December 30 2013 Goodbye 2013!

Well Christmas has come and gone for another year. Really with all the travel and things going on in the family, December kind of flew by in a blur. None the less, Gary and I managed to have a nice if slightly subdued Christmas this year full of chocolates and tasty treats! We didn't plan a chocolate Christmas but that's just how things worked out this year and I'm not complaining!
                                           

We were also surprised to receive a surprise gift from our friend Yasuyo.                             

I'm going to do my On To Food segment first this post:
We started Christmas morning with our "stockings" (actually lindt chocolate bags since we hadn't purchased stockings), some mikan (tangerines) and for breakfast, warm brie,crusty bread and strawberries!  A delicious latte on the side of course!

Later in the day I made us a few snacks. Some quiche, bbq wings, pumpkin/sage soup, more bread and grape juice!

 I was tired of cooking by then and we were full, so I made the rest of the planned goodies the next day.

Home made crab cakes, stuffed mushrooms and asparagus with cream cheese wrapped in prosciutto. It was my first ever attempt at crab cakes and they turned out good!

On Christmas eve we went and looked at a potential church building. It's the curved, mirrored building on the left, 3rd floor.

While we were inside Gary turns around and yells,"look!" I have to admit the view was great!

This was our actual first viewing of Mt. Fuji since we moved here, but the day was perfectly clear and the building in the right spot! We really liked the building and have put in an application to rent it, of course Japan has several steps in any rental procedure so it's too soon to tell if we'll get it or not, but either way, it was worth the view!

Now , all the Christmas decorations are down, everything comes down on the 26th here, and the New Years decorations are up!

 New Year's is a very big celebration here and many stores will be closed from Jan. 1st to the 3rd.  I'm definitely looking forward to what the new year has in store for us! Happy New Year to all of you as well!!!!

In some sad news, we received word that our old dog Luke died  suddenly. He was left in the States with some good friends who took good care of him.

RIP Luke

December 23rd 2013 Happy Birthday Emperor!

Happy Birthday Emperor Akihito! Today is a national holiday celebrated by all of Japan as the reigning emperors' birthday. 
 Emperor Akihito turns 80 years old today. In celebration the gates to the Imperial palace are opened so the general public may enter to wish the emperor birthday greetings.  He appears on the palace balcony to acknowledge the public, and then people wave Japanese flags and the imperial family wave back. Maybe next year I'll try to make it there to see the festivity! The gates to the Imperial Palace are only opened to the public twice a year, for the emperor's birthday and on January 2nd.   

Since today was a national holiday and also just a couple days before Christmas, the stores were all incredibly busy when I went shopping in Kichijoji today.  Gary and I hopped the Mu bus and then split up for a bit to do a little last minute shopping. While out, I ran into the sweet potato guy who was cooking hot sweet potatoes in a large clay pot! 

 

The potatoes are hung along the inside of the lower pot until cooked and then he sets the cooked ones in the top part of the pot waiting for sale. It's fun to see the old fashioned mixed in with the big city modernity sometimes!

While I was out I saw this interesting café... I wonder if I need a cat to get in?

 

Later, Gary and I met up at the Lindt Chocolate Store for a cup of hot chocolate! We also bought a few chocolates while we were there!

 

 

 

Afterwards, we hit Kaldi Coffee store and bought some import goodies for Christmas day!

When we came home we decorated the little Christmas tree that Gary's cousin Penny had gifted us while we were in Kentucky. It's a tiny little tree but I think it turned out nicely, and afterwards we can eat the ornaments! (Yes, those are Lindt chocolates)

 

 

 

And just for fun!

 

December 18th 2013 To Kentucky and Back Again

All the last minute preparations seen to...which can be a bit more complicated when leaving a foreign country,(you should have seen the charades at the post office as I tried to arrange to have our mail held), Gary and I headed to the airport for our trip back to the States for his Dad's funeral. We hauled our suitcases out front and waved down a cab to take us to Kichijoji station where we caught a bus to take us the 2 hours to Narita airport.  (No greyhound on the side of these buses...we get a regular Japanese dog!)

While waiting to board our flight we saw a beautiful sunset. The picture doesn't do it justice as it was so pretty and orange!

Our flight went smoothly, it was nice as we had an empty seat between us and were cramped at all! We arrived in Chicago to the usual Chicago flight delays etc. Fortunately, our flight to Louisville was only slightly delayed instead of being canceled as some flights were. We arrived in the evening so after a short visit with the family went straight to bed! 
The visit was kept busy with funeral and burial services in two different cities on different days and all went pretty well despite the uncooperative weather.  Gary preached his Dad's burial service at the Kentucky Veterans Cemetery. His father was buried with military honors and it was very nicely done.

The next week we spent in Owensboro with Gary's mom. He helped her get some billing and banking business and social security stuff taken care of before we left.
We also managed to squeeze in some family visits and some good food including the famous Ky. smoked turkey. We bought a turkey and dropped it off to be quick smoked at famous Ol' Hickory pit bbq! A couple of days later we picked it up and it was delicous! Gary also picked up some ky. style bbq mutton shoulder that was SO good! I've never encountered any bbq quite so good! The mutton is cooked for 12 hours at temperatures in the high 200's while being mopped with a mixture of water,worcestershire sauce,vinegar,lemon juice,salt and pepper. It results in a totally differnt type of bbq than anything found anywhere else in the States!   

I was of course thrilled to get to see our youngest son for a couple of days as he flew in from Denver for the funeral. 

Then it was time to come home to Japan. We boarded our flight in Louisville on Monday morning and with time changes etc. we arrived here Tuesday night. The flight back wasn't near as nice as the previous one, unfortunately, but we survived and were very happy to shower and collapse into our own bed! 
Thanks to everyone for the kind thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.  

November 29, 2013 Sad News and Thanksgiving

This week has been very busy, both good and sad. Sad because my husband's Dad passed away today, the 29th for us but Thanksgiving Day for the family in the States. My husband was on the phone talking with his sister when she received the call from the hospital. We will be making arrangements to fly back Stateside in the next day or two.  It's very hard to lose loved ones, especially when you are so far away.

 A couple weeks ago we had been talking about the resemblance between our youngest son and his Grandpa.

Seems like Gary and I spent all week running around places. Tuesday we went to Aoyama so Gary could show me where a building we are thinking about for the church is located. We also went to Shinjuku to go to a Christian book store there. On the way, at the train station, a lady jumped in front of an incoming train. Somehow, by the grace of God, she managed to not get hit, but of course the train sounded it's LOUD horn and slammed it's brakes on and people ran away looking horrified. Fortunately, she was okay and after we all pushed on the side of the train when asked us to, they were able to extricate her from under it. 

Here's the story from the paper with pictures.

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/11/27/tokyo-commuters-band-together-to-rescue-woman-from-beneath-train/

We did eventually make it Shinjuku and the bookstore where we bought a Bible for Yasuyo and some tracts.  

On Wednesday, we went to Ikebukuro where I met up with Yasuyo at a coffee shop while Gary explored the station and environs.  Yasuyo and I had a very nice visit. I told her she was only my second friend in Japan and she seemed surprised and touched I'd say that to her. Surprised, I imagine, because Japanese people don't generally leave their social groups. (Family,school or work) It's hard to make friends, so I've just decided to tell people they are my friend and leave it up to them to tell me otherwise! Hopefully they will embrace this crazy Gaijin! Yasuyo did tell me before I lef,t that I was her first friend since she moved back to her hometown so I guess she is going to keep me!

Thursday, of course, was Thanksgiving, I had managed to find a small 71/2 pound turkey that would fit in my crockpot. I also found a couple boxes of stove top stuffing that we fancied up as best we could. We had a friend who is visiting Japan from the States over and he brought a pecan pie. He searched high and low and found a fancy restaurant that he could buy it from. It even came with sparklers!

My crock pot turkey was okay but not near as delicious or beautiful as my younger daughters masterpiece this year!

As you can see, 3 of my "orphan" children that are in Denver did very well recreating the family Thanksgiving meal! I'm so proud! 

Today, I of course had left-overs so decided that for dinner we'd have grilled turkey sandwiches !

I took some nice sliced champagne bread and I buttered one side and put mayo on the other. I then piled on some turkey and some sliced jellied cranberry. (Gary wasn't sure about that but in the end he admitted to liking it)  

After that I added a little gravy and then stuffing. I kind of squeezed the stuffing so it wouldn't fall out of the bread.

The last step was to grill it butter side down until the bread was toasty and golden!

I added a little dijon mustard on my sandwich, I think it gave it a nice little contrast in the flavor. Anyway, there's an idea for any of you looking for what to do with your leftovers! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! 

Obviously, since I will be traveling etc, there may be a bit of a delay until my next blog post.

Until then, take care and God Bless!

November 24th 2013

Hello Everyone! Wow! I knew I'd been slacking on the ol'blog but I didn't realize it'd been this long, sorry about that.Who knows if there's anybody still out there even, but either way, here goes!
Things have been moving along here, we're still building hunting, but we have been meeting up with some people in the mean time. I'm still in contact with the lady we met for coffee, in fact I'm hoping to see her again this Wednesday and get to visit some more. We have e-mailed in the meantime, but since she just started a new job this is the first we've been able to get together again since our first meeting.
Gary and I also met up with some folks from Atsuko's church who wanted to introduce us to a British guy who is married to a Japanese lady.

 We went out for lunch and then afterwards met up with his wife as well and had some donuts and coffee. Later Gary went out to lunch with the husband for Indian curry and they had a good visit so we are hoping for good things there!   The naan bread at this place is insanely large!

Christmas is starting to get in full swing here, the lights are set up and look so pretty around the city.  We haven't gotten a tree yet, maybe this week sometime or next after Thanksgiving. Speaking of Thanksgiving, I found a small turkey, about 7 pounds, that should fit in the crockpot! I've found some yams, and cranberry sauce and stuffing mix so it should be good! yay!

The other day I was walking to the library and happened to catch some kids leaving school for the day as I was filming.

Here's me crossing the street to go into the library, I usually park my bike on the right with the other bikes but I walked that day.

I ended up walking to the library and then to Mitaka station and then almost all the way to Kichijoji and finally back home!     One thing I like about Japan is there are flowers all year round, even in the winter you'll find them!

On to food!

This first one is my "stroll through the kitchen" as Gary called it. It started as a cheeseburger and morphed into Cheese burger al caballo(with fried egg on top) with smoked sausage,grilled onions and chopped jalapenos with a little steak sauce! It was delicious..but Gary thought I was nuts!

 
This is just one of our breakfasts. I scrambled eggs with roasted cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and asparagus. After growing up with all the free asparagus we could want just growing wild around the land it's hard for me to pay $ for it, but I sure do love it!

 
This is a traditional Japanese breakfast. A couple of eggs fried/poached on top of some bacon slices, with a little soy sauce. On the side is some rice with furikake. The only thing missing is some miso soup.

Tonight, I broke out my donabe pot and made some kimchi pork nabe with 2 types of mushrooms,leeks,tofu,noodles and japanese cabbage

That's it folks! Have a great week and a very Happy Thanksgiving!

November 12 2013 Happy Birthday Mom!

Tomorrow is my sweet Mommy's birthday! She turns 80 years old! Pretty impressive!  She is a wonderful Mom and Grandma, wish I could be with her to give her a big hug and kiss. Happy Birthday Mommy!
                                                       

Gary had a dentist appointment the other day and afterwards we met up in Kokubunji... we hadn't been there in a while so we decided to do a little wandering around the area. We stopped at one point for a coffee and pastry break. 

I had a tasty cinnamon/apple roll! (We didn't eat all of that, we took some home with us for later)

While we were eating in the room with about 40 other people, one of the cafe workers came up to return my teeny tiny shopping list that I'd apparently dropped when paying for the food. It really made me laugh, but I guess she figured it was in English and I was the only foreigner in the room so it must be mine! (That's Gary's handwriting, I can't write that small and neat)

We had lunch while we were there too. We found a new sushi place with a set menu that was reasonably priced and came with noodles and an interesting seafood custard.

Remember the lady who wanted to meet with us and hear about Jesus?We had a very nice meet up with her.We went to a coffee shop and talked for a long time. She and her sons are coming over on Saturday for dinner. I'm not confident enough to cook Japanese food for a Japanese person..especially since she is a cooking teacher! So I'll make lasagna and salad.  

I finally bought a donabe pot! It's really essential for making Japanese soups and stews so I was excited to get one and on sale too!

Since it's a clay pot,before I could use it I had to cure it. This is done by cooking some rice porridge in it as demonstrated by my video. (and you get to see a Japanese stove)

On to Food!

I tested out my crockpot making some of my favorite puerto rican style pork roast. This results in Mexican tasting carnitas! So we had what I called poor man carnitas because I had to use flour toritllas instead of corn and I had no cilantro or chicharon either. But it was still delicious and we were happy!

I also tried out a couple of new recipes. This is the fried rice recipe.

And here I am making sweet and sour pork.

Here's the finished product, except you don't see any peppers because this is Gary's plate and he doesn't like peppers.

So there you go!  That's it for today!!!

November 7th 2013

So, I'm definitely overdue on an update on this blog! Sorry about that, the time has really just flown by and I got lazy! Also, It's hard for me to remember all that has happened since my last post...I need to take more notes to remind myself what I've been up to!
First off, Gary and I met with our other realtor. she took our information and we look forward to hearing from her to go look at buildings soon. See Gary's blog for an update on our building search saga! http://pioneeringjapan.blogspot.jp/

One of the unpleasant things about pioneering a church is hunting for a building to use. Japan has been especially interesting.  Some days it leaves you feeling like this:
                                                          

I've been having some fun trying out the new crockpot, it's large enough that I think it'll hold a small turkey if I can find one! So far, I've cooked the beans Gary's teacher found us and they turned out nicely..they are like navy beans so Gary is happy. I'm still on the search for pinto beans for my Mexican dishes, though I can find some canned ones of those for emergencies. They are quite expensive though...like $3 a can!

The weather is definitely beginning to turn more wintery, we haven't had to try the heater yet though thanks to my friend Minny Paws.

We received an email from a lady in Saitama who wanted to meet up with us so we could teach her about Jesus! She is the sister of a lady in Holland who knows the son-in-law of an old pastor friend of ours from Mexico! Figure that out! We met up with her at a coffee shop in Koenji and had a very nice visit which will hopefully be the first of many! It's a very interesting thing to try to explain Christian concepts to a person with absolutely zero idea about even the basics of Christianity. We did have some literature in Japanese to give her to read and were able to answer some of her questions as well. After our meet up Gary and I spent a few hours exploring Koenji, we had been there for a short visit before but this time we walked all over the place. We found a nice import store and picked up a few things..some carmel corn,bbq sauce, and some doritos ranch chips! Sometimes just having a little taste of home is nice!

I have a new neighbor young lady in my apartment building. I noticed her English name on her mailbox so I left her a note and offered to help in anyway I could. Gary and I had her over for dinner a couple weeks ago for pizza. Today I took her to the local library and helped her get a library card and showed her how to use it when she brings back books etc. So that's been fun, it's nice to get out with a gal and talk some English!

　

　

There will be no On to Food this post because mostly what I've been making is repeats! Lasagna, meatloaf, filipino pork adobo, some green chili enchilada suizas.  I did get a new book from the library today though so we'll see if I find any new interesting recipes to try!

 

That's it for today!  And remember....Breathe!

 

　

　

October 27th 2013

It's been a busy week weather wise, we had two typhoons headed for us and they were on a collision
course threatening to cause the dreaded Fujiwara effect! (I guess that could cause the storm to stall over a certain area until one breaks free and they continue moving on their way) Fortunately, at the last moment their trajectory swerved and they headed up Japan off the coast instead of coming inland. Kyushu,Okinawa and some of the islands were hit but Tokyo was spared except for a week of grey, cloudy almost constant drizzle and rain! The night we were supposed to get hit we were awakend by an earthquake, things shook about a bit but settled down again so we went back to sleep. Gary says some day we will die in an earthquake in he middle of the night because we're too groggy to actually get up!
After the storm comes the sun, and today is a gorgeous sunny day!  Which of course means I had to get some clothes washed and on the line! (Though here we don't use clothes line, we have long poles and claw like clips to hold things or funny clothes pins that are tied to the pole and hang free. The multi-clip thingies are very popular here as well, I have one.
                                                             

Shirts are just hung on hangers and hung on the pole. Of course during rainy days we can also hang clothes in the shower room to dry as there is a fan/dryer button in that room that you can push to
help the clothes dry.

On Friday after many months and over a dozen appointments I finally had my final dental visit! I
pretty much have a brand new mouth, with all new fillings,crowns, root canals and a bridge. It was a long and painful process but was worth it!

Gary put in a bid on one of the buildings we looked at but we're still waiting to hear back from our realtor. In an effort to speed up the "find a building process", we have an appointment on Monday,with another realtor who has experience with churches. 

                                      This week Gary ordered me a crockpot off of Amazon.com.
                                                                      

Now I'll have something to cook turkey in for Thanksgiving!  yay!  And it's programmable so I can either use it as a regular slow cooker or as a roaster! Thanksgiving Day here we come!!!!