Gone

I think I may have written about this somewhere before, but I can't find it so I'll just write it again.... When I first came to this town there were three junior high schools which I rotated around each week. 3 years ago these three schools merged and a brand new school was built on a completely new site. This is becoming a very common thing here in Japan and although I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the smaller schools I think in the end it is probably for the best - financially as well as in terms of social interaction with other students and sporting opportunities. Another school has since joined the main school - so it is now a merger of 4 different junior high schools. I can't work out exactly how many students there are at the new school, but it is still not more than 200.... I'll check later!
The biggest problem with this is that there are now 4 junior high schools which are no longer being used and which are deteriorating by the day. There are plans to use some parts of the old schools for accommodation or community center activities, but the majority of the schools no longer pass the earthquake regulations and therefore need to be demolished. This is a huge cost, but our town has just pulled down the first one - leaving the gym and science block for general public use. It was my favorite junior high school, the one that my husband attended (obviously well before I met him!) and the school that my children would have gone to. It is kind of sad driving past it every day and seeing the cleanup progressing. I'm guessing it will be replaced with a huge carpark...... not sure for who to use, but probably cheaper than trying to keep the grass down in the area every year.

Sleeping Beauty

I am a pretty stubborn person, but my husband is even worse sometimes. Every night we seem to have a battle about him falling asleep on the sofa rather than finding his way to bed to sleep properly. The major problem is that he snores - loudly! Tonight he made his way to beside the fire place and refused to move into a different room because he wants to watch the soccer at 3am. Great logic... don't quite get it myself, but I told him if he wasn't willing to move then I would take a video and put it on the blog. He said he didn't care because he doesn't snore..... unfortunately the batteries ran out on the camera just as the steam engine was starting, but here is a sample - I guess he is right... he doesn't snore and now you all know!

Frustration continued

And then to top it all off the "live" broadcast that I could actually see stopped in the last 10 minutes because the game had gone into exciting overtime and it obviously hadn't planned for that. So the final 10 minutes was spent yelling at the family to be quiet so I could try and work out what was actually going on while listening to the radio - it doesn't help that I haven't really kept up with the players names recently so I spent half the time trying to work out which team actually had the ball! An excellent game from what I could tell.... unfortunate loss, but has definitely motivated me to get sky sport for the rugby world cup! Either that or I'll take the hint from Andrea and get the family to aim the skype camera at their TV!

Frustration

I am having a very interesting experience right now.... I really wanted to watch the final of the netball world championships between New Zealand and Australia. Only I live in Japan and they have never even heard of the sport. I don't trust most of the streaming sites, but yesterday discovered that the semi-final was live on the radio (http://www.radiosport.co.nz/ListenLive/ ) I figured that listening to it was better than nothing. So I was sitting listening to it on the radio - but then I discovered that there is a facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/TV.Splash.Apps?sk=app_142452699165582)which is streaming it live - so I started watching it - only to discover that the commentary is in some language which is not English. No problem I thought - I'll listen to the radio and watch it on the facebook page. Only problem is that the facebook coverage is about a minute later than the actual live radio. So I have the choice - either listen to what is going to happen and then watch it happen, or just watch with no commentary.
It is half time - New Zealand is ahead by 6 goals and pictures with no commentary is winning over the radio at the moment..... Sometimes I miss NZ TV!

Jam Recipe

For Heather and Connie... here is the marrow and ginger jam recipe. It comes from a great New Zealand book called "The Cooks Garden" by 3 New Zealand sisters: Mary Browne, Helen Leach and Nancy Tichborne. The book seems to be out of print, but there does seem to be a "More from the Cook's Garden" book that is more available that I don't have... hint, hint Mum!
Anyway, back to the recipe for yesterday's jam:

1 large marrow (about 1.5kg) - Connie, a marrow is a zucchini which has grown very, very large!
4 tablespoons water
50g bruised root ginger
1.5kg sugar
3 tablespoons lemon juice
120g chopped crystallised ginger
1 bottle liquid pectin (225ml) or equivalent made from pectin powder

Peel the marrow and remove the seeds. Chop the flesh finely (I used the grater on the food processor). Place the marrow and water in a pot and simmer, covered until the marrow is tender (about 20 minutes - I used the pressure cooker - 4 minutes). Tie the root ginger in a piece of muslin. Add to the marrow with the sugar, crystallised ginger and lemon juice. Bring slowly to the boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Boil hard for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat. Take out the muslin bag and stir in the pectin. Allow to cool before pouring into clean dry jars. Seal.

Note - this works really well sometimes and not so well other times! I tend to boil it too long and get a sticky mess..... You need to play around a bit with the pectin. I suggest you boil it and let it sit in the pot till it cools quite a lot to see if it is going to thicken. If not then just boil it a bit longer and try again. It doesn't need to be boiling hot when you put it in the jars. It is definitely worth trying a few times to get it right.

Marrow and Ginger Jam

Most of my days start with a stint at either a school or kindergarten doing some teaching then a few hours at home followed by another class or two in the afternoon or running the kids to piano, swimming etc. When I am really busy my time management skills are incredible, but when I have some "free" time I tend to waste a lot of time doing nothing in particular. There are always too many things that don't HAVE to be done, but SHOULD be done that I tend to give up and just read a book.... Today I broke that trend though and made the snap decision to make some jam after I discovered a zucchini that had hidden away and somehow managed to turn itself into a marrow overnight. I love ginger marmalade, but can never be bothered cutting all the fruit to make it (my food processor isn't quite up to it) so when I have marrows I like to turn them into marrow and ginger jam which is pretty close to ginger marmalade. Great taste, very little arm work (the food processor can handle marrows!) and only the cost of sugar. Now if I could only use my time wisely again tomorrow the tomatoes might get turned into some relish.........

Land of the setting sun

Japan is often called the "land of the rising sun" but, if there weren't so many bugs I think I would put a chair in our driveway and sit there every night with a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and watch the setting sun.......

It's offficial

Japanese style green peppers (piman) have now officially joined the tomatoes, cucumbers and beans on the list of "we must cook every day or the fridge will explode" list of vegetables...... Favorite recipes most welcomed...... Have I mentioned that I don't actually like green peppers on this blog before..... but that they grow like wildfire here so I always feel I should plant a couple, or four plants each year...

Companion Planting?

My style of gardening is definitely in line with the theories of natural selection. I figure if the vegetable seeds from the year before happen to come up somewhere in the garden this year they really want to grow there and therefore should be encouraged, not pulled out. Unfortunately this often leads to very jumbled patches of garden... this is my latest creation - my asparagus patch in the tunnel house... which I fed well with compost... which happened to have some butternut seeds in it... which happened to show their little heads and happened to grow rather big..... and are now taking over the tunnel house and growing out the door and windows. If you look carefully at the close up picture you will also see that amongst the pumpkins and asparagus are also some tomatoes. These are actually planted in a pot and are producing the best tomatoes I have ever grown (not saying a lot really!) so I'm figuring that they are enjoying the shade they are getting from the pumpkins. I'm not sure how long my mother-in-law will be able to cope with this hodgepodge, but for now it seems to be working.....

Renovating

One of the biggest problems with renovating is the huge mess that it involves. Painters or builders traipsing through the house, the need to be there continuously while they are there and then the dust/mess that it always creates. Sometimes it hardly seems worth the bother. Unless you live in Japan...... where renovating is easy! I didn't get around to taking any photos of the "before" doors through to our tatami room, but basically they had a few holes in them (thanks to our trying to move furniture around....) and the odd bit of graffiti from the kids when they were younger. I'd had enough so found a company that re-covers doors, contacted them by e-mail, they drove and hour to drop off a catalogue, I sent them another e-mail to tell them which paper I wanted, they came back 2 days later to pick up the doors - including the cupboard doors, took them away, recovered them and brought them back 2 days later. No mess, high speed! They also cost a lot less than I expected so I'm wondering why we didn't do it sooner.
Now I'm just waiting for them to find a way to repaper our living room without having to move any furniture.....
On a different note this week was one of those "if I can just get through this week, things will slow down" kind of weeks. It is Friday night. I made it through the week! I'm not confident that next week will be "slow", but it can't be as bad as this week!

Words of wisdom

I have some wonderful words of advice for you all today.
1. If you are going to have children in Japan and you intend to make them birthday cakes DO NOT have them in the summer..... it makes icing cakes a huge challenge! This rule also goes for husbands... if you have the choice between a husband who has a birthday in the winter vs the summer then go with the winter one.....
2. If your husband's birthday happens to fall on a day when you are busy from morning till night then celebrate his birthday on a different day.... trying to ice a cake in the heat, when you have a zillion other things to do and places to be is not easy!
3. If you happen to ignore the two pieces of advice above then at least be home in time to enjoy the cake with your family.... not come home and relive it through photos.
Happy Birthday Tom.... it looks like you enjoyed your cake and didn't notice the incredibly random, dripping icing!

School "Rec"

I don't know if other schools do this, but every year each class at our school has a "recreation" day where the children, parents and teacher get together and do something. Although it is completely up to the parents as to what to do the standard seems to be play dodgeball, eat, then go home. Today it was my son's class's turn and despite there only being 12 children in his class the participants swelled to over 40 by the time the parents and siblings all joined in. Plastic bottle bowling was followed by dodgeball then food and finally a "pull the string and find out what kind of snack you have won" kind of game. There was then an impromptu game of basketball with the fathers while the mothers sat around drinking coffee and slagging off about the teacher (who had slunk off to the teachers room).
Despite the fact that we had to be there by 9:30am on a Sunday and we didn't come home till after 2pm it was actually quite a nice day. It is interesting watching all the different families and how they interact and nice to see the kids literally run around for an entire day. It was also good to hear that all the other parents are a little worried about the direction this class is going in and that they would like to do something to put them back in line a bit. I'm guessing it will be an early night for all tonight!

Spare a thought

Yesterday I taught 3 hours at school and after 15 minutes I was already conscious of the sweat starting to drip down my stomach and back. No fans, no air-conditioning, extreme heat. The windows were open though so we survived. Today I taught in a town about an hour away and again sweated like crazy, but the wind coming in the windows made life bearable, almost pleasant. We don't have air-conditioning in our house (well we do, but it hasn't been turned on for years), but as I sit here writing this I am really appreciative of the fan...... the temperatures have soared to 33 or more each day lately. All the shops/workplaces are very conscious this year of trying to save power and therefore even if they have the air-conditioning on it is usually set to 28 degrees. Cooler than outside, but not exactly cool!
I was thinking how much I hate summer here and then.... yesterday on the news I was watching some students in Fukushima - near where the nuclear power plants are in trouble. They were saying that it was very hot in their classrooms. They are not allowed to open the windows. They have no fans, let alone air-conditioning. I just can't imagine how they are going to cope in the next month before the school holidays start. I am starting to think I am not so badly off....

Gumboots

Yesterday I hung the washing out and went to work at 8am. I came home at 9am and brought the washing in from the rain. The sun came out so I put the washing out again then went to a work at a different place at 10am. I came home at lunch time and brought the washing in from the pouring rain again..... only to hang it out again 20 minutes later and leave it there till it was finally dry at 5pm. Today is hot with no sign of rain, but the forecast is for rain again over the weekend. It means the garden is not really drying out and therefore even in the hot weather gumboots are needed so you don't sink into the mud up to your knees (well you still sink, but at least you don't get so muddy!). Yesterday I was reading a post on "Frugal Kiwi's" blog and she had posted a very appropriate song for this time of year - which I am stealing to put on here too. I hope you enjoy the kiwi gummies as much as I did!

Japanese fads

Most people know that Japan is the leader in crazy inventions. I usually manage to avoid buying them, but this time the kids forced me into it. Well actually while Dad was here we found a pair of "cleaning slippers" that he bought to take home to my sister and of course the kids saw them and HAD to have a pair too. I was weak and gave in.... hoping that they would actually use them and clean my floors for me! Of course they thought sliding around the floor was a great idea for the first day and my floors polished up quite nicely. And then they got hidden in the bedroom.... the slippers that is, not the kids! Anyway, I have pulled them out and they are actually quite handy. I put them on when I am vacuuming and therefore polish the floor as I go. I use them as a form of exercise to polish the floor when I don't vacuum and people are coming to visit. The other day I decided they were getting a bit dirty so I washed them... and then thought - the floors also need washing so skated all over the floors and washed them with my wet slippers - exercise and cleanliness in one go - with the benefit of not having to get on your hands and knees to do it! Sometimes Japanese inventions might actually be useful....

The Last Frontier

Today I went where no one has been for at least 12 years. After another day in the very wet rain, shivering in the very cold wind and wallowing the very deep mud I made the executive decision to ..... open the door which goes directly from outside into our Japanese style-put water wherever you like, tiled bathroom. I went in with my dirty feet. I went in with all my wet clothes still on. I didn't ask if it would be okay if I opened the very convenient when you are really wet and muddy door. I simply went in it - twice! Chances are I will be struck down by lightning tomorrow, but I intend to use the door quite often from now on. Until now I have had to tiptoe through the lounge or kitchen with my dirty feet after a day in the garden (I prefer to wear croc-style shoes which tend to leave me with very dirty feet...), but from today I have taken the plunge and opened our last "we can't open because it will bring us bad luck" door. I feel liberated. It almost makes me forget that I spent the day in the cold, wet, muddy rice field breaking my back!
Katy - unfortunately your comment in the last post was a little too late to save me from the fields today, but it did put Tom in a bit of a flap.... he couldn't believe you were pregnant again!

It used to be exciting...

In the beginning I really liked watching the whole rice planting process. I used to try to explain it and document it for those who like me were interested in the whole process. Three years ago I finally got my feet muddy and actually had to help IN the rice fields. For the next two years I found it quite refreshing to wander around in the mud popping in extra rice plants here and there (okay, so maybe I am exaggerating a bit...), but not quite enthusiastic enough to blog about it. This year it is rice planting again... and it is just assumed that I will be IN the fields helping..... and I am pretty much over it - and I've only done one afternoon! It absolutely poured down all day and at 4:30pm when I was the only one left out in the fields finishing off the last field for the day, standing on broken snails shells and basically wringing out my t-shirt (which was under my jacket) and shivering I decided the excitement of rice planting has officially passed.... unfortunately there is one more day of it tomorrow... and the forecast is for rain... Perhaps I could forget to set my alarm, or sneak into the cottage and lock the door...... or a friend could have an emergency and I could rush off to save them....

Bring back the bees

Last year I can remember getting very excited when I saw my feijoa trees flowering like this. The year before they had flowered a bit and we had got our first fruit - about 5 in total. Unfortunately despite all the flowers we still only got about 5 feijoas in total last time too. I know there is a shortage of bees at the moment and I am fairly sure that is the reason for the failure to fruit. I have followed all the other "rules" - planting two different varieties close by etc. so pollination failure is all I can think of. As I was admiring the flowers again this year I kept thinking "if I had all day every day to potter in the garden I'd get out with a brush and ensure pollination occurs" .....and then my alarm went off to tell me it was time to jump in the shower and get to work. Maybe next year!
The other thing that had its first fruit on it this year was the apricot tree. Again lots of blossom in spring, but a total of only 5 apricots.... most of which are split due to the heavy rain lately. I was so excited to have my own apricots though that I munched through one today - wincing at its sourness, but enjoying the novelty of our very first apricot from our garden...
There is a huge increase in the number of butterflies in the garden this year so I'm hoping they are doing more pollinating than egg laying....

Froggy Fetish

I think I have a problem when it comes to frogs. Despite their noise being overpowering at night (and during the day if you want a nap), I find them incredibly cute! Today my son and I were picking some cucumbers when I spotted this little fellow taking a break on the cucumber vines. I told my son to keep watch while I raced to get the camera - getting back just in time to snap a couple of shots before it decided to hop off to quieter pastures. As we were coming back in I commented to my son that I was sad because I hadn't managed to get any really cute shots of the frog. His reply "Don't worry Mum, I'm much cuter than a frog." So he put on his cutest face and asked if he could pose for a photo. You can choose which is cuter - my son, or the frog!

In other news I went back to the hospital again today to swallow the silly stomach camera - or rather have it pushed around inside me.... I won't go into details, but am glad I don't have to do it every day! I'm also grateful that I took their option of being put into a semi-unconscious state while they did it! Unfortunately they still couldn't locate the problem so hopefully it just disappears on its own and I won't need to gag again for a long time.... Oh - and it has stopped raining.. for now anyway!

New love of concrete

There are days when I drive around in Japan and think how sad it is that they have managed to make almost every natural river into a concrete spillway. The concrete sides seem stupidly high and ruin the beautiful scenery which is everywhere here. Of course that is when I am driving around on sunny days.... unlike today! Today I am very grateful for the huge amounts of concrete that have been poured into the rivers near our house. We have had continual rain for the past couple of days (lucky I harvested the wheat, aye!) and the rivers have swollen to pretty near full and the rain is still not stopping. Of course all the farmers around the place are smiling as rain means the rice planting can go ahead as planned. They hardly need to even use the spillways to add any water to their fields - a good thing when everyone is trying to flood their fields at the same time - saves on fighting over who will get the water first etc. I'm guessing that we have had enough rain now though - if someone could just turn the tap off for a bit I would be happy.....