Teacher's visit

Sometimes I make myself laugh.  Today was the day when both children's teachers would come and visit to talk about how they are doing and generally have a look at where we live.  They are on a tight schedule and I think each house is allotted about 15 minutes - then 5 minutes travelling time to get to the next house.  A lot of people go crazy cleaning the entire house and preparing lots of special cake etc., but in reality the teachers race in (usually without looking sideways), never touch any food or drink you have prepared (neither would I if I had to visit 6 or so houses in a row and didn't want to ask to use their toilet....), chat about random things for 15 minutes (usually totally unrelated to the children) and then race away to the next place.  

So, with this in mind I decided I was not going to clean the entire house - only the places they would actually come in to and I went as far as not cleaning the deck etc. on principle.  Instead I decided to clean the bathroom... with the  water blaster... why, I have no idea - perhaps I was thinking that they might ask to take a shower?  Who knows!!!  I wonder where their visit will inspire me to clean next year.

Having said they only stay for 15 minutes.... Emily's teacher stayed for one hour tonight and two years ago I hit the jackpot when the teacher stayed for 2 hours... and then quit school the following day!  I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with her visit here, but it does make me a bit wary of making people feel too much at home!

In chicken news, the sick chicken spent the whole day with her pals and although she is still a bit wobbly seems to be doing okay.  They all managed to make it into their beds before I got there to put them away tonight - 10 white/pink ones in one box and 5 brown ones in the other.  I hope the discrimination police don't pop in for a visit!.  Heather - the brown ones are called "Boris Brown" - I think it may be a brand name?  The white ones are "Julia" and the pink ones are "Sonia".  I have a feeling there are many different names for basically the same chooks.

Herb Spiral Update

The sick chicken is looking a little better today and although she is still in her box by herself she has started eating, drinking and standing up a bit.  Hopefully she will pull through and join the rest of the flock in their play pen soon!

What is looking even better than the sick chicken is the herb spiral I started in March.  Unfortunately all the marigolds were killed off in late frosts, but I replaced them with calendula plants that I had grown in egg cartons and they seem to be doing very well and are likely to take over the whole spiral very soon!

Precious cargo

Today brought back memories of bringing my daughter home in the car for the very first time.  I was scared every bump was going to jolt her and make her cry, that she would be so scared of the noise of the car that she would cry, and that the car seat wouldn't be fitted properly and she would slip out onto the floor and cry.  Of course none of the above happened and from memory she slept all the way home from the hospital.... 

Today I didn't bring home a baby, but I did bring home fifteen chickens who are 53 days old.  Like with Emily's first ride home, I drove very carefully and semi-slowly, taking care on the corners and the hills to get my special cargo home in 15 pieces.  Unfortunately one of the chickens hasn't feared so well and I'm guessing won't make it through the night.  Probably having 4 chickens stomping all over it for 20 minutes was a bit too much for it...   The remaining 14 chickens have had a nice day in their new home - taking dirt baths, checking out the scenery and eventually heading into the house for the night.  My son and I managed to round them into the house without actually touching them - not too bad for the first night!  Not that I don't want to touch them - I really do... just need to get them used to us a bit more first.    As soon as they realise I am the one that brings them their food I'm sure I will have them eating out of my hand and cuddling up to me at every opportunity they get!

Asian Dust

Last year I wrote about how much I would love to put a chair in our driveway and watch the setting sun.... today was quite a different story!  Every year we get a few days where the sand is blown all the way from China, creating an absolutely disgusting smoggy kind of feeling everywhere.  We can't see any of the mountains around us and as the wind has finally stopped it could be like this for a few more days.  I guess we should just be grateful it isn't raining... that produces an amazing layer of filth on everything.  So much for fresh, clean country air!

You can read more about Asian Dust here: Wikipedia - Asian Dust

Foreign bottoms

When we take groups to Kyoto we always travel by local transport - ie the buses.  They have a great bus system (when you can work it out) and this time we were lucky enough to not have too many completely packed buses - because there seems to be no limit on the number of passengers they are allowed to put on the buses, it is always fun trying to watch what looks (and feels) like hundreds of people trying to cram on.  Despite the buses not being too cramped two of the participants on our last tour thought they'd copy the couple behind them and sit together on a "double" seat.... only I think the Japanese version of double and the western version of double must be a little different!  I think they only lasted about 1 minute before deciding that they may be better off standing.  Nothing like getting close to others!

Summer is just around the corner

The first few days of "golden week" were pretty terrible weather wise, but the last two days have made up for it and we celebrated the start of summer by eating outside two nights in a row.  There is something great about this season - not too hot, not too many insects out, and just the right volume of frogs in the fields to give some nice background music.  I also managed to pick my first handful of strawberries - a sign that summer really is on its way.  They are not huge, overly sweet ones like in the shops, but pretty delicious all the same!  Now if we could just convince the weather gods to keep the weather like this for the next 4 or 5 months - skipping summer altogether I think I would be very happy.....

Almost ready....

It has taken a while, but the extensions to our chicken house have almost been completed, which means hopefully next week we will be able to invite some new friends to come and live with us.  Now the big question is do we pay more and buy older birds and have them laying almost immediately, or pay less for younger birds and pay for their feed until they start laying in a few months..... decisions, decisions!

Concentration skills part 2

Conversation with daughter at toyshop:
Emily: Mum,. I've decided to buy this puzzle. 
Me: That's great, but you do realise that there are only 5 basic colours in it and that it is 1000 pieces and that it will be very difficult to complete.....
Emily: I know.  I chose the hardest one because I want to work on my concentration skills.
Me: Wow, that's great I hope you can finish it.

Conversation with daughter at home later that evening:
Emily: No one is allowed to touch this puzzle.  I'm going to do it all by myself.
Family: That's great... good luck!

Conversation with daughter the following day:
Emily: Mum, you can help me if you really want to.  I've separated out the edge pieces.
Me: Okay, I'll help you with the edge if you want me to.
Emily: Thanks.  But, only if you really want to.


Conversation with daughter one week later:
Me: The puzzle doesn't seem to have progressed past the outside frame, do you need some more help?
Emily: If you really want to you can do it - but I have to put in the last piece in.

Conversation with daughter when puzzle is finally finished:
Me: Here is the last piece - are you going to put it in now?
Emily: Great - wow we did a great job.
Me: Yes, I did.
Emily: I am not usually good with puzzles so the fact that I managed to put in 10 pieces is really impressive, aye!
Me: Yes Emily, you are incredible...

Peas, peas and more peas

 Despite my mother-in-law's best attempts to thwart my attempts at using my original companion planting techniques to grow peas, it looks like the clover has won through and we may end up with a pretty good crop.  I thought I'd go and pick a few for tea this afternoon and quarter of an hour later had more than enough for not just tonight's tea, but tea for the next week!  Fortunately they are all the really sweet ones that you can eat in the shell of so I don't need to actually remove them from the pods.  Perhaps I'll convince the kids that top and tailing them is great fun and they can help me....... although they seem to be able to see through those stories lately!  Perhaps bribery would work better.....

Flying carp

Most of our neighbours are very old and not at all interested in doing anything to make our neighbourhood more interesting or attractive to visitors.  Our closest neighbour however is very keen to try new things and there are often strange things popping up in his garden that give visitors something to comment about.  His latest venture is to try and copy some of the big towns which have large volumes of flying carp over their rivers.  Only our "river" is a very small stream and there are only two poles which can be used... resulting in two lonely carp flying in the stream.  Or  I should probably say lying in the stream.  This part of the stream is very sheltered from the wind and therefore even the strong winds we have been having every day lately don't get the carp up and flying at all.  I guess it is the thought that counts......

Spring Bounty

Things are starting to take off in the garden again (including many, many weeds....), and the harvest for the spring season usually starts with two of my favorites - asparagus and chammomile.  Of course I don't use them together, but both share the trait of tasting sooooo good when they are first picked and deteriorating in flavour as the days pass - all the better reason to use them as soon as you pick them!  I have asparagus planted both inside the tunnel house and outside, and I am always interested that despite the large temperature difference between the two places they both usually start producing at about the same time of the year.  The asparagus in the tunnel house receives no water and as a result (???) is much juicier and sweeter - although both outstrip store bought asparagus by far!

I have chammomile everywhere.... it self seeds and pops up literally all over the garden.  The kids have started picking it for me in return for a small amount of pocket money.... another excuse to get them out into the sunshine!

Kimonos in Kitsuki

The city we live in is an old Samurai town and to try and create a traditional atmosphere people are encouraged to wear kimono to stroll around the old streets.  There is a shop where you can hire kimonos for the day, so when the New Zealand group was here we took advantage of the opportunity and donned kimonos (well they did... I had to drive!) to go to my favorite tea shop and experience a brief traditional Japanese tea ceremony.  It was fun watching them choose which kimono to wear and then even more fun watching the tiny Japanese women huffing and puffing trying to tie them into them!

Diversity

I've just arrived home after running a 2 day leadership camp for 19 university students.  They in turn will have to lead a camp for 88 university students so I was responsible for getting them to know each other, creating an environment where they felt comfortable working together and getting them to really start to think about what is important as leaders.  I enjoy this kind of work more than teaching English as you can have conversations that go a little further than.. Hello, my name is Jo, what's your name?  How are you?  I'm fine thank you.  Nice to meet you!

The thing that makes this program even more interesting is that it is at an international university and there were 11 different nationalities within the group of 19 students.   It makes for lots of mis-communications, lots of strange gesturing and all in all a lot of fun!  It is often a real eye-opener for Japanese students as they are often not used to doing in-depth debriefings, having "arguments" during meetings and really letting go of their inhibitions to make fools of themselves.  It will be interesting to see if they remember any of my incredible pieces of advice and make a great camp.... or ignore my advice completely and make an even better camp!

Sometimes it just clicks

A little out of date, but... this year Easter Bunny arrived again.  For anyone who wants a history lesson, Easter bunny has been coming to our house for a while.  In 2007 the cottage was his hiding place, then in 2008 my mother decided to make an elaborate treasure hunt  which set the bar for the following years.   2009 provided another basic treasure hunt, followed by another one in 2010 (which I forgot to blog about) and then in  2011 Easter bunny really out did himself with series of quizzes etc.  Unfortunately Easter Bunny was a little tired this year and the result was an egg hunt in the cottage rather than all over the neighbourhood.  The children found small bags of eggs, each with a letter in them.  When they put the letters together they spelled two words which were clues to where they could find their big eggs.  Unfortunately Easter Bunny's computer was already turned off for the night when this brainwave occurred to him and therefore the letters were all handwritten... to which my daughter kept remarking "it looks just like your writing, Mum".  

The best thing about Easter this year was discovering that my daughter can actually concentrate on something for more than a few minutes if she wants to.  She was given a basket making set for Christmas and decided to make it for her Easter basket... without one bit of help from me.  She even managed to make it when all the instructions were in Chinese!  It took her over 4 hours and she didn't take one break.  Here's hoping the concentration skills continue to improve enough to fold an entire basket of washing....... Thanks Nanna D for giving me hope that she won't be a flitabout for the rest of her life!

The other side of Japan

When I show people around this area I like to show them parts of Japan that no "tourists" get to visit.  I also like to try and break their stereotypes that all Japanese people are very hard working, very obedient and very much into following the rules.  One way I do this is to take them to my friend's house.... that he built... with, I presume, no building permits, no plans, but that works in with nature and creates a great place to relax with a lunch box!  I could sit for hours chatting on the balcony (and often do!) - just as long as I don't look down at how it is actually constructed!  Thank you Mutsumi and Tom for showing us another side of Japan... I'll be back soon!

The deep end

When I first came to Japan I was basically thrown in the deep end - I had no Japanese language, no knowledge of anything Japanese other than Japanese cars and had never even tried eating Japanese food - let alone tried to cook it.  I remember how hard, but also how rewarding the whole experience was.

With this in mind when groups from New Zealand come to stay we have devised a way of throwing them completely in the deep end on their arrival in Japan.  

Number one - take them into the most remote mountains you can find.  

Number two - drop them off at the bottom of a very large number of very large steps and tell them you'll meet them at the top with their bags.

Number three - show them to their accommodation - a remote temple where they will be sleeping on futons on the floor listening to the wind whistle through the gaps in the wall and rain pound down.

Number four - feed them traditional monks food - seated on the floor with chopsticks.  It's always fun to see how they handle the noodles on the first day in!

Number five - wake them up at 6am and head even further up the hill to an even more remote part of the temple for a seated meditation session and a fire ritual - where you hope the flames licking the roof of the very old, very wooden temple will not set it on fire..

Number six - finish it all off with a breakfast of watery rice and pickles - not forgetting to keep one pickle to use to clean your bowls at the end!

Actually it is a really great experience.  The temple we stay in is called Monjusenji and the priests there are great - always answering all our strange questions and accommodating our strange ways.  If anyone wants to see the Japanese homepage this is the link: Monjusenji

Hopefully an English version will be available soon....

Every time I stay there I learn a little more about the family there.  This time I really enjoyed talking with the younger priest who was a real estate salesman in Tokyo before returning to work at the temple.  When one of the participants asked him how he spent his days at the temple he replied... First I check my e-mail.  Next I check my facebook.  Then I update my blog.  Next I send e-mails to people to try and drum up business - he said his training in real estate sales comes in very handy!  Not exactly the image that most people have of priests in remote temples, but probably a very common reality!  His stories of how they survived their 2 month retreats in the mountains when they were training to become priests were also pretty eye-opening.... but as he said very illegal now!

Heron goes fishing

I have always thought herons are beautiful, elegant birds.  I love the way they stand completely still for what seems like hours on end.  It is always special to see one flying silently over our rice fields or standing quietly at some of the ponds in tourist areas.  However, after seeing this particular heron at work in Dazaifu City I now look at them in a different light!  

It was quite amazing to watch it standing perfectly still on a rock just in front of us, eyeing the huge carp swimming around its feet and then.... watch it dive straight in and pick out the smallest one (which was still pretty big), fly off to a rock in the middle of the pond then slowly juggle it around till it was in the right position to swallow whole.  I'm guessing it didn't need to eat for a few days afterwards....

Need to catch up....

I have so many entries that I need to catch up on that I am going to do a "must blog every day for two weeks" thing again to try and catch up..  I have been really busy lately and things don't look like they are going to slow down for a few more weeks (or months!) so I need to get myself motivated to go through the camera and blog about what has been happening before everything is deleted by mistake.... or the computer decides to die again - like it did 2 days ago!

The main reason I have been so busy lately is because I spent 10 days showing a group of New Zealanders the "real Japan" - in our area and then a bit of touristy stuff in Hiroshima and Kyoto.  I'll start updating that tomorrow, but for tonight here is a quick look at my favorite part of my garden in this season - the front garden (and probably the only part of the garden which is almost weed free right now....).  It is a bit hard to capture it on camera, but the grasses and ferns etc. are finally starting to grow well and will hopefully fill up lots of the spaces in the next few years.  I'm hoping it will become a garden that only needs maintaining every year rather than replanting.  

This garden was "reformed" in 2008... you can see the difference from this post: Garden reform part 1

Great English ... again!

As anyone who lives in Japan knows, Japanese people love to use English on their packaging and most of it doesn't make a lot of sense! Cakes and confectionery often have some very interesting examples. We were given some delicious cakes last week (thanks Minori!) and the box gave me a little laugh too. Thanks Francis Zabier for inspiring such delicious food!

Surprise win

Japan has wonderful courier companies that make getting things delivered in the countryside a breeze. I often come home to an "undeliverable" notice telling me that they tried to deliver something, but no one was home so when would I like them to come again. I generally know what is in the packages that arrive as they are generally ones that I have ordered, but the other day one arrived that had me really puzzled. It was addressed to me, but from a sender I didn't recognise at all. When I opened it I discovered 7 packets of food things.... and was still a little confused. I eventually found the postcard that was in with it and realised that I had won a competition that I entered on the spur of the moment in February.
I can never be bothered collecting all the stickers and things that are needed for these competitions and even if I do enter I never win... so never usually bother, but.... back in February when we had the school bazaar we had to make lots and lots and lots of flavoured rice, which happened to use packets that happened to have a competition running at the time. So I threw a few stickers on some postcards and sent them off... and they sent them back - with lots of food to add to the fun! Perhaps I should enter them more often......