An American Thanksgiving in Japan

I am going to have to continue my blogs about my parent’s trip later, because I wanted to write a little bit about Thanksgiving. Now it just so happens that this year, the holiday in Japan “Thanking” people for all their hard work fell on the same day as our Thanksgiving. I usually spend the day with my mom and my aunts, uncles, and cousins in Sacramento, but that trip would be a little difficult this year. I was going to be content just having the day off and relaxing, but I decided to share a little bit of American culture with some of my adult English students. Theo came with Shogo, so it was nice to have some friends too. I think Theo liked having a little bit of home cooked food here in Japan also. Although he is from the south, so I was a little afraid to make him fried chicken! But he said it was good.
As always, I planned too much to do for myself, but I think it all worked out. A few days before, I cut out some maple leaves out of heavy felt and glued a picture of each guest on to the front, and a magnet on the back. I put “Happy Thanksgiving” and the date. These were for each person to take home as a little memento. When the guests arrived (8 total) we made turkeys out of pinecones, nuts, felt, and pipe cleaners. I spent most of the time in and out of the kitchen, but they turkeys were quite cute and I heard lots of giggling. Finally, dinner was served. Here is the menu. For appetizers, I made Deviled Eggs (which no one had had before), cheese, crackers, and sparkling apple cider. Dinner was fried chicken (no turkey in Japan), garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, salad, stuffing with cranberries, pine nuts, and pumpkin seeds, and croissants. I am very proud to say it was all homemade (no boxed mixes here in Japan!), except for the cheese and croissants. I did ask the guests to bring dessert so I wouldn’t completely kill myself. Everyone really enjoyed the food. I made way too much as always, so everyone took home doggie bags for themselves or their husbands.
Many people told me how impressed they were at the crafts and amount of food we had. It was a good time for everyone.
I hope everyone back home had a wonderful celebration with their friends and family as well.

My First Visitors! Part 3

With a bit of pushiness, I was able to finagle a week off of work to spend more time with dad and Georgie. On Monday, we took a train to Osaka and did a little shopping. Dad patiently waited at Starbucks while Georgie and I shopped. Little did dad know, that Japan is the land of pens. So when we went into another store, he came with us, and we patiently waited while dad uncapped and scribbled, and chose a handful of new pens. Georgie was also amazed at all the beautiful paper.
At the end of the day, we descended to the basement of one of the department stores to get ourselves dinner. You may think that is an odd choice of places to go, but in Japan, all the major department stores have a basement filled with the most beautiful food ever. So after window shopping, we all chose food we liked to take home for dinner. There are also grocery stores in the basement, and here we found the most expensive fruit I have seen yet - $110 cantaloupe and $50 grapes.
On Tuesday, we decided to visit one of my schools. I chose to show them Kada because it is my favorite, and I think rather unique because it is so small. After we, stopped by to say hello, we intended to visit a shrine dedicated to dolls, and take a ferry to an island off the coast of Kada which the students told me has monkeys. So late morning, we took the train to Kada. The day was extremely windy, and none of us were really dressed for it. We visited my Jr. High right before lunch. Dad and Georgie spent some time in the Principals office having tea, while I helped one of the teachers prepare a couple of kids for an English proficiency exam. When we told them we wanted to head out to Awashima Island, they called to see if the ferry was running, which it wasn’t due to the high wind. So instead, the Principal sent us to class. We went to a 7th grade fine arts class. We made ancient Heina dolls out of clay. We modeled ours (except me) after some dolls found hundreds of years ago in Kada.
After class, we went to, what I can only describe as the scariest place in Japan. It is a shrine called Awashima Jinja. Each year on Girl’s Day in March, there is a large festival where they send out hundreds of dolls on boats into the sea. Throughout the year, people send unwanted dolls to the shrine, so there are more dolls there than I have ever seen. We got out of there before it turned dark.
On our way home on the train, we had a surprise encounter. At one of the train stops, a young boy boarded, and immediately turned to me and said, “Leilani sensei?” I said yes, and he smiled and sat down. Obviously he was one of my students from a Jr. High, but I did not recognize him. I asked if he knew which stop to get off for Palm City, a popular mall in the area. He didn’t seem too sure of what I was saying, so I asked him where he was going. He didn’t quite understand that either, so I told him that we were going to Palm City. Now somewhere in that exchange, I think he thought I asked him to take us to Palm City, which was a freezing 20 min walk away from the train station. I realized this when he walked us all the way there, waited for us while we shopped, told dad he had to be home by 7, and walked us back to the train station. I felt so bad! But he is such a sweet boy. His name is Yusuke. I talked with him during the walks back and forth, and dad sat with him at a Starbucks and quizzed him on what leather comes from. Keep in mind, he didn’t understand when I asked him where he was going.
But I think this story really illustrates a beautiful aspect of Japan, it’s people. There have been many times that complete strangers were so helpful and kind. They make sure that you will be ok and safe. That makes me feel really good about being here. Now don’t worry, I still want to kick a few every so often that are annoying, but overall, the people are great.
Oh, and we also had a great dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, called Kaya. They have the best okonomiyaki ever! It is called a Japanese pizza, but it is more like an omelet mixed with lots of meat, veggies, and cheese. It is really tasty!

My First Visitors! Part 2

It seems that each week I have something new and exciting to show my hula class. This week it was my family! Everyone was quite excited to meet these “Hawaiians.” They left dad alone, but asked Georgie to come and join us for a few songs. She obliged. Dad sat back and took some photos. After class, some of us went to a coffee shop across the street and chatted for a while. Luckily, Akemi was there to do quite a bit of translating for us. This hula group is so warm and welcoming, I was glad that my parents could meet them.
The following day, we took a very long train ride down to the southern part of Wakayama to visit Nachi Falls. As in all of Japan, there are also shrines and temples there. But this is the largest waterfall in Japan. It is nestled in the mountains, with clouds of mist all around. Quite beautiful. Oh, and there were also about eight billion steps. One thing we have all noticed is that the people in Japan are generally very kind and helpful. There are also many who like to practice English, so when they see a foreigner, they are anxious, and a little nervous, to say “hi.” On the train ride over, and the bus ride up the mountain, dad and Georgie talked to a few people. It was funny because all through our walks in Nachi, people waved and said hello to us. We recognized most from the bus, and I think some were just friendly strangers. Dad had a three hour conversation with a Japanese man on the train ride home, with the aide of a dictionary, and lots of gestures and drawings. I could hear them giggling away as I tried to sleep about 10 rows in front of him.
Oh, and I won a bag from "Bearded Papas" but I was also excited about the cream puffs.

My first visitors! part 1

This has been a busy month so far. On November 1st, my dad and stepmom came to visit me here in Japan for almost two weeks. We were quite busy, and were able to see many things in the Kansai area of Japan. The main reason they decided to visit during this time of year is to see the leaves change color. Well, as it turns out, Japan has stayed warmer a little longer this year, so it looks like many of the leaves will turn more toward of the end of the month. But we enjoyed the colors we did see. I will make multiple blog pages for this trip, due to the sizes of the pictures, I can only put so many on each page. I also will use a mixture of pictures from all three of us, so I can’t take credit for all the good ones.
Dad and Georgie’s adventure started rather smoothly with my friend Shogo making a very generous offer to pick them up from the airport in Osaka. One of the first things we did that night was to take a picture to show dad in proportion to my doorways. Let's just say he left Japan with many bumps and bruises on his head. I had to go to school on Thurs, but came home early, so we picked up some bento lunches and had a nice picnic at Wakayama Castle. They both really enjoyed the castle grounds, we never actually made it inside. On the north side of the castle, there is a tiny zoo with a small bear, a beaver, deer, and many birds, including one that kept repeating something in Japanese. The bird knows more Japanese that me!
That night I made dinner with mushrooms that both dad and Georgie found interesting. On Thursday, we made our way to Nara. It was their first train ride in Japan. Luckily I had done this train ride before, so it was a little easier. There were many people in Nara, so there were fewer deer. Many deer turned their nose to the sembei people offered because they were already full from previous tourists. But appearently the one in the picture prefered the newspaper. Although the main attraction is the giant Buddha, dad seemed more fascinated with the large wooden structure that enclosed it. He also was quite intrigued with the joints and corners that looked like intricate puzzles that held all the buildings and roofs together.
Also pictured is one of many tonkatsu dishes we had this trip, some of the leaves as they begin to change colors in Nara, and a couple guys pounding mochi.
Oh my gosh, that is only two days!