My Adventure Abroad

Dumb Dental Disaster

Ugh.  I had a dental accident today, Tuesday, October 18.  I was walking upstairs swinging a little, white, empty, hard, plastic laundry basket and suddenly I tripped on one of the stairs.  I fell forward and the laundry basket flew upward forcefully (Issac Newton’s third law of motion?  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction?  That basket hit me hard.) and it hit me square in the front tooth.  Maybe I was huffing and puffing from the steep stairs, making me breathe with my mouth open.  Anyway, the laundry basket hit my mouth at just the right angle and it broke my tooth.  A whole corner of my front tooth just cracked right off.  I couldn’t see…

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Japanese Cats

I have been meaning to write the story of how we brought our cats to Japan.  Today is Friday, October 14, and it is already exactly two months since we arrived.  The kids seemed like they really needed to have their fur balls in Japan.  We adopted sibling kitties Pickles and Maneki from the OC Humane Society when they were around 3 months old.  I thought if any of the kids (or maybe John and I) needed extra comfort in Japan it was best to have the cats along.  And after all, Maneki’s name is Japanese so he needed to see his namesake home country.  The following is how they immigrated to Japan with us. At the very beginning of…

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Shoe Rules

In Japan, when you arrive at just about any house, apartment, some businesses, some schools, some restaurants and on and on… you will step into an area called the genkan.  The genkan is the entryway of a structure where you will take off your shoes and leave them before moving further into the house, building or wherever it is that you have arrived.  When it is required, taking your shoes off in the genkan is a pretty strict rule. Here is an explanation of genkan from Wikipedia: –The primary function of genkan is for the removal of shoes before entering the main part of the house or building. Genkan are often recessed into the floor, to contain any dirt that…

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Suikyu (Water Polo)

Well we found it.  This past weekend, Saturday, October 8, Avalon and Halyard went to their second weekend of water polo practice.  A lot of advance and follow up work got us to the point of locating the Toyonaka Water Polo Club.  Water polo is called Suikyu (Sue-ee-que) in Japan. As with many challenges here, there were several people who were involved in this success.  Our friend Art is the one who first found the website back when we were still in the States.  But we couldn’t read it until our friend Hiroko, here in Japan, helped to translate the website and also contacted the coaches on our behalf.  The club arranged for an English speaking parent to come meet…

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New Adventures Everyday

Today, Thursday October 6, John and I found a delicious organic vegetarian cafe.  We went to Shinsaibashi to run some errands and, as usual, John got hungry.  So he took out his Samsung Galaxy and asked Google Maps to find him a vegetarian restaurant.  I have to admit, John is very good with Google Maps.  He and Google can find anything! This place is called Organic and Vegetarian Cafe Atl and it is on the second floor of a very narrow building.  Underneath, on the ground floor, is a store called Camden’s Blue Star Donuts.  Apparently this is a gourmet donut store originating from Portland, Oregon (also home of Voodoo Doughnut.  They must love donuts in Portland).  For some reason Camden’s…

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Appliances That Talk

Tuesday, October 4 My cousin wrote recently to say that she’s really enjoying the blog.  She and her family live on the US east coast and we don’t get to see them that often.  One of the best things about writing this blog for us is getting fun comments.  To everyone who has commented on our posts:  Thank you!  It is so fun for us to hear from you.  Please keep it up.  And if you haven’t commented, but have thought about it, please do!  Let us know that you are reading.  Thank you Val and Alisa for being our most prolific commentators.  We love to hear from you!  Also, thank you to Michael, Mayumi and Tipton who re-posted our…

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Rice Everywhere!

Update:  the photo above shows a rice harvesting machine cutting down the rice plants.  Later a woman was stuffing the stalks into the machine and I think it was separating the grains from the stalk.  (October 14) I’ve been thinking about this rice post for a few weeks.  So I’m going to start it now, Tuesday, September 27, and see where it goes.  There are rice paddies all around us.  I thought that rice was grown in large, rural fields over acres with lots of water flooding the plain.  Stalks of rice plants for miles and miles.  Well, here in Minoh there are rice paddies tucked in between houses, in between stores, by the gas station, next to restaurants, just…

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Cafe and Bar 845

Tonight, Saturday, September 24, turns out to be British kids’ night.  Kaiyo is having his friend Euan (He’s half British) over for a sleepover and Avalon is having her friend Haruna (She’s from Britain) over for a sleepover.  Yay!  It’s a mini-Brexit-expat slumber party.  John graciously offered to stay at home with the craziness (and probably contribute to it himself) and let Halyard and I go out for a night on the town.  It’s actually John’s idea and I’m pretty excited to have a chance to hang out with Halyard.  He’s so busy staring at his iPhone he rarely has time to talk anymore.  And when he does have a spare moment it seems he can’t hear a word I’m…

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Typhoon Malakas

8:30am There’s a typhoon arriving.  We received notice at 6:30am that school has been cancelled for today, Tuesday, September 20.  This is our first weather-related school closure ever.  While that’s very exciting I also wonder how bad the wind and rain is going to get.  The hourly weather report says that right now is the calm before the storm.  It is 8:30am and it’s already raining fairly hard by our California standards.  The real wind tunnel and downpour is forecast to start around noon. It’s a good thing I biked to the store last night (in light rain) and made 2 pots of beef and veggie curry.  We can have leftovers today.  I also have a big box of Swiss…

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Special Guests Who Love Tigers

It is Friday, September 16 and we are getting the house ready for special guests coming tonight.  My second cousin Mayumi is arriving this evening with her family from Sapporo.  Mayumi is a big reason why we were able to come to Japan for a year.  Without her help it might not have happened.  She spent many hours talking to the people at the Sapporo Immigration Bureau on our behalf.  They are planning to spend the night with us and we are super excited to see them.  Sapporo is a 2 hour flight from Osaka.  It’s the main city on the northernmost island of Hokkaido and home of the Sapporo Brewery. John and I spent the whole morning cleaning the house….

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