Basashi

Basashi means raw horse meat and yep - we tried it! 

 

There's a story that the castle of Kumamoto was under siege at one time and the residents resorted to eating their horses like they ate their fish - raw. Now, it is considered a delicacy and sometimes also called sakuraniku, pink cherry blossom.  We weren't sure if we wanted to try it, but while out on a date the other night we saw it on the menu and went for it. The dish we ordered came cold with some seaweed wraps, a sesame sauce and (as if the raw horse meat wasn't enough!) a raw egg on top. We asked the waitress how to eat it and she told us to stir in the egg, put the meat on a seaweed wrap and top with sauce. The meat was very tender and kind of sweet. Nathan was a big fan and ate most of it, and I did have one wrap just to try it. When in Japan, I guess!

Here are some of the other dishes we had during our fabulous meal. It was kind of like Japanese tapas where you order several small dishes and share. If you come visit, we will take you here because it was a great way to try many different things!

Udon noodles in a sauce similar to a carbonara. This dish also had the raw egg on top which you stirred in the hot pot to cook it a little.

Homemade dumplings filled with meat that came with a great dipping sauce.

Battered white fish was our only dish that tasted just so-so.

Tofu with kimchee. I loved it, but Nathan thought the tofu was too soft. It literally fell apart when we tried to pick it up with our chopsticks.

We thought it felt so funny eating barefoot in a public restaurant! Here are the shoe lockers by the entrance.

Overall it was a great meal and a great date!

Sports festival

Wilson's school, Kurinomi, had it's sports festival this Saturday and we had a lot of fun attending. The older kids put on a dance number to open things up and it was super cute. Above, they are hoisting up an Anpanman Japanese cartoon character. Below, Wilson and his classmates, the other red hats, are waiting for their events.

Wilson ran two races. In this video, he's on the left in the outside lane and the announcer is announcing each of the kids' names. The kids were raising their hands when their name's were called. The crowd is chuckling because Wilson is following the teacher and raising his hand for every name read.

Good job, Wilson!

Gift etiquette

  Etiquette for giving and receiving gifts in Japan has definitely enlightened us a little more on the ceremonial culture that we're in. You may remember when we first moved in how we brought gifts to the neighbors. This surprised us because in America it's usually the opposite that happens. There are a few other times when gifts are pretty mandatory.  Whenever you visit someones home, you should bring a gift.  When someone has a baby and you give a gift, the family will wait until the baby is a month old and then give small gifts to everyone who has wished their new baby well by giving a gift. We were very surprised when our neighbor (and new grandfather!), Yoshi, came to our door with a gift and told us this custom. Then we worried that his return gift was nicer than what we gave them originally!

The gift itself is almost less important that how the gift is wrapped and presented. To present a gift, you should always use two hands to show that the gift is worthy of being presented in a special way. You should always downplay how nice the gift is, by saying something like, "tsumaranai mon" which means this gift isn't much of anything. And you should never open gifts in front of the person who gave them to you.

There are also some don'ts in gift giving that we found kind of amusing. If you are visiting someone in the hospital you should bring flowers, but nothing with roots because that would symbolize the person growing roots in the hospital and staying there. Also, nothing should be mailed in a red envelope because those are reserved for funerals. White flowers are bad, because those are also used at funerals. Nothing should be given in the quantity of four or nine because those are considered unlucky, but gifts in pairs are considered lucky. Phew!

We've found - the hard way - that the Japanese are so kind and eager to not offend that we've been given a pass on the few etiquette rules that we've broken due to ignorance. We hope that when they're chuckling at our faux pas later that they know our intentions were good! I'm sure the teachers at Wilson's school wondered why I brought banana bread wrapped in one measly layer of saran wrap. And I'm pretty sure when we first met the neighbors I crudely handed them their chocolates with one hand. We're still learning and I'm sure we will be for our entire time here. Gift giving is just one of the many, many small customs and gestures of respect that the Japanese culture has.

To show you an example of how a nice gift would be wrapped here, I took pictures of the many layers of a gift we received from our babysitter (!) when she first came over.

Almost there!

Mmm, we finally made it to the Castella. This is a kind of cake that is a specialty of Nagasaki. Wilson, Leo and I really liked it!

Oniki Tanada Festival

The Oniki Tanada Festival is held every year on the first day of autumn. Oniki Tanada are the terraced rice paddies in a town about 30 minutes east of Sasebo called Hasami.  The festival is a celebration of fall and the main event is a scarecrow contest. We saw a few dozen scarecrows but there had to have been at least 100 on the winding streets through the paddies.

 

Here is my favorite scarecrow with the festival in the background.

 

There were lots of Olympic themed scarecrows. Most had a picture of the actual athlete who won beside them.

 



I liked this group of 3 because of the scarecrow tending her field in the background.

 

There was a voting booth set up to see which scarecrow was the winner. We weren't around until the end when they announce it, but I'd love to find out which one won.



 

 

The Hasami area was just beautiful! There were many waterways like this one that ran down the mountain. You can see some of the terraced rice paddies, too.

 



 Leo posed with a fan.

 

 

We had some homemade Udon noodles for lunch - yum!

 

 

This is how you eat Udon if you're one.

 

 

Thanks Oniki Tanada, we'll be back next autumn!

 

 

Auggie's home!

 The last few months have been a little rough for our sweet cat...

 

 

...but her ordeal is over now and we've got some serious petting and over-feeding ahead of us to make up for lost time!

 

Friday was Auggie's last day of her four month quarantine. It was a short reunion because we had to bring her immediately to her declawing appointment. Part of our lease agreement says that we're only allowed to have a cat if it is declawed, which Auggie wasn't. We think the appointment went well but there was a language barrier there. The only thing the vet told me when I picked her up was, "Cat is too fat." I made a few jokes about her being an American cat so of course she's fat that didn't seem to translate. Then I got serious and tried to blame her extra pounds on the fact that she's been cooped up in a kennel for 4 months - even though I think we can all agree she's always been big boned :) I'm assuming everything with the paws was okay?

 

Once home, she quickly got into the first box she saw and I was relieved to see her back to her old ways. The boys and I had a talk about how Auggie was a little sick and fragile and they've been super sweet with her. Wilson has been especially cute tending to her needs.

 

 

This morning we got an early wake up as we heard both kids barreling down the hall to go say good morning to Auggie. Wilson told me he helped Leo get out of his crib because they wanted to see her. While I'm a bit concerned that Leo can now escape from his crib, I mostly just thought it was pretty darn sweet that the boys love Auggie so much. The boys settled in with Auggie on the couch and didn't want to come downstairs for breakfast. So we had some good dry cereal, cartoons and Auggie time this morning.

 

 

We're in for a week of antibiotics, a good brushing and a little TLC to help Auggie transition to our house. We're happy to have her home and I promised her I would post a good pic of her once her bandages are off and her coat is shiny again.

 



Super Typhoon Sanba

 We had our first major typhoon here this weekend when Super Typhoon Sanba blew in from the south on it's way to South Korea. Typhoons are the same as hurricanes, so we knew a little bit about what we were in for. The main action hit on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning. The base sent the ships to sea, because I guess they're safer there than in port when a big storm hits. They also closed the schools and stores for Monday and Nathan got the day off.

We had a fun weekend despite the lousy weather and had some friends over Friday night, hiked around Mt. Eboshi Saturday and went the the aquarium Sunday morning before the typhoon hit.

Everyone on the base was very serious about getting preparations together. Nathan and I prepared by getting some bottled water, making sure we knew where the flashlights were and securing our patio chairs and umbrella - which did nearly blow away on Sunday!
 

The Typhoon did hit Sunday night and there was a lot rain and wind. The boys' room has a lot of windows and no house next door, so the wind was pretty loud in there. We had to go in a few times when it woke them up. By Monday morning, it was still pretty windy, but we didn't see any damage other than a few branches.

By Monday afternoon we felt pretty stir crazy having been cooped up, so we had fun getting out to take a walk in the drizzle.

 

Wilson was a pro at puddle jumping and Leo caught on pretty quick!

Besides our fun walk, our Typhoon experience wasn't very exciting. We did a lot of this...

 

..and this.



 

And were grateful the 'Super Typhoon' didn't turn out to be that scary after all. Now when do we get some good weather around here?

First day of preschool

Oh, the nerves..

 

..and the excitement!

 



 

Wilson had his first week of preschool this week and he is loving it! You may remember a little about Kurinomi yochien from my previous post, Choosing a preschool. They've been doing fun stuff all week. Wednesday was his weekly swimming lesson which he loved. On Thursday they had a special shopping day where they pretended to be customers and shopkeepers and went shopping in their classroom. I love that the teachers greet him each day with a big smile and a hug and at the end of the day there are more hugs and sayonaras and high fives. It's just the kind of positive place I wanted for him. His school day is from 10-2:30 every day which I think is pretty perfect because Leo and I still get our Wilson time in the mornings and afternoon.

 

The week was a quick progression in good feelings toward school. Tuesday was his first day and there were tears all around. The first were from Wilson when Leo and I left, then Leo started up and was patting Wilson's car seat as we drove away and that's what put me over the edge. It got better every day, and today when I dropped him off he gave me a smile and said, 'Bye Mom, see you when you come back!'  Perfect!

 

Leo's been acting like the big cheese on errands while Wilson's at school so I think he's enjoying the few hours in the spotlight. When we pick Wilson up from school the boys get pretty giggly playing together for a bit - I compared it to when dogs see each other at a dog park and get all jumpy and excited to someone yesterday and they gave me a funny look, but that's kind of what they're like!

 

 

Every day, the teachers write down what he did, how he ate and napped and stuff like that. This is what it looks like.

 

 

The assistant principal, who speaks really great English, always comes out to meet us and translates the notes for me so I know how he did. So far they say he's happy, relaxed, naps well and has been eating about half of his Japanese lunch every day. Friday is 'happy lunch' day, so I sent him PB & J from home.

 

Here are some of his school supplies. They fill up the water bottle with green tea or water during the day. Notice the chopsticks in between the fork and spoon. They sent a picture of him using them the first day and it looked like he was pretty much just stabbing the rice.

 

 

Here is a washcloth they use at lunch. I had to be told to send it wet every day because I'd never seen these before.

(They were out of Thomas so cutie Hello Kitty it is!)

 

 

And here's a book with some pictures that gets sent home every day.

 

 

The language hasn't been a big issue for him. The teachers said that he is following directions and doing what the other kids do. Thursday at dinner I asked him a question and he answered, 'hai' which means yes in Japanese. Nathan and I were pretty shocked!

 

We're so happy that Wilson likes his school and pretty proud of the little guy, too.



Fukuoka

For our Labor Day weekend, we decided to go on our first overnight trip since we've been here. We were a little weary of going too far because Typhoon Bolaven made last week's weather here really crummy and rainy. So, we decided to go to Fukuoka, which is about 2 hours northeast of us and the biggest city on our island of Kyushu. We were kind of bummed that we couldn't go someplace further, but we ended up having a great time on our mini-vacation.

 

We were happy that the boys (Leo!!) were pretty much angels the whole trip. It makes a drive much more enjoyable when I'm not turned around most of the time trying to entertain a screaming little guy. We had a bad couple hours a few weekends ago driving home from a beach day at Karatsu, but he's been good ever since so we're hoping he's beginning to enjoy our drives.

 

This is what a good road trip looks like.

 

 

 

We decided to take the long way up to avoid the outrageous tolls in at least one direction. We were happy about doing this because it took us through some towns that we haven't been to yet. Saga was our first stop a few hours in to the drive. We saw our first castle ruins there.

 

 

 

Wilson storms the castle wall! That was about as far up as he got.

 

 

Our next stop was at a shrine in Dazaifu which is about 20 minutes south of Fukuoka.  It was really a neat area with bright orange Japanese bridges, koi ponds, entertainers, a wonderful shopping area with tori arches down the whole street and a very peaceful Buddhist Temple a 5 minute walk from the shrine. We spent a few hours walking around and really enjoyed the area.

 

 

 

 

 

This was a kind of water trough where you helped yourself to ladles of cool water. It was a nice respite from the heat. After watching some people to learn how to do it, the boys got some water before entering the shrine.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the koi pond that the boys could have spent an hour at. There was a service going on in the main building behind the boys and behind them to the left is the paper wish lines. We paid our 100 yen and made a wish!

 

 

After the shrine, we headed to the shopping district.

 

 

Here was a store that sold only chopsticks. Nathan found a 2 pair set for $180!

 

 

Here is the Buddhist Temple that was off the beaten track.

 

 

After Dazaifu, we headed into Fukuoka and found our hotel for the night. We were in the Hakata area of the city, which is the original and oldest part. We had fun walking around a bit and then got some takeout Japanese and took it back to the room. The room was quite small, but Nathan and I had fun wearing the kimono type robes and slippers they had laid out for us.

 

The next day we did a little driving tour around the city. We were really impressed with how nice the city was. There is really great shopping there and I know you've heard it before about big cities in Japan - It was so clean! Tenjin looked like a neat area for shopping and the Fukuoka Tower was a cool skyscraper.

 

After our driving tour, we headed toward the Fukuoka Dome neighborhood to catch a Softbank Hawks professional baseball game.

 

Here is a picture of the boys playing with the Fukuoka Dome in the background.

 

 

The game was fun. It was different from games we've been to because there is constant cheering. I imagine the Japanese must get bored when they go to American baseball games because at their games they have a pep band and are always yelling some cheer. The boys both got naps in at the game - I think the constant chanting actually lulled them to sleep. We had fun even though it was a Hawks loss.

 

 

Here was a cute fan out front.

 

 

After the game we went back to the hotel and went for a walk. We stumbled on an amazing indoor/outdoor mall called Canal City. I didn't have the camera, but it was pretty amazing. There was a concert going on while we were there, too. Here is the web page. If you scroll down, you can see some pictures - it was pretty wild! http://www.canalcity.co.jp/eg/concept/index.html#c_01

 

The next morning we hit IKEA for some finishing touches for the house. I love that place! We took the expressway home and paid about $50 in tolls, but made it home in half the time it took us to drive there on back roads. Overall, it was a great weekend and we're excited for the next time we get to go to Fukuoka!