Moon Viewing Festival 2013, Kitsuki City

Here is another catch-up post... this time from my father's visit in October - and features all his photos!

The longer you live in a place, the less you seem to see of it - for me anyway.  When I first arrived over 17 years ago every free day was spent exploring somewhere new and every festival was researched and attended.  Now our life seems to be so caught up with ferrying kids to sporting events or school functions that there is very little time left over for venturing off to somewhere new for the day.  Having visitors helps to make this possible though and this year I finally managed to go to a festival in my own town that I have always meant to go to, but never quite remembered in time!  

Kitsuki City holds a "Moon Viewing Festival" every October where the whole town works together to put over 8,000 paper and bamboo lanterns filled with candles all around the old Samurai Town.  People are then free to wander around and enjoy the fantastic atmosphere.  Different groups make different displays and in some of the old samurai houses there are performances of traditional Japanese music as well as tea ceremony.  In fact the whole thing started when one group of women asked if they could use one of the old houses to do their tea ceremony on the night of the full moon in October.  From there the festival grew and grew into what it is now.  It is hard to capture the atmosphere in photos, but if anyone is in this area in October I really suggest going for a wander.  It isn't as big as some of the other similar moon viewing festivals around the place, but there are far less people to bump into!

Gotta love spring!

Despite cedar pollen still making life a bit uncomfortable, spring arriving is still a great feeling after a cold winter.  All my mini daffodils are flowering and the tunnel house is providing enough flowers to brighten up the place.  There is something nice about having a vase of flowers, no matter how small by the front door.  

In Japan the traditional cleaning times are August and December - the hottest and coldest times of the year, but fortunately my children have enough kiwi blood in them to have the "spring cleaning" bug at the moment.  They both spent most of today not just tidying, but also CLEANING their rooms.  I cleaned the windows and the light shades while they wiped down all the surfaces, including washing the floors.  The problem with having children's rooms upstairs is that the older they get, the less you go up there and therefore the less you notice just how much dust is accumulating.  Judging by the colour of the cleaning cloths and the amount of dust in the vacuum cleaner today's efforts were well overdue!

Toastie Tootsies

Like the majority of Japanese houses, we only heat our dining/living room area.  It means that when you need to go to the toilet in winter you hold on as long as you can and then make a dash for it to the little room and feel very grateful that the toilet seat is heated!  It also means that the bedrooms are very cold so you learn to love the fluffy Japanese blankets. 

I personally don't mind having a cold bedroom, but I do like to have warm feet so I always take a hot water bottle with me to bed to take the chill off.  Last night I went to fill up my hot water bottle, that is usually waiting for me in the bathroom, when I couldn't find it.  I was about to accuse one of the kids of stealing it when I thought I'd check in my bed first.... oops... not only was there one hot water bottle, but there were actually four of them hiding under the blankets!  I felt slightly relieved that I didn't go storming up to the kids rooms before checking..... I guess I am the only one actually using them in this season!

Changes in the countryside

As I have said before I am lucky in that my family often comes to visit us.  In general they must arrive with a sense of comfort in the knowledge that here in the countryside of Japan nothing really changes.  A few more houses may become vacant, but in general there is nothing "new" happening.  However in the last couple of years  there is one thing that has had both my parents wanting to snap photos - solar panels.  They are popping up on every vacant lot, no matter how big or small.  There are advertisements on T.V. all the time asking if you are making the most of your vacant land and whether you want to invest in pumping electricity back into the grid.  

When they first started appearing I thought it was fantastic.  After the nuclear disaster in Fukushima I thought it was great that they were using unproductive land to create an alternative source of electricity.  The faster we can get rid of all nuclear power stations the better in my opinion.  However lately the solar power movement has been getting slightly out of control.  Originally it was all on a small scale, but now there are huge blocks of land that are being converted into solar panel jungles.  As well as being very ugly, they are also reducing the amount of land that could be used for agriculture in the future.  According to one website Japan currently imports a total of 60% of its food.  No one seems very worried that in the future this could lead to huge problems and that they need to be using their own land to increase the production of food for their own consumption.  

There are also areas nearby that are trying to promote the beauty of their area for tourism purposes, but are battling big companies wanting to build mega-solar farms in the middle of these areas.   It is a hard issue - as I said I would love to see the end to nuclear power, but.... I'm not sure that these huge areas of solar panels are the answer. Hopefully there will be a good balance struck soon.

Health Check Day

Right now I am supposed to be at the hospital sipping tea and waiting for lunch after the first half of my annual (oops... keep forgetting to do) health check. There were only 5 of us there today though so we were rushed through and I was all finished the morning session by 10:30am.  The nurses seemed a little confused as to why I wouldn't want to hang around and have the hospital lunch.... I prefer a slice of cheese on toast at home!  I have to head back this afternoon to have my private parts examined and the results told to me.

I wrote about my previous full health check here - and as it is basically the same I'm not going to write all the details again.  The one thing that did change was that on top of all the blood tests, hearing tests, mammograms, heart checker thingies, urine tests, blood pressure tests, eye tests, ultrasounds etc. etc. I decided that because there weren't many people there I would be brave and have the barium swallow test....   has anyone ever had it?  I really had no idea what to expect, but it was very strange - and actually had me laughing at some stages.

First I was given a tiny cup with powder in it and told to just put it into my mouth.  Next came a slightly larger cup of water which I then had to wash the powder down with and do whatever I possibly could to not burp!  I discovered later that it was citric acid mix and it was designed to blow up my stomach so it could be coated more easily in barium.  Next I was given a huge cup of barium and told to take one sip and hold it in my mouth before swallowing.  A few photos were taken and the process repeated a couple of times.   No where near as bad as I had envisioned....  I thought it was all over.....  unfortunately not!  Now came the acrobat part of the show.  I was then told to swallow the remainder of the entire huge cup of barium and hold on tight to the bars on the side of the platform thingy I was standing on.  From then on in it was about 15 minutes of the table thingy moving in all different directions, me having to roll over and over and over, me literally being turned upside down and hanging on to the handles for dear life.  All the while the lovely young man was snapping x-rays of my stomach... or at least I think that he was doing.  I'm hoping I don't end up on the next "candid camera" show.....  As I left the reception area I was discreetly asked if I poo regularly and handed a couple of pills to take in the case that I don't poo within the next day or so.  I'm thinking that perhaps I'll skip this particular test next time!

This site has some information about Barium Swallows if anyone is having one in the next wee while.... 

Double Glazing

Two years ago we decided to bite the expensive bullet and double glaze our big sliding doors.

Like any big investment it is always a bit of a gamble as to whether it will be worth it or not. But... looking at the windows this morning I would have to say it is probably the best investment we have ever made.  As you can see in the photos our big doors are completely dry, whereas the small windows beside the big doors (which are not double glazed) are completely covered in condensation and dripping water all over the window sills while pumping out cold air.  

We were able to use our original frames and they just put the new glass into them, saving us some money, but we did choose to go with the more expensive ones rather than the medium quality ones.  My advice to anyone thinking about it... they are expensive, but yes -they are worth it!  And no, I'm not getting sponsored to say that!

Tunnel house update

I have to say I am really enjoying having the tunnel house operational.  I harvested the first real vegetables from it today - lots of mesclun salad mix and some baby spinach.  I also compared some spinach that was planted outside about 3 weeks before the tunnel house spinach.  The tunnel house spinach is miles ahead and much more tender.  Even the beans that I threw in on the off chance they might sprout have managed to germinate and will hopefully give us a few beans before it gets far too hot in there for anything to survive.

If you flick back to this post you can see how much the things have grown in there in about 2 weeks.  Today I brought in a few old desks which hopefully will help to keep a lot of the junk that is being dumped in there under control.  As soon as my finger heals I'm hoping to make at least one more garden in there too.  I could become obsessed!

Outside spinach

Inside Spinach

Single handed

 

Yesterday I did a stupid thing.  I put an axe into my hand.... oops!  Unfortunately it went through my glove.  Fortunately it stopped just before the bone - although it did leave the bone visible... apologies if you were eating while you were reading that!  Fortunately the cut was not very wide and I am not very squeamish so I think I managed to wash it out well and have managed to keep it stabilised enough that it looks like it will fuse together without the need for a trip to the hospital.  Unfortunately it means that I have very limited movement of my index finger on my left hand.... I am discovering just how much you actually need your index finger!

Today I had to participate in a Green Tourism "Slow Food" event.  We all had to take two different dishes for at least 50 people to sample.  There were then about 200 people who rushed in and scoffed up as much food as they could off 9 different groups tables in just over an hour.  It was interesting to see what was popular and what was not.  Anything containing meat disappeared in seconds, while pickles stayed around right till the end.   I made my standard pumpkin muffins and some citrus cookies.  Usually it wouldn't be too hard to make 60 muffins and 60 cookies, but with only one hand fully functioning it took a little more effort than normal!  Fortunately they all disappeared really fast and I wasn't left trying to sneak them into the bin so people didn't notice that they weren't popular. 

Here is my pumpkin muffin recipe for those who asked - sorry, I kept forgetting to post it.  It is from Alison Holst's Marvellous Muffins book and uses New Zealand measurements (ie 1 cup = 250ml)

2 cups self raising flour (I use 2 cups baking flour and 2 teaspoons baking powder)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

100g butter
2 eggs
1 cup cooked pumpkin, mashed.  (I use butternut pumpkins - cut them into small pieces and microwave till soft then mash.  When I have lots that need to be used up from the garden I make big batches and freeze in 1 cup quantities)

Measure the first 7 ingredients into a large bowl.  Toss with a fork to combine thoroughly.
In another container, warm the butter until melted, add the eggs and beat well.  Sir in the mashed pumpkin (I also add a bit of yoghurt... it seems to make them softer).
Combine the two mixtures and fold together without over mixing.

Pour into 12 greased medium muffin pans (or paper cups).  I sprinkle with cinnamon sugar before baking.  Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 15-18 minutes until golden brown and until they spring back when pressed in the centre.  Cool on a cooling rack.  
Note: the cooking time varies a lot so check them from about 10 minutes onwards.
If you don't have all the spices just add a bit extra cinnamon.

Christmas Eve 2013

Going back in time again for another random catch up post..... this time we head back to Christmas Eve.  The major thing related to Christmas in Japan is Christmas sponge cake filled with gallons of cream and topped with strawberries.   It is traditionally eaten on Christmas Eve - which is one reason why half the population of Japan believes Christmas is December 24th...  I have to admit I actually quite like the cakes, but the price of them and the fact that you usually have to order them weeks in advance means we very rarely partake in this particular tradition.

This year we decided to turn a little Japanese and had a dessert party on Christmas Eve - mainly because I am always too full after a big Christmas dinner to fully appreciate dessert!  My daughter wanted a pavlova, so I made that and she decorated it.  I wanted a trifle so used a bit of cut off sponge and some poached feijoas to make a pretty delicious unique version.  The rest of the sponge was decorated in a more traditional way by my son and what Christmas spread would be complete without chocolate mousse?  To pretend we were being healthy we also had some dragonfruit.

The other thing my daughter wanted was some cake pops... I thought I had found some perfect pretzels to use for reindeer antlers, but after I opened the packet I realised they weren't exactly what I thought they were.  They tasted good, but the jury was out as to whether they looked more like a clown, a pig or what they were actually supposed to be - a reindeer!

As there were only 5 of us it meant that there was plenty left over for the next day and the next day and maybe even a little for the day after that!

Cosmos festival

Today's post is sponsored not by a family member, but by a great friend who used to live in Japan.  She sent me this photo from 12 years ago when all our children were tiny!  My kids loved looking at it and seeing how the cupboard in the background has now miraculously disappeared and a fireplace has appeared in its place.  They also couldn't believe that I was once young and relatively slim..... Of course they also loved looking at the tiny twins too!

These next photos date way back to October (I'm beginning to think that letting my blog go was a bit of a stupid thing to do....).  Dad came to visit again and we managed to find a few more places to go to that he hadn't been to before.  One of them was the Cosmos festival in Nakatsu. As with a lot of things I had seen the signs pointing in the direction of the Cosmos fields many times, but had never bothered to detour that way to go and see what it was all about.  This year we took the chance that it might be worth a look and were pleasantly surprised.  The photos don't do them justice - there were many, many, many fields filled with flowering cosmos.  From what I have heard it is the 7th year of the festival and the town has given the locals a lot of funding to plant the flowers rather than rice or other crops.  Local schools and other organisations help to plant them each year - and with a total of around 20 million plants spread over 21 hectares they probably need a bit of help!   There is no entrance fee, but there are a few stalls around that are selling local produce.  The day we went there weren't many people there, but in the weekends I think it gets pretty packed.  Definitely worth a wander if you are in the vicinity in October!

The video I found gives you a better idea of exactly how big the area is that they have planted.

Spring is just around the corner

Recently the daytime temperatures have been rising, the sun has been shining and the first of the spring flowers have started to bloom.  In the past I used to love this time of year.  The first cup of coffee while reading a magazine on the deck, throwing all the duvets outside to freshen up in the sun, starting to clear out the garden ready for spring planting and having the washing dry outside within half a day.  

Unfortunately with the onset of pollen allergies this time of year has turned into a horrible time where I try to stay inside as much as I can, go through boxes of tissues each day and feel like my throat and ears are going to drive me crazy with their itchiness.   I try to avoid taking medicine, but usually give in at some stage during the day.  I have even started taking notice of the predicted pollen count for the week.... the table below shows that Friday is going to be particularly bad - I can hardly wait!  I never thought I would ever say this, but I am so looking forward to the arrival of summer!

日付	2月27日 (木)	2月28日 (金)	3月1日 (土)	3月2日 (日)	3月3日 (月)
大分市	少ない	非常に多い	やや多い	少ない	多い

Advent Calendar

These posts really are going all over the place... but for my own sake it is a good record of things that have happened over the last few months so please bear with me and my random photos from the camera!

For Christmas 2012 I made my first niece a "Christmas Town" advent calendar  so I wanted to make my second niece an advent calendar too (all things must be fair and even!).  As always I started it a bit late, but thanks to the unfortunate fact that I ended up off work and on the sofa for a week due to having the mumps (not a nice experience!) I managed to get it done and sent away in time for the first day of December.  All of the felt ornaments come off and one was put into each pocket for each day, along with a small treat.... most of which I think made it to my niece!  Hopefully I will be organised enough each year to get the treats to fill the pockets and have them sent away before the start of December.  Gotta love the 100 yen shop for things like this!

Bee meets bee

Following on from the last bee post.... Here is a random photo of a bee eating a bee.  No idea what was going on, but it sat still for about an hour just slowly devouring it on the post of our deck.  I have heard that Japanese bees are smaller than western bees, but have the power to work together to kill larger bees who come to take over the hives - swarming together to make their invaders overheat and die.  Unfortunately it looks like this poor bee had lost all its friends.... definitely a case of safety in numbers, or not in this case!

The bees were back

Another post from quite some time ago!

In 2007 we started our journey into the frustrating world of bee keeping.  At that time we relied on people telling us when they found swarms of Japanese honey bees and we would go and collect them, bring them home and put them into our homemade boxes and hope they stayed.  We tried to think about the perfect place to put the hives so the bees would feel at home.  Unfortunately they would always stay for a bit, but not more than a year - eating all their honey before they took off for better pastures.

A few years ago my husband bought two new boxes which were designed to attract the bees to them, in theory meaning we wouldn't need to go and actually catch the bees and bring them back.  Yet again we sought out the perfect locations, bought special lilies to help attract the bees and waited and waited and waited a bit more.  Not much luck...  So the boxes were thrown into the garage a couple of years ago when life got out of control and we figured eventually we would get around to getting them out in the perfect location again.

Roll around to last year.... the bees came back... in the garage... where we dumped the boxes a couple of years ago. There were many debates about what to do - I was particularly keen to get them moved so that we could get in and out of the car without worrying about how many bees were going to join us for a drive.  It was particularly important to me that they were moved because we had my brother, sister-in-law and 1 year old niece staying..... I didn't really feel like having to take them to the emergency room if the bees decided to swarm while we were getting into the car.

My husband was just so happy that they were back that he was determined to let them be and refused to try and move them.  They got very active during the day, but as my husband was at work most days he never saw it.  They never stung us, but it did get a bit frustrating having to try and reassure any visitors who came to the house that they were our pets and therefore perfectly safe.

In the end they made quite a lot of honey, but just before we were about to harvest some of it they were invaded by bugs, ate most of their own honey and then ran away.  At least it solved the problem of having to move them.   Now if I could just get my husband to move the box out of the garage we may not have to go through the whole thing again this spring!

Soba Making

My family from New Zealand comes to visit us a lot - which is great, but means that we are always looking for new places to take them that will interest them as well as my kids.  When my mother came to visit in December we decided to try the "soba making experience" in the town next to ours.  The town is trying to promote themselves as a soba town so have started a place where you can go and they will help you to make soba noodles or actually learn to make them professionally over a number of sessions if you want to.

It was the second time my son had made soba and so we let him do the whole thing.  I found it fascinating.  I never realised there were so many complicated steps in getting the dough formed perfectly and then the dough rolled to exactly the right shape and size.  I would never be patient enough to do it each time and  I could never remember all the steps!  From memory it took about and hour and a half for the whole process.  The other thing that impressed me was that there was zero waste.  All bits that were stuck to hands were carefully scraped into the mixture, every speck of flour was carefully swept up from the table and reused. 

Masaki's favorite part of the whole process was using the huge knife to chop it all up.  He has now decided that after he becomes Olympic champion he is going to start a soba shop....
The soba was all taken home and it was quickly devoured by all!

Hatsu-Bon

I am getting a bit behind on the posts now... photos of nieces and nephews seem to be flying into my in-box from all directions. Very grateful!

These photos go way back to August... it was the first "Obon" since my mother-in-law died, which is quite a big deal here.  Obon is the season where deceased come back to visit for a few days and check that everyone is doing okay and looking after things in the way they should be.  For about a week before hand there needs to be someone at the house all day every day to receive visitors who come to pay their respects, leave an envelope of money, drink a glass of cold tea and then go home with a little bag of goodies.  We had a total of 163 people come to pray... which means 163 cups of cold tea... and 163 envelopes of money to open, count and record who gave how much.

As well as the envelopes of money, the relatives and close friends give lanterns, baskets of packaged foods surrounded by plastic flowers and boxes and boxes of beer. 

I am in two minds about the whole process.  I like the fact that it is a time when people can remember the recently deceased.  I like the fact that the whole family gets together for a few days.  What I don't like is the commercialism and waste assosciated with the whole thing.  All of the food baskets cost a minimum of about 10,000 yen (often up to 20,000) and are on lovely wooden frames etc. which are all thrown away.  The value of the actual food is probably only 3-4,000 yen.   A lot of the food is also wasted because there is so much of it and it can't be opened until everyone has already gone home - ie. you can't use it when all the family is gathered and it would be most helpful!   The lanterns are also thrown away... each one again costs at least 10,000 yen....

My biggest gripe is about the big monstrosity in the corner of the first photo.  It is basically a lot of plastic flowers and some plastic doves with lots of silver glittery stuff (which is now keeping crows out of my garden!).  It cost 90,000 yen (on special) .... it was burnt when it was all finished.... my husband and his sister were expected to buy it... in fact it was ordered for them by my father-in-law and they were given the bill.  As far as I can tell it is not a necessary part of the whole event, but the companies have done such a good job of pushing them on people that they have come to believe they will bring bad luck on the family if they don't buy it.

Anyway, we managed to survive the whole thing and are still getting through cans of crab meat and bottles of beer.  Here's hoping we don't have another event like this in the near future.

Chicken delicacies

 It rained all last night so my big plan to get on with some weeding in the garden flew out the window.  Pulling weeds out of mud is never fun!  Instead I decided to make another garden in the tunnel house and fill it with some peas and lettuces and a couple of rows of spinach and radishes thrown in for good measure.  The other gardens are going so well I'm hoping this one will too.

When I make the new "gardens" I fill the boxes with lots and lots of delicious leaf mould that has been maturing over the past year or so.  It appears that the leaf mould is the perfect breeding ground for stag beetle larvae.  With every scoop of leaf mould there seem to be at least 3 or 4 larvae curled up ready for  metamorphosis in spring.  I have no idea if they would do anything bad to the seedlings, but just to be on the safe side I try to remove as many of them as I can - some of which are rather large!  

I try not to waste things so the larvae get taken to the chickens, who seem to be able to smell them coming and go into a real frenzy.  The largest ones are usually left till last, but within a matter of minutes they are all polished off.  I'm presuming the stag beetle isn't on the endangered population list.... otherwise my chickens may need to be arrested!

Muscles I never knew I had

Before

 When my daughter started junior high school she joined the volleyball team.  She had never played before, but has become a very good server very quickly.  Another girl joined at the same time and unfortunately hasn't been blessed with learning the serving technique so quickly.  After thinking about it a bit more we realised that it was probably because Emily had done a lot of swimming before starting volleyball and therefore had already developed the muscles necessary for serving before she even started.  After a big day with the axe yesterday I am thinking that if I chopped wood every day I could become a professional volleyball server - even if I was only subbed on to serve.  My muscles are telling me that they have worked very hard!  

After

It is the time of year again where we get our wood pile ready for the following year (or actually 2 years later).  I managed to chop enough yesterday to fill one whole row of our wood shed and today put away another rows worth.  We now have just over 4 rows full.... 2 more to go.  Fortunately my father-in-law is enjoying using the chainsaw this year... long may it last!