Covid-19 in Japan

Japan's Covid numbers are unfortunately increasing again though unless I think about it, I don't really feel that we are being affected...  

Tetsu and I got an envelope from the city office letting us know that we are eligible for making a vaccination appointment from May 10th.  In other parts of the country vaccinating of the older generation has already begun and I gather one of the problems is that the telephones for the appointment system are being over loaded.  Another problem is that the older generation (including us) has a hard time figuring out the on-line appointment system and so there are still a lot of snags...  Wish us luck when we try to make our appointments.

Last week I was at the elementary school for a traffic safety lesson.  Last year schools were closed for the first two months and this safety lesson had to be scrapped, but this year we had all the school body gather in the playground for a demonstration on how accidents happen with a truck used as an example.  Then all the children went through their daily routine of crossing the crosswalk.  

"Raise your hands!"  (This is taught so that drivers will know that the person on the sidewalk isn't just standing there but is ready to cross.)  

"Look both ways!  Right!  Left!  Right!  Crossing!"  (It is right-left-right in Japan because traffic flows opposite of the US.)

"Watch to the right for traffic while you cross, from the center line, watch to the left!"

"And bow to the drivers!"  (This is taught so that the children will show gratitude to the drivers for stopping and hopefully the drivers will have a better day after being thanked and will remember to stop again when they see people at the crosswalk.)

And as I've mentioned before, the children wear the yellow caps and berets so that they are more visible to drivers.

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While I was at the school I was talking with the principal who said that every child in the school has now been outfitted with a tablet computer.  Last year when school was closed, Japan didn't have any plan for continuing education online and so in the past year the government has pulled from their budget to make sure that if we end up in a state of emergency with schools closed again, this time there will be a way to hold online classes.  Right not teachers and children are frantically trying to learn the online system.

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Another place where I've become aware of the Covid situation is at the swimming pool.  The pool is open again and Tetsu and I try to go at the least busiest time of the day.  Many, many of our acquaintances have stopped coming partly because most of the members are older and at greater risk.  The saunas have been closed, our temperatures are taken before we enter the area and the pool staff is strictly making sure there is social distance between pool users.  No talking for one, as of course no one can wear masks in the pool.  There is some grumbling because it feels like we are in a prison with guards standing over us pointing fingers and directing people to stay farther away from each other as we walk...  For many people the pool was a social spot to chat with friends daily while getting in a little exercise but it isn't much fun anymore...

Even in the bath afterwards we are told to space out but as right now there aren't any women lifeguards who might come into the women's bathing area, the ladies tend to sit in the steam and get their chatting in free from staff eyes.  (No cameras allowed in the pool or in the bathing area so my drawings in my bullet journal are from memory.  I have to confess that the bathing tub is actually a bit bigger so we aren't quite so crowded when we soak in the bath.)

This week is Golden Week in Japan but alas, Tokyo, Osaka and a few of the surrounding prefectures are in a limited state of emergency (department stores, restaurants and schools still open but with shorter hours and no alcohol being served in the restaurants).  The message for the holidays is DO NOT TRAVEL!  

I'll be home and up in my sewing room.

Celtic Knots class

There isn't much going on every day and so I've been slacking off on blogging...  I spend a lot of time on the computer, recently "attending" my Celtic Knots class with Valerie Sjodin.  She sends the class members two art classes every two weeks and they include three or four videos for each step in the art lessons plus materials to think about for the weekly devotional which can also be artistically added to a journal...  It is all very satisfying and time consuming but not that much to show for in the end...

These are a few of the pages from the last couple weeks...  And I always do a trial run in my daily bullet journal and then the real thing in a separate journal so I'm doing everything twice.  I love the days when I just disappear into my sewing room with my computer and pens and a cup of coffee that Tetsu often brings up to me later.  (He spends those hours outside in the yard.)

This was an interesting page to make because there were two versions.  The one on the left was not quite as precisely set out as the one on the right... but both were challenging in their own ways.

I'm still in the middle of this one...  I tried to use some different colors but I'm not sure which one I like...  I'm still working on the set of knots down there at the bottom...  That will be my project for today!
 

French cuisine!

Tetsu and I did something quite out of our usual routine yesterday.  We went out to lunch at a French restaurant!  This has been in the planning for nearly a year I think...

It started when Takumi sent us a restaurant certificate to use at selected fancy restaurants throughout Japan.  The idea was good but unfortunately about the time we got the certificate, Japan went into sheltering-down and restaurants closed and travel was limited to within our prefecture.  If we had been able to get to Tokyo or even to northern prefectures we might have had a larger choice of restaurants but we only needed ONE and the one closest to us was in the resort part of the prefecture about an hour away.  

Well, we kept waiting for the Covid related restrictions to lift and we called the restaurant numerous times until finally we had to contact the certificate issuing company and they extended the certificate for us again.  

Anyway, this month the restaurant is back up and running (on a limited schedule) and we made a reservation for yesterday.  I mentioned FANCY so I even wore a skirt!  Wow!  

We got to the restaurant which was an open kitchen style and there was one other customer there sitting on the other side of the room.   (But four others came in later...  All reservations of course.)

We watched as the chef danced around his central kitchen stirring pots, putting things in ovens and steamers, using TWEEZERS to put artistic touches to his dishes.  It was fascinating!  And delicious even if we probably didn't appreciate the specially grown vegetables, choice salmon brought in from somewhere famous and venison.

The chef wasn't much of a talker, just extremely busy moving from station to station and when the dish was ready he presented it to us himself with explanations of where each morsel was from and how it had been marinated or cooked and how to eat it.

Although at the time the dishes didn't seem like a lot of food, the slow presentation, the savoring of each bite really made it quite filling and we came home full and with lots to talk about the totally new experience.  

So nice to get away from the shadow of Covid for a few hours.  

It was probably a pretty hefty bill that our certificate covered so I don't think we'll be going back again soon but thanks to Takumi and Julieta, it was an absolutely delightful afternoon!

   

Family pictures

Let's see if I can find something interesting in the photos that Leiya and Julieta send me.

Julieta-san let us know that she and Takumi have gotten their first Covid-19 vaccination.  Yeah!  We are very glad to hear that Takumi is back to full health after his scary time at the end of last year.  And getting vaccinated will be even more of a relief for us!

This week they were off in the mountains and on their way to do some wine tasting I guess.

As you can imagine, I get a lot more photos from Leiya keeping us updated on how Luka is growing.  With his Easter Bunny.

Great!  Luka likes cats too!  I think that is a cat I made from Tetsu's mother's old kimono...

Tony's brother and cousin (and nephew) came for a visit and Leiya had a household of men.  Love the way Luka gets a bath in the kitchen sink.  (Tetsu recalls how horrified his mother was when I bathed my own babies in the kitchen sink...  "Guess that's an American custom."  I guess so...  In Japan, baby and daddy would be in the bathtub together...)

Leiya and Luka enjoying springtime.

Peek-a-boo.  

School has started!

The weeks are going by so quickly!  I am back teaching at the pre-school and standing at the crosswalk everyday as school began last week for us.

This is what the pre-school looks like this season.  There are nearly a hundred children here even though I see only three classes, the three year-olds, four year-olds and five year-olds.  I think babies (three months to 2 year-old) are cared for in the wing on the other side of the play area and I don't have much interaction with them.  

Each of the classrooms that I visit has about 15 children and they sit on the floor while I sing and dance (figuratively though sometimes literally) in front of them.  I teach them songs and finger plays, I sometimes use a computer program with cute animation of vocabulary.  I read them picture books.  My goal for the three year-olds is for them to just be able to parrot me (without crying... that happens the first couple of months.  Big scary foreigner!).  For the four year-olds I hope that they learn how to answer simple questions, ("How old are you?"  "I'm four.")  For the five year-olds I ask them to use their heads...  ("What day is today?"  "It's Monday, April 12."  "What's the weather like?"  "It's a sunny day.")

Though Japan is still in the throes of Corona, thankfully I'm no longer trying to teach the pre-schoolers in the main room (keeping distance technique) and with a mask on.  At least we are back in their separate rooms and I wear a face shield so they can see my expressions as I teach.  

This last Monday when I was at the pre-school, I had a hard time keeping the kids attention because the local elementary had just had its entrance ceremony and the new first graders with their brand new leather backpacks (called Randosel but taken from the Dutch word Ransel) were coming to the pre-school to greet their former teachers.  The new first graders were in suits with their hair slicked back or in party dresses and ribbon adorned.  The proud parents who had attended the entrance ceremony were all dressed in suits and high heels too.  It is a big milestone in a child's life!

This is actually a photo that I took of children headed into the school where I am crosswalk guard.  All the children walk to school in groups, sometimes a mile or more.  In my area there are no trains nor school buses and so these country kids WALK.  In this group the older girls were all sporting their red Randosel which is the traditional color but actually these days I'm surprised at how colorful Randosel have become.  Purple (I see one back there), pink, orange.  Not so in my kids' days.  It was red for girls, black for boys.  There is probably only one first grader in this group, they are usually given a bright yellow Randosel cover to help traffic see them better.  That is also the reason for all the yellow caps (boy) and yellow berets (girls).

Randosel are expected to last all six years of elementary school and even back when my kids were starting school, they were quite expensive... $300 or $400.  

"WHAT!!??  I buy $20 handbags and my child is going to lug around this expensive piece of luggage?"

Grandparents often get flattered into buying their grandchild the Randosel or possibly even a special study desk for the budding scholar!  There were no grandparents following this custom in our family and so I bought the expensive Randosel and at least one child (can't remember if it was Takumi or Leiya) got a hand-me-down desk from a neighbor and the other child didn't want a desk.  Tetsu laughs now and says that even before first grade our family's study priorities were a little off...

Here comes another group of kids from the nearby residential area walking through the fields.

 

Changes

I'm afraid I don't have too much photography worthy to show you today.  

I am spending quite a bit of time playing around with notebooks and pens for the art class I signed up for.  I'm enjoying that very much though there isn't too much original content.  The course is called Celtic Knots and after signing up, the instructor, Valerie Sjodin, introduced her students to a link with Trinity College in Dublin about the Book of Kells.  I signed in to a four week course there too and each week I've been watching videos and reading articles and answering quizes on the Book of Kells.  Fascinating!!  The Book of Kells course is free on the site Future Learn.  

I've turned my sewing room into a study room (the sewing machine is still here, no worries!) and I've been watching the Trinity College videos, the art class videos and playing around with my pens and colored pencils too.  I guess you could say I've been busy.

Here is one of my pages.  Seeing double?  That is because I have been putting together a separate notebook for the class and also doing the same page in my regular bullet journal.

There is also a devotional that we are following and so the artwork for those pages gets put into both of my notebooks though in my bullet journal I add my own thoughts...  

We are on lesson three of 20 lessons now!

More random stuff...

I cooked a truly Japanese style meal the other night and took a picture so you will see I DO cook.

The meal was mackerel rice that I had made with canned mackerel mixed with sour plums.  The main dish was squid and garlic sprouts and the salad was lettuce with imitation crab in garlic and sesame seed oil.  We also had blocks of cold Yuba which is the skimmed off portion of warm soy milk.

On the hand sewing front I've been plugging away at my Bunny Hill applique blocks.

April

May

June

July

August

 This is going a lot more quickly than I expected!

And THIS is what we look out on now behind our house.  I'm not sure if the trees to the left are scheduled to be cut down or not...  The machines have moved on to deeper into the forest.  We now have a view of... a factory back there.  It is a very NICE factory if factories can be nice.  They keep their place neat and well landscaped, leaving a few trees of their own...  From my upstairs window, this is the view and I do see the factory but down at ground level it gets hidden because of the mounds of cut undergrowth left there.  We try to find silver linings... like the hills in the distance next to Mt. Nantai are very green and pretty.  Also some of the evening sunsets are fantastic.  Probably when the rice fields are planted it will be green and pretty in the distance too.  And think of all the sun Tetsu's vegetable garden will get this year (there he is in the forefront of the picture.)  

Hi Tetsu.

Things change... from the use of my sewing room to the scenery outside the windows.

Atomic Starburst quilt finished!

I finally got out with the Atomic Starburst quilt to take pictures.  

I've been waiting until the cherry trees blossomed so that there would be a little color though, come to think of it, cherry blossoms are nearly white...  and my quilt was colorful enough on its own!

This quilt has been made for my niece and her fiance.  

I didn't ask her what she wanted or even get a suggestion of the colors she likes (though I remember she likes purple...)  I just found a rather non-traditional quilt pattern and figured that Kiana was more of a mystical black sort of girl rather than the white background that this quilt is usually made with.  

Leiya approved of my background color choice.

I chose a backing that is sort of a camping under the stars design and I added a moon and some trees to the label.

The Atomic stars got started right after New Year's this year and it became a flimsy in March though it was really TWO flimsies and two sandwiches until the very end.  The two pieces were finally joined and the last bit of quilting was put in through the middle.

I guess this will join the line up of quilts waiting to be taken to the States or to be sent through the postal service, whichever is up and running normally first!