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!