Halloween

Halloween is beginning to grow in Japan.  We have been told that the idea of dressing up is relatively new and most do not.  There also isn't any type of organized trick or treating that we are used to at home.  However, the stores and commercialism of the holiday have arrived.  The stores are decked out with candy, decorations, and festive foods.  Kelly and Seth brought Marley's gorilla costume from last year so he will be dressed up even if no one else is!

We went to Mister Doughnut and they had festive doughnuts.  Halloween Hello Kitty and orange frosted doughnuts!

This is outside one of the train stations near us:

Snack time

While on my walk yesterday I decided to stop at a bakery near the train station to try something.  There is always a 50/50 chance that when you get what appears to be a dessert pastry it will contain bean paste.  I decided to be safe and go with a savory bead item instead.  I picked two things, one looked like a crispy flour tortilla with cheese inside and the other was a rolls with cheese sprinkled on top and baked.  Kelly can't have dairy so when we are out without her we often get something because we can.  I paid and continued on my walk trying the food.  Again, nothing is ever as it seems when it comes to Japan.

The first, the tortilla roll up.  Turns out it was cheese inside but not the kind I was expecting.  Instead it was the processed liquid nacho cheese type.  And it gets better.  There was also a hot dog! haha I was not expecting that.  It ended up being the liquid cheese, hot dog, and salsa.  For what it was it was ok but not what I had in mind when I picked it out.  Being able to read Kanji would save us all a lot of surprises.  Its surprising how many things have hot dogs here in Japan.  The grocery store has numerous options in the hot foods section and prepackaged food area with hot dogs.  Also most of the bakeries, and even doughnut shops, have hot dogs wrapped in breads and rolls.

After my failed attempt in my first experience I was glad I had gotten two.  With this one it was what appeared to be just a roll with cheese on top.  The first bite went great and looked normal.  It was the second bite where I realized in between the roll and cheese was a layer of shrimp salad.  Mainly just shrimp drenched in mayonnaise.  They sure do like their mayonnaise here!  Even though these were not what I had in mind when I bought them I ate them and called it a semi-success.  At least they were edible! I probably would have had more luck with the dessert thing haha

Exploring on my own

Yesterday Marley took a nap around 1 o'clock.  Seth had just started teaching and Kelly was going to do some work while he napped so I decided to go for a walk.  I put my headphones in and set out to explore but with the hopes that I wouldn't get lost.  I headed towards the train station to see what else was beyond those roads.  I found an interesting tool shop with walls of nails, screws, hammers, and some fun insets carved out of wood and nails.

There was also a garden type of shop with knick knacks all outside of the shop.

On the next street I saw what looked like a house (or maybe a store?) with some fun door statues.  It looks like an old man wombat and a butt of some sort.

I mentioned in many of my bicycle rants how difficult it is to ride on the sidewalks because they are so small.  Now this is a particularly small sidewalk but the majority are not much bigger.  Look at the width in comparison to my feet.  And now imagine riding your bicycle on it and with either passengers or on coming bicycles!  And the cars directly next to you!

I found this little guy sitting at one of side streets.  He was so cute and I could hear him purring from far away.  Made me think of my Sadie!

The following are some pictures of the houses along my path.  Because spaces are so small here everything is compact.  They are able to fit so many things within the few feet they have.  There are often mere feet in between houses/apartment buildings and no area between their front door and the street.  Despite the lack of space they are able to fit in small playgrounds in the most unusual spots, like the corner of a busy street...

Sushi

We went to a sushi restaurant for dinner tonight.  It was the same sushi place we went to our first night in Kodaira with our contacts from the university. It has a conveyor belt that brings around different types of sushi along with some signs saying, well something.  At each table is a screen where you can look through the menu and order and then when it is passing you the screen does a chime.

I was in charge of ordering off the screen (which you can see up at the top of the picture) because I was closest to Tomomie (our contact at the university) and was able to remember how to use it.  Thankfully they have pictures of most pieces of sushi but even the pictures can be deceiving.  We thought we were ordering scallops but instead got some other type of seafood.  It was white/clear and looked like it ad been scraped out of a shell perhaps?  Kelly tried it first and told me it was chewy yet slimy.  I asked her if it was better or worse than the whole squid we had here the first time that included the beak.  She said definitely better.  Even with her warning I was not prepared for what I was about to eat.  It was chewy and tough yet at the same time it had the consistency of mucus.  It took all I had to chewy, which took several minutes, and swallow.  It was definitely not better than the squid!!

Surprisingly they put mayonnaise on a lot of their sushi.  Its either drizzled on top or in between the rice and fish.  Mayonnaise is the one thing Seth cannot stand.  Even the look gives him the hebejebes!  So he would pick something, it would come and within one look he handed most of them over to Kelly and I because they had mayonnaise.  They even had cheese on a few of the pieces.  

We also had shrimp, scallops, salmon, octopus, and other unrecognizable pieces.  Overall it all was excellent and we are going to go back for sure!

Another day

We survived the typhoon! haha When we went to bed last night the rain was continuing to pick up along with the winds.  I woke up several times throughout the night and it never let up.  We all got up around 630 this morning and the rain had finally mostly stopped but the wind was stronger than ever.  It was the first time we weren't happy about living in the wooded area of campus.  It felt like for sure a tree was going to fall on the house.  But by 10am the rain had completely stopped and the wind was dying down to just a normal fall breeze.  Its crazy how it went from a strong storm to just another day in a matter of an hour.

Marley and I braved the weather around 11am and went out.  We of course went into all of the buildings and rode the elevators again and again.

By 1pm it was sunny ad 75 degrees outside.  We ended up riding our bicycles to the large park and spending some time outside.  

Marley goes back for his second day of school tomorrow....
Wish us luck!

Typhoon Wipha

The first we had heard about the typhoon was at the preschool.  When we got there at 9 am it was chilly but not overly bad weather.  By 11 am when it was time to leave a light rain had started.  In the 10 minutes it took us to bicycle home the rain picked up gradually and by 1 pm it was a full on downpour!  It hasn't stopped raining since, nearly 9 hours later.  Marley and I went out puddle jumping today! He had on green rain pants, a green frog rain coat, and purple boots! I tried taking his picture but I couldn't get him to stand still long enough haha

Tuesdays Seth has class in downtown Tokyo and doesn't get home until around 8 pm so its just Kelly, Marley, and I for dinner.  Kelly and I sat on the living room floor listening to the downpour with Marley playing legos and discussed dinner.  We really didn't want to go out in the rain but cooking food really didn't sound appealing.  After looking at the rain for about 5 minutes we decided Indian food was worth it! haha So we braved the rain and wind to head to dinner.  Nothing like the before storm of a typhoon to go out for dinner.  We both really wished we could order a pizza or something instead haha

Dinner was great and even better than the last time but the walk home was almost miserable.  It was raining even harder at this point and was raining just sideways enough that you had to move your umbrella but not move it so much that the wind took it.  By the time we got home we were soaking wet from out thighs down and freezing.  We got Marley changed and asleep and Kelly and I settled in our spots for the night.  I started writing this post while listening to my headphones when I heard a loud ping noise.  I looked at Kelly and she looked back and then around the house.  Right after the ping noise came an extremely loud voice saying things in Japanese urgently.  Kelly and I jumped up and went to where the noise was coming from.  We thought it was the TV although it was unplugged.  It took us a few seconds to realize there was an intercom behind one of the binds near the ceiling.  Still not sure what it was saying but I'm sure nothing good about the typhoon haha

All classes for Tsuda, the college campus we live on, and Seth's other university in Tokyo have been cancelled and Seth said all the train stations have warnings that there will be no trains running tomorrow due to the typhoon.  Looks like another rainy inside kind of day!

Yochien means preschool

Marley had his first day of preschool today.  Both Seth and Kelly were beyond nervous for him but we got him out of the house and onto Seth's bicycle without too much of a struggle.  Once we got to the school he started to get upset and scared.  Seth and I brought him to his teacher and classroom and showed him the toys and his cubby.  He cried and struggled but soon got into some toys and Seth and I left to talk with the principle.  Now keep in mind this is an all Japanese speaking school, the children and most of the teachers know little to no English.  The principle knows enough English to communicate with us.  So we went to her to find out what room I will be hanging out in just in case he needs something.  She shows me the room and then looks and Seth and I and says that there is no school tomorrow.  We both look back a little puzzled and repeat it and shes says yes, typhoon.  The look on Seth's face was priceless! haha He just repeated no school because of typhoon and shook his head.  Its hard to get local news here because we cant watch any TV news because we don't understand it and there isn't a whole lot of time to read off the internet with Marley running around.

So Seth said goodbye to Marley and left.  It took a total of about 2 minutes before they had to bring Marley to me because it was crying so hard.  Thankfully I was able to calm him down and take him back to the room.  This happened several times throughout the first hour but we were able to rest and then go back.  He was saying that the kids were scaring him.  But they were so excited to see him that they kept trying to get in his face to talk to him that it was overwhelming.  Thankfully the teachers were amazing though, they kept him busy moving from one activity or area to another and showing him new things.  For the second hour he would stop in to see me just to say hi and go back to play!  Not sure how it will go when we have to return Thursday though...

The teachers and children loved Marley but were also fascinated with me sitting in a classroom.  They kept coming up to me and showing me things or handing me books and of course rambling away with things I didn't understand.  The same adorable boy that I mentioned before with the puzzle pieces kept following me around.  He brought me a fish pillow and a book.  I taught him to say fish and book!! And then near the end he sat next to me for probably 5 minutes and watched all the other kids.  So cute!

Here's a few of the kids I met, my favorite is the one in the yellow shirt.  I couldn't get his face though