Get out of jail for free

For anyone who has been following this blog for a long time you may remember a post I wrote way back in 2008 about a kitchen door that I was "not allowed" to use for about 10 years as it would bring our family bad luck. Three years on and although we haven't won the lottery yet we don't seem to have had an excess of bad luck either.
Last week I decided to take another risk and get us out of jail too. We had bars on the outside of the kitchen window which not only prevented us from cleaning the window (a good excuse really) but also blocked some sun and the view of the garden. I finally decided I'd had enough of them so got the compact driver and basically pulled them off! I removed both the windows completely then after cleaning them tried to put them back in... not such an easy task. Eventually they went back in though and I now have no excuses for not cleaning the kitchen window......

I've been here too long!

There have been a couple of time recently when I have found myself thinking that I have been living here far too long. The first was when I was at the tax office the other day and spent close to 2 hours waiting for them to make a zillion phone calls confirming different things, finding the correct forms to use etc. When I first arrived in Japan this would have driven me crazy, but the other day I sat there, smiled, chatted about the weather, the neighourhood and the world in general, listened in on some other people's tax problems, cleaned the gunk out from under my fingernails and smiled, bowed and apologised for putting them to so much trouble when they finally got it all done.

The second time was when I found myself with the uncontrollable urge to go and buy a hotplate for making octopus balls and getting excited when we started pumping out the octopus balls...... Of course our octopus balls also include asparagus, sausage, cheese, kimuchi, shrimps, parsley and whatever else I can find in the fridge. We also put banana, strawberries and chocolate in some and smothered them in golden syrup for dessert... not very Japanese, but very delicious! I had some more photos but somehow they have been deleted from the camera. I guess you will all just have to come and experience it for yourselves...

Sometimes I think Easter Bunny is a mind reader. Like many international families we struggle a bit with keeping up the English reading and writing side of things here in Japan. I find it hard to motivate the kids when there are so many other things that they want/need to be doing. So when it comes to "Western" traditions that can only be done in English (no - Santa, the tooth fairy and Easter bunny can't speak Japanese.....) I try to at least get the children writing letters, reading letters etc. Easter is one of those times and this year the Easter Bunny really pulled through! I'm not sure if you will be able to see the following pictures clearly, but if you want to try out our Easter Egg hunt (without actually getting any eggs... sorry!) then please click on each picture to see it a little bigger and have a go.

It took the children about an hour in total (Easter Bunny had found some great hiding places) and they really enjoyed solving each puzzle before moving on to the next ones. Although my children still believe in the Easter bunny (and Santa and the tooth fairy...) my son did spend some of the morning saying "I think that perhaps Easter Bunny is really a person - there is no way a rabbit could do this!".

On the big size

Today the children only had to go to school till 11:20am - entrance ceremony for first graders... any excuse for a half day! I had to teach till after 11 and couldn't get to school in time to pick them up so they convinced me that they wanted to walk home and that I should walk from our place, meet them in the middle and then walk back home with them. Great idea, beautiful weather, big hill! I think I drew the short straw as I had to walk continually uphill and met them at the very top.... It was fun though and the kids were proud of the fact that they walked the 6km without fighting... much!
After a few minutes to recover Masaki helped me in the garden by pulling out all the daikons, turnips etc. that had gone to seed. He even discovered this every slightly overgrown radish. Yip - you read it right, this is a radish! Now if all the other veges would grow that big I would only need to plant a tenth of the seeds!

Real stories

A break from my photos today to introduce a blog that a lot of you will already be familiar with, but if you are not then I really suggest you have a look at. It is a blog by an amazing man called Jason Kelly who has started a wonderful project called "socks for Japan". Basically he is collecting new socks with letters attached and distributing them to people who are homeless etc. after the earthquake/tsunami. The stories he tells of his visits to some of the worst affected areas and the photos which accompany the stories bring the disaster to life - sometimes I find it difficult to get a full picture from the TV etc.
Anyway, his blog is http://jasonkelly.com/
If anyone anywhere in the world is willing to help out with this project I'm sure any extra socks and letters would be appreciated.

Progress

I have a very bad habit of not cleaning out my computer files and backing them up. The screen saver on my computer is "my pictures" and due to my cluttered filing system there are photos there from as far back as 2006. I am sometimes surprised by the photos which the screen saver randomly flicks up at me - great reminders of the past. Today I discovered a photo of my "top garden" that I had taken in 2007 and just by chance... on this exact day in 2007! By the time I got around to taking a photo the light was terrible, but it gives some indication of not only how much things have grown over the last four years, but also how the climate has changed. I have plenty of chamomile plants still around, but they are no where near at the flowering stage yet. I did a double check of the dates just to check that my camera wasn't lying and this blog entry in 2007 confirmed it - climate change is here to stay!

Peak

Today was one of those "it doesn't get much better than this" kind of days. I think it was the official peak in the cherry blossoms here and the weather was absolutely perfect for viewing them. Well it would have been if we had gone to a place where there were thousands of cherry blossoms. Instead we headed to the park with friends and sat around chatting while the kids played and played and played. We came away sunburned and happy!
Today's gallery is some flowers around our house, which have now really passed their peak. The problem with spring is that it passes far too fast and is followed by Japanese summer....

Potential

So much for a few pictures every day! I've spent the last couple of days trying to get rid of some of the weeds in the garden and as a result ended up falling asleep on the sofa at about 9:30pm last night and not waking up till 6:30am....hence the lack of photos yesterday!
Spring has definitely arrived here and although a lot of the blossom has already finished I discovered a lot of new "life" in the garden today that is just about to burst open. Here's hoping the weeds stay down long enough for them to reach their full potential.....
You should be able to click on the photo for a closer look.

A photo collage a day....

I have been so bad about writing blog entries lately that I've decided to stop writing for a bit and just give you a few photos every day to show you what has been going on here. Firstly a few random ones from Aussie. 40 kids, 2 weeks, 2 slight concussions, a broken finger, one kid left on a bus - all in all not too bad as far as "holidays" go! We had pretty much perfect weather and I think everyone had a great time.

Back to school here tomorrow - for the morning anyway. I just don't understand the Japanese system. One morning back at school tomorrow to basically find out who their teachers are and get their textbooks - home by 11:30am and then another 2 days off for the weekend.... why they don't just start properly on Monday I don't know!
So much for just giving you a few pictures... perhaps tomorrow I will be able to control my fingers more.

Update from Aussie

We have made it safely to Australia and are currently in Noosa. Apart from a few minor incidents (leaving kids on buses, almost getting kicked out of zoos etc....) everything is going well and I am getting some nice quiet evening times to relax away from the 40 kids who are with us. Unfortunately that all changes when we head away on Sunday to an outdoor education facility where it will be sleepless nights patrolling again!

I can't get any photos uploaded on this computer, but there is a brief blog written by the English school the children are being hosted by which "features" Emily in one of the entries and some photos of the kids kayaking etc. The address is www.gvjuniorsblog.com if anyone wants to take a look.

Right... time to make breakfast and lunch and head out again into the heat..... I hope all those back in Japan are okay - the reports here are not so wonderful and it would be great to think that they are blowing it out of proportion again.

Finishing up for the "year"

Reports from northern Japan still keep us glued to the TV. It is hard to know how to help - the main problem being that there are a lot of supplies which have been donated etc., but which are impossible to get delivered to the affected areas due to lack of access, the major problem being lack of fuel. We have opted to send money rather than goods in the hope that they will be able to use it to buy supplies a little closer to the area and therefore save precious fuel that would be necessary to send it from here.
While the devastation continues up north, life here in the south continues as "normal". I had my final classes for the school year today - it has been a week of farewells, some sad and others not so sad! I have had a real mixed bag of kindergarten and school classes, but in general have enjoyed the year. I find it difficult to celebrate the end of the year as in general the next year starts one week later... no long holidays here in between the school years. In fact my kindergarten classes finish this week and in theory start again next week... only we won't be here so I get a respite till the first week of April.
We head to Australia on Sunday for 2 weeks. 2 weeks holiday in the sun sounds wonderful right now. The only catch is that I am accompanied by 40 students - ranging from 10 to 18 years old. I am not the "person in charge" so in theory have very little responsibility, but from experience I know that it is not going to be a very relaxing 2 weeks. My children are looking forward to it so much and are excited about missing a week of school - they even finished almost all their spring holidays homework (don't get me started on that) tonight in preparation. They packed their bags last week and have been counting down the sleeps.
Me... I realised I had a flat tyre today after I got home from a kindergarten graduation ceremony and had 1 hour to try and fix it and make dinner before getting to my afternoon classes. The tyre was impossible to change as all new cars these days don't seem to come with spare tyres. So I had to race off on my bike to find where my father-in-law was in the mountains and ask if I could borrow his car. I managed to get the tyre off and to the mechanics before my class, finish my class, pick up the kids, finish making dinner, help put the tyre back on and even managed a cup of coffee before the kids went to bed. So, I have not even thought about packing for Australia.... perhaps tomorrow will bring more luck!
Biggest entertainment for today was watching a little boy at the graduation ceremony who was determined to sleep through the whole thing. I kept laughing as the teacher would prod him every now or catch him as he was about to fall off his chair!

Disasters

This blog seems to be turning into reports and reassurances about disasters..... As you are all aware there has been an absolutely terrible earthquake here in Japan. The images on TV just get worse and worse and the loss of life and destruction caused by the earthquake and the tsunami which followed is incomprehensible. We are in a completely different area from where the earthquake hit and although trains were stopped in fear of tsunami waves we have really not been affected at all. It all seems very unreal and I sit here wondering what I can do to actually help in some way.

If anyone is in an affected area and needs a break for a while we have a cottage which is empty and although we will be in Australia for a couple of weeks anyone is more than welcome to use it.... the garden has plenty of veges and the chickens are still laying eggs. If anyone else has any ideas about how we could help out please let me know.

I really hope that there are a few miracles over the next few days, but things are looking pretty grim right now.

Axe Update

The phone calls and messages keep pouring in for my family in New Zealand. They seem to be coping well and although they still have very limited water supply and no sewerage they are a lot better off than many. I am listening to the local radio via Internet but we still feel so far away! Thank you for all your kind thoughts.
I apologise for leaving some of you hanging yesterday regarding my son's axe incident... I'll go back a few days to Sunday and start at the start. My husband has recently invested in a couple of very good axes and Sunday we got another big load of wood which needed to be chopped and so we were going to spend the whole day chopping away and hopefully filling up the wood shed ready for next year. My 8 year old son really enjoys chopping the smaller pieces of wood with the smaller axe and had cut quite a lot and was singing to himself and then..... "I've cut my foot, the axe is in my foot, help!" And indeed he had cut his foot, with the nice new sharp axe.
When I was in university I studied anatomy and once a week we went to the "laboratory" and were given different body parts to poke and prod and analyze how they moved etc. It was a little off putting initially, but when you got used to it it was actually quite fascinating. On Sunday I found myself back in the lab looking inside my son's foot and seeing that although he had split the skin clean open on the top of the foot he had JUST managed to miss the tendons, bones etc. They were very clearly visible, but in one piece. Fortunately there is not a lot of blood flow on the top of your foot so I managed to bandage it up and then we set about trying to find a hospital that would deal with the injury on a Sunday morning... not an easy task! All the hospitals in the 3 cities that adjourn us refused on the grounds that they didn't feel confident dealing with injuries (yes, they are hospitals....) and finally we called the fire brigade (which also doubles as the ambulance service) and after about half an hour they managed to find a hospital a couple of towns over that would at least take a look at it.
I must say that my son was incredible brave and although it only needed 4 stitches in the end he didn't cry after the initial act...... and even watched as they did the stitching up. He seems to be mending quickly and hopefully will have the stitches out in a week or so. The best thing about having children in a foreign country is that you get to learn a lot of vocabulary that you would otherwise never need! Gotta find a bright side of everything......

Quick report

Just a very quick message before I get myself some tea.... thank you for all the phone calls, messages etc. regarding the big earthquake in New Zealand today. I must have had close to 20 phone calls today from people worried about my family - the latest was my daughter's teacher.
A lot of my family live in the city where it hit hardest, Christchurch, but all seem to be okay. Very shaken, but okay. Unfortunately I had to work this afternoon/evening so I haven't been in direct contact with them, but it sounds like it was an absolutely horrific experience and they are still experiencing many more aftershocks. My heart really goes out to those who have still not been able to make contact with those in the area (living this far away really makes it difficult some times...) and of course to those who have not been as fortunate as my family. There is so much that needs to be done over the next few days/weeks/months. It definitely puts our daily goings on like children putting axes into their feet into perspective (more on that another day!).
Thank you again for all your support.

Roadside friends

Because I work at a zillion different places I have to drive a lot. I get so used to the roads that I sometimes find myself at my destination without actually knowing how I got there - my brain just seems to guide me there while I am thinking about other things. There is one road in particular that I have to go on at least twice a day and sometimes up to six times a day so I am usually in autopilot mode. The other day there were roadworks on this road (something very common around here near the end of the financial year... gotta use up the budget or lose it!) and I was stopped beside these little friends on the side of the road. I must have driven past them a zillion times, but have never seen them before. I managed to whip out and get a photo of them in all their winter glory and with their selection of drinks opened and even poured into their glasses... if you look closely at the closeup photo you will see the glass of beer. I can imagine that if this was in New Zealand the local teenagers would be there in a flash ready to empty the glass!
Perhaps I will try opening my eyes a little more and maybe I'll discover a few more little friends around the place.

Breakfast

I teach one class that follows a textbook and this week we were studying about asking for different things at breakfast when you are at a home stay. First I started by getting them to say anything that came to mind when I said the word "breakfast" and they came up with the standard Japanese answers - rice, miso soup, egg roll, fish, toast, milk etc. I then showed them the typical words that came up when I googled American breakfasts - donuts, waffles, pancakes, toast, cereal, bacon, fried eggs etc. We talked a bit about how most people in in New Zealand just get their own breakfast as opposed to the Japanese way of the mother getting up early and making breakfast for everyone. We talked about the fact that a lot of breakfast foods in America and New Zealand are sweet compared to salty Japanese pickles, fish etc.
The next day my son proved that he is not really Japanese and has a good dose of kiwi blood in him when he ate his piece of toast (that he had made for himself) covered in strawberry jam and then decided he was still hungry and needed some dessert... for breakfast. So he chose to eat an entire pavlova. Granted it was a small pavlova, but he ate the whole thing and no one in our family thought it was a particularly strange thing to do. Perhaps my husband also has more kiwi blood in him that I thought!

An anxious couple of days

Over the weekend we had about 3 phone calls from different divisions of the prefectural office and the city office to check exactly how many chickens we have and that they are all okay. The reason for all this is because there have been quite a few new outbreaks of bird flu at chicken farms in a neighbouring prefecture, Miyazaki. We reassured them that all our chickens were all running around in their covered area (I have been very good about not letting them out lately) and laying beautiful eggs in large quantities each day.
And then yesterday we came home from a day away to discover that one of our very happy, healthy chickens had rolled over and...... died.... We did all the right things and rang the officials, my husband packed it into a double bag and took it to the town office only to be told to just put it somewhere and wait for a day. If another chicken died within 24 hours then we would need to get them checked, but if not we could just put it out with the "burnable" rubbish this morning as chances of it having died from bird flu would be very low. So we have been checking the chickens every half an hour or so and having visions of people in space suits coming in, TV cameras taking over the lawn and having all our neighbours' chicken farms shut down because our chickens had been the first in Oita prefecture to be infected with the dreaded bird flu.
Fortunately the remaining 21 chickens appear to be completely fine and rewarded us with 17 eggs today so we have our fingers crossed that the combination of freezing temperatures and old age were the cause of our first ever chicken death. I just wish the timing had been a little different! We haven't bothered to tell my parents-in-law about the incident as it is likely to just confirm that our "free range" ways are not good and they are likely to mention it to the neighbours who are likely to relay the story to others in the area who will change the story into something that it is not and we will end up with people in spacesuits at our backdoor and TV reporters camped on the lawn. I rewarded the remaining 21 chickens for being happy and healthy by making them a huge pot of hot porridge, which they scoffed down this morning.
Here's hoping I don't have a "spoke too soon" moment in the next week or so.....

Gaining strength

Two posts in one night... I hope it doesn't mean I am coming down with the flu!
A few weeks ago it was an absolutely freezing day so my husband decided to go to our town's waterfall to see if it was frozen and take a few photos. Unfortunately for him it wasn't frozen, but he did find the local karate club.... in the waterfall..... making themselves strong. From what I have heard this is quite a common thing for martial arts groups to do here in Japan - there is even a special word for it "Kangeiko" or "mid-winter training". Different clubs will go to the ocean, into lakes or rivers in the winter and test their staying power and prove that they are mentally strong. I personally think they are crazy and would be more than happy to just skip it and roast marshmallows on the fire ready for their return, but I'm sure it must be very character building.....

New Laying Spot

I've decided that the escapee chicken is actually very smart. She still insists on escaping each day to lay her egg and is onto her 4th different spot now (well the 4th one that I have found anyway...). We had a patch of really cold, windy, snowy weather for a while and during that time she discovered the bike shed and took it over as her daily laying spot. The first time I discovered her in there it was because she had actually rung the bell on the bike to alert us that she had finished. She now strolls up to the deck door when she has finished laying and "asks" us to let her back into the chicken house. I'm hoping she will keep using her new nest for a while yet... it is clean, dry and easy to find!

For Mum

Just a couple of photos for Mum... to show that not only do I chop a lot of the wood we use, but that I am also usually the chief stacker! I must admit I used to be fairly hopeless at it, but as the years go by I am starting to be a master stacker. At least it always looks good until it starts to dry out and move around a bit and then eventually fall over! Judging by how we have been racing through our supply in the last few weeks I think we are going to have to do another 2 or 3 loads (or more...) as big as this one ready for next year..... not that I am complaining... I wouldn't give up my spot by our fire for any kerosene heater or air-conditioner heater in the world!