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…
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…
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…
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….
Ishibashi
On Tuesday, September 13, John and I went on an exploratory trip. We decided to take the train from the Minoh Station to a nearby train stop. We picked Ishibashi. I looked up Ishibashi and it means literally, stone bridge. Ishi is stone and bashi (or also hashi) means bridge. The famous Japanese company Bridgestone Tires was in fact named after it’s founder, Shojiro Ishibashi. Interesting! When we arrived at Ishibashi we wandered around and came upon another bike parking place. This one had double decker parking for getting more bikes into a small area. It’s so clever how they have figured out how to maximize the space constraints here. I have also seen car parking with this type of…
Shirahama Beach
Today, Saturday, September 10, is exactly 4 weeks since we got on the plane and left America. We are headed to a beach called Shirahama this morning. It is a resort town located on the south coast of Wakayama Prefecture, about 2 hours and 30 minutes away from Minoh. This is going to be a feet to the fire, 2.5 hour drive down the coast for John! We are going with four other families in a caravan of four cars. Avalon is going to ride in her friend Haruna’s car. Before leaving our meeting place we carefully exchanged Google Map information, contact numbers, filled up the gas tanks and put our caravan in order. We are second in the caravan line…
Scenes From Our Surroundings
Wednesday, September 7 Here are a few interesting comments about our blog: From my 100-year old Grandma: RE: the Minoh waterfall post: Taki-michi means waterfall road. — Winnowing rice is shaking rice to separate from straw. — Momoji means red leaf. — Hyaku-en is 100 yen. My friend Sandi says she is impressed by my new commitment to Costco. But here is a seriously impressive commitment to Costco… I met a mom today named Julie whose son is a high school senior at OIS. She and her husband do not have a car. They bike everywhere. They say biking is cheaper than riding the train (and it is, but oh so much more work). She and her husband ride their…
Famous Minoh Falls
Today, Sunday, August 28, Halyard spent the entire day with 2 new friends, a boy and girl, from OIS. He made plans to meet them all by himself, he walked to the bus stop all by himself, he rode the bus and transferred to the train all by himself, he found them at the Senri Chuo Station all by himself and then they all went to Shinsaibashi together. Later, he came home on the train and bus and walked back home all by himself! The great thing about Japan is that it is very safe. I don’t worry too much about their safety, but rather that they’re going to get lost and not know which direction to head in. So…
Record Heat
Today is short update for yesterday and today. Just some random action has happened. I didn’t take the camera around so if you’re only looking for photos you might want to skip this post. We’re still biking around in this record heat. It honestly doesn’t feel like there’s been any change since last Friday with the historic heat. I’m going to look up the recent weather… I’m back and it actually looks like the heat has fallen by about 3 degrees. Last Friday was 101, last Saturday was 100, and this past week has been between 98 and 97 degrees Fahrenheit. The humidity still feels like 110 percent so I can’t say I’m noticing any change. We’re still red…
Universal Studios Japan
Today, Thursday, August 24, we took the kids to Universal Studios Japan, which is in Osaka. We figured why not, school hasn’t started yet and we’ve had to sort of ignore them a bit while we get all the business of setting up accomplished. Plus, the kids were formally accepted to the international school so we can celebrate! The application fees were not wasted. *Phew* To get to Universal Studios Japan (here they call it USJ, which we shall also call it) we need to walk to the bus stop and take the bus to the Senri Chuo Subway Station. Then we ride the subway on the Midosuji Line. At Umeda Station we transfer to the JR (Japan Rail) Line…