Interesting News

5.23.08

It was considerably hot outside today. I ate my lunch in the park under the partial shade of a tree. As I ate my rice and tomatoes, I watched the little ants scurrying around. I enjoyed watching them as the zipped up and down the blades of grass. They even tried to use my toes as a jungle gym.

I had some time to read the news tonight and found a few interesting articles:
1. In this article, researchers used social network models to show the effects of relationships between smokers and non-smokers: For Smokers, Quitting May Be Contagious

2. This article is about NASA's Phoenix probe that is due to land on Mars this Sunday night. The probe will be the first to explore a specific region of Mars for signs of early life: NASA's Phoenix Aims for Sunday Landing

In other news, I officially know and can write 30 kanji! Take care and enjoy the weather--rain or shine!




This is my 100th post! :)

Updates

5.21.08

I recently posted a few updates on some old blog entries. These updates include several new pictures and captions so please be sure to go back and take a look (Tokyo Disney and Surfing) .

Today was a beautiful day. I let all of my classes spend time coloring with chalk in front of the school for the last ten minutes of class. After we were finished drawing, we all washed the sidewalk together. It was fun! I thought I had better let them use the chalk now before the rainy season starts.

Karaoke & Cherry Picking

5.17.08

Lauren and I decided to do a bit of window shopping and karaoke today after work. We walked around Kaihinmakuhari and made our way to the new karaoke center that just opened up near the station. It was my very first time doing karaoke, and I must say, that I enjoyed it! Lauren did a really great job singing along to some Japanese songs. I, on the other hand, tried my best with the few Japanese songs I knew. I recognized and could sing along with the tune but it was difficult for me to read the at the appropriate speed. In terms of me studying Japanese, it was very good practice. We sang some a few songs in English too.

Lauren and I like eating ice when it's hot outside. Recently, Lauren discovered this flavored ice dessert that you can find in just about every convenient store; the one above is Sicilian Lemon flavored. The taste is strong but refreshingly crunchy.

"There's an Ice Box where [her] heart used to be. [It's] so cold..."

This is a picture of the karaoke room. I apologize for the poor image quality.

Lauren singing along to one of her favorite Japanese songs. :)

5.18.08

Today, Sunday, Hiroko invited me on a bus tour to the Yamanashi Prefecture along with her daughter and mother (She is 92 years old and still in amazing health!). I woke up around 6am and made my way to Tsudanuma station. We agreed to meet there around 7:15am. We boarded the bus promptly at 7:30am and were on our way. I was one of the youngest members on the trip as well as the only foreigner. Despite this contrast, I still enjoyed myself. By the end of the trip, I felt like the entire bus was one big, happy family.

For our first stop we went to this Japanese pickle factory.

One of the factory's specialties was kimchi (Korean spicy pickled cabbage). Since living here in Japan I have learned to love Korean food--kimchi included. Lauren also shares this passion for eating kimchi so I decided to buy a bit to fill our fridge at home. In this picture you can see a big Tupperware container of spicy kimchi sauce. The lady in the background is carefully pealing back all each cabbage leaf and brushing it with this liquid.

Hiroko is telling me that the pickled daikon (Japanese radish) is "oishii" (delicious). :)

Lunch Time

This area of Yamanashi is famous for hoto--a type of noodle--and some other foods. In this picture, I'm standing next to a giant vegetable dumpling.

Just a few minutes walk from the giant dumpling was this shrine.

Inside the shrine there was a beautiful waterfall.

Roses

At our final and most important stop we picked cherries. We took this old van halfway up the hill. I was a little bit nervous but the driver very kindly returned my wave as we were leaving to go home.

The cherry trees are kept inside netted greenhouses to keep the birds from eating the berries.

The area of Yamanashi that we visited is also famous for it's grapes and wineries.

We were allowed to eat as many cherries as we wished. Of course, we also bought a few packages to take home. It was Hiroko's job to pick cherries for her mother. After spending about a half an hour in the greenhouse, Obaachan was still asking Hiroko to pick more.

From left to right: Megumi, me, Hiroko, Obaachan (grandmother)

Japanese cherries are very light in color compared to American cherries but just as sweet. When I first looked at them I thought they were unripe and sour, but I was very wrong.

Interesting Robots

5.16.08

Japan is known for being one of the most technologically advanced nations. With that said, I have been reading and thinking about robots quite a lot lately. I found an article about Honda's (Honda is a Japanese company) ASIMO robot to discuss with with one of my older students. ASIMO recently appeared as a guest conductor for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

My good friend Jon Newman introduced me to another robot that was developed by Boston Dynamics--a MIT spin-off company. One of the most remarkable things this robot is able to do is to stabilize itself. We often take this type of behavior for granted, but being able to steady yourself in mid fall involves an incredibly integrated system of neurological and muscular control.

I wonder if we will ever have robots like Rosie Jetson in our lifetime.

Lots of Rain

5.14.08

The rain has been falling consistently for the past two days. Despite the gloominess of it all, I must remind myself that this type of weather is very beneficial for the plants and flowers. I think it got down to about 12 degrees C today, and if my conversion skills are correct, that would be about 53 degrees F.

I'm happy to report that my Anthurium looks as if it could be coming back to life. I don't want to say for certain just yet for fear that I will jinx it. For a short time, I was very worried that I had killed the poor little plant. I think there were two main causes for this concern: 1. the winter cold was very harsh on the plant 2. the plant had gone into some sort of "hibernation". A few of the leaves started turning brown so I decided to trim them. Despite the lack of stems before, my plant has currently sprouted several new shoots. I'm hoping that I will have a few bright pink flowers just in time for my mother's visit at the beginning of August.

My lessons went well today. In May and July, Lauren and I will be covering prepositions in our classes. This week I began teaching my students "in" and "on". Besides school activities, I'm planning to go on a cherry picking trip with Hiroko this coming Sunday. I promise to take many pictures. :)

Tokyo Disney Land

5.7.08

Lauren and I were talking and we had a hunch that today would be a perfect day to visit Tokyo Disney Land. The main reason behind this reasoning was the fact that many of the Japanese people would no longer be on Golden Week vacation; it ended the previous day for many of them. When we showed up at the entrance to the park, we were excited to find out that our hunch had been accurate! There were hardly any lines and the longest we waited for a ride was 30 minutes to get on Space Mountain!

Since it was the day after Golden Week, the entrance to the park looked like a ghost town.

Tokyo Disney Land is celebrating it's 25th year anniversary this season.

Lauren and I had Mickey waffles for brunch: strawberry/blueberry (left) and maple syrup (right).

Ascending the elevator to Space Mountain.

Lauren and I had fun trying to spin our tea cup as fast as possible. It's hard to spin the whell when your entire upper body is being pulled outward.

Tom Sawyer's Tree House

The Mother Earth Float with Pocahontas

The dancer's costumes in the parade were so vibrant and beautiful.

On this ride, I had a chance to fly my very own spacecraft; although, it only went up and down. :)

The Dream Lights Parade

The Toy Story float with the silly little Martians.

This Nemo float was one of my favorites.

Mary Poppins!

There were two cute little girls who sat next to me with their mother. I think they enjoyed the parade as much as I did.

The castle was also lit up for the parade.

Random Side Note: I must clarify that my previous trip had been to Tokyo Disney Sea and not Tokyo Disney Land. The parks are right next to each other but both is very different. According to Lauren (who is a Disney expert), Tokyo Disney Land is modeled after Disney Land in America while Tokyo Disney Sea is unique to Japan. Since I had never been to any of the Disney Parks before I came to Japan, I figured it was a good idea for me to see what both parks were like. Of course, Lauren didn't mind going as well. :)

Cooking with Ryo-chan!

5.10.08

Today was my first day back at work after a week long break. As much as I enjoyed the time off, it was also a relief to get back into my normal routine. It's strange to think that after today I will have exactly three months of classes left. It's amazing how quickly the time has passed.

Lauren's last lesson never showed so we could both leave together. We grabbed our umbrellas and head out into the rain to meet our friend Ryoji at the closest Starbuck's Cafe. Today he promised to cook dinner for Lauren and me. To be honest, Lauren and I had no idea what we were getting into, but when we tasted the final product, we were overwhelmingly convinced. Ryoji showed us how to make two dishes: seafood paila and avocado salad. Everything was honto honto oishii (very very delicious).

Ryoji and I are having a serious cooking conversation. This picture makes me laugh. :)

The main ingredients of the seafood paila are vegetables (green, yellow, red pepper, green peas, onion and garlic), seafood (shrimp and squid), broth and rice. The idea is to let it all mix together so that the flavors can infuse into everything. It reminds me of rice pilaf in that respect.

The finished seafood paila with extra decoration on top. All of the water/broth has been boiled away and it's ready to eat! :)

This avocado salad is one of my new favorites, and thanks to Ryoji, now I can make it myself! If you teach a man to fish, you have fed him for a lifetime, right? It's so easy to make this salad and the taste is so refreshing. The cucumbers are cool and crispy contrast to the smooth and creamy avocado. I hope my family will let me make if for them back home.

From left to right the avocado salad and the seafood paila. They are both so colorful and make such a beautiful contrast when put on the same plate together.

On another note, Lauren and I found these interesting flavored Jelly Belly's the other day at the large grocery store near our school. The grocery store has a large assortment of foreign goods at reasonable prices (sometimes).

Here is the 3x3 inch box of Bean Boozled Jelly Belly beans.

Please notice all the rather strange flavors.

Surfing in Chiba

5.5.08

Today I woke up at 5am in order to get everything ready for our two day surfing trip. Lauren had made egg salad the night before and I had set the rice cooker so the rice would be ready when we woke up at 5am. I jumped out of bed and started preparing our lunch. Lauren and I decided a few days ago that we would make sandwiches as well as our original rice balls made with egg salad in the middle. We call them tamago salada onegiri (egg salad onegiri). I tried to make them as perfectly triangle-shaped as possible. Lauren, who taught me how to make onegiri when we first arrived in Japan, was very proud. :)

After getting all the food ready, eating breakfast, and doing some last minute house cleaning were were out the door and on our way to Tokyo where we would meet up with all our friends at 7am: Ryoji, Chris, Mike, Mark, Christina, Tadao, and Fuyuki. Granted I only know about half of these people but I would soon meet the rest and get to know them. The nine of us eventually found each other and we piled into two cars. Lauren, Chris and I piled into Ryoji's big Toyota van and the rest piled into Tadao's cute, boxy Toyota station wagonish car. We were all on our way and making good time since we had to be in Ichinomiya for our surf lesson at 9:30am.

Ryoji at the wheel of his Toyota van.

Sheila and Lauren's Original Egg Salad Onegiri

Even downtown Tokyo is deserted at this early hour.

Rice Fields in Chiba

All the highways in Japan are toll roads. Here is one of the typical toll machines. There is also a Japanese version of E-ZPass but I'm not sure what they call it (maybe that's what ETC stands for).

First, we watched our teacher.

Then we practiced standing up on the board ourselves. Standing up and staying up is one of the hardest parts--in my opinion.

Sometimes you need to take a short rest.

The whole group (from left to right): Mark, Chris, Isamu (our teacher and the owner of the surf shop), Tadao, Fuyuki, Mike, Ryoji, me, Lauren, Christina.

Surfing gives you a very big appetite.

Here we are posing with our surfing instructor. He is also the owner of his own surf shop called P.D. Surf; we rented our gear from his shop. From left to right: Lauren, Mark, Isamu, and me.

P.D. Surf (P.D. stands for Positive Direction)

Our Japanese Style Hotel Room

This is the view from our hotel window. :)

For dinner we ate at this Okinawan style isakaiya called Monshichi. The food was very fresh and delicious. Lauren and I shared a salad, tempura, and some tofu that was freshly made by the restaurant.

Freshly Made Tofu

5.6.08

We had to check out of our hotel at 9am and afterward we headed back to the surf shop. Four of us wanted to try surfing today as well. It was slightly windy day but the sky was clear and bright. As the surfers set out for the ocean, Lauren, Ryoji and I took a trip to the grocery store to pick up some food for lunch. We were going to have a beach barbecue!

It was one of the first weekends of the surfing season as you can probably conclude by the number of cars lined up along the shore.

It was very relaxing.

Surfers waiting for just the right conditions.

Here is a surf board holder for your bike.

Mike is waxing up his rental board before heading out into the water. Waxing the board helps you maintain a grip while in the water--it makes it easier to stand up and stay on the board. If you look at the board Mike is no holding, you will notice a red and black logo in the center of the board. The logo consists of the letters P and D because the board was made by Isamu--the owner of the surf shop P.D. Surf and my surfing instructor (see picture above). P.D. stands for Positive Direction.

According to Mike, this is the "Surfer's Pose". From left to right: Christina, Mike, Fuyuki and Tadao.

While the four people above were out surfing, Lauren, Ryoji and I went shopping for the barbecue. We bought a lot of food to feed all nine of us.

Cutting all the food took some time. Do you like our cutting board?

Surfers

Waiting and Floating

Tadao and Mike

Ryoji came up with an ingenious idea for a barbecue. The grill consisted of a iron tray that was suspended over hot coals using two cinder blocks. We used rocks from the beach to wall up the other two sides of the fire and to keep in the heat.

Ryoji made Yaki Soba (fried wheat noodles with vegetables and a special Japanese sauce) on his grill.

Playing velcro catch with Lauren and Ryoji reminded me of my childhood.

One last goodbye before leaving Ichinomiya.