Farewells and Welcomes

Trev and Gill took off from here on Tuesday on the Sonic express train for their big adventure to Hiroshima and Kyoto. I'm assuming they made it okay and are now back on their way to New Zealand via Hong Kong. It really was great to have them here - here's hoping they come back again soon!
On Wednesday night we had some other visitors - part of the biking tour group. This time there were two Americans and one Australian along with the American guide. It is always nice to hear about their travels in Japan, although one story about witnessing an old man urinating on a school girl on an escalator in Tokyo wasn't exactly the wonderful image of Japan I always hope people go away with! It was good to hear that the Australian spirit came out though and that the old man was treated to a few whacks around the head with an umbrella and an abuse session - even if it was in English! It is the first real story of that sort of thing that I have heard first-hand, although I know it is not so uncommon.....

Rakanji Temple

After our big day yesterday we took it a little easy today and headed up the ski lift to the 500 plus stone statues in the caves. (Those who are reading this for the first time please check out this link to read a little more about them). I always enjoy heading up to this temple, but one thing that really struck me today was the smaller cave which contains many carved stone figures dedicated to babies who died before they were born and children who died when they were very small. Here the parents or relatives can write their thoughts and prayers on a wooden spoon and place it like an offering to the gods.
When my father was here he was also impressed by the way the Japanese are able to express their grief over mis-carried and still-born babies. Often in New Zealand there is no way to do this, but after reading messages from the parents today I was moved by the fact that they were able to use this place as a means of dealing with their grief. There were some messages expresssing hope that the dead baby would be finding happiness in heaven and others which relayed their regret for not being able to care for the baby well enough. Obviously this cannot bring back the babies, but it does seem to help the parents deal with the death and recognise the death in a way that is not always possible in the western world.
That outing was followed by a trip to revolving sushi (can't come to Japan and miss out on that!) and then a meal out with my husband's parents.
Tomorrow Trev and Gill head off on their big adventure to Hiroshima and Kyoto (don't worry Hannah - they are coping with everything amazingly). Their stay has been far too short and we will all be sad to see them go. Thanks Trev and Gill for a great week - we are looking forward to seeing you in NZ soon and of course back in Japan in the near future too!

Sports Day

Today was my daughter's first experience of a sports day at primary school here in Japan. Trev and Gill were great sports and came along for the whole day to catch a glimpse of another side of Japan....

Most sports days here are very similar and consist of normal running events and many other "not so normal" events. For example children riding on top of human "horses" and trying to take off the hat of their opponents, throwing many small balls into high baskets, catching balls in baskets on your back etc. etc. There were also traditional dance performances and a Tai-chi demonstration. Of course on top of that there is also the main event - lunch to deal with as well. Although many families now order their lunches from shops, we stuck with tradition and I got up early (5:30am...) and my mother-in-law also got up early and our combined efforts meant we had plenty for both lunch and left-overs for tea!

Almost all Japanese sports days work on a "team spirit" concept rather than an individual performance one and today's sports day was no exception. The students are split into white and red teams and they can earn points in each event for their team. There are no records of individual performances and everyone cheers for the team rather than the individual. At the end of the day the points are tallied and the winning team is presented with a big flag.

Because our school is reasonably small (47 students in total) the entire community is involved. There are many events for community members - some combined with the children and others just for the adults. Trev participated in 3 different events in total - including one where my daughter needed a 50 plus partner.

All in all a long day, but a reasonable introduction to another side of Japan. We are taking bookings for next year's experience now.....

By the way, I have made the photos quite small, but if you click on them you should be able to see them in a larger form.

Kitsuki

Yesterday we had a day out in the old Samurai town, Kitsuki. As always our friend, Mr. Nishi, did a great job of showing us around the Samurai house and after Trev managed to pick the lock on the storehouse we headed off to the wonderful 300 year teahouse for a break. As usual the owner charmed us with her knowledge and passion for tea - a dying art here in Japan. She commented that in the past all women were expected to take lessons in both flower arranging and tea ceremony before they were fit to be married, however now very people know how to pour a proper cup of tea. Gill was praised for her wonderful wrist action though and so I'm sure she would now be welcomed into any Japanese family.

For lunch we headed to the convenience store (or dairy for any of you uneducated kiwis) for a few more rice balls and then went to a place that most people wouldn't expect to see in high-tech Japan. My friend, Uncle Tom, has built himself a house in the middle of the bush. He doesn't have any official building qualifications (or skills?), but he has built a great tree house where he lives when he is not being a travel agent. I always take people in the front door without showing them the foundations and poles on which it is built.... that way at least most people aren't too scared to go in! The balcony was a great place to eat lunch and we all decided that the swaying movement of the building may in fact prevent it collapsing in an earthquake. Mind you... I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't want to be the one testing out that theory! Thanks Uncle Tom for a relaxing place to eat lunch.

Today is a lazy day in preparation for the big sports day at school tomorrow....

Safe arrival and .....

Apologies to anyone who has been checking in regularly hoping to catch a glimpse of my uncle and aunty... they arrived safetly on Tuesday night and have been enjoying the peacefulness of the countryside after a couple of days in the frantic city of Taipei.

It was their first full day here yesterday and although we had a pleasant day wandering around here, up to the big stone buddhas (I was assured that this was their best angle as I tried to take their photo....) and to a supermarket the day took a bit of a terrible turn at dinner time.... the weather is still really warm here and therefore eating outside is still the preferred thing. Last night it was tempura - lots of vegetables deep fried in very hot oil - very nice usually! However this turned to disaster last night when my children managed to tip the very hot oil over themselves..... no one actually saw the incident (I have no idea how it happened) despite the fact we were all sitting around the table next to the oil. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and of course there are many things that I can say now that we should have done differently to prevent this terrible thing happening, but on the positive side I can also say the following. Japanese bathrooms are well designed for dealing with burns. As soon as the accident happened I rushed both children into the bathroom and just ran the hand-held shower all over them - the bathrooms are designed so that water can be thrown all over the bathroom - they are completely tiled and therefore there is no worries about where you aim the water. They also have the shower beside the bath so one child can get into the bath and run water on their foot (my daughter) and the other can keep screaming while their mother (me) runs water all over their head and arm (my son). Because the accident happened in the dark outside and because after the water was run on the children it was hard to tell exactly how much damage had been done we all had images of my son being admitted to hospital and not being able to move for weeks etc. However, luck really was on our side in many ways apart from the design of the bathroom.
For starters the burn to his head was all above the hairline, rather than on his face and it wasn't as large as we had originally feared. Secondly although his arm was burnt on quite a large area there was no immediate blistering (due to the good bathroom!). Thirdly just down the road from us is a hospital which is a leader in burns treatment - they have developed a special cream which when applied to burns not only reduces scaring, but also removes all pain. My children haven't been in pain since they came home from the hospital (10 minutes after they arrived!). My daughter only has a very small burn on her foot. I still shudder every time I think about what could have actually happened and have the feeling I won't ever be making tempura again and my children now understand that the warnings I give them are not just for fun!

Back to Trev and Gill's visit.... after that lovely episode last night Gill and I took it easy today and just went for a wander around Usa shrine before an exciting lunch of rice balls. As Gill said "10 years ago I would never have imagined that I would be sitting eating balls of cold rice wrapped in seaweed". But she was and like most people who try them seemed to enjoy them.
Trev had a bit of a harder day as he climbed up the mountain with my husband in record time. Judging by the snores from both of them during their afternooon nap it was definately not as relaxing as our nice stroll in the shrine gardens!

Benefits of having 2 kitchens

My major plan for today was to clean our house and clean the cottage in preparation for my aunty and uncle's arrival tomorrow night. However.... we went on a honey hunt instead and ended up spending the entire day (and half the night) extracting honey. The little community center just near our house has bees pouring out of the basement vents all the time so we decided to remove them - and the honey! It turned out there were two big hives and although we removed them all I'm sure they will make another hive in there soon. We managed to buy a couple of reasonable sized compost buckets that have the tap on the bottom so after cutting all the comb up it was first put into a big seive at the top and then filtered through a pair of stockings and into the jars. The stocking filter seems to take a long time, but it definately makes a big difference - removing all the unwanted pollen and little bugs that have made it through the first sieve.
If my calculations are correct I bottled up almost 10kg of honey today and there is still a lot more that will filter down over the next couple of days. Not too bad for a first attempt!
Hopefully tomorrow I will finally get onto the cleaning.... after bottling a little more honey of course!

First honey harvest

Okay - so I'm sure you have all had enough of reading about my weed war... sorry I haven't been updating lately - life seems to have been full of things other than Japanese agriculture!
Finally today the weather and the weekend worked well together and we were able to take part in some honey harvesting. Unfortunately (like so many things lately) the hives were not our own hives, but a friend's who started a year earlier than us. We need to wait until this time next year to harvest the first of our honey.
Anyway, it was an interesting experience - and we did get to take home some delicious honey!
One major difference between European (?) bees and Japanese honey bees is the way they build their honey comb. With the Japanese bees no frames are used within the hive and therefore the honey comb is literally cut out. Depending on how full the hive is - between one and three boxes can be removed at a time and new, empty boxes added to the bottom of the hive to replace them. A big bread knife is used to slice through the comb so the top box(es) can be removed.
Because the comb is not in frames it is not possible to spin it in an extractor to remove the honey. Instead the comb is cut up into reasonably small pieces and then left in a sieve to drip through. A little more time consuming, but the result is delicious!
Tomorrow we are off across the road to the community center to remove the (hopefully) big nests that some bees have spent the last few years building under the floor. People think we are doing a great community service..... our stomachs tell us otherwise! I'm hoping the space under the floor is reasonably big, otherwise it will be me going under to try and cut it out rather than my husband (who is 190cm tall and therefore has a little trouble getting into small spaces!).
My uncle and aunty arrive on Tuesday night so hopefully we will be doing a few more interesting things to write about.

Weeds

With the children finally back at school and kindy I have managed to get some more time in the garden - something that was definately long overdue! I forgot to take a before and after shot of the garden, but I did remember to take a picture of the pile of weeds that came out of the garden.... it's a little hard to see in the picture, but believe me it is an incredibly big pile of weeds!
Fortunately in Japan they have these wonderful little trucks to cart all the rubbish away, and fortunately my father-in-law has two (I'm not really sure why....) so I got to cruise around in it today - carting away weeds, collecting mulched leaves etc. Sometimes father-in-laws really are useful!
Unfortunately in order to dump the weeds I have to negotiate this rather wonderful piece of architecture, also known as a bridge... Apparently this kind of bridge is designed so that when the typhoons come and the rivers come up really high it can just become part of the river - hence no side rails etc. It is about the width of a car and usually I just close my eyes and hope as I drive over it! Possibly not the most sensible thing to do, but it has worked so far...

Pizza oven

In the last post I mentioned that we had helped to make a pizza oven... unfortunately not at our house! Today we tested it out for the first time and although there are still a few problems with getting it up to the proper heat we managed to make some pretty good pizzas, foccaccia and vegetable skewers on rosemary stalks. I was in charge of the menu, although I must admit the breadmaker did most of the hard work for me!
Now all we need to do is keep looking at all the problems that there are with this one so we can make a perfect one at our house.....
Of course the cost is also pretty big, so I'm thinking about getting people to sponsor bricks! You can have your own personal brick in our pizza oven and unlimited use of the oven (well within reason) for a small fee. Any takers please contact me!

End of the holidays

Sorry about the lack of posts lately.... with the school holidays finally finishing tomorrow we have been spending the last week or so trying to do as many things as possible. Things completed over the last couple of weeks include (in no particular order!):

• 2 nights camping on a friend's property near the beach with another family. It was our first real camping trip and a really good break away - made even more perfect by a fantastic view of the eclipse in a cloudless sky from a deck chair! We spent most of the days at the beach fishing and swimming and avoiding the large numbers of jellyfish (apparently harmless, but still not particularly nice!).
• Hosting 4 people who were taking part in a pizza oven making event. On Tuesday we get to test the oven out... just a pity it isn't on our property! If all goes well we may try to convince a few people to come and help us build one too... after the chicken house, the deck etc. etc......
• Having more guests - this time from Oita City. A brother and sister and their girlfriend and boyfriend. A trip organized by the mother who thought it would be a great way for them to get to know each other better. As it turned out a great time was had by all - especially my kids who loved having big brothers and sisters to play with.
• Yesterday we topped the holidays off with a trip to Fukuoka to go to the movies and of course go shopping. A slight bit of mis-communication led to one member of our family staying home, but apart from that a nice way to finish the holidays.
  

From tomorrow it is back to life as "normal" ... the weeds await!
By the way - I've just done a quick count (I'm not totally sure why....) and from my calculations about 77 different people have now stayed in Kiora Cottage. Maybe I should make a special prize for the 100th visitor.....

Summer heat

Record temperatures are being recorded every day all over Japan at the moment. It is definately one of the hottest, driest summers that I have experienced, but we are finding ways to keep cool! This morning we broke two "school holiday rules" and went for a bike ride. Rule one... we left the house at about 9:15am - rather than waiting until 10am. Rule two... we went biking on the main road - something that is not allowed according to the rules. But, we stuck to the footpaths and I was walking so it wasn't exactly race speed! The kids did really well and made it all the way to the convenience store (about a km or so away) after posting their letters on the way. The lure of an iceblock kept their little legs moving!
On the way back we were able to take advantage of the water for the rice fields to have a quick shower - a big must after a sweaty morning!
I have also been avoiding the heat by getting into the garden early in the morning - 6am to 8am seems to be the coolest time. I managed it this morning, but I'm not sure how long it will last!

School cleaning

I wonder how many people would turn up in New Zealand if you informed parents that on one Sunday in the school holidays there would be cleaning of the school grounds - beginning at 7am..... That is what we had today and every single child and at least one parent from every household attended - armed with their weed-eaters, digging utensils and gloves.
One of the big differences between NZ and Japan schools is the maintenance of the school and the school grounds. Unlike in NZ, here there are no school cleaners and no caretakers for the grounds. The cleaning of the inside of the school is done by the students every day after lunch and the grounds are usually maintained by staff members who have some free time - the vice-principal seems to spend more time on the end of a weed-eater than a pencil.... The grounds here are predominantely dirt.... no grass to be seen. This is one thing I find difficult, but the kids here seem to be able to play happily enough without the comfort of nice soft grass.
Of course some of the schools in other areas may operate differently, but here in my little town that is how things are done. This way of doing things definately makes the children more aware of the mess they are making, as they know there will be no after-hours cleaner come to clean it up for them, and of course it is one way to get to know the other parents at the school. I can think of better ways, but......

Roundy roundy dancing

I've just been searching for the entry I wrote last year about the "bon dancing" here in Japan, but either I haven't been looking in the right place or I didn't write one... either way I'm sure you will have forgotten what "bon dancing" is so I will remind you.
Bon Dancing is a dance which is held in almost all cities, towns or small districts around Japan in the middle of August and is held to show gratefulness to your ancestors. What it consists of is people getting into a big circle (often wearing summer kimono called yukata) and dancing around and around and around and around and around and around outside, all doing the same steps over and over and over and over and over again to the beat of the big taiko drum and the wailing of the singer who is on the top of a high platform thingy.
In my tiny district this event takes place on August 16th every year and about 100 people gather and go around and around and around for one hour. During this time some people take a break, but always rush back to the action when the men come out with the big bags containing the "lottery" numbers. Last year the numbers were written on small packets of tissues, the year before it was on match boxes and this year we were presented with numbers written on sponges for washing the dishes..... at least I guess they are of more use than tiny slips of paper!
Anyway, after the dancing there is a big rush to look at the lottery boards and everyone gets very excited as they see their numbers come up. This year we came away with 6 prizes - two of which were the second top prize! We received..... 3 boxes of gladwrap, 1 box of washing powder and 2 big cans of mosquito coils. Oh well, I guess we should be grateful there weren't any towels as prizes!
In some of the big cities the bon-dancing is really pretty impressive, with huge numbers of people attending all in different yukata etc., but in our little district I would have to say it is not so exciting... maybe next year I'll liven it up with a bit of a twirl in between the standard dance steps!

How many towels can one family use?

There is one "tradition" in Japan that no matter how long I live here I will never understand. That is the tradition of "return gifts". Whereas in New Zealand we tend to give gifts to people who have babies, get married, are sick etc. the tradition here is to give money. And then... the people who receive the money are expected to give a gift worth about half the amount of money received back to the person they received it from. As well as this being a pain in the butt for those who receive the money it is also a problem for those who originally give the money. That is because you tend to get gifts that you have absolutely no need for and have no way to dispose of. Of course as this is Japan all the gifts are elaborately boxed making more and more rubbish to try and get rid of.
Yesterday was the last day of the "o-bon" period here. This is the time of the year when all the ancestors are brought back from their graves (not literally!) and come and spend 3 days with their families before being piggy-backed back to their resting points. If someone in your family has died in the previous year then you have special prayer sessions etc. and everyone comes to pay their respects - giving money and then of course getting something back in return.... As my husband is a town-office worker he seems to have to go to many, many people's houses and pay a lot of money and therefore gets lots of gifts. The most common gifts this year were hand towels (10 boxed sets in total) and dishwashing liquid... I guess you can never have enough of that!
I guess I shouldn't be negative about the whole system, but to me I think it has just become such a big business that is really unnecessary. The waste is incredible and in an age when people in Japan are often not very financially stable it seems much more sensible to simply give half the amount of money and buy things that you actually NEED with the remainder....

Summer holidays

As I have previously mentioned it is now the summer school holidays here... fun for all! Last night one of my friends came to stay with her 3 boys and after the usual pizza making we did the standard summer thing here and had fireworks. I'm pretty sure in New Zealand most fireworks are prohibited, but here in Japan they are nightly entertainment over the summer. Each town has a huge fireworks display, but you can also buy BIG bags of fireworks at basically every shop you walk into. There are many different kinds of hand-held ones and although I love to see the delight on the children's faces as they are swirling them around I never feel particularly at ease when little 3 year olds are swirling their sparklers around amongst the other children. Every Japanese person I have ever mentioned it to can't understand why I would have any problem with it... I guess yet another cultural difference revealed!
This morning all the children made their own lunches and we set out on a huge hike to the local train station... a whole 1km through the rice paddies! Well we did take the "long" route over the river and stopped for a spot of "fishing" with plastic bags and some crab hunting before arriving at the shady trees of an abandoned temple to eat our lunch before another summer speciality arrived - a huge downpour! We had made it to the station (aka shack by the side of the railway line) by then though and the kids had a great time running along the platform getting absolutely soaked. Our friends headed off home on the train and we wandered back home in the rain singing "galoop went the little green frog" as loudly as we could! A nice summer holiday memory!

Kiwi Resort in Rural Japan

The "slogan" for Kiora Cottage is "A taste of New Zealand in Rural Japan" - aimed at giving Japanese people a chance to experience some kiwi culture here in Japan. However, this year I'm thinking about changing it to "A retreat for New Zealanders in Rural Japan". There are a number of family visitors due this year (and of course already gone home) and the other day we also had a visitor from Auckland who was part of the "Bike and Hike Tours" that a different Joe runs near here. Of course it is a great thing to have many kiwis here and to see their eyes light up as you produce a big piece of homemade bread and a jar of vegemite for breakfast. Somehow the fish, eggs, seaweed, miso soup and rice breakfasts loose their appeal for most visitors to Japan after the first or second day!

Apart from that I am busy trying to fill in the school holidays with my daughter... 44 days in total. Just to let you know some of the differences which frustrate me most between school holidays here and New Zealand ......(relating to primary schools)

1. The children are giving HUGE amounts of homework which needs to be done every day and therefore there is limited time for playing
2. The school enforces a rule that children may not leave the house until 10am and must start going home by 5pm - the parent's aren't allowed to make this rule
3. The school also has a huge list of rules which dictates what the students may do in the holidays and what they may not do - I asked the teacher directly "what is my responsibility as a parent"? I got a mumbled response!
4. The school pool is open between 10:30am and 12pm and the parents take turns to look after the children during this time. This is a welcome break even though I have to take her there and back each day. Even one hour of free time is a blessing though!
   

Friendly rivalry

My brother and I have always had a kind of "friendly rivalry" going. Washing the dishes was never quite as simple as one person washing and the other drying... I'll leave the rest to your imaginations! Anyway, he is now obsessed with chillies and manages to grow some really good ones on his window sills in the middle of London. So not to be outdone, I also planted lots of chilli seeds this year - habanero, tabasco, carribean hot mix etc. The first ones are now colouring up nicely and volume wise are looking pretty good.
The only problem is ... I don't even like chillies! Of well, I guess sometimes you should think a little more before trying to compete with people just for the fun of it!

Perfect timing

A few days ago (sorry I have been a little slack about updating lately...) we had a really nice family come and stay at the cottage for 2 nights. They had lived in America for 2 years and so the daughter could speak really good English and seemed to enjoy playing and reading together in English. Of course they played a lot in Japanese too, but it was really good to have a friend for my daughter to play with during her long summer holidays..... It was also good having them here for 2 nights as it meant we could go to the cool river pool near our waterfall, pick lots of vegetables in the garden, do baking, hunt for creepy-crawlies in the river etc.
They seem to be a family that has exceptional luck... They were originally booked in for one day later than they came - fortunate as the day they left we were hit full force with a typhoon. The train they had booked home was also the last to run that day.... the rest stopped because of the typhoon. I hope they bought a lottery ticket!
The areas around here made national headlines regarding typhoon damage, with rivers causing huge damage and people being evacuated etc. Fortunately our house (and bees!) seem to have been unaffected and the summer heat has returned. Long may it last!