April 29th 2014 Golden Week and Life from my Balcony

Today is the kick off to golden week in Japan. It marks the longest holiday period of the year and includes 4 holidays: Showa Day, Constitution Day, Greenery Day and Children's day (unofficially boy's day as girls have their day earlier in the year).
During golden week many people travel and the big cities empty out(relatively speaking only)  and all the hard working Japanese get a very well deserved break from their almost indentured servant like lifestyle at work! Here is some more information about Golden Week if it interests you.

http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa050600.htm

I had a less hectic week last week, spent time taking care of household chores, and the general duties of just living! Some times people think missionary life is like one big church outreach and often times it is but then there are the quiet times, without which we would burn out real quick!
We took an afternoon to head to our old stomping grounds in Fuchu.  I was disappointed to see a new building project going on. They have leveled a whole city block, tearing down all the old Shotengai (a street with a concentration of shops and restaurants, usually located near a train station) and getting ready to build something new and massive, I'm still not sure what it'll be. One of the highlights of Fuchu for me was wandering the tightly squeezed side streets and seeing all the little shops and restaurants.  The two places Gary and I usually ate at were victims of the destruction. Oh well, this is progress I guess.  I couldn't find a picture of the Fuchu shotengai area though I remember taking some photos...go figure. Instead here is a drawing form online to give you an idea.
                                                             

Since originally posting this, Gary was able to find me a couple of pictures from this area so I am posting them here for you!     All of these shops and many more are gone now, it's just a city block area of flattened dirt with a lot of construction equipment.  I hope the shop owners got a lot of $ for their land and shops anyway!                           
                                                                            

Fortunately, there are areas like this all over Tokyo, including our area in Kichijoi, but still, I will miss it in Fuchu which will be all Malls mostly now.

I have been doing more practicing with the new camera, this time from our balcony.  I felt a bit like a stalker but being able to take some candid shots of people from a great distance allowed for some great shots of 'people in their natural habitat'!  Here's a few.
                                                             

                                                                           
                                                                         

                                           
                                And then I spotted someone waiting for the Mu bus! Who could it be?!
                     
                             

This one really captured my attention,  a little guy was crying, the sun was in his eyes I think.
                                                                   

                                                                       

                                             Mom gives him her hat.

                                                   
                                                                 Talks with him.

                                                         Gives him a kiss for good measure.

   
                                             All better and they continued on their walk!

                                  A view of the street from our balcony.  Lots of wires!

So now you know some of the people in my neighborhood! 

On to food!

I have been remiss lately in the food category. Not because I haven't been cooking, rather I haven't been taking time to take pictures! We just eat everything up!

The other morning I decided to make Bacon Pancakes just for fun!

They don't look like much but they were tasty! (Yes, there was bacon in the pancakes and bacon on the side..can't have too much bacon!)

Another evening I made chuletas en salsa chipotle con crema.  Along with some homemade corn tortillas, Mexican rice (the banana on top is a Distrito Federal thing), and my attempt at a Japanese bean refried Mexican style! (The bean was alright..but I sure wish I could find some pinto beans here)

Finally I was feeling German..imagine that... and I made us some short ribs with sauerkraut. I served mine with stone ground mustard NOT with ketchup like the picture from the recipe shows.

Here's the recipe

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/spareribs_and_sauerkraut/

Hasta Luego!

April 23rd 2014 by: the White White White One

The other day Gary was asked by an elderly gentleman if he was married to the white woman. Gary said, "yes" and then the gentleman said," but... the white,white, white one?" I have spent most of the last 30 years living as the racial minority so I'm used to sticking out but this one REALLY made me laugh! In all fairness, despite my honorary membership in Hispanic society, my outside is quite white. One time I was talking to a lady in Panama and her toddler was fascinated with with my feet. I was wearing sandals and I don't think the little guy had ever seen feet quite as white as mine before.  He finally couldn't help himself and had to bend down and start poking the tops of my feet... to see if they were real I guess!  I confess, one thing I like about my visits home to Wisconsin is that I blend in! LOL!  Sometimes I feel like a big glowing alien!
                                                                         

Last week was kept very busy with preparations for the Easter service at church. We were going to have a potluck afterward and we needed to find at least one table for food serving. Fortunately, we found one at a local store around the corner from the church. It was the last table they had left and it was 50% off! The guy from the shop was even nice enough to carry it to the church for us!  I forgot to take pictures before we all ate, but here is a picture of the aftermath! We had fried chicken and potato salad, filipino menudo, and a delicious strawberry cheesecake!

And a good time was had by all! Mitos won the drawing for the Easter flowers!

The week before Easter we were surprised with a visitor from a church of ours in Zambia! She brought a colleague along as well. After church we all went out for lunch!

Today, since Gary had a meet up for coffee with a couple of men, I decided to take a walk and try to figure out our good camera. I always use our old camera, but since we have the church started it's time I figure out the good one we bought before we came to Japan. I went walking all over and ended up far away! I took over 100 pictures and practiced with far away and up close. Here's some pics from my wandering around! First, lots of flowers!

                                              This one is like a blooming rose tree of some type.

And then some houses... this one was covered in ivy.

                                             
                                       I wonder how many apartments in that building?

                                         
                            And with 'telezoom' we see the Japanese Mini-van! I've seen a parent with as many as                                        three children on the bike with them!
                                                                             

                                                                   
                                                                 Corner house

                                                          A blue western style house

I noticed this neighborhood had some really tall trees which I'm not used to seeing outside of parks. It was nice.

                   
        I peeked over the tall wall of a Convent to see what was on the other side... no nuns here!

I saw ONE sign in English... guess we know who they think are the culprits of not picking up after their dogs!

I saw this little shrine right on a busy street, looked out of place a midst all the other buildings.

I tested out the telephoto setting on these schoolboys. I was far away and it turned out pretty good.

So there you have my wanderings and camera practice for today! After I walked all the way home I discovered my library books were due today so I had to go back out again and bike over to the library! I am very sore and tired tonight...I'm such an old white,white,white lady!

April 12th 2014 Calendar Wars!!!

So in my bid this week to keep busy and distracted from personal goings on, I did some more wandering and exploring. One afternoon I headed over to Nakano.  It's a few train stops up my train line so it's an easy trip.  Nakano is widely known as geek heaven here. There is a large shopping area full of collectibles and memorabilia that is fun to walk through and look at.  I however, decided to head a little farther outside of the immediate train area and explore around. I saw a sign that said Central Park and headed  in that direction..I like parks. When I arrived I was a bit disappointed, Central Park is obviously a new park with young trees and not a lot of space There were some food trucks and cafe style food places around the park though which was nice.   The day was nice and there were people out enjoying the park and fountain.
                                                                           

                                                             Central Park

All kids love fountains.

Food trucks 

This one serves Soul Food!

I ate at a British style cafe. I had the traditional English lunch. I have never been to England and don't wish to base my feelings regarding English cooking on this one meal. But neither the fish nor the batter it was fried in was salted..at all. It was very tasteless and not too impressive for my first try at fish and chips. The meat pie was alright as was the sausage roll but not that great really.  Hmmmm...

After visiting the park I headed back toward the station and went into Broadway Nakano to satisfy my inner geek.  On the way back I passed Sun Plaza hotel and concert hall. This neat clock is out front.

Apparently it's even cooler looking at night as you can see from this picture I stole from the internet:

                After that, I continued back over toward the Station and Nakano  Broadway.

                                                                      Nakano

                                          I also wandered a bunch of side streets.
                                                                     

                                          I especially liked the light fixtures down this street.
                                                                             

Notice how nice and clean even the little side streets are.

                                 

I saw this interesting little building with '80's style music I guess, complete with beat box! What really caught my attention were all the wires and rusty ducts, ladders and balcony.  It looks like parts of the building were just added to it willy nilly.  Looks like something you'd see in a futuristic sci-fi movie or something.

I was tired out in a good way by then so I headed back home.

Last month the picture on our home calender happened to be some bunny rabbits. Gary drew mustaches on them and then laughed at me because I never noticed. SO.... this month I've been running a test on him! Every day or so I added something new to this months calendar picture... first I drew some stuff and comments, then I started pasting pictures on it and he STILL hasn't noticed!!!! 

I'm out of room...

Yes, ours is THAT kind of marraige.  #wearesoweird

On to Food!!!!

One of the things I couldn't get used to in Panama was peoples' propensity to eat sandwiches for breakfast. I just couldn't wrap my head around the idea of sandwiches for breakfast.  Well this morning I broke that rule and had a sandwich for breakfast. I was out of eggs and it was really more of a brunch time so I went ahead with it. It was pretty good.

ham,salami,red cheddar cheese,lettuce,mayo and dijon mustard

Ciao!