Neighborhood meetings

I thought I'd write a little about my neighborhood though that means I'll be without pictures today.

One of the hardest things for me is to be part of a group and join in the group thinking and this is essential in Japanese culture. For one thing, I can never completely fit in. I am American, I always will be. I look American (well, I don't look pure Japanese) and think American and it doesn't matter how long I've lived here (31 years) or how good my Japanese is (fairly good), I will never be accepted as a Japanese. That is fine with me. I don't think of it as discrimination, just that I am the resident foreigner in the neighborhood. Another reason I don't like being part of a group is that I'm sort of a rebel anyway and don't like being told what I can and cannot do.

Our family moved to our neighborhood some 16 years ago. We had lived here and there in Japan and had finally been able to afford a house out in the country (land prices drop the farther one lives out). The area is basically farming and the families have been here for generations but there are a couple communities where people like us have moved into the area although they have no ties from generation to generation.

It seems simple enough. Move into a house that you like, greet your next door neighbors, start life. As family situations change, find a larger or smaller home that meets your needs and move away. Not so in Japan. True, for people who live in apartments or "mansions" as townhouses are called here, places of residence may change, but when a family buys a house or inherits a house from their parents, basically they are there to stay. The eldest son and his family will move into the parent's home. The house itself may be torn down and rebuilt to accommodate the larger family but the family rarely moves away. I'm not saying that people never move, but they certainly don't change homes with much frequency.

So, when Tetsu and I bought our house in our neighborhood, we were putting down roots and it was a life decision. I doubt very much that Takumi will ever come back (with or without his family) to live with us and one day we will probably sell our minuscule plot of land for a piddling and move into a convalescent home or something. Anyway, we are here to stay.

Joining a neighborhood first meant that we join the homeowners association and that was the first link to our new community. Each neighborhood (and farming community etc.) is guided by a homeowners association and our neighborhood is divided into 12 groups according to block. Each year we take turns being chairman of our block and in our case the turn comes around about ever 10 years. The year that I was chairman it was my job to go to each house on the block and collect homeowner fees (about $50 every three months) and pass out notices, newsletters, and general printed matter generated from the city hall. On occasion I was required to call each home and let people know of emergency matters such as deaths in the neighborhood, or a fire etc. Once every two months the 12 chair people and other neighborhood officials meet for a general meeting. And twice a year there is a general meeting to review the budget and plan or revise for the new year. There are also meetings before sports day, before summer festival, before New Year's celebrations.

I dislike any and all meetings but Tetsu doesn't have the time and he gets more annoyed than I do so it has always been my job to attend. I dislike all the newsletters and papers that have to passed out that it seems like no one reads anyway and in this busy age it seems to me that there must be an easier way to collect homeowners' dues rather than to spend at least a week going from house to house trying to catch people at home, collecting their dues, taking it to the treasurer getting a receipt that is turned in somewhere else etc. I'm not a big fan of the homeowners association but since we live here... we do what we have to do.

It doesn't sound so bad written down like that, but once we moved into the neighborhood we also had to be responsible homeowners and take an official position in the neighborhood politics. I've been the traffic and safety official for the past 4 years and so I have to attend all those meetings plus go to the homeowners meeting. There are at least 20 other positions that must be filled by homeowners and NO ONE wants to do any of them but they all must be filled so at the end of the year we all spend HOURS and HOURS trying to "trap" new people to take our positions.

Another group we had to join was of course PTA just because our kids went to the local schools and there were more groups and more positions that had to be filled. Okay. Fine. I did that off and on while the kids were in school and I'm sorry, I thought most of it was a waste of time. Besides that the neighborhood has a "Child raising association" which was different from PTA but we were required to join that group too as a member of the neighborhood. More meetings.

Let's see. Because we belong to the neighborhood we take our turn at garbage station cleaning and monitoring. We join in the community neighborhood cleanup days held three times a year (yesterday... Tetsu went out and cut grass and picked up trash for two hours) and we also have a small group that we belong to where people on our street take turns cleaning the gutters once a month that get filled with leaves and sludge. At least that doesn't have a meeting. We just get out there and sling mud.

A few more groups that we bow out from are the Women's Volleyball team, the Men's baseball team, the Older Women's association (they are trying to get me to join that group) and the Elder people's association.

I'm sorry, but it is enough to make me want to move out of the neighborhood and back into an apartment building. But where would my cats and dog go?

Fukuroda Waterfall

Yesterday Tetsu and I took off on another jaunt to the next prefecture. Tetsu's way of planning a trip is to get in the car and go in the general direction towards someplace he's heard of and then hope to find signs along the way. He doesn't bother to check route numbers or even nearby cities. This results in a lot of back tracking, a lot of going around in circles (we came back to a starting point twice yesterday) and a few stops to ask people if we are on the right track.

BUT, after a long drive we did make it to our destination! Fukuroda Falls, a somewhat famous waterfall in Japan. It was a very interesting trip and the waterfall and surrounding autumn leaves were very beautiful!

As with most places in Japan, there were people. And people and people! When you go to Disneyland you expect to be thrown into crowds of people and have to line up for quite a while for the rides. In Japan one lines up for the parking lot, for the scenic view, good glory even for the bathroom!

"Ooh look Tetsu, we'd better hurry and get in line if we want to see the waterfall."

"That's the line to the bathroom, the one to the waterfall is longer."

He was right. First we paid for tickets to go see the waterfall. Then we entered a long tunnel that seemed longer because it had no end and besides we were standing in a line for about thirty minutes while we were there. It was interesting because they'd decorated the tunnel in places but all in all it was just a dark tunnel.

And when I say there was no end, there wasn't. The tunnel made a left turn into a better lit tunnel and what were we greeted with? A couple of elevators. What does this picture make you think of? Tetsu leaned over and whispered in my ear that the metal doors looked much like the furnace entrances in crematoriums. Grim... You'd think they could have make the place a little more cheery.


But the sight we were greeted with at the top of the elevator was worth waiting in line for! A gorgeous waterfall though not of the high falling off a cliff variety. Sort of a gentle stair stepping down four stories of rock. Set in the red and yellow and orange leaves it was just beautiful!


We had to wait in line again to be able to take pictures and then we took the elevator back down to the tunnel where it let out on an overhang right up next to the bottom of the waterfall. See all those little people there on the left? That was an amazing view also!


We could have turned around and gone back through the tunnel but I wanted to do a little "hiking" which turned out to be our downfall. The hiking path was a metal stairway clear up the side of the mountain (how do the workers even get up there?) and it seemed to go on forever! Tetsu and I were huffing and puffing and asking everyone coming down how many more steps there were. We took time out to take pictures of the community in the valley (we were trying to keep our pounding hearts in our chests!) and kindly allow people coming down to pass us.

"Oh please go ahead. We don't mind at ALL waiting for your group to go past."

Tetsu kept suggesting that we turn back and I'd make the observation that there were a lot of people OLDER than we were that we practically bounding up the mountain.

"Tetsu we walk everyday! We are supposed to be in shape!"

But we weren't. When we heard that it was another 20 minute stairway climb up the mountain (someone cheerfully told us "the roughest part is still ahead of you") we turned around and came down the mountain.


Back in the valley we collapsed in front of some shop where I took pictures of the fish being grilled in the windows. More long lines for this delicacy so we passed those by (Tetsu was a bit disappointed, I was happy to do without.)

Quilting day

I had an unexpected day with my quilting friends yesterday. I didn't get the message that Mrs. Harada was coming to town (she lives about three hours away) until around 8:00am when Mrs. Furui called to find out if I could change my plans and join them. Sure could! Eight of us got together and had a nice day of chatting and quilting and planning.

This is Mrs. Furui's latest quilt top. She's been making this for her son for...let's see...how many years? I think it was supposed to be for his apartment when he went away to college and he is finishing up med school so it has been awhile. I told her she needs to get this quilted right away because it won't be long before she'll have to be thinking about a wedding quilt (nothing in the immediate future but at the rate she's going she may have to give this to her first grandchild down the way....)


No, Mrs. Furui hasn't really been working on this all these years. She talked about what she is going to make for maybe three years. This pattern... that pattern... She clipped pictures from magazines and drew out block placement on graph paper. When she got started, the quilt really went quickly, but isn't that the way with most things. With all that lovely white space she's probably going to do some fantastic hand quilting and make this into an heirloom. I don't know when I'll be able to show you the finished quilt though. Don't hold your breath.

Of course one reason Mrs. Furui doesn't get much quilting done is because she is always busy doing something else. She also teaches a Swedish cross-stitch group (I think that's what you call it) and she makes things herself and also ends up making the delicate cross stitch made by her group's members, into wall hangings. This absolutely lovely piece was done by one of her students and I fell in love with it!!! But am I ever going to make something like this? Not if I want to do my quilting and knitting. I guess I'll have to be satisfied with a picture on my blog. This is going to turn into an advent calendar and Mrs. Furui is backing it and stabilizing it for the embroiderer this week.

The other thing that our patchwork group decided to do yesterday was try our hand at a mini-Round Robin. I had found some instructions on May Britt's blog long ago and I thought our group should try this as a game. We are always working on the kindergarten bazaar quilts but we never have time to make anything for ourselves (as a group) or work together on a similar project. This will be a first for all of us so we spent the day writing up instructions, setting up a rotation schedule and giving out measurements for the first block. Never having done a Round Robin I don't know what to expect. Any suggestions?

My neighborhood

This may not be very interesting but I thought I'd give you some trivia.

Here are a couple pictures of the neighborhood where I live. Do you notice anything that isn't in American neighborhoods? Do you not notice something that is usually in American neighborhoods?

For one, that little blue shed at the side of the street is one of our neighborhood garbage stations. Families drag their garbage to these stations and homeowners take turns cleaning the garbage station and patrolling to make sure someone isn't delinquent about how and when they've thrown out their garbage. That is a whole other story...

Another bit of trivia... If you look at the street corners in the neighborhood you can see that there are no street signs. This has always been a pet-peeve or maybe a curiosity in my mind. With all the people living in Japan, with all the little winding streets, there are no street names and there are no house numbers. When I explain to people how to get to my house from the next city over I'll say,

"You have to take the main road, towards the next town, go through the tunnel, go past three stop lights, go under the over pass, and make a left at the mechanic shop hidden behind the trees. Now you're in the neighborhood. Go down three blocks, turn right at the fourth street, go to then end and we're the last house on the left. If you go past the construction company you've gone too far."

I don't get many first time visitors.

Of course Japanese houses have addresses but they aren't marked anywhere. Some of the more modern tract neighborhoods will have numbers but traditionally there are no numbers and no street names at all. Also no rhyme and reason to the addresses. It is all very confusing and almost impossible to find some one's house by just an address. The mailmen must go through a rigorous training session to remember where to deliver mail!

In the past 10 years most Japanese cars have satellite navigators built into them so it seems to be a fairly simple process of typing in an address and following the machine's little screen map, but according to friends, I live far enough away from everywhere that the navigator only takes them to the neighborhood and they still have to figure out where I live amongst the 80 homes or so...

One feature seen in Japanese neighborhoods (and all over Japan) are mirrors. These are indispensable for getting in and out of tight places. The two mirrors here stand guard at the entrance to our neighborhood and it is the only way cars can see if there is traffic approaching. The roads are small, the fences and walls built right up against the oncoming street, so the mirrors enable the drivers (coming from both directions) to see cars around the corner. It takes a little brain figuring (everything is backwards, right?) but mirrors have saved a lot of lives on Japanese streets. Some people will have mirrors placed strategically so that they can back out of their driveways without hitting other cars or bicycles.

And here is our house at the edge of the neighborhood, and at the beginning of the forest. There's my trusty mirror that lets me know who is coming and going. Now... with all those directions do you think you can find me?

A cat tree

Look what I bought the other day... Didn't I just say that I don't seem to mind spending money on my animals? I guess not. I can't think of anything that we /they don't need more but I went ahead and bought this. A cat tree.

Every time I go to the pet section to buy cat and dog food I look at the cat tree displays. In America I look at Cost Co's ultimate cat trees with envy. The first thing I look for when I hit the recycle shops is cat trees. I see cat blogs with lovely little cat trees and I've even pondered making my own... But would my cats use the fool thing even if I spent the money for one? Would I be able to find a place for one in my small house? Don't these cats have enough hiding places in the closets, ON the closets, on the piano, under the sofa, under the futon, on the heated toilet seat, and of course on all seats and chairs that are supposed to be for human use?

The other day I was buying cat sand at the local home ware store and as usual I made a detour past the cat trees.

"Oh look! They're on sale for half-price!!! Ooh.. There's even a choice!"

I stood in front of the display for about ten minutes debating whether I really wanted to BUY a cat tree now that I'd found one affordable.

"The big one is too big. I'd have to get rid of my sofa. The medium size one is nice and maybe all 5 cats could play on it at the same time. But seeing that all 5 cats can't stand to be in the same room together at the same time I guess I don't need that size either. The little one is cute. Ooh. Three choices in this size too!"

I wandered away from the cat tree section to ponder and debate whether I was really going to spend this extra money.

"No, Tanya. Don't do it. There are far more important things in life that you need to spend your money on."

"Do it. How much time have you wasted all these years looking at the fool things anyway. You'll never find them at half price again."

Back to the cat tree section.

"This little one has the box on the floor. Hmm. Not much different from being under the sofa. This one has a hole that the cats could play peek-a-boo. That might be fun. This one has a grooming brush that they could rub up against. If they would use it that would be one way to battle the fur floating around the house."

I took a deep breath and PURCHASED the smallest sized cat tree that was the tallest, had a box on the middle level, and a dangling toy mouse. (And half-price off!)

The next morning I presented my box to Tetsu.

"I bought a cat tree. Half-price off. (That seems to be a very strong point in my mind.) All you have to do is put it together."

So Tetsu started out with screwdrivers and bolts and put the cat tree together. Actually there was some minor swearing because it didn't go together as easily as the box claimed it would but in the end... TA DA! A wonderful cat tree! Now will the cats use it? Hmmm. They seem to be having more fun playing in the empty box. Get that box out of the house so that they will play with their new cat tree!

I'd say it was a successful purchase. Toi loves it. He plays on it, in it, bats the mouse around etc. Chip too finds it quite a nice place to take a nap and I have even seen Patora and Cleo take a quick sit. I don't think Vel has the slightest interest whatsoever. The mouse is the most popular (I could have bought one of those at the dollar store) and the scratching posts but none of the cats pay the slightest attention to the grooming brush. Sigh. I guess I still have the floating fur problem...

Faces and spaces

This post is to remind myself that I am a quilter. Yesterday I spent a quiet day quilting the Wonky Love quilt. I love days like this when I don't have ANYTHING planned at all. Not one thing to mar my non-schedule. Usually I have one measly class or a trip to the grocery store or some household task that doesn't take any time but has to be put somewhere into the day. Yesterday dratted Choco pulled me down on our morning walk and I banged my head so Tetsu declared that I was to stay home and do NOTHING. In my book, nothing means I am still allowed to quilt so that's how I spent the day and I can say I am finished with stitch-in-the-ditch quilting in this quilt! Yeah! (And no after effects of the head banging!)

Now, what if anything, should I do about the white spaces? And what, if anything should I do about the animal faces in this quilt? Do you think I should embroider whiskers and eyes? Use beads? Should I just go ahead and put on the binding and work on the details of this quilt later? Today is another mostly free day so I'll see where my inspiration takes me.

I also want to show that I got Lynette's Noah's Ark block done ON TIME! (I finished it up late Halloween night). Whew! That was close.

And my fingers are itching to get to the yarn I bought for Tetsu's vest but I really think I should put in a few more stitches on my quilt before I start that project!

A day at the seaside

Yesterday Tetsu and I started off early for a drive and ended up on the east coast of Japan. Tochigi prefecture where we live, is one of the few in Japan that doesn't border the ocean somewhere so we rarely get to the seaside. Yesterday we stopped off at a fish market and enjoyed the sights. I don't know why fish markets are so interesting. Maybe because there are so many grotesque types of fish and as I wandered around I would peer into buckets and trays and wonder how on earth some of the fish should be cooked. I must admit that I was far more drawn to the fish slices rather than the whole fish that lay there looking at me waiting to be cleaned. For some reason Tetsu bought a BOX of horse mackerel (sanma) and I fear I'm going to be cleaning fish for awhile...Either that or give a lot of fish away! Why would he want to buy a box of fish when there is only the two of us at home?

Boxes of crab, barrels of clams, fish heads, grilled fish so that customers can sample the wares. I don't want to frighten anyone, but here are some shots of a Japanese fish market. I don't think fish are sold like this in the States but maybe in other places in the world. Sorry if I gross you out.

This is the typical way salmon is sold in Japan. Sawed completely in half and with the roe. It cooks up nicely and we actually love salmon roe though every time I eat it I remember as a child we would use salmon roe as bait when we went trout fishing. Who knew then that it was such a delicacy.

Here are more split fish and actually these are my favorite. They have been split and dipped in sweet soy sauce and then dried overnight. It makes them a bit salty and they lose some of the fishy flavor. Also they keep longer than regular fresh fish. Tetsu also bought a few trays of these too. We are going to eat fish this week.

I thought this was fascinating. Can you guess what this contraption is? Ignore the pumpkin on top. That was just for decoration... The only concession that the fish market had been aware of the Halloween season. This machine was spinning around and around at quite a high speed and these are squid that are hanging from it! It is a squid drying machine! Yep, someone has cleaned the squid and split them open and then the squid are hung so that they can swing round and round all day in the seaside air (seems to be a lot of cars and boats around too but we won't mention that). Tetsu bought some squid here too so those will also see our dinner table this week.

Fresh oysters were also being sold in front of the market and though Tetsu doesn't like oysters I do so one was split open for me and I gulped it down with a little soy sauce. If you're going to eat fresh oysters a fish market is the place to do it!

We spent a little time on the beach and in a very few minutes I'd picked up some broken shells and Tetsu had collected some driftwood. We both felt like we'd found treasures! I with my sparkly shells and polished glass, Tetsu with his pieces of wood smoothed into interesting shapes. I have no idea what we are going to do with the bits and pieces we've brought back from the beach...

And here I am looking fondly towards America.