Tan Tan

One of my friends who frequently updates his own blog feels that I don't make enough posts to this blog. So, here is a post about my weekend, dedicated to this friend.

When I first came to Japan, in high school, I imaged Japan as a country with two regions: the Tokyo area, which was extremely densely populated and technologically modern, and the rest of the country, which was made up of sparsely populated villages that hadn't changed in 700 years.

And when I found out I was going to be staying in Fukuoka, on a whole different island from Tokyo, I figured that we would be catching our own fish in ancient nets and harvesting rice in ancient costumes. Of course, Fukuoka ended up being a gigantic city, and I ended up having a great time anyway. My host sister from Fukuoka, Ryoko, is getting married in Tokyo on November 4, and I am excited to attend my first Japanese wedding.

Unlike my first Japanese experience, two of my friends in Tsukuba (both Canadian), started in Japan teaching English in a very rural city in Fukushima prefecture. This weekend there was a big party there, and my friends brought a bunch of Tsukuba folks to attend. The party is in a huge house called "Tan Tan." About 50 people attended, and there was music and very tasty food.

The next day after the party, our friends took us on a hike, to a very good restaurant, and to a onsen resort. One of my friends has put some pictures here, and here are a few of my pictures form the weekend:

A Discovery

I just discovered that the Choco-cro at Akihabara (my transit point in Tokyo) has free wifi. Great! I am doing some work here now, waiting to go to a reception at the U.S. Embassy tonight. It will be my first trip to the Embassy, and I am even wearing my suit.

Actually, my recent sale of the beast, combined with a heavy rainstorm, put me in a strange situation this morning. I ended up biking to the train station in my suit (7-8 minutes away), with an umbrella in one hand. A man in a suit with an umbrella biking is a fairly typical scene in Japan. What made the scene less typical was that I was also wearing my bright red children's bicycle helmet, and a backpack.

The new shape of this blog

Is just me reporting on my weekends, apparently.

So, here’s what I did:

On Saturday, SYL’s college had an architecture walking tour of downtown. The tour was led by a person who is on the architecture review board for the city, so we definitely got a lot of history and information. It was great and I learned a lot.
Although not on the tour, this is the new downtown library. I’ve never been in there, though.

Totem pole downtown

Historic marker

This is actually the door of the building that housed Seattle’s stock exchange. Who knew Seattle had a stock exchange, right? Well, when this building opened, it was actually the largest exchange (square foot-wise) in the country. Unfortunately, it opened in 1929 which was not, uh, the most auspicious year to open an exchange.

Also, I learned that it is important to look up at the molding on the buildings when in downtown Seattle. One building has walruses on it, and this building has busts of Chief Seattle.

On Sunday, I went to see the movie Quinceanera. I would totally recommend this movie – the characters are fairly complex, the story is well-written and keeps unfolding, and I think it’s a good glimpse at teenage life.

Afterwards, I had dinner with Scott and Meredith at their new house.

Weekend round-up, redux

Another pretty decent weekend.

Started the weekend off nicely with a picnic in the park for lunch on Friday. I got carry-out from one of the yummiest places around, Paseo, and took it to Green Lake for a lazy afternoon at the park. Lunch was great, Green Lake was lovely, and it was so nice to sit outside and read my current book (an absolute must-read, by the way). Friday night I had dinner with my friend Amy on her forested balcony. Amy also helped me get going on double-pointed needles again (I mean, after Lisa showed me last month. I’ve heard it takes seven times of looking a foreign language word up in the dictionary before you truly learn it. So, extending the same principle, I’ve still got a ways to go . . . .). My goal is to knit my first ever sweater (the photo is the same pattern that I intend to knit, but in a different color. I found this on some random person's blog. My actual mileage my differ). This sweater will be for a friend’s baby who is due on October 20th. Ever realistic, my goal is actually to get the sweater done this calendar year.

Saturday I went kayaking with SYL and her novio, K2J (Is this getting boring? Are you bored? Look at the pictures! Well, except that there are no pictures of this portion of the weekend). We rented the kayaks over on the eastside and took them up the Mercer Slough. This was not amazingly scenic, although we did see tadpoles and turtles, not to mention the back of many an office park and the underside of several freeway overpasses, but it was great to be out on the water on such a beautiful day. I also picked A LOT of blackberries, since you could just kayak up to the bushes that hung out over the water. And those bushes were loaded with berries. As it turns out, there is actually a reason that those bushes have so many berries: it is not, um, easy to pick berries in while kayaking. In fact, it is a rather fine line between picking berries successfully and being punished for one’s berry-picking greed by either running the kayak (and yourself) straight into the thorns of the berry bushes or tipping the kayak over in an attempt to get that one super-plump, really ripe, absolutely delicious berry just beyond arm’s reach. After stuffing myself with berries, we kayaked back, drove home, cleaned up, and had a decent pizza (complete with pineapple!) at Piecora’s.

Sunday was another great day. Let me just say that I am so glad I have all these friends inviting me out places, since, without them, I would totally become the reclusive cat lady. With 37 cats. And I don’t even like cats. On that note, yes, Sunday . . . . I went over to Jen Em’s house to play with the best dog in the world (see proof below) and to garden a little.That is actually an official American Kennel Club stuffed duck.

I had a super-yummy breakfast, complete with rosemary potatoes with fresh rosemary from the garden, cooked by Jen Em’s boyfriend. Then we planted the new plants that Jen Em had bought. All I can say is that it sure is easy to plant plants when someone else digs the holes for you! Jen Em also sent me home with fresh basil from her garden. I think I might make a tomato mozzarella salad today with this.

Sunday afternoon I went hear the Yarn Harlot speak. This was definitely a new experience. Here are some things that won’t surprise you about this talk: nearly the entire audience was female; almost everyone was knitting while she waited, and about 80% of the audience kept knitting once the talk started; hand-made felted bags were VERY popular; and nearly everyone wanted to get her book signed and show her project (that, of course, she was wearing) to the author. Here are some things that surprised me: for some people, this was like a church-meeting-meets-coming-home-ceremony – people nodded their heads fervently and pumped their firsts in the air. I think I might have even heard an “amen” once or twice. I also heard a middle aged woman say, “I hate the weekends, because she never writes on her blog on the weekends.” Sister-friend, weekends are NOT for hating. You need to get a life. Your OWN life. There was a woman there with a large strange wooden contraption for unwinding thrift-store sweaters so she could re-use the yarn for new knitting projects. This is weird, but, whatever, you can own whatever kind of big thing you want, but do you gotta bring it out public?

Anyway, the talk was pretty fun. I definitely felt like the lamest and beginner-est knitter there. For example, my friend Amy is knitting the most beautiful lace shawl. Ever. I am not really knitting anything, just practicing on double-pointed needles so that I feel confident enough to begin my first sweater. Um, yeah. On the plus side, I am now in the possession of a dirty knitting joke. Just ask.

We, too, met the author and got our books signed.In Amy’s hand is one of many socks she is knitting. These are socks in the colors of the Cleveland Browns football team. It is possible that just because of these socks, the Cleveland Browns will now win the Super Bowl.

Reunions

Wednesday was a big day here for seeing out of town folks.

First, I had lunch with our friends from Japan, Daisuke, Chie, and Nagu. Nagu has grown so much! He remains, of course, super-cute!And then I had dessert Wednesday evening with a childhood friend of Mike's who now lives in Boston. Although there was no actual baby at this event, we did get to hear a lot about this friend's baby. The baby seems very sweet. Alas, there are no pictures of this event because, although I brought my camera, I forgot to use it.

Selling a car in Japan

So, I just sold The Beast. I went to one used car dealership, got an offer of around $300 (which isn't THAT much less than I had bought it for). The guy who looked at the car didn't seem to look very carefully, and he could well have been drunk. But just to be safe, I went to another place. At place number two, they were much more thorough, examining my car carefully and what I assumed to be the Japanese version of the blue book. And they made a counteroffer of $0. I took the first offer.

My Weekend

Was, really, pretty good.

Saturday I went blueberry picking with Scott and Meredith. I had no idea that you could do this (almost) within the city of Seattle, but you can.Also, blueberries are quite labor-intensive to pick. Now I really understand why they cost so much in the store. But it was really fun to pick them. Best, the organic farm had several different varieties growing, so I felt like I had a really interesting mix of blueberries.What to do with all those berries except make a pie, of course? So I did, with the help of SYL.We used the lemony-blueberry pie recipe from this book, and it was delicious. Cooking Light magazine also had a big feature on blueberries in the July 2004 issue (funny how I have almost no memory of that issue!) with recipes like blueberry gingerbread cake, spiced blueberry muffins, and blueberry pumpkin coffeecake. I didn’t have enough blueberries leftover (see first sentence in paragraph above) to make any of these things, but they also seem very tasty.

Sunday, after doing my half-marathon training run, I hit the Fremont Sunday Market with SYL and Kris. This market is much tamer than Pike Place. It also tends more toward gifts, jewelry, clothes, and furniture and less toward produce and fish. There are still flowers, however.

I bought these rainboots at the market today. I had seen them there before I went to San Diego, and I just couldn’t get them out of my head. Every time I look at them, they make me really want to smile! I’m not sure, however, that they are appropriate for wearing to high school teaching. Luckily (?), it, uh, rains on the weekends here, too.

Lovely Monday at the Park

On Monday I neither had to nanny nor work at my (now not-so) new job. At first, I was at loose ends, since everyone I knew was busy.

But then I had a wonderful idea! Where else could I go to entertain myself but the dog park? So I stopped at the local organic grocery store and picked up a couple of salads for a picnic, took my plastic mat to sit on, the Sunday Times magazine (with the crossword, of course), and my colored pencils for sketching.

I sat down by the water and ate my lunch – in the part of the park where the dogs aren’t as welcome. After lunch, while I was reading the magazine, I started to feel like I really wanted some dessert. I had neither bought nor brought any dessert, so I was stuck. Then—like in a movie—I heard the jingle of the ice cream truck. This was just too perfect! It was one of those cute little old mail jeeps that had been converted into an ice cream truck. Amazing! And it even had ice cream sandwiches, possibly one of the best foods on earth.

After dessert, I hung out down by the water a little more. I tried to sketch a little, but my colored pencil set lacked dark green, dark blue, and gray. So, uh, not an ideal set for sketching in the Northwest.

After giving up on the art, I walked over to the leash-free part of the park. I love this dog park because the leash-free area actually goes right down to the water, so you can watch the dogs swimming in Lake Washington. And there were a lot of dogs there!On my way back to my car, I picked some of the amazing blackberries growing in the park. So delicious! I’m supposed to go berry picking this weekend with some friends, so hopefully there’ll be a pie picture here soon!

I exist again!

I finally have internet! I can’t believe it’s been so long, but now I finally have non-work access on my own computer.

I’ll share some pics of the new place soon, but first I want to hang some of our framed pictures and do some more tidying up.

In the meantime, I’ll tell you about my trip to San Diego last week.

It was nice to be back there, after having been gone for almost for a year (I was thinking that the original title of this post would be “Palm trees! Mission architecture! The beach!”). I did see plenty of those things, too. I also spent some good time hanging out with my mom and brother, my grandparents and with our good family friends, the Sowells. I ran on the beach twice, ate Mexican food, and visited my favorite coffeehouse, the Pannikin.

And, yes, I took pictures. To supplement the above narrative, here are some shots.

Beautiful downtown La Jolla the morning of my much-dreaded dentist appointment (everything was fine):My grandmother’s famous quesadillas:My grandfather’s birthday shortbread (baked by Eric and me):My mom and brother in front of my mom’s new oven (for the eagle-eyed, those are, indeed, cupcakes in the oven! Yum!)Tapas dinner made by good friend Robyn and her boyfriend, Andreas. This food was so good – this picture really doesn’t do it justice:Various shots taken around Balboa Park and in the botanical house there:My brother and dinner:My grandmother and her fig (homegrown, that!):I also cooked a nice lunch for a little party with my grandparents and my great aunt Toni. I made curried cold zucchini soup and macaroni and cheese (from scratch!), and cooked stone fruit cobbler.The macaroni and cheese was a lot of work, but since I changed the recipe and used gruyere cheese, it had a nice taste that differed from the ordinary box (cheddar cheese) kind. The cobbler was okay – I didn’t have my recipe for the crust, and I used fruit that my grandmother had already cooked down, so it was a bit of a hodge-podge. BUT, if you like curry and zucchini, I do recommend the above recipe. It’s pretty easy, makes a lot, and is very healthy.

I also went to a meeting of the San Diego Cactus and Succulent Society with my grandmother. This was a whole new subculture for me. There were several people (as in, more than one person) wearing shirts that read “Got Cactus?” And when someone was asked to define what a succulent was, she said, “a succulent is a plant grown by people who love succulents.” That got a big laugh from the audience. This plant was on display there; I am not sure if it is actually a cactus or a succulent, but it was very pretty.

Fireworks, Moving, and Matsuris

Hello! A lot has happened since my last post. First of all, I moved into a new apartment. It is a great location, very clean, and a lot of my friends (and even two my my professors) live here. However, the house where Kate and I lived had four bedrooms, and this apartment is a studio which, all and all, is smaller than any one bedroom in our former house. I am perfectly comfortable in this size space, but I still have way too much stuff! So, I will hold off posting pictures until I have found a way to get rid of all the extra stuff -- probably until next week.

Also, summer fireworks shows are a big deal in Japan, and I have attended two in the past two weeks, lasting a grand total of 3 hours. And in both places, I had a connection which enabled me to watch the show from a comfortable apartment balcony, instead of jammed in with the thousands and thousands of people on the street. One of these fireworks shows was in Asakusa, a famous Tokyo neighborhood, and I watched it at my friend's nice apartment. The other festival was a part of the activities for the Tanabata Matsuri (festival) in Sendai which I watched with my friends Chie and Daisukes' families.

I went to Sendai this past weekend on the very generous invitation of my friends. In addition to watching the fireworks, we also walked around the festival in traditional Japanese yukatas, and ate delicious food prepared by Chie's mother. I wore tall "geta" sandals.





Nagu had a great time. He seemed to be particularly thrilled to have the opportunity to play with his older cousin, Yu-kun.





During the festival these streamer-type decorations are put up all over the city. No one was able to tell me why, although Chie thought it might have something to do with their resemblance to the Milky Way.




This sign says:
"The booth for fixing yukatas that have come unfastened." The booth is run by the "Association for the Spread of an Ethnic Clothing Culture."

Moving

is really no fun.

This past week, we both moved into out new places. I'll let Mike talk about his new digs.

As for me, I've carried in all the boxes, but unpacked nothing yet - fun for the weekend!

I hope to have internet soon, so that I can share some pictures of the interior.