Well so far this week has been cloudy, overcast and/or raining! I don't expect it to clear up until typhoon Francisco gets past us Friday or Saturday. It did stay dry enough for me to get a load of laundry dried outside but it took 2 days! I don't really mind the cooler weather but I could do with some sunshine!
I did a little shopping on Monday and picked up this cute little rug for the floor next to my side of the bed. Seriously, how cute is that?!!!
Cooler weather does make me feel more like cooking though, tonight we're having homemade oden..well the broth is homemade, you can buy all the little oden packets to add to the broth. Mine looked like this one.
You can always tell when summer is over because all the shops start selling oden, it's a cold weather soup!
I'm also making some chicken wings with salted plum sauce.
and of course there will be rice!
Afterwards I made some banana bread for desert!
Yesterday was one of my brothers birthday so I called him to wish him a Happy Birthday! He doesn't understand how I can handle living in such a big city, he is hermit-y enough that he prefers the mountains in Idaho and avoids shopping except during the quiet times of the day. I do envy his getting to be so close to nature. I especially miss the quiet of only nature sounds when I want to sleep at night.
October 18th 2013
Howdy folks! Well it's been an interesting week. Monday was a national holiday... Sports Day! I find that humourous but there were people in parks and folks wearing sports uniforms doing sporty stuff! I took a walk in a park. Lol.
Turns out we had a typhoon on Tues/Wed. Gary and I survived fine (actually sept through it), but areas of Tokyo and a nearby island were hit pretty hard. Now we will have to see if Typhoon Francisco stays on course and hits us next week. They don't call it typhoon season for nothing! It was funny because if it wasn't for Gary's Japanese teacher canceling class because "a big typhoon was coming" we might not have even known until the big outdoor voice speaker began announcing the impending doom!
Anyway, we have been keeping busy taking care of other stuff this week. Yesterday we went and looked at another building. (It's the one with the Coca-Cola sign, 2nd floor)
This was in the Nishi Shinjuku area the part of Tokyo with the most skyscrapers and businesses. It was very hopping with a lot of people! Of course all of Tokyo is always very hopping...but still this was even more so! This was the best building yet as far as neighborhood and church structure that we've seen! It would be really cool if we could rent this one but Japan being Japan we still have more red tape steps to proceed and be approved before we will know! After seeing the building we wandered around the neighborhood and also got some dinner at Baguette a nice place with a bread buffet.
On to food!
Typhoon day I made Chanko Nabe..food of the sumo wrestlers! I figured it would keep any large wind gusts from blowing us away! It has chicken pieces and also chicken meatballs, a couple types of mushrooms, carrots, tofu, leeks and Chinese cabbage all simmering in a tasty broth! We ate the whole thing!
This is a crustless quiche I made. I used the oven setting on my microwave. It had mushroom, ham onion and cheese!
Finally, this is pork cutlets with grated daikon radish and a Japanese sauce on top, these were the best and I'll definitely make them again! I got this recipe from cookpad online!
Speaking of food, my dinner for tonight is ready so it's time for me to go! Hope you all had a great week!
Hi folks! Wow! This week has gone by fast! Today happens to be my second birthday! Thirty-four years ago I was a messed up teenager who gave her life to Christ and I can testify that it was the single best thing that I have ever done! Without Christ I would have been a messed up drunk because that is certainly the direction I was headed. Instead, Jesus rescued me and I have a wonderful husband and family. I have had a life full of blessings and adventure and have been given the opportunity to tell others about Jesus' goodness and saving grace so they can have hope for a better life here and eternal life later! We have been looking at another possible church building since we still haven't heard back from the other one. We need to keep our options open. I like the view at this building we looked at!
This building is on the 9th floor. After we went back downstairs I was looking at the mailboxes and discovered that the 10th floor is rented out by a Hamster!
On a side note, my local grocery store closed for remodeling for a few days so I had to make a longer bike ride to another store. It was alright though because it's nice to check out new stuff at another store once in a while. I noticed as I rode by on the bus today that my regular store has reopened so Yay! (The other store was twice as far away) Wednesday was Gary's birthday! We went out on the town to celebrate...okay we went to Ogikubo! This is funny because it's not one of the fancy neighborhoods people like to go to to celebrate stuff.
Actually, it's just a regular, little bit run down area but it has a nice mall and Gary liked the Seiyu there. Seiyu is the Japanese name for Walmart. While it is mostly Japanese stuff I can get some Great Value items, like cheese there and it's good for household things. Also, it's one of the few stores that I've found with clothing in my size. While I'm a size large in the States, here I'm a 3L! Might as well write Giant Amazon Woman on it in big letters! Before we headed to Ogikubo though we stopped and had soup at Tokyo Soup Company. Gary had a tomato lobster bisque while I had a desert style pumpkin soup.
I really enjoyed my pumpkin soup, it tasted like pumpkin pie!
After that we hopped on the train and went to Ogikubo. We shopped in the mall and bought a really cute teapot that matches some cups we had. We picked up a few things at the Seiyu and then went to the top floor to have some dinner at an Italian restaurant. (Most malls here have restaurants on the top floors.) Gary and I ordered mostly appetizers since they looked really good. We had escargot, grilled mussels and some delicious chicken wings! Gary also had a seafood pasta and I had a potato gratin dish. It was all very nice!
It was getting late by then so we came home and had birthday cake! Gary had put in a request for a pineapple upside down cake. I wasn't sure I could find the ingredients but I went to Kinokuniya,one of the fancier stores that carries some imported stuff, and found the cherries and cake mix there! I don't have an oven though so I had to hope the cake setting on my rice cooker would work and it did!
This week has been relatively uneventful, for me anyway. Gary has been working diligently on paperwork regarding this building we're hoping to rent for the church.
I have come to the conclusion that Japan is the inventor of paperwork! I confess to missing the days in Mexico when you'd just hand over a bundle of money and have a place to rent! Here it is all paperwork and guarantors and "how much noise will you make?" or "Maybe, you can just quietly play a guitar for your church service."
Apparently, Japan doesn't understand the meaning of Pentecostal! Lol! Oh well, needless to say Gary has had a "fun" week!
So, I haven't had a haircut in a year and Gary had seen a place that looked decent in Mitaka so I headed over there and amazingly the haircutting guy spoke pretty good English! That really helped! After getting it cut I thought I'd better dye all the gray out and as I had one package of dye I had brought with me from the States I thought I'd take care of it. Little did I know that Light Auburn Brown really means RED! (It's actually redder than it looks in this picture!)
The weather here has slowly been changing, still warm during the day but only in the '70's now instead of the '90's. And it's much cooler at night so we haven't been needing the air conditioner any more, yay! I only purchased summer bedding when we moved here so now that the weather is beginning to change I figured I'd better get ready ahead of time! I still haven't been able to find any flat sheets, apparently folks prefer to use fitted sheets and then a duvet on their blankets instead of flat sheets. Also, for some reason blankets and sheets here are terribly expensive, I know I'll buy some sheets on my next trip to the States! Fortunately, I don't anticipate needing as many blankets as last year since for some reason I'm just not feeling the cold like I used to... Lol!
On to food!
I've been feeling a little International this week and since the weather has been cooler I've been experimenting with some new recipes. I made Phillipine pork adobo one day. I just looked up a couple of different recipes online and kind of combined them so I don't have a recipe to post for it this time, but it was good and I'll make it again sometime! Also, I guess we were hungry because I forgot to take a picture..it looked like this though. I've never had adobo before but Gary has and he says it was good!
Then I was watching some youtube cooking videos and found a couple for Irish Colcannon. So in honor of my smidgeon of Irish blood thanks to my great-great Grandma, I made this recipe but added a sausage with it like they did in a different recipe I saw.
Here's the recipe if you want to try it, it's nothing fancy but was tasty and filling!
Yesterday, I returned to Japanese cooking and I tried two new recipes from the newly in English, Cookpad site. I made rolled pork with sweet potato. The sweet potato and pork together was actually a good combination.
Sticking with the "wrap things up in pork theme" I also made green beans and carrots wrapped in thin sliced pork and simmered in a sauce. This was quite delicious and it's an easy recipe.
Here's how they looked.
Finally, Japan is famous for it's different flavored KitKat bars. In the States we only have chocolate flavor but here there are many flavors. Since autumn has arrived the new flavor is Kabocha. Kabocha is like pumpkin or squash. I love Kabocha because it has a much milder flavor and a wonderful creamy texture when cooked so I thought I'd give the new KitKat a try.
Most of my readers may know the more recent me, in my initial post I talked about the last almost 30 years of my life and of the places I traveled and saw, but before those days I lived for 19 years growing up. I think some folks think that being called into the ministry or to the mission field is something impossible for them to do because their background isn't one of jet setting or money but I'm here to tell you my background wasn't either. While I was an AirForce brat and lived in New York, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Japan that was only until I was about 6 years old. After that, my Dad retired from the military and we moved to Eau Claire,Wi. for a couple of years and then we moved to Cleghorn, Wi. a town so small it was unincorporated and literally had more cows than people!
I grew up in this old farm house with 6 brothers and 1 sister. We had some dogs, cats and at different times we also had chickens, rabbits, pigs a duck and a pony! I spent my days playing Army in the woods with my brothers,climbing trees, or picking wild berries and asparagus. In the winter we built massive snow forts and tobaggoned down the hills on our property. We also ice skated on the creeks or down at the ice rink next to the grade school "in town". The last thing I ever imagined was that God could take somebody like me and throw her all over the world into different countries and major cities! I won't lie and say I don't miss the country life because I do, I'm a country girl at heart and probably always will be, but I also love serving God and meeting different people all over the place!
When Gary and I got married it was at the little country church I was attending.
This church was originally Pleasant Valley town hall and school. Eventually, the land it was on was bought by a farmer and he started a Bible Study and eventually it grew and we got a Pastor and Pleasant Valley Bible Church was started. (Cleghorn is in Pleasant Valley township) There was no indoor plumbing only an outhouse but it was where I spent my first years as a new Christian and I have very fond memories of our little church and the people that were in it! Unfortunately, as the years passed many of the older members passed away and the younger ones moved on to bigger churches in the city. Recently though, the building was donated as an historical site by the family who owned it, to the township of Pleasant Valley and they moved it to where Cleghorn Elementary School used to be, to be a part of the new Cleghorn Park. I found this link to a video of the move. As far as I know, Gary and I were the only couple married there. I have been asked to send them some wedding pictures but haven't gotten around to it yet. http://vimeo.com/49176071
Here's a few pics from where my old grade school was and is now the town park. Yes, I had a Huge playground, including a hill for sledding and an ice skating rink. Recesses rocked there! You can see the old church where I was married in the background since they moved it.
Farmers like their tractors!
You know you're a farming community when you see the competitions for Harvest Fest!
Anyway, there you have it, my country girl past! On to food!!!!
I've been trying some new recipes out lately. I tried this recipe by Maria on youtube. She's from Ecuador and it's her pollo seco recipe! It's super easy!
I didn't have any achiote or saffron (though I think it was turmeric she substituted) and I decided to add some sliced mushrooms just because I love mushrooms! Here's mine.
I was still feeling Lantina so then I made arroz con pollo with calabacitas on the side!
I thought I'd better do something Japanese so I made these little pork tsukune patties.
I got the recipe from here: https://en.cookpad.com/recipe/2190300 This site used to be only in Japanese but is now in English as well, I love it and it has LOTS of new recipes to try! Like today's chicken wings and Daikon radish recipe!
The hardest thing for me about living in a foreign country isn't the new language or different foods, it's being away from family. Especially, being far from my children. Especially being far from my children on their birthdays! Impossible though it seemed when they were growing up and our home was a cacophony of noise and action, my children have all grown up and moved out on their own. The house is quiet and Gary and I putter around like a couple of old people and while some of it is quite nice the other part of it isn't so much. We were never people who looked forward to school starting up again so we could send the kids off and get them out of our hair because we never considered our kids to be a burden. We homeschooled them all and were with them 24/7. They were our joy to have around and show the world to and we dragged them to different countries and cities with us and had a blast! Today is my youngest son's birthday, this is the first birthday in his life that we have missed being a part of. From the day his Daddy delivered him at home in Mexico, until now, we have always celebrated his birthday with him. Here he is celebrating a birthday in Pueblo, Colorado.
His very first Gameboy!
Here's one from his 13th Birthday in Panama
And finally,last year's birthday in Las Vegas, N.M.
Gary imitating the picture of his 1 yr. Birthday
Pizza Party!
Here's wishing I could be there with him to celebrate his 19th birthday and ride a hippo with him again!
So here's Part 2.
In the afternoon we had an appointment with our realtor guy. He's been trying very hard to find us a building to rent but it's very difficult to find a place willing to rent to a church so we need LOTS of prayers about that! However, he did find this place in Shibuya for us to see so off we headed! Though Shibuya is a ways from our house it's not hard to get there because there's a direct train from the Kichijoji station, so we just take our Mu bus there and hop on the train. Unfortunately, due to festivities and traffic our Mu bus was late! Me and this lady started chatting after Gary and I shared our umbrella with her when it was raining some. It was funny because we understood only a few words between us but even when the bus arrived she kept chatting with me as I sat next to her and laughing!
Also while I was standing there, the only Gaijin in sight, these two ladies pulled up on bicycles, one gets off and speaks to me in English and gives me a Watch Tower magazine in English! I got outreached by a JW! LOL! I remember when Gary and I lived in Caleta de Campos in Mexico, there was no running water or electricity but the Atalaya's (JW's) and Mormons had beaten the Evangelicals to that village! Shame on us!
So anyway, the bus arrived and we headed to Shibuya finally!
Here's the building we were looking at.
It's the space on the ground floor.
It has nice big windows and I like the face Gary is making at me! lol It's also got a bathroom and small kitchenette with a single burner.
We are still looking at a couple other properties this week I think (unless the owners change their minds about renting to a church) so hopefully we'll get something soon!
After we looked at the building, Gary and I decided to explore the neighborhood. It was busy celebrating festival too so we also managed to pick up a treat! Gary had grilled squid and I chose a strawberry sucker. The real fruit is dipped in the melted sucker sauce and as it cools it hardens so you eat the sucker and then have tasty fruit in the middle!
Here's a few more pics from the area.
This little girl was fishing out little plastic figurines , so many to choose from but she was only picking her favorite Doraemon!
This man was really cool, he shaped candy into Pokémon suckers! He was an artist!
I choose you Pikachu!
This guy is cooking Okonomiaki !
Lot's of folks out celebrating and wearing Kimonos!
When we got back to Shibuya Station we heard music and saw these dancers.
And this guy playing and singing too!
I'm not sure what this instrument is but he was rock'in it!
After that we caught our train and headed home! Our feet were sore from all the walking but it was worth it!
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