the houses and just let the river water flow on by. Untreated and unused.

So all day today while I am jumpy and nervous and awaiting a landslide (not because a warning or even an advisory came out for our area but just because I like to worry myself into knots about things I can't control) the in house PA has been going off. I jump up and run into the corridor (all the better to hear of my impending peril) and it is a half hourly notice from the water board

"This is Matsumoto Water Board. The heavy rain is churning the river and the water purification centre is straining. Please conserve water. Thank you for your co-operation."

They are quite serious about it as they are using the inside PA, the outside PA and noise trucks.

I know it's important.

I know no-one wants to go without water.

But please, when people are jumpy and nervous they don't need the emergency PA system working quite so actively on a non-emergency matter!

Amy very solemnly offered to forego her bath to conserve water.

I equally seriously assured her that bathing children who have just eaten natto is considered an essential use of resources.

Here's to a sunny tomorrow!

respect for the aged day

2011-09-19T15:09:00.004+09:00

Today is respect for the aged day in Japan.

It was a lot more relaxed than last year when K was very busy doing the respecting thing.

This year the old people in our neighbourhoodgot their sake, lunch, karaoke and dumpling present from someone else.

But before they took over the neighbourhood community centre we had an evacuation drill.

Yes, another one.

But you know, better safe than sorry and all that and after the events this year (Tohoku earthquake, north Nagano earthquake, Wakayama landslide, typhoons etc) it's always good to be prepared so we turned up at our arranged meeting place (at an intersection near a stand of bamboo- safe in any conditions and away from concrete fences).

Meg and Amy were wearing their superhero belts and carrying newspaper swords. Our concession to safety was to wear hats for sun protection.

One neighbour went back to her house twice- once for a hat and once for her phone.

Another neighbour arrived by car. Well it turned out she had been out and was just getting home.

One family arrived in sandals.

And then there was the neighbour who turned up in his safety helmet, with his emergency bag on his back, long sleeves, long pants and work boots and holding a radio. That was on and tuned to the national broadcaster.

Made the rest of us look woefully like tourists!

After everyone arrived and was accounted for we headed to the community centre for a talk about fire extinguishers.

Super heroes taking a break sitting on the festival flag pole

Learning how to use a fire extinguisher. The basics were:

Yell fire!! Apparently a lot of people want to put it out without alerting their family- thinking they'll get yelled at.

Don't carry the extinguisher by the handle as you can accidentally trigger it and you only get 10 seconds. (I had no idea on that one!)

Point at the base of the fire.

Be aware that there will be a big cloud of smoke and smoke extinguisher powder and you may cough and become oriented so ensure the route out to safety is clear before you start extinguishing.

All in all pretty interesting but I hope I never need to use my new info!

the rice chronicles part 15- staying upright

2011-09-18T14:13:00.008+09:00

We're getting there!

this is a blurry, out of focus picture taken with my phone but I love this one super clump of rice. Why is it so much bigger then the others? Healthy seeds? Extra duck fertiliser? Who knows. I like to think it wanted to see what lay beyond the field and put in that extra spurt just to check it out!

I love the contrast with the neighbour's soba.

And now to today's theme. Keeping your rice upright. We have had so much rain this year. SO much rain late in the season. It's real extremes. I was watering everything in sight a few days ago as even hardy plants like zinnias were wilting and then the next thing you know the rice is falling over because it's so wet. I am not sure why rice falls over other than I think if it gets really big and then they reduce the water in the paddy which they do towards the end of the season and then it rains heaps and/or gets windy it seems a sure thing that rice paddies will start looking a lot less upright.

It often starts quite small:

And then kind of like dominoes it just keeps going and going:

That's the same field at the back. It's the neighbours field. And that's ours in the front. Still upright. The neighbours have been rice farmers for generations. As have many of the people whose rice fell over this year (and I'd say probably 3/4 of the rice around here is at least partly down by now) and we are beginners so I'm not sure what's to thank for our luck. Our rice was planted about two weeks later than most so maybe it's just not our time yet and we'll have pancake rice soon, too...

Hope not!

Sport's Day in pictures

2011-09-17T10:23:00.023+09:00

It started with a whole school warm up to STEPS 5678. I love this song and didn't even mind Meg's constant practice around the house.

The it was the running races and Meg came first in her group. She was thrilled and so was Obaachan when Meg told her it was all due to the shoes she sent Meg for her birthday. Regardless of the validity of the statement t was happiness all round.

One of the things I love about Sport's day is how organised it is. It's always on time, always runs smoothly and it's majority run by the kids themselves. Here the grade 5/6 girls are waiting at the finish line to grab the kids who ran. The girl wearing the 1 bb grabs the kid who came first, 2 the second, 3 the third etc etc. There are three teams of these girls and they cycle through. The boys do the same for the boys' races.

Amy's turn. What? Amy's not in school yet! That's right but she will be next year and this is a special event for next year's Grade 1's. It's their first intro to the big school. And it must feel really big- huge with 860 students, 140 odd kinder kids and all those mums and dads and grandparents to boot. Not that she looks phased, hey?

And they're off!

Then they do a lap of the oval with more grade 5 and 6 kids holding their placards. Amy is in West Kinder Lily group which is the sky blue placard being held by the boy who takes his job seriously! There is also West kinder sunflower, East kinder lily and sunflower and 'kinder/ daycare'. That's for all the kids who go to kinder outside the village. The ones who get the cute smocks and the straw hats... sigh... so cute!

After all that excitement Amy needed a break and had her bento. Our school sport's day finishes at 12:30 so pretty much noone takes a packed lunch. The kids go back to their classes and eat their lunch and debrief before going home at 1:30 but families tend to just leave at 12:30. The school bus runs as normal and otherwise kids walk or are picked up. But I think even a morning only sport's day is a big wait for Amy and I was making Meg a bento anyway so I made her one too and she was pretty happy.

The big ball event. These huge balls travel the length of the school and back again. Yup a whole school event. And it's taken very seriously!

Waiting for the ball to come back.

Tug of war. I love how you can se how much fun they're having.

Tug of war with the white team cheer squad in action in the background. Those boys must have no voice whatsoever by the end of the day. They scream and yell and whistle and cheer and sing and clap and drum constantly!

That's the white team side of the tug of war. It's combined grades 1 and 2 so it's a pretty big event!

Meg's class danced to 'Youngman'. Which is the Japanese version of YMCA. I said 'aaah! You're dressed like the construction worker guy!' She replied. 'No. We're wearing bibs and we have pompoms!'

The finale.

Meg wasn't in this one but I had to take a picture as I just equal parts amazed and horrified at the Grade 5/6 7 tier human pyramid.... Meg wants to be on the top... I told her she may have to prepare herself that she might be closer to the bottom tier... (a lot closer I reckon!)

The results are in- go white team!!

All over and walking back to the car we parked at my work.

All over till next year.

When we will have two kids to watch.

Gulp.

no excuses

2011-09-16T10:15:00.003+09:00

Mummy it's almost Sport's Day.

I know.

Sport's Day is the most important day at kinder I think. That and swimming observation day.

Mmmmmm.

Are you going to come to Sport's Day?

Of course! And Daddy and Meg.

Not of course. You didn't come to swimming observation day and that's really important! Everyone else's mummy came to swimming observation day!!

Amy. I didn't go to swimming observation day because you didn't go to swimming observation day- we were in Australia.

..... oh. ... You still should have come!

swimming observation day in pictures

2011-09-15T09:50:00.012+09:00

Meg's swimming observation day.

First sit on the side of the pool and splash yourself.

Then slide into the pool and pretend you're not cold.

Then it's all in for splash the teacher. This gets the kids all wet and they don't even remember how cold the water is.

Lining up to practice their swimming form. (That's Meggie at the end.)

And they're off!

Kicking practice

Kickboard practice

Putting it all together for a trip up the pool (Meg is the one under water.) Meg's teacher has to wear his glasses even in the pool. I can' imagine he can see anything at all!

And they're out and remembering how cold they are.

I was talking to my friend H from Saitama and her daughter has levelled swimming practice with goals for the season and everything. Wow. This is the end of Grade 2 and we are still just doing standing and diving etc.

Kids in Nagano don't do a lot of swimming, the rivers are snow melt and freezing year round, there's no beach etc. But even so it disappoints me a little that there's not more actual swimming going on in swimming class!

Summer holiday homework

2011-09-14T09:24:00.005+09:00

Kids here choose a project to complete over the summer holiday. As Nagano has the suckiest summer holiday in the world (well Japan anyway- try 20 whole days) the summer projects aren't as involved and impressive as the ones I saw as a teacher in Fukushima.

This year Meg had a choice of making something with clay, painting something from nature, decorating a paper plate and turning it into a picture frame or making a parfait. She was all set to make her paper plate picture frame. She had her picture, her plate, her shells and paints and glue and glitter.

then she met a couple of friends.

And they had made parfaits.

And so Meg needed to make a parfait, too.

At 6pm the day before she went back to school.

And it had to be 'a proper parfait.'

This is a reference to my penchant for substitution.

Ok.

Well.

Hmmmm.

We don't have frosted cornflakes, marshmallows, ice-cream or wafers and I'm not dragging everyone to the shops now.

With the explanation that you can make a parfait with what we have in the house or go back to the paper plate picture frame idea (for which I had been given adequate notice and had therefore provided a paper plate and all the trimmings) she decided she would make a parfait from what we had.

And so I present:

yoghurt, cereal, coconut, banana, plum, sultanas, nashi and a frozen jelly on top.

Even Meg was pretty pleased with it:

The mask? Just because.

oh okra

2011-09-13T08:42:00.002+09:00

Oh okra.

You fabulously yummy versatile vegetable.

Gumbo, ohitashi (chilled veg with ponzu sauce) soup, stirfry, salad, fried, crumbed just any way you can think. Okra rocks.

Oh okra.

You fabulously prolific and hardy plant. Throw some seeds in the ground, kick some dirt on top and forget about it. Wait a couple of months and harvest.

And harvest and harvest and harvest.

And do it quickly before they get too big and hard and woody.

Which seems to happen overnight.

Perfect yummy okra is about 10cm long.

If you don't pick it when it looks like that you will turn around and bam! Thirty plus cm okra awaits you. Taunting you.

So, today I grabbed the scissors and decided to attack the okra. I don't want the plants putting effort into growing gigantuan okra that we won't eat. I want them to use that energy to grow even more little tender yummy okra!

I wasn't really dressed for gardening as I'd been out for the morning but it's not like picking okra is a terribly dirty job so I didn't bother changing out of my t-shirt and shorts.

The okra plants are way up over my head and planted in two rows that have grown in together so I was wending and winding my way in among them and holding my hands up head height cutting them off.

To cut them I grabbed the okra pod with my left hand, bent it down on itself and then hacked at the stem with the scissors before throwing it on the ground and moving on.

I cut down about thirty odd and was really getting on a roll when my hand started to itch. And my arm. And my back. I tried to ignore it thinking it was probably just little cuts as the okra is quite prickly but I made the mistake of giving my hand a casual scratch.

OWWWWWWW!!

Meg has allergies. I must have said 'try not to itch' more than a thousand times over the years. Well, I was now standing in the garden, scissors discarded at my feet, scratching like crazy, jumping up and down and yelling 'Owwww! It hurts!! It itches!!!!'

I ran inside and immediately rubbed everywhere I could reach with the girls' muhi anti-itch lotion.

It did nothing.

So I re-applied with K's hardcore but smelly kinkan anti-itch lotion.

It did nothing.

My hands were swollen and red and SO ITCHY!

As the girls watched on worriedly and Meg patted my back and said gently 'try not to itch, mummy.' I grabbed the ice packs from the freezer and tried those.

It did nothing.

I remembered that my dad brought me over some heavy duty anti-histamine tablets for my hayfever and K got me one.

It did nothing.

I read the box and it said 'Adults take one tablet as needed.'

I took another tablet and when K asked what I was doing I explained 'as needed' as I jumped up and down and paced around the kitchen and rubbed my hands with a towel and the ice pack.

K had to go out and, after I promised not to take anymore anti-histamine, he left me with instructions to call him if I needed to go to the hospital.

I didn't think it would get to that but boy it hurt!

The girls ate their dinner and put their plates in the sink and even went and got in the shower and washed each other's hair, double checking the conditioner was all out, without me saying anything at all. If I wasn't so itchy I would have been really pleased!

I googled 'okra itch' and waddaya know, it's some irritant in the okra prickles that does it. And it's worse in the long prickles at the base of the okra. The bit I was manhandling to remove the overgrown pods.

Ahhhhhhh.

The solution?

None.

I must have read 10 different sites but there was nothing. No miracle cure.

I was feeling a little better by now though. A little woozy and flushed too. But I figured that was probably my double dosing on anti-histamines. I haven't even taken a pain killer in years so it must have been a shock to my system!

I was looking for some other lotion though as the muhi/ kinkan combo wasn't working. Tried an ancient bottle of peach leaf lotion. Nope. was considering pawpaw ointment but was reluctant as it is so greasy when I remembered ti-tree ointment.

Hallelujah!

I slathered it on and the relief was instant!

And short lived.

But I got the girls to bed (and thanked them for being so helpful and reassured Amy I wasn't going to die- she's a little morbid sometimes...) and with 10 minutely applications of ti-tree oil gradually the itch resided.

It took a good three hours though.

It hasn't dinted my love for eating okra. But it has certainly made me less gungho and cavaleer about picking it!

Oh okra!

Why are you so unfriendly?

two different approaches to bowling

2011-09-12T22:38:00.000+09:00

Meg wanted to go bowling for her birthday.

I like bowling with the girls as you get gutter guards- no gutter balls! I'm sure you could ask for them if you weren't bowling with children but don't you think it would be a whole lot more embarrassing?

So anyway, bowling we went. And the girls have such different bowling styles it made me grin. Amy's is a really complicated choreography of jumping and leaning and clapping and high fives all round:

(and doesn't she just put the fashion back in bowling?)

For Meg bowling is a much simpler process:

She's saying 'Did I hit it?'. That's right, rather than watch the lane herself Meg preferred to get a match report from mummy.

And just for the record, I remain the Fukase family undefeated bowling champion.

Just for the record, you know.

miscommunication 2

2011-09-11T15:04:00.001+09:00

Meg had something special for dessert in her school lunch.

She told me it was fruit ponch.

I said she probably meant fruit punch.

Nope, definitely fruit ponch.

Honey, I think it's from English and it's fruit punch.

Nope. She wasn't having a bar of it so we went to the arbiter of all language disputes in the house- K.

K- it's fruit punch isn't it?

Yes.

No Daddy, we definitely had fruit pOnch.

Oh. Of course! Meg wouldn't have pUnch. She'd have fruit pOnch.

What? You just said it was pUnch.

No, it's only pUnch if it's alcoholic. If it's just juice it's pOnch.

What?

It's English. You know that, right?

Yeah mummy.

No. It's not English. It's fruit punch or alcoholic punch. It's never pOnch.

The both looked at me pityingly and K suggested:

Maybe it's your accent, I bet if you ask a North American they'd tell you it's punch and ponch.

That's right, now I'm getting English tips from an engineer who used English class to catch up on sleep and an eight year old who swears up and down that you spell sheep cep.

Sheeesh!

miscommunication 1

2011-09-10T14:26:00.002+09:00

Amy's last year of kinder and they have a whole slew of graduation oriented activities. The latest one is a survey that will be collated and the answers used in the city-wide kinder alumni book.

We flew through the first few questions:

Favourite kinder lunch menu?

Seaweed salad, clear soup and fish with eggs in them (as you do)

Favourite kinder snack?

Fruit salad served in a hollowed out watermelon (we live next door to watermelon village)

Favourite food mummy makes for you?

cereal!

Ummmmm, I don't really make that honey, I just add the milk. How about something we have for tea?

Ummmmm.... hamburgers!

Favourite breakfast food?

cereal! (Should have seen that one coming)

Food you don't like?

Ummm...... nothing.

Nothing?

Nothing.

What about ummm... nothing?

Nothing.

Ok, I'll write nothing.

So I wrote 'nashi' which is Japanese for nothing.

Only it's a homonym for nashi pear.

And Amy can read hiragana now.

NO!!

What?

Why did you write nashi? I love nashi! that's why you never buy me nashi, because you think I hate them. I love nashi. Don't write nashi!

I impressed myself by writing down the two kanji for the different nashi off the top of my head and explaining that they sounded the same but meant different things. As I was sitting there patting myself on the back I realised the problem with my fabulous feat:

"I can't read that! I haven't learned kanji yet! And I love nashi!"

Ok ok ok, I'll write "nai desu." There isn't anything.

Ok. Because I love nashi.

It was at this point that K, who had only been in the adjoining room but it was morning and he has his cone of silence on in the mornings, walked in and checked over the form.

Mmmm.... hmmm...... ahh...

You should have written 'nashi' instead of "nai desu."

Amy and I answered in unison:

Noooooooooooo!

Autumn has come to the garden

2011-09-09T14:06:00.002+09:00

Fabulous friend S came over to help in the garden when i said I had too much to do out there to meet her to go walking. What a woman!

With two of us working we ploughed through the weeds and ripped up all the corn and other finished crops, found a row of broccoli and chilli seedlings that are the unluckiest plants in the garden this year. They were grown from forgotten seeds leftover from last year, then they were the forgotten leftover seedlings from that lot that got planted late because yup, I forgot them. Then I forgot that I had planted them at all and they disappeared under metre high weeds. But the plucky little things persevered and I have solemnly promised to look after them for the rest of their very short and shortened lives...

After pulling up summer K and I put in more chicken manure and then ploughed everything in and made new garden rows.

Then it was just left to choose the Autumn leaf veggies and plant them. And here we have chingensai (bok choy), karashina (mustard greens), mizuna, wasabina (wasabi greens), green spinach, red spinach, swiss chard and cos lettuce. It's probably too late in the season for the cos lettuce but I love the stuff and wanted to give it a go. I mean micro-salads are all the rage, right?

It is always sad for me to pull up the summer veggies but I do love the leafy greens you can grow in the cooler months (they bolt to seed in summer) so I am trying to focus on that rather than the long wait until the next cob of corn...

BBQ. Chicken.

2011-09-08T13:51:00.002+09:00

The free ranging the chooks thing is going quite well. Anytime I'm out weeding or doing something in the garden I let them out and they follow me around, sitting on my feet as I dig wanting front row seats to the juicy worms and earwigs, slaters and miscellaneous bugs that are turned up. Sometimes I have to physically move them out of the way as they stand scratching and pecking directly in the past of the hoe.

So I know that they are pretty fearless things (either that or just really greedy!) but I was sure that there was some hardwired evolutionary thing in all animals that made them naturally and completely afraid of fire.

Apparently not.

Seems our chooks have a penchant for cooked bugs. can't blame them. If I was going to eat a worm I'd prefer it BBQed too but seriously. And this isn't even the closest they got- they were right up there pecking bugs off the stumps as the smoke drew the bugs out. I kept trying to explain to them the concept of BBQ chicken and how I preferred them for their eggs than their legs but they are fearless. Or greedy. Or crazy.

This year's birthday project

2011-09-07T13:24:00.005+09:00

For the girls' birthdays we like to make them a present. Last year it was a horizontal bar for Meg and a sandpit for Amy.

This year, after that weekend when they tried to build their own house in the backyard we decided a cubby house would be great.

My brother, sister and I had a rocking cubby house when we were kids. It even had a balcony, tire swing and room to make slides and seesaws with planks of wood we would appropriate from dad's shed. We played pirates there, we playedRomeo and Juliet, we played house and we played robbers in our lair. We even tried sleeping out there a few times but the mosquitoes were a pretty big deterrent!

Anyway, with fond memories of my own cubby exploits I explained the concept to K who was a bit bemused as to why we would build the girls a house in the garden when they have a perfectly good house already...

He didn't have a cubby growing up, obviously.

Rather than building from scratch we thought we'd convert the second bathroom. Hee hee. I love saying that as it makes you think 'ooo posh!' when the reality is a concrete building with a broken woodfired boiler bath no longer connected to water or electricity at the bottom of the yard.

Not much of a bathroom but a perfect start to a cubby and bonus- K and I wouldn't be required to test our builder mettle with you know walls and a roof and all.

So.. thinking the girls would enjoy being part of the cubby process we picthed the idea to them.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

Now! Now! NOW!

I had to go cut metre high weeds with the brush cutter so K took the girls to the home centre to go buy paint. I was imagining lemon yellow, baby pink or pastel blue and thinking it would look a little sickeningly sweet but hey.

I came back to this:

Holy Guacamole! Red and yellow... And no K. The girls each had a tin of paint and a brush. Meg had changed into dark clothes (what I always suggest when she comes out to the garden but rather pointless when using red and yellow paint!) but Amy was wearing one of her favourite shirts and a cute skirt. K was out the back chopping wood. He had opened the cans for them and when they said they wanted to do it themselves he acquiesced and said he'd be out the back if they needed him. I am much more of a control freak and immediately rushed over to clean brushes and tie back hair and start my barrage of 'be careful! Don't use so much paint! Stop before you get to the window etc etc' I can well see how it was much more fun without mummy there but still... their clothes... and my lawn... and the colour combination!

Oh well...

they had fun and most of the paint got on the walls...

Sausage sizzle Fukase style

2011-09-06T12:56:00.006+09:00

Sausage sizzles are a staple of country life in Australia (maybe other places too?) Usually run as fundraisers at fetes, footy games, in the main street on a Saturday- anywhere really- they are pretty plain tucker. A slice of regular sandwich bread, a plain, thin sausage and a stripe of tomato sauce and you're done. The gourmet version has grilled onions on it.

You might think it sounds like the poor cousin of the hot dog but you'd be wrong.

So wrong.

It's a BBQed sausage. Without the extraneous breadage of a bun. And it's just good.

Anyway, Meg fell in love with the hotdog thanks to my American boss and I felt like it was time to pull her back to the right side of the fence when it comesto the eating of sausages so I convinced her that she would rather have a sausage sizzle sausage than the requested hot dog for her birthday dinner.

This also helped me out as, while I can buy 13 types of green tea and 5 kilo bags of pickling salt and miso in my supermarket the availabilityof hot dog rolls is as fickle as the mountain weather and this was not a bunned week.

So- I made this example for Meg:

And she was thrilled and gobbled it up.

Amy wanted to make her own. (As is Amy's want.)

I was dealing out salad and encouraging Meg to eat her sausage sizzle without dissecting it for authenticity and cleaning up's sake when I turned around and saw Amy's sausage:

Well lack of. She had mekabu pickled seaweed and a whole lot of tomato sauce. The fancy restaurant style splodges on the plate are from the soy based sauce that comes with the seaweed. It exploded while she was opening it.

That is not how you eat a sausage sizzle sausage. She'll have her citizenship revoked at this rate!

But, eat it she did:

And declared it delicious. And it's probably a lot healthier than a sausage anyway, hey?

Was just sitting down to my own proper sausage sizzle sausage when I saw K's version:

Sheeesh! Tomato sauce, tonkatsu sauce and mayonnaise??

I give up. This family is a lost cause. We're so un-Australian I better get onto it or I'll lose my citizenship!

pics from meg's bday

2011-09-05T12:25:00.000+09:00

K took some pictures at Meg's party. Just the four of us after work and school and kinder on Friday night. My parents joined us on skype so that was great. (that's where Meg is looking in this pic:)

Now, is it just me or is there something strange about this picture. See the candle light in the bottom speck of the picture? It was (as expected) attached to candles that were on the birthday cake. But, rather than include all that in the picture K has chosen the spice rack, light cord and ridiculously placed kitchen cabinets. Oh well. Lucky we have other pictures of the cake:

I'm no cake artist and I psyched myself out watching cake boss and masterchef just desserts anyway but the combination of chocolate cake, pink icing and bucketloads of lollies was more than enough to impress the birthday girl!

One for Granny and Nanny- the parcel from Australia arrived safely and was much appreciated:

And a bonus picture of the birthday girl in her birthday crown she brought all the way back from Australia

Sunday morning 6am

2011-09-04T15:16:00.000+09:00

Standing around on the primary school sports' ground.

In the rain.

And the wind.

And the cold. (this is Nagano and it is Autumn...)

As a typhoon is travelling across Japan.

Waiting.

Waiting for the official ok to start weeding and slashing and mowing and raking and hauling.

As you do.

On a Sunday morning.

At 6am.

In the rain.

And the cold.

And the wind.

Lake Suwa Fireworks Festival

2011-09-03T14:52:00.000+09:00

Thanks to Nancy and her family we finally went to the Lake Suwa fireworks. These are a huge deal and apparently nationally famous. I say apparently as everyone here tells me they are but to be honest I'd never heard of them before we moved here. then again I don't really follow fireworks festivals so who knows?

Anyway, they are a very big deal and attract a huge audience (like 300,000 people!) and rightly so as they are fantastic:

What? That's not a good picture of the fireworks? In fact you can't see any fireworks at all? Well, that's because Nancy's family have an electrical shop and Meg and Amy were in heaven playing shops in a real shop. Amy was selling everything for 1 yen, Meg was out the front of the shop sing-songing 'Irasshaimase!!!' and they both were using the front window glass as a mirror for their dancing extravaganzas. Repeated reminders that their 'mirror' was actually a window and they were actually putting on quite the show for passersby fell on deaf ears. Oh well, they were having a ball letting us chat and watch the actual fireworks. Which did I mention were fabulous?

Even in the middle of a typhoon!

Thank you Nancy!

Happy Birthday Big Girl!!

2011-09-02T21:52:00.009+09:00

Meggie is 8.

How did this little (ok, she was never that little but still- littler) baby get to be eight??

It seems like just yesterday that you could leave her on the floor and she'd still be there when you got back from the loo.

Ahhh but that independent streak showed itself early when she insisted on feeding herself and then would redecorate with the food and gnaw on the empty spoon.

Then of course she was so hungry she spent all her time trying to eat absolutely anything and everything we met on our walks....

And while mummy and daddy were busy trying to teach Meg the difference between edible and inedible objects in the world around us she was busy teaching us about not underestimating your kid:

Check out the determination to open that box and ahhh how's the babyproofing going with an operational oven toaster at knee height???

Eight years on and you're slightly less likely to spread your dinner all over the table or try and eat a flower. I love that you haven't worked out how to make funny faces and think this is standard:

And I am glad that I can still beat you at bowling as it makes up for the fact you are the family UNO champion.

Happy Birthday Mega-monster and hope it's a great year for you.

Oh and remember it's a rule- 8 year olds have to be nice to their sisters. I don't know why, just a rule.

mass evacuation

2011-09-01T09:28:00.000+09:00

Drill that is. Sorry mum. Probably just gave you a bit of a heart start there, huh?

Today is disaster prevention day in Japan. September 1st was the day the Great Kanto Earthquake devastated Tokyo in 1923 and so every year this day is used to practise evacuations and disaster management plans throughout Japan.

This year what with the Tohoku Earthquake fresh in everyone's minds thinks were ramped up considerably in the emergency drill department.

The school decided to drill the mass evacuation of all students. This involves every student being released to a parent or grandparent ("where neither parent is available any immediate relative older than high school age will suffice") from the school oval.

So, 800+ students being released at the same time. Madness enoough.

But wait, there's more!

We have to pretend the roads are all a mess and we can't drive to the school. So the parents are supposed to walk to school to get their kids.

Only this is a really big school district. Many kids are bussed in as they live too far to walk. Thinking that the mums (and it was mostly mums) are going to hike 5km+ in the heat and humidity for a role play exercise was wishful thinking and I guess word got out that there were some rebels in the ranks as a series of stern (wavy lines and bold font and all) letters were issued reminding us that this was serious and teachers would be patrolling to ensure nobody parked near the school, the gym, 7-11, the roads near the school, gym and 7-11 and basically anywhere close to the school at all.

I guess some people felt they were exempt from the drill as they used after school care (when there have been real emergencies- well sudden dismissals of students due to bear sightings or thunderstorms- all the after school care kids were released to the staff there) so another note came home saying the after school care centre would be closed and all school buses cancelled.

You will participate in this drill and you will come and get your kid.

So, we had to be there between 2:35 and 3:15 to collect the kids. I am naughty so I parked at work and walked from there cutting out a massive hill climb from my journey. If challenged I was going to justify it by saying there's every chance I would be at work when an earthquake happened. I wasn't challenged and I ran into a number of women who had borrowed the kinder car park, and walked passed one of Meg's classmate's house which had grown four new cars over night so I guess I wasn't the only one looking for a short cut.

I arrived at school at 2:20 to this sight:

All the people you can see are the parents. What you can't see is the kids sitting down behind all the parents. The parents were in orderly lines behind witches' hats marked with the name of their kid's class. If you have more than one kid at the school you line up at the class of the oldest kid.

By 2:20- five minutes ahead of schedule, the kids were being dismissed. Older siblings walked down and brought (dragged/ pushed) their siblings up to their class and then the adults gave their names, kids' names and neighbourhood area name to the teacher and filed out of school via the back entrance (away from buildings and big rocks.)

It all ran very smoothly (save for the poor mums who had naively believed the times stated on the handout and were still making their way to school against a stream- nay onslaught- of kids and mums heading home) but it was pretty pointless in my opinion as any kind of preparation for the real thing.

I mean who is going to photocopy all the signs when the power goes out?

How many parents will be in Azusagawa when the quake happens? (If they're not in Azusagawa they will need to rely on the bridges not collapsing and roads not being impassable...)

And more than anything else, the school is a designated evacuation centre. It has that huge oval you can see with no overhanging buildings, fences or even trees. It has shelter, food and water stored there. It is right near two clinics, the police box and fire station. Why would we rush to school to take our kids away from there and back down winding and narrow concrete fenced roads to our houses?

Don't ask me. I just do what I'm told. Well most of the time.

And Amy? She came home from kinder rabbiting on about what to do when the kinder collapses and there's too much glass and broken stuff on the playground to go there. The answer- you go to the nursing home across the road as it's newer and has a big carpark. Unless of course you were in the building when it collapsed. Then you wait to be rescued as if you walk you might get hurt. Great positive stuff this, huh?

It's over

2011-08-31T08:15:00.002+09:00

Summer that is.

And I'm as blue as a girl can be.

Cher has such a great voice for melancholy days.

Ahhhh,.... summer is over. The cicada chorus is getting quieter and more lonely. The rice is bending it's head and looking bowed down. The persimmon are dive bombing anyone silly enough to walk under their tree. The vegetable garden is looking bereft and awaiting an overhaul from it's summer glory to it's more spartan Autumn garb.

Sigh.

I'm as blue as a girl can be.

I love summer. Live for summer. Feel more alive in summer.

But summer is over today.

Need to think of good things about Autumn.....

uhhhhh.....

apples I guess.....

sweet potatoes.....

the full moon festival....

sport's day.....

nope. Not working.

It's over.

And I'm as blue as a girl can be.

catching up in photos day 5- the rice

2011-08-30T15:23:00.000+09:00

No words.

Just a moment of hushed awe and wonder and total rice respect and admiration please.

Oh and you are welcome to compare our vibrant green rice with the smaller, yellower rice behind, too.

Just because I have no humility whatsoever when it comes to the rice!

catching up in photos day 4- the ducks

2011-08-29T15:12:00.001+09:00

We went out to the fattening farm to say hi. The ducks have about 200 friends and are having a wild old time squawking up a storm. I don't know what was more overpowering, the sound or the smell!

With so many there it was pretty impossible to pick ours out (well Amy was sure she knew but....) but I think they all look pretty good and so big!

Not sure what's going on with the pictures. I was taking them on my phone. Hmmmm

catching up in photos day 3

2011-08-28T15:02:00.000+09:00

Crop circles?

Very, very localised voracious locust plague?

Something quite toxic in that yellow crate?

No, no, no and nope. (An extra one for good measure!)

Potatoes!!

Despite the less than perfect conditions hat border on neglect we are getting a bumper crop. Yeah! Only dug up the Mayqueen and danshaku so far but really looking forward to getting to (finding!) the Incan gold ones.

Yum, yum, yum!

The perfect post-potato harvest lunch- baked potato with tomato and basil sauce and real Aussie cheese!

catching up in photos day 2

2011-08-27T14:33:00.000+09:00

A day at Lake Nojiri.

Lake Nojiri is this portal that takes you out of Japan and into some dream of an English speaking country from an imagined bygone era when everyone had lots of free time, a nice word and a smile for all they met and the desire to just sit and chat. All that and it's only 90 minutes up the road- bonus!

The girls had a great time with friends they've known since they were 6mo in Meg's case and before they were born in Amy's!

catching up in photos day 1

2011-08-26T14:07:00.000+09:00

Crazy season here, too much work, too much garden, too much neighbourhood stuff, too much volunteering and the only thing I'm not getting too much of is sleep!

So, cheating like crazy and catching up on the week in pictures that may or may not have been taken on the day they are posted under but all happened in the last week.

Day 1

The garden before:

After:

Yeah. And there were still veggies under there. Amazing!

Bad year for tomatoes, short season for cucumbers, zucchinis gave up the ghost and the lettuce ran to seed like it was at Olympic tryouts but the eggplants, the entire pepper family from sweet to agghhhh!! the beans, the cabbages and the bitter gourds are keeping us well fed.

summer?

2011-08-25T09:49:00.002+09:00

See the toy wheelbarrow? It's full of water. And it was empty yesterday morning. Crazy weather. Crazy amount of water but not much of a summer. Boo hoo.

Oh well, the lawn looks nice.

And it's not stopping the girls as you can see!

It would be nice to see the sun again before summer is over, though.

sigh..... I swear I'm solar powered and this weather just makes me feel bleak.

welcome home

2011-08-24T00:34:00.004+09:00

We got to Narita 8pm Saturday night.

We got through customs and immigration by 8:30pm.

We met K: 'DADDDDDDDDDDDYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!' and got out on the road soon after.

It should be a 5 hour trip. It was when K drove down Saturday morning.

It wasn't when we headed back as there was an accident at a junction and it was the start of the obon holiday period so it was crowded to boot.

Oh and K was just a little tired what with all that driving so he stopped for a few catnaps.

All in all we got home at just after 3am.

And the girls were up before 7am.

Gahhhhhhhhhh!

But that's ok because the garden had missed us as well:

At least I think there's still a garden in there....

Welcome home.

the wedding

2011-08-23T23:43:00.006+09:00

was beautiful.

And so much fun!

And so so much more fun being a guest than the bride.

And we had a whole load of pictures.

Had.

Past tense.

On the plane home Meg wanted to look at the pictures so I showed her how to.

Then Amy spilt juice.

And I was cleaning her up while she was scrabbling for an errant jellybean and causing thousands of dollars worth of chiropractic damage tothe passenger in front (who was luckily about 8 years old so hopefully we'll be long forgotten when he needs back surgery) and Meg was asking me a load of questions as she forgot which button to press and I stupidly said something like 'just keep pressing until the picture changes' and it did.

It changed to black.

And I found out Meg can read "no image."

Well, "No I-ma-geh" which unfortunately means the same thing.

AGHHHHHHHH!!!!

But I really couldn't get mad as I had told her what to do and she did it and she realised instantly what she'd done and she was shattered.

But you know? If you're going to lose your pictures a wedding is the place to do it as everyone else is wielding cameras as well- bonus!

But you've got to get organised enough to ask people to send you copies and stuff....

And so there're none of those photos here yet.

But here is what I have from my phone camera that Amy was using as Meg was using K's phone and she felt left out.

And it seems looney now but at the time handing over expensive electronics equipment to a 5 year old to avoid having what would certainly be her ardent displeasure recorded for all eternity on her Aunt and Uncle's wedding video just seemed like a really really good idea.

And so- the wedding as Amy saw it:

A tree with a mysterious black object in front of it. No clue and as far as I can recall (and I didn't drink that much champagne!) there were no trees pivotal to the ceremony...

My dad, me and my brother. Amy says 'say cheese!' after she's taken the picture. As you can see only my brother twigged on that one.

And other than some out of focus extreme closeups of her finger and one positively booby-licious pic of a bridesmaid that I deleted out of respect (don't bend in to talk to a four foot photographer...) that was it.

Yup. The bride didn't even get a look in.

I'll have to check how Meg did on K's camera.

Here's one I took when I wrested my phone back:

Ohhhhh..... my little girl looks all grown up!

we're baaaack!

2011-08-23T23:31:00.002+09:00

Well, a while ago now. We got back ten days ago but my computer didn't take well to the journey and the power cord died. No power no blog. :(

But I'm back!

One fabulous looking and fabulously expensive silver powercord later and it's back in business time.

And we're off!

2011-08-04T01:23:00.003+09:00

My baby sister's getting married ad we're all off to see her do it.

Haven't packed yet, haven't cleaned up anything but I have done web-checkin and caught up with work and blogging so time for bed and I'll pack in the morning, yeah? As long as we have the passports, tickets and credit card, right?

Well and wedding outfits... and shoes.... Meg's meds.... sunscreen.... hats.... agghhhhhh I hate packing!

Summer camp day 3

2011-08-03T01:15:00.002+09:00

I only took one picture day three... busy, tired, otherwise occupied.... what a pity! But, there was an official camera operator so hopefully I will get some more pics from him.

One of my jobs at camp was designing and implementing (how cv speak is that???) the scavenger hunts. I love this job, too as it's fun thinking of activities that will keep a wide randge of kids- from quiet to over-active, from 5 to 13 years old, occupied and having fun for an hour and in teams to boot. Phew......

Day 1 was a picture treasure hunt and the kids looked at the picture, identified the object and ran there to get the next picure.

Day two was an information search and they had to write down the name of the park from the English sign, count the steps down to the river, tell me how many kinds of drink there were in the vending machine etc etc.

Day three was a physical challenge hunt where the kids performed tasks to get their stages ticked off. Get your whole team on the slide at the same time, link two trees with the members of your tea,m etc etc. One of the challenges was getting across the climbing wall:

And that was summer camp day three in my camera's experience.

I'm simultaneously exhausted and already thinking about next year's camp!

Summer camp day 2

2011-08-02T01:03:00.005+09:00

This was my activity in the free choice activity time. It combines all the stuff I love- crafts, water, building stuff and a little bit of friendly competition. We made sail boats out of milk cartons, straws, cellophane and tape. Lots of tape! Then we decorated them with permanent markers and floated, pushed, blew and raced them down the smaller of the rivers. It was so much fun and I was supposed to be just supervising! The kids got really into it and kept modifying their boats and trying again, then a little more tweaking then another run etc etc. The time flew (sailed?) by.

Ready... set......

And they're off!

Come on red! Come on blue!

The race wasn't without its hurdles...

summer camp day 1

2011-08-01T00:53:00.006+09:00

bloggie silence here as English Summer Day Camp is on this week and it is so much fun and so interesting but phewwww so tiring!

So, day 1 in pictures:

Getting ready to go fishing. The fish have absolutely nothing to worry about with all the splashing and hollering and out-of-water-hook time but the kids have a ball and that's the main thing, right?

Building rock (gravel?) cairns. Some of the older girls got really into this and the record was eight rocks. Rock selection is vital.

Egg and spoon races with natural obstacles- rocks, roots and hillocks and tussocks.

water balloon toss competition. This was a lot of fun. Squeally, wet fun but fun none the less.

Of course lots of other stuff happened as well but I was there as geeral camp staff rather than official photographer so that's all for day 1.