Christmas 2014

We really love Christmas around our house and do our best to make it traditional and festive for ourselves as well as the kids. This requires a little bit more effort on our part since we live in a country where basically all Christmas amounts to is seeing really badly decorated trees, eating fried chicken and tasteless cake, and hearing Wham's "Last Christmas" played a million times.

Two years ago we bought a large artificial tree (well, large for Japanese standards since the trees here are usually only about a meter tall) and the kids "helped" set it up at the beginning of December. We spent a few days in December whipping off batches of cookies in our new oven. In previous years I had been baking cookies 6 at a time in our tiny microwave/oven combo and it took me forever to get any amount of cookies baked. It was wonderful to have 4x the baking capacity this year!

We also went to a few Christmas parties in the middle part of December which were kind of hectic but fun for the kids.

William, who I think was intending on a peace sign, at the Fukuyama Foreign Association Christmas party

Rosie checking out the little tree at our church Christmas party

Opening a present from Santa at the church Christmas party

Winter break began for the kids and I on December 22nd. Dustin's winter holidays usually only begin around the 28th, but he always takes at least Christmas day off. We spent the days before Christmas going on exploratory bike rides, going to a train show, and trying to keep warm.

Checking out Bingo Honjo station from the wrong side of the tracks

William the conductor

Playing with electric trains

An exceedingly hairy looking Dustin and a rare Fukuyama snow.

Here's my little bit of whining: I managed to feel sick on and off all winter break. All I wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep off the headaches, congestion and coughing but a mother doesn't exactly have the luxury of being out of commission during the holidays. Instead I just went through the motions in a kind of a sickly daze and hoped that everyone was enjoying themselves more than me. Dustin was nice enough to wake up at the crack of dawn with Rosie every day so that I could get an hour or two more sleep each morning.

On Christmas Eve we brought the kids to the zoo only to find out that they were randomly closed for the day. There is an awesome playground next to the zoo so we just let the kids spend the afternoon running around there instead. Compared to some of the seriously sketchy playgrounds in our area this one is amazing.

いないないばあ!

William on a classic rolly tube slide

And Rosie watching

I am not sure if this will become a permanent family tradition for us, but for the last few years we have designated Christmas Eve as our Japanese Christmas dinner day and Christmas Day as the typical western holiday cuisine day. Last year we had nabe on Christmas Eve this year we went all out with fried chicken, pizza, and the best part of Christmas cake: strawberries. 

The children then spent the rest of the evening decorating sugar cookies for Santa and writing a letter to go with them.

Cookie decorating time

They got jealous of Santa's spread and needed their own glass of milk and cookies before going to bed

Once the kids were asleep we finished up a bit of wrapping and pulled the presents from their hiding places to go under the tree. 

 And the next morning:

William showing off the book given to him by his kindergarten.

Theo helping Rosie open up her present.

William and his walkie talkie with ecstatic Theo in the background.

 I spent the rest of the day in a sick but industrious cloud baking a turkey and pies, making stuffing mashed potatoes, and all the lovely veggies.

This was just the beginning of our holidays and I will hopefully find the time to write about the rest of it soon. I also noticed that there were no pictures of Bosco or me from Christmastime, and since this post is so picture heavy already, here is a token selfie and a cute picture of our lavender pooch soaking in some winter sunshine.

The Flavours of Autumn

Did you notice that I neglected autumn in my post about the seasonal flavours of Japan? I enjoy fall foods so much that I thought I would give them a whole post to their lonesome. When I think of autumnal foods, the first things that come to mind are pumpkin, apples, cinnamon, corn on the cob, and traditional Thanksgiving food. In Japan, fall brings with it a whole slew of delicious seasonal treats. There are all sorts of delectable yam, chestnut, and pumpkin goodies. Here are a few sweet snacks in flavours that you can only come across during the fall: 

A maple flavoured version of the normally chocolate biscuit bamboo shoots

A chestnut version of the normally chocolate biscuit mushrooms. These were so good!

A purple yam  and black sesame flavoured version of the normally chocolate biscuit bamboo shoots

Pumpkin pudding Kit Kats

Another food that is representative of autumn in Japan is a thin silver fish called sanma, or Pacific saury. They cost only about 100 yen a fish in this season and are served grilled with grated daikon,  and soy sauce. This fish is one of the numerous reasons that fall is my favourite seasons for food in Japan. It is just so amazingly good! 

This year we had (maybe a new tradition?) a Japanese style autumn feast and of course invited our friends the Oshimas to join us. We barbecued sanma, and made a huge pot of miso soup, steamy rice, and chestnut pumpkin cake for desert. 

Sanma, cut in half and popped on the barbecue. That lone little
pork cutlet was for Dustin, who really only eats fish when
it is absolutely necessary or battered and deep fried. 

Usually sanma is grilled whole, with the head on, and not gutted. Mrs. Oshima wasn't sure the kids would be too fond of that, since the guts are pretty bitter, so she beheaded them, cut them in half, and gutted about half the fish for the boys. I tried one with the guts but found them to be so taste smotheringly bitter that I couldn't enjoy the mild fish flavour at all. I ended up joining the boys eating their gutless ones. Maybe one day I'll learn to eat what the grownups are eating!

A close up of the beauties

All crisp and ready to eat. 

Fish is one of Theo's favourite foods. He really anticipated this meal!

Rosie didn't know what she was missing

But at least she didn't miss out on a good opportunity to have a nap in the cozy arms of Obaasan

Another, not to be forgotten, star of the fall foodscape is the mushroom. Japan in autumn is the place to be for mushroom lovers. There are so many varieties and they so inexpensive that there is no reason no to eat them all the time. I think I could eat them for every meal! 

Toothless Wonder

Last week, our house had its first visit from the tooth fairy. Even though we had talked with Theo about how baby teeth loosen and fall out and adult teeth replace them he was still pretty panicky when he felt that first wobble. It wasn't until we reminded him of the tooth fairy that he seemed to settle down and get excited about his tooth coming out.

Being a third child, I knew the drill by the time I was five or six years old. If a tooth feels wobbly, you wiggle that sucker, to the point of pain, almost constantly until it falls out. It would take about three days, tops. Meanwhile, Theo's tooth took about two weeks before it finally fell out since he almost never wiggled it. Toward the end I started reminding him every evening to twist and loosen the tooth and eventually it came out.

Traditionally, children in Japan throw bottom baby teeth on to the roof and top baby teeth underneath the house. The children are told that this helps their teeth grow up or down straight. We felt it seemed a bit unmagical and, judging by a lot of the teeth we see, pretty ineffective so we opted to go the way of the tooth fairy.

Theo lost his tooth right before bed and placed it excitedly in an envelope under his pillow. In a sudden bout of paranoia, he made us remove the ladder up to his bunk bed so that William wouldn't climb into his bed in the middle of the night and put the envelope somewhere that the fairy couldn't find it. Later that evening, Dustin and I had to figure out an appropriate amount of money to give him. I remember getting about 25 cents per tooth when I was little and Dustin doesn't remember ever getting anything for his teeth. That could be a product of his very leaky memory or maybe his parents didn't do the tooth fairy thing. We finally settled on 100 yen (about 1$ Canadian) as an appropriate amount considering inflation in the past 25 years. Apparently a lot of parents back home are paying quite a bit more for their children's teeth, but since Theo doesn't really have anyone here to compare to, he'll never know!

Tanuki

Wherever you go in Japan, you are sure to see a tanuki, or raccoon dog. In the city you will find little (or not so little) statues at every turn and if you stay up late enough in the county you might even get to see the real thing (Nyctereutes procyonoides).

Even though this animal actually exists, the tanuki is also popular character in Japanese folklore and legends. He is a magical, shapeshifting, trickster but cheerful and lovable none the less. He also plays music by drumming on his giant belly. Stylized ceramic statues of tanuki can be found peeking out at you from gardens and doorways and are supposed to bring you good luck and prosperity.

A tanuki statue usually has eight lucky attributes which are shown in this picture:

I find it very funny that they decided to go with the word "blob" instead of "ginormously oversized scrotum".

I have heard tanuki translated directly into raccoon time and time again and I know a few people that think they are the same as the North American raccoon. So, on a purely ecological note, I just need to set the record straight: the tanuki is not a raccoon and neither is it very closely related to a raccoon. It is about as related to a raccoon as it is to a walrus. They are in the Canidae family and are closely related to foxes, wolves, jackals and other dog-like creatures. An interesting taxonomic side note about tanuki is that they belong to a basal group of the subgroup Caninae in which there are only two extant species. The other species is the bat-eared fox (Otocyon megalotis) which lives in the African savannah. The rest of their basal buddies went extinct sometime before the end of the Pleistocene epoch.  

The fact that they look similar is an example of convergent evolution and a great opportunity for me to go on a tangent about ecological theory :)  Sometimes unrelated species develop similar traits completely independent of one another because they are living in a similar biome or occupy the same ecological niche. In the case of the raccoon and tanuki, they are both nocturnal animals that live in a forest environment. The black mask on their face reduces glare (like the black paint that football players use) and helps with their night vision. The striped coloration that they both exhibit helps them blend in with the long dark shadows that are cast from trees in a moonlit forest at night. Also, it has been speculated that the black markings on their faces help them to identify one another but I am not sure how much research has been done to support that theory.

If you will forgive me for my rant, here are some ridiculously cute tanuki puppies.  

Japanese House Tour Part 1

It is always amazing to me how little time it takes to accumulate things. I have moved a lot in my life and each time I manage to pare my things down to only a few suitcases. Inevitably time passes and those few suitcases multiply.

So, it has happened again. Somehow, without being really aware of it, the few suitcases of personal items we brought to Japan increased until we are now able to comfortably fill and furnish a small house. Our furnishings are still pretty spartan compared with most of the Japanese houses and apartments we have been to though. Dustin and I have noticed people's tendency to have towering mountains of furniture and assorted stuff that stretches to the ceiling and covers almost every available bit of flooring. I am pretty sure that I would lose my mind if I had to spend every waking moment keeping the boys from bounding into, climbing, and toppling endless stacks of stuff. Maybe this is why children here are kept out of the house in day cares, kindergartens, and endless extra curricular classes from such an early age.

Without further ado, here is a tour of one half of our new place:

When you enter through the front door, you find yourself in a large, old style genkan. There is a 36 cm step from this concrete entrance area onto a wooden landing that takes you into the rest of the house.

ただいま!

From the landing, there is a door to the left, a door to the right, and a flight of stairs leading to the second floor. Today, we will enter through the door on the left. 

Beyond the door is a small sunroom with large sliding patio doors on the left and a tatami "living room" on the right.

Here is a view of the sunroom from inside the tatami room.

This is the tatami room that we have turned into our living room

And here is a different angle of the room showing the traditional shrine alcove which has been turned into our TV corner. This is no reflection on how much importance we place on our television, but was just a nice out of the way spot for it. Theo seems pretty pumped about playing Smooth Moves. There is a big closet with double sliding doors on the back wall and a door that leads to the washing machine and shower area between the closet and the couch.

When you go through this door, you find yourself in a short hallway where the washing machine is located.

To the left of the washing machine there is a doorway that leads to the fully waterproof bath/shower area. 

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of using a Japanese bathtub, here is a closer look at it. It is not as long the bathtubs we have in the West, but much deeper. It is about 50 cm deep so you can immerse much more of your body in the water. 

It also has a complicated and new fangled set of controls that allows you to adjust the temperature, fill the tub at the touch of a button, and circulate the water in the bathtub through a heater that maintains it at the same temperature throughout your bath. Also, the water can be saved and reheated in the future to whatever temperature you like by pressing a button. This might seem strange, but since you fully scrub yourself down before getting in, the water is clean enough to save for the next bath. 

The thing that attracted us to this house was the perfect blending of old and new. We are guessing that it was built during the post war reconstruction period, which puts it at about 60 - 65 years old. There are a lot of aspects that have been kept in their original state, like the large, deep genkan, or entranceway, the worn wooden stairs and landing, the deep windowsills, and old exposed timbers. However, much of the inside has been completely updated. In the few months before we moved in, the windows were all replaced, all interior walls and doors were repapered, new wooden flooring was put in the kitchen and dining room, new tatami was laid, all new cabinets, sinks, and counters were put into the kitchen and bathroom, a new western style toilet complete with a washlet was installed, and the shower room and bathtub were replaced. In other words, it is like living in a completely new house, but without the impersonal, plastic, modular feel of most new houses in Japan. We get to enjoy the history and layout of a traditional Japanese home without any of the inconvenience or deterioration that usually accompanies a 65 year old structure.   

That's enough house touring for now. Next time we will find out what lies beyond the right hand door and up the stairs! 

Fukubukuro

On New Year's Day, we took the kids for a long, enjoyable bike ride along the river and into the countryside surrounding Fukuyama. On our way back, we stopped at a little, out of the way playground and let the children explore for as long as we could stand the cold wind. 

William had fun checking out all of the dinosaur statues. 

There were also lots of things to climb and jump on which pleased Theo.

This tube had really interesting acoustics and William enjoyed a few minutes protected from the wind while hearing his own voice amplified. 

Scattered throughout the playground were little interactive plinths like this one that shows how to draw a kappa, which is a child and cucumber eating water sprite. They are probably my favourite creature in Japanese folklore so I was pretty excited to learn how to draw one.   

We picked up a few Year of the Dragon themed sweet buns from a shop on our way home. Thebuns were made using a plain and green tea flavoured dough and filled with sweet bean paste with chocolate decorations to make them look like dragon heads.

Before we returned home, we stopped at a grocery store near our apartment and bought two fukubukuro, one for the boys and one for Dustin and me. Fukubukuro are mystery bags filled with a random assortment of goods from the store which are sold at a set price which is lower than the actual value of the contents, or is at least supposed to be. I was really hoping that our bag would contain some interesting and surprising new items that I have never had the opportunity of trying. Unfortunately, everything contained in our surprise bag was pretty tame, mostly just snacks. On the plus side, we estimated that we only paid about half of the actual worth of the goods in our bag and we knew that we would be able to use everything in it. Theo picked an Anpanman themed bag for William and himself. It was filled with an assortment of Anpanman candy and cookies which they have both been enjoying over the past week.

The contents of our bag were clockwise from top left: a bottle of tea that tasted like nail polish remover to me, a bottle of water, milk tea mix, 2 cans of coffee, chocolate crackers, senbei, oreos, potato chips, curry mix, seasoning for eggplant stir fry, chocolate covered biscuits, and caramel corn.

The kid's bag contained crackers, cookies, candy, and a sketch pad.

I think that fukubukuro are a fun way for a store to get rid of extra merchandise. I am not sure if they would be terribly successful in Canada though, since people there seem to be pickier when it comes to product selection and have way more allergies, intolerances, and food avoidances.