Monster Asparagus

One of the great things about writing a blog is that it becomes an instant reference point for checking when I did things in previous years etc. Today is a great example.... I have been picking some absolutely massive asparagus from my asparagus patch in the tunnel house. The biggest one I picked today was 4cm in diameter... it's worth getting a ruler out to see just how big this is, but if you don't have one just believe me that it is pretty big for a piece of asparagus! I had assumed that such huge asparagus would be far too tough to eat, but surprisingly it is tender... raw is absolutely divine.
I was trying to remember when I planted the asparagus and then I remembered that I had probably written about it on the blog and voila... end of April 2008. Reading back over the entry makes me appreciate even more the size and wonderful flavour of this asparagus that I raised from seed! If you want a reminder, click here... Asparagus Bed number 2 If you want a taste come and visit soon - definitely great to pick and munch on the way back to the house.

Japanese restaurants

Today was the first day in a string of public holidays here and I spent most of it in the garden. By 5:30pm my back was dying and I realised there was absolutely nothing in the house that I could whip up for tea in a short time (we had already had pasta for lunch...) so we decided to go out for tea as a special treat for me more than anyone. I have a love-hate relationship with Japanese restaurants. I love the fact that they are usually very child-friendly, but hate the way that the majority of Japanese children behave in restaurants. I love the speed at which most food comes after it is ordered, but hate the way that you don't feel like you can sit and chat for a couple of hours over your meal. I love picture menus and plastic food outside restaurants - it makes ordering so much easier when you can't read the menus. But, the one thing I hate the most about Japanese restaurants (apart from the smoking.... I won't even start on that!) is that the majority of the smaller restaurants have a television set that they have turned on very loud and in a position where every table in the restaurant can see it. We don't watch TV very much in our house (well not while the kids are awake) and it is ALWAYS turned off at mealtimes as that is one of the few times we all sit down and actually have time to talk together as a family. For me going out for a meal is another chance to all talk together, but in Japan the loud TV turns it into a very different experience. Tonight we continued to shock the locals by firstly turning the TV down and then shocked them even further by turning it off completely..... fortunately there were no other customers in the restaurant at the time to complain. I'm sure the locals will soon see us coming and hide the remote before we arrive!
Yesterday after I wrote the blog entry about the wild boars my husband informed me that he had actually taken a photo of them with his mobile phone. So, just to prove that there were actually wild boars in the trap here is a photo!

Coming out of hibernation

It has been a while since I have sat at the computer and done anything other than work. There are so many things that I have wanted to post about lately, but as I was commenting to my mother today - I seem to be only motivated by "deadlines" and recently have so many things that have to be done that I give up before I even try to get them done and go and sit on the deck and read my book instead! I promise I'll post about my overseas visitors and other events here very soon, but in the meantime..... here are a couple of photos from Sunday. I have no idea why, but I decided on Saturday night that I really wanted to take the kids up our mountain again so the three of us (my husband wasn't so keen...) set off and somehow managed to be at the top of the mountain eating our lunch by 9:30am! It was one of those absolutely amazing days with no clouds and after the recent days and days of rain it was an amazing feeling to be standing on top of the world and looking out over our little valley.
We almost didn't make it though as when we were walking up the road to the mountain track we heard the sound of wild boars screeching and chains rattling. After a quick phone call home to check that it was actually safe to keep going we discovered that not one, but three wild boars had been caught in a trap right beside the road and were doing their best to bash their way out of it. Wild boars are a big problem around here - they get into the rice fields and roll around in the mud destroying all the crops. They eat every single pumpkin, chestnut, potato and basically any other vegetable they can get their snouts on. As I keep trying to explain to my children - the boars are not bad, it is the people who have taken away their natural environment and food supplies. Most people in our area put up big fences to stop them getting in, but they are not usually very successful. The city we live in gives 10,000 yen to people for every wild boar they can catch and there are now businesses which are trying to utilize the meat. The neighbour who had caught 3 boars in one trap was therefore pretty happy with his haul for the morning. We were even happier that they had been "disposed" of before we came back down the mountain! Unfortunately I was too scared to take photos.... this is what they looked like though... only there were three of them in a small space... okay so maybe they were a little smaller than this, but not much!

Getting ready

Tomorrow I am going to Fukuoka to spend a day doing "kids" things before beginning a 10-day logistical nightmare! My father is bringing another group of 6 people from New Zealand for a tour of rural Japan so I will be showing them around here for 6 days then taking them to Hiroshima and Kyoto for 4 nights. I am really looking forward to it. My step-Mum is coming this time too and it will be great to see her back here in Japan after far too long an absence. If it was just the tour I would be in my element - I like organising places to eat, places to go, places to stay, little envelopes of money etc. The biggest problem is going to be working out where my children need to be and when (school starts again on Thursday), who is g0ing to pick them up, who is going to make their lunches for the school outings while I am away etc. Fortunately I have a great husband and parents-in-law who are used to me asking many favours!

Anyway, I need to do a zillion things before we leave tomorrow, but one of them was to clear out the photos on the camera. In doing so I discovered so many blog entries that I took photos for, but never quite had time to write about. I won't guarantee that I will ever get around to doing them all, but here is one... a little late, but better than never!
This is a photo of my husband trying to work out which teachers have changed at our children's school. The whole system at the end of the school year frustrates me intensely! For anyone who doesn't know here is a brief rundown of what happened here this year.
The children finished school on Friday March 26th at 11:30am. It is the end of the school year so next year they will become 2nd and 4th graders. The same afternoon the teachers were told by the board of education who would be staying and who would be shifting to other schools.
The following day the newspaper printed which teachers would be changing - only in such a stupid way it was impossible to actually work out who was leaving and who was coming. Eventually enough ringing around among the parents confirmed that 6 of the 11 staff would be changing this year.
On Tuesday the 30th all the children were expected to go back to school to farewell the teachers who were leaving - the parents were expected to have prepared flowers, messages etc. before then too. This was the last day for those teachers at that school. That's right folks - they were told on the afternoon of the 26th that they would be changing and their final day before moving to a completely new school was the 30th - nothing like time to clear out your desk and prepare yourself mentally for moving from a school of 50 children to one of 600 children an hour drive away! The new school term starts on the 8th so the teachers basically have just over one week to find their new school, get acquainted with it, decide which grade they will be teaching (no real specialist teachers here so this year they may be teaching 1st grade and next year 6th grade) and then get prepared for the kids to come back. No wonder they need to use textbooks for every subject...
I really don't understand the logic of all this. Why can't they tell them earlier and give them time to prepare etc.? This would also mean on the final day of school the children could say goodbye properly and not have to go back to school in the spring holidays to say goodbye. Some things I will never understand....

Japanese wedding

To be honest I am not a huge fan of weddings. I think that often the huge amount of money spent could be used to help start a really wonderful life rather than on just a few hours... but I won't get into that! On Saturday I went to a friend's wedding and actually enjoyed it. It was a couple who had met through an outdoor education training program that I ran a long time ago and there were enough people there that I knew to keep me entertained during all the dress changes etc.
For anyone not familiar with Japanese wedding ceremonies they all generally proceed in the same way - first they have a ceremony in a chapel - in a traditional white wedding dress. These friends included their families in the ceremony by getting the two fathers to get up early in the morning to go to a sacred place, get bottles of water which they brought back and combined in the ceremony and then the couple drank to symbolise the joining of the two families.
After the chapel comes the reception where food, drink and speeches start the ceremony. In general there are usually only a few friends and mainly only relatives and work related people at the reception, but it was great to see lots and lots of friends at this one. The bride usually changes at least twice during the two hour
reception and therefore has very little time to sit down and actually enjoy it, but at this wedding she only changed once and therefore could at least sit down for a few minutes to enjoy the speeches, videos and skits by friends.
The highlight for me was definitely the cake. As you can see they chose a climbing wall with the bride belaying the groom up the wall!

Shopping mistakes

I have to go to a wedding tomorrow, so I decided to bite the bullet and go and buy some new clothes to wear to it this morning. For anyone who doesn't know me... I love trackpants. I love to wear the same clothes day after day and don't care if anyone notices. I have no interest in fashion and am somewhat happy that the standard dress code to anything here is black...
But today I was determined to be brave and go and buy something a little more appropriate than trackpants for the wedding. My first mistake was to get to the shopping center at 9:55am. Of course... still closed! So I lined up with the other 20 or so people waiting and made my second mistake of the day... going in to the shopping center at 10am as the doors opened for the day. I have to be in the right mood for shopping and entering a mall at 10am to be greeted by every shop assistant standing outside their shop bowing at you and saying "welcome" just doesn't put me in the right mood. In fact it makes me self conscious and I tend to avoid going into the shops until the shop assistants have gone back safely behind their counters and have stopped bowing.
Mistake number three - trying to find a skirt. I don't know about other countries, but Japan seems to be overrun with tops, dresses and a few pairs of trousers thrown in for good luck, but very few skirts - and even fewer skirts which go below the knee! So I gave up on the skirt and tried to find a top that would go with one of my skirts..... found one that looked really great in the shop... brought it home and I think they must have had one of those trick mirrors in the changing room! It is absolutely disgusting and will probably be used as a cleaning rag!
Mistake number ... I've already lost count...... trying yet again to buy a pair of shoes. I finally found the "big shoe" section where they had a total of 4 pairs of shoes that would have fit me - just. In the end I bought a pair that had no backs on them so I could fit them.... only to get them home and realise that they are absolutely disgusting! Unfortunately they are also very uncomfortable so I can't even use them as gardening shoes.
All in all a terrible day at the shops! I came home, tried on the clothes I already have and figured they will be perfect - wouldn't want to take the spotlight away from the bride! My only successful shopping item of the day was my new sparkly reversible bag - which I think will be claimed by my bag-crazy daughter before I get to take it out the door tomorrow!

Books

March is the "end of the year" here in Japan and as such all of my kindergarten and after school classes are coming to an end and it is time to start revising everything we have done all year. This year I decided to put all the books I have read to the classes during the year into a basket and get 2 students to choose which books they enjoyed the most and re-read them to the class each week. It has been a great reinforcement time for me in terms of the importance of books in classes.
I try to read at least one picture each week to all the classes I teach. Usually the books will coincide with the "theme" for that lesson, but as the year progresses often they are just books that I enjoy and have no particular relevance to anything that we are doing. It helps having a huge bookshelf full of books that my children enjoy to choose from! I am guessing that the children I am reading them to probably understand less than 10% of what I am saying. Do I care that they don't understand? Not in the least. Do they care that they don't understand? Not in the least!
I find that one of the huge problems in classes of all ages here is the lack of concentration skills. I also find that most Japanese people don't even try to understand what anyone is saying to them in English - regardless of their age. They tune out right from the beginning. I believe that the huge difference between being a great English speaker is not how well you can pronounce things, but how willing you are to give things a try and giving things a try also means at least attempting to listen to what people are saying to you and taking cues such as body language, tone of voice etc. to fill in the gaps between what you understand and what you don't. I have no formal training in teaching English, but I do know that reading books to young classes is the best thing I have discovered. Of course there are ways to read books and ways to read books, but my way of doing it seems to work and if I forget to read a book each class I always get complaints at the end. My class of 32 five year olds today sat through a story that lasted more than 5 minutes. - interacting with me as I was reading it, but most of all "listening" The changes in the class have been considerable in other areas ... I think as a result of the book reading time.
If anyone is interested in reading books to younger classes (I read them right up till at least 6th grade) I have compiled a list of all the books I read this year to my youngest classes(up to grade 2). I have uploaded it onto Amazon - but of course you can get the books in other places too. If you do order them through Amazon just make sure you check which edition you are buying - some are much smaller or more expensive than others! Of course there are many other books I use, but these are the ones I used this year in 2 particular classes. Click on the links below if you are interested.

Books for teaching in Japan 1
Books for teaching in Japan 2

If I had to pick my favorite 10 books for teaching .... I would have to choose these ones... this week anyway! I would love to hear what books other people really like using. Also if anyone is having trouble with reading books to classes let me know - there are some great ways to make books more interesting to Japanese classes and also bring in important daily language.

Thank you!

I'm sure I have written about this before, but just in case I haven't... When I first got married I was a little shocked by the attitude of some of my female adult English conversation students. I used to teach them at our house and the minute my husband got home from work they would start to get nervous and kept looking at me and asking if I needed to rush off and get his dinner. I would laugh and point out that if he was hungry he knew where the fridge was. My Japanese sister-in-law works at the bank and often doesn't get home till after 10pm. Her husband gets home at about 5:30pm but is still waiting when she gets home for her to cook him his dinner. If I am home all day and my husband is working then I think it is my job to cook dinner. If we are both working or both at home all day and I think it should be a joint effort or that perhaps he should take a turn. As a result Saturdays in our house are my day off from cooking. My husband makes both lunch and dinner (most weeks...) and I love having the break. The meals are not always well balanced and not always the most delicious meals in the world. Curry and fried rice (not together!) are continuing themes. But I don't have to think about what to make, I don't have to stand in the kitchen (apart from to show him where things are) and the children get to see and help their father in the kitchen.
There has been a programme on TV lately about "kiwi husbands" and how wonderful they are. I say it is all in the education....my husband helps with the dishes, irons his own shirts, looks after the children whenever I am away, cooks on Saturdays and any other days I am home late etc. Perhaps I really am a good teacher!

Multiplying

Firstly - Anchan you made me laugh with your comment about the rat on the stairs. I also looked at the photo when I uploaded it and immediately raced to the stairs to check whether the rat was still there. It turned out to be a ball of wool....
I have decided that short daffodils are definitely the way to go... about 5 years ago I bought 15 small daffodil bulbs. Over the years I have divided them occasionally and last year I remembered to take photos of where the main ones were clustered and really spread them out... or at least I thought I did! They just keep multiplying and multiplying and multiplying! It is a bit hard to see in the photos, but they are now dotted all around the garden which is great at this time of the year when the spring colours are only really just beginning to appear. The chickens are doing a great job of weeding and fertilising the garden in the evenings which may be helping their productivity.
My seed planting is also well underway this year - now all I need is for the rain to stop so I can prepare the ground to actually plant them in.

Stairs

Anyone who has been to Japan knows that it is a country of stairs. To get to most temples, shrines, parks etc. there are usually a huge number of stairs involved. Because it is a country of lots of people in a small area they also tend to have 2 storied houses rather than the one storied houses that are the normal in New Zealand. Even here in the countryside they generally have 2 storied houses. Unfortunately the builders haven't worked out that it is better to have wider and less steep stairs if you are going to actually use the stairs.... especially if you main storage area of all the seasonal essentials in Japan is upstairs!
Today I decided that I just couldn't face carting the big boxes of Hina dolls upstairs so I decided to reclaim the cupboard in our tatami room that had been turned into a toy cupboard. It took me all morning, but I pulled everything out and everything that wouldn't fit into the smaller hall cupboard was put in a huge pile for the kids to go through when they got home. I have trouble throwing away toys etc., but they play with them so little now that it is really not worth keeping them all. The new rule is that anything that doesn't fit into the toy cupboard that they want must be kept in their bedrooms. The result... a more orderly toy cupboard, a cupboard to store all our cushions, seasonal dolls etc. and a pile of toys which will sit in the corner for 2 weeks and if not claimed by any visitors will be dealt with as seen fit at that time... and when the kids aren't watching! Katy - we will probably be home by 1:30pm on Sunday if you are needing an outing and a few extra bribes to keep the kids in order for the next few weeks!

Over reacting

Yesterday I got a phone call from the school principal at about 1:30pm to tell me that my son had hit his head earlier in the day and that if I was free I should probably come to school to get him and take him to the hospital to get it checked out. So of course having nothing better to do I rushed to school and heard the full story... He had hit his head quite lightly on a locker when he was playing with a paper plane at about 10:30am. He continued on with classes, ate all his lunch, did the school cleaning, then complained that he had a headache - hence my emergency call out. When I arrived he had an icepack on it and was looking a bit glum, but not actually in any pain. There was no physical bump on his head and there was no bruising from the incident which had happened 3 hours ago..... I was sure that he was just tired, but was encouraged strongly to take him to the hospital just to be sure. The doctor looked at him, looked at me and we laughed together. My son smiled, we walked out having paid 800 yen (the bill has to be over 1,000 yen for the school insurance to cover it) and decided to fill in the time between then and when it was time to pick up my daughter by looking at the hina dolls that his class had made and that were on display at a local hall. I have no idea what happens at other schools or in other countries, but I do find that the school nurse at our school combined with the principal tend to overreact to injuries here where I would just tell them to suck it up! I guess if it had turned out to be an actual head injury I might feel differently, but... By the way - for anyone who doesn't know every school in Japan no matter how big or small seems to have a school nurse - even the tiny school closest to us with only 13 students!
On the overreacting theme I think I might have got some of my overreacting under control lately. In the past I have been very "independent" and got frustrated when my parents-in-law tried to do anything around the garden etc., but this last week I have just stood back and said "thank you". For some reason my father-in-law decided he would chop most of next year's wood supply - something I would have complained about in the past as I would think that he thought we weren't capable of doing it. I must be getting old because when I discovered him doing it the other day I just hid inside and thanked him later.... It has been raining a lot lately so my mother-in-law hasn't been able to get into her garden so has spent most of her days weeding our large lawn - a job I see as pointless and which drives me crazy. So when I discovered her doing it the other day I hid inside and said thank you later...... I may even let her loose on the vegetable garden sometime, but probably not this year - she would never realise that there are actually many edible things in amongst the knee-high weeds! I discovered a whole strawberry patch today that I had forgotten that I had planted!

For anyone not familiar with the Hina dolls above - March 3rd is the "Dolls Festival" in Japan and most families with girls will display their dolls for about a month prior to the festival and eat sushi etc. on this day. Our town has some amazing displays of very old dolls as well as some more modern ones. I think I need to put our dolls away tomorrow if I want my daughter to get married early. After her behaviour today I think I might actually put them away tonight in the hope that some prince swoops in and takes her away next month - nothing like living with a teenage 9 year old! If you want to read about the history etc. behind this festival the wikipedia site has a good explanation: Hinamatsuri

Please help me understand!

I am far too behind to catch up on all that has been happening here, so I'll just skip the last week or two and speed through to Sunday. We went to Space World with Megan and Nathan (their Christmas present to the kids) and had a great day on the roller coasters, teacups, haunted house (not such a great idea!) etc. as well as spending most of the day shaking our heads in wonder at the hundreds of people there in "Costume Play". It seems to be a huge craze here to dress up as your favorite character from a comic and parade around en masse. I watched them all day and I just don't get it! Wigs seem to be one of the key points and wearing the same kind of costumes as your friends also seems to be the thing to do. It doesn't seem to be something that they do in the main streets (well not around here anyway!) and they all arrived with their costumes in suitcases then packed them away before leaving the park. Fortunately my kids thought they looked ridiculous... hopefully they will still think the same way when they are 20 years old!

Angel Buttons

I can't believe I am writing two blog entries in one day! I hope it doesn't mean I won't write any more for the next few weeks....
There have been times when I've watched my mother teaching my children how to make cookies, weave flax baskets etc. and my mouth has dropped in awe. The patience it takes to do that is incredible and something that I don't usually have. Mind you, when I asked my mother if she was as patient with my brother and I when we were children she did admit that the patience is something that seems to miraculously appear when you are promoted to grandmother status. I do try to do as much cooking etc. as possible with my children, but often I am too tired to deal with explaining then redoing whatever it is they are doing. Today however I turned over a new leaf and managed to do some sewing with the children without getting grumpy (well not much anyway) and ended up with some pretty neat "Angel Buttons". What are "Angel Buttons"?I hear you ask.... well recently we have been having a few grumpy days and the children are often reminded to find their "magic buttons" which they pretend to find in their pockets and stuff into their heads in order to make turn them back into angels again. It works about 50% of the time. So today we decided to make some real "magic buttons" which the children can carry with them to give them the power to be wonderful in any situation. They cut out felt shapes, sewed sequins on them then put a magic flat marble in the middle of them before sewing around the edge - all by themselves. They then renamed them "Angel buttons" and if the amount of time they spent concentrating on them is any indication of how powerful they are going to be then we may be having the most wonderful angels in the whole wide world living under our roof!