Hot Spa

We woke up to snow this morning and Tetsu is out shoveling. Not that much compared to some parts of Japan that we've lived in, but enough to make traffic slow down in my parts and to put a hush on the countryside. I thought that Choco would rather stay indoors than outdoors today so I brought her in but she was complaining so I've put her out in the snow. Dumb dog! She doesn't know what's good for her! What do you bet that she will start complaining and want to be brought back inside!

Yesterday I missed posting because Tetsu and I went out to Denny's for breakfast, then to an early morning spa and finally hit a movie.

Tetsu has always loved the hot spas throughout Japan. They don't even have to be authentic spas, he loves the so called health spa centers with all sorts of fancy baths and saunas. I am not as fond but figure that Tetsu and I need a common interest and so I am willing to go along if I can take my Kindle or a book to pass the time.

The spa we went to yesterday was a recently built one in the middle of the city and next to the movie theater. How authentic can that get? By authentic I mean that someone has spent a fortune boring into the earth until they hit a vein of volcanically heated water that is pumped to the surface and leads into a bath, no reheating or recycling needed. Most places have to reheat or add water or bring in authentic spa water from somewhere else etc. And most places focus on gimmicky things to draw guests. Yesterday's spa center was using all the gimmicks! Tetsu had a great time!

Let's see... The building was huge and after signing in Tetsu and I separated to go into different male and female bathing areas. (Thank you, I'm not ready to bare my body for the male population!) The locker area was bamboo lined with carved benches and soft music. Not a high school locker room for sure! After changing I went into the bathing area where there were rows and rows of showers, and bathing buckets, mirrors, bottles of shampoo and rinse and body soap. (You don't have to bring anything but a hand towel and even those can be purchased in vending machines.... along with toothbrushes, shavers and underwear. Hmmm.)

A quick suds up (and rinse off... that's very important)and then I made the rounds of the gimmicky baths.

An indoor bath, high temperature, authentic spa water brought in from somewhere.

Next stop an outdoor kettle bath.

Then a hot bath surrounded by rocks and trees and winding paths. (picture from the Internet)

An even hotter bath outside (I managed 30 seconds before I popped out of that!)

and then into the herb sauna. Yesterday's aroma was chamomile.

A quick stop at the hot slab sleeping bath which is a hot rock that has hot water bubbling around it. The only trouble with that is you are completely exposed (whichever side is up) and besides since the air is wintry this season, my back side was hot while my front side was freezing (you know which way I was laying.)

Back inside and I opted to skip the electric bath... Yes, voltage is shot through the water to give you a buzz while you bathe. As a child I was taught to keep electrical appliances away from water so I do not understand how one can sit in electrified water! No way!

There was a carbonated bath (sort of like sitting in Sprite minus the stickiness)

and a salt sauna. I should have skipped the salt sauna. There was a mountain of salt in a huge dish for people to grab a handful and scrub onto their body. Ouch, ow, oh, ouch!!! I forgot that I have a lot of cat scratches on my legs and arms. Think of rubbing salt into all those cuts. I escaped from the salt sauna as soon as possible.

Another quick scrub and shampoo and then I went out to the relaxation room and watched TV in my own reclining chair and private screen until Tetsu showed up. We could have had a hair cut, lunch, a massage and facial etc. if we had wanted to spend more time there but we opted for a pop-corn and soda lunch at the movie theater.

Patchwork Thursday

Yesterday was a patchwork day and a few of us gathered at Mrs. Furui's. I came home with so much homework!!! I hope I can keep up this month!

Mrs. Furui is determined to make the hospital children's ward where she volunteers, a quilt decorated area and so she has started yet another project and asked me to help again. How can I refuse her! Twenty some years ago someone (Mrs. Okutomi?) sent us an Anne of Green Gables redwork kit. I actually traced one pattern and had Leiya make the block and then make a wall hanging... I wonder where that went to? Anyway, the kit has sat in Mrs. Furui's closet for 20 years and she has decided to make it into a quilt for the hospital.

"Tanya... Wouldn't you like to make a block or two?"

"Well, if you put it that way, let's say I'd like to make a block (not two)."

and so I got started. Mrs. Harada took home number two (Mrs. Furui has 7 more to get done but she is gathering recruits at the hospital so I don't feel sorry for her!)

And I came home with our block exchange game and instructions to make two stars for Mrs. Ochiai's quilt. And I came home with templates for making 4 blocks for our bazaar quilt.

The bazaar quilt by the way has had a beautiful start thanks to Mrs. Harada who appliqued the whole dang tree trunk for us last month! This month we are going to start appliqueing leaves to the main panel. Those of us who aren't appliqueing leaves are supposed to prepare 20 leaves for later appliqueing. That is also homework.

And then the surprise quilt block needs to be done too this month...

I did a bit of show and tell yesterday too and took my Feathered Star quilt and the Word Play Quilts book. Mrs. Ochiai was our photographer yesterday with her magic camera so I'm including her pictures of me though you've seen this quilt before.

I also passed along the Angel quilt for Mrs. Furui's hospital and picked up some more fabric for the next one (when that will get done I don't know...)

Otoshidama

I'm going to do a little complaining today... Well, I don’t know if it is complaining but I have some cynical observations.

Yesterday was my first day back teaching and in one of my children's classes (2nd and 3rd graders) I asked if they had had a good New Year's holiday. When I ask each lesson about the past week I usually get a bunch of grunts or "can't remember" or "it was boring" type of answers. Yesterday the kids (four of them) were very happy.

"Yes! Good New Year! I got 3 man 5 thousand yen." (Equivalent to more than $350!)

"That's nothing! I got 4 man!" ($400)

"We got more than 8 man ($800) together!" (Brothers...)

Sheesh. I did not want to know how much loot the kids pulled in. And I was disturbed to see the sparkling in their eyes at the mention of money when they are usually so doldrumed to the world.

Japan has the custom of giving children "otoshidama" which I suppose translates as New Year's coins. On New Year's day, children line up in front of relatives who have come visiting and will be presented with colorful, small envelopes that contain money. Each adult relative gives each child an envelope and there is a lot of bowing and exchanging of wishes for good health in the New Year. Even Tetsu fondly remembers this tradition. If the child has a lot of adult relatives I suppose he receives a lot of envelopes and a lot of money... but my understanding had been maybe $10 per relative. I guess not!

(By the way, we never followed this custom in our house. Not too many relatives to begin with and besides Tetsu and I and my American family had showered our kids with Christmas presents not many days before the New Year's. Tetsu's mother though sometimes gave the kids otoshidama that she really couldn't afford and Tetsu would reciprocate to her.)

I read somewhere that this year 18% of elementary school children in Japan received over 4 man yen ($400) in otoshidama, and 17% received over 2 man ($200). I guess my English class students can consider themselves pretty affluent.

When I told Tetsu, his comment was that he wished that he were a Japanese elementary school student, but I am more cynical. These 2nd and 3rd graders DO NOT get trained in saving money let alone doing chores for getting an allowance. They have already spent or are planning to spend their otoshidama on hand held computer games and I shudder to think how they will learn about self control or delayed gratification. MY comment to Tetsu was that I am glad I am not trying to raise our children in this age! 10-15 years ago I had enough trouble keeping them off the TV and restricting computer time. I don't think I'd have the energy to oversee otoshidama purchases, let alone hand held computer usage.

I'm not asking anymore of my children's classes about their New Year's holidays. Listening to otoshidama hauls seems way too materialistic for my tastes.

(pictures from the Internet)

A picture's worth a thousand words

Wordless Wednesday.

The other day Anna on Pieceful Piecer tagged me as a blog that she liked that maybe not that many people were visiting. I'm supposed to tag two or three other blogs...

Okay. I'm tagging my friend Mrs. Ochiai's blog today. Yes, her blog is in Japanese but she doesn't like to write very much, mostly pictures. She has a fantastic camera and can take some really nice closeups of things around her house. Her blog is called "Ie no koto" which means "House news". Please pay her a visit. She is also a blogger that doesn't want to get involved in reading and answering comments so you can just go look at her photos for awhile. She's almost a perpetual Wordless Wednesday.

And another blog I'm tagging is "Utsunomiya and Beyond" which is another blog about Japan. This is a beautiful blog about the city I live next to and the husband and wife team take fantastic pictures and videos of the local sights. This is another blog that doesn't "say" a lot in words but communicates a lot in photos! "A picture's worth..."

Okay... I've got to get going!

Update: BrendaLou and Sandra let me know that Mrs. Ochiai's blog isn't open to the public. I guess I just have Mrs. Ochiai's URL on my favorite lists and I just go back and forth. Maybe someday she will open up to everyone... Sorry about that...

Winter break was nice but...

This was how my days were starting a week ago. This is me in my morning relaxing mode enjoying a cup of coffee and the company of 4 cats. I've got pajamas on under that fleece shirt and I was lounging around like that til 10:00 AM a week ago. No longer! This morning I was dressed in uniform and out of the house by 7:30 for crosswalk duty!

Winter break was great! I'm a little sad that the work year has started for me from today. Sometimes I wonder if I would be happy completely retired and doing nothing but patchwork and housekeeping all day. Right now I have a nice balance of work and socializing and sewing but a mainly sewing vacation was very nice!

So, what did I get done this vacation?... Well, not THAT much. The Happiness quilt. The Fat Cats bag. I pieced three more Alabama Beauty blocks and wonder where this is going. I've got quite a few blocks up there on the wall with no plans for how to put them together. Gee... I could just make blocks forever... I like mixing up the combinations of colors.

I've been quilting another Angel quilt for Mrs. Furui to take to her volunteer hospital job. I guess I'll put binding on that before I show it here.

I spent some time organizing some patterns for a friend's secret quilt. (By the way, we ditched the idea of signature blocks just because we couldn't figure out who we would contact to have sign blocks. Going in a completely different direction now. What will I do with the signature blocks I've already made?) And while organizing I put together one applique block for the secret quilt myself.

Back to work! Remember this year my motto is that I "get to" do things, not "have to". God has blessed me that I GET TO work and GET TO be busy and GET TO stand out at the cold crosswalk! Thank you Lord!

Donto-yaki on a Sunday afternoon

Yesterday, Sunday afternoon, Choco and I were taking a walk while Tetsu slept on the sofa. Since there was no schedule for the rest of the day I let Choco lead and we ended up in the fields at a Donto-yaki gathering. In my part of Japan, every January the farmers hold Donto-yaki days and I think in other parts of Japan there is usually a Donto-yaki going on at the Shrines around this time of year.

I'm not really sure what all Donto-yaki entails but in my area the Donto-yaki for the area is announced and everyone takes their New Year's decorations to the open field where towers of bamboo have been constructed. I think the times for Donto-yaki are staggered so that the fire department can be on hand for all of them, but anyway, at some point the bamboo is set aflame and all the neighbors throw their New Year's Decorations into the fire sending wishes for a good year up to the heavens with the smoke.

The women also seem to spend a lot of time earlier in the day making little pounded rice balls of omochi that are stabbed onto tree branches and these are set around the bonfire to toast. I think I remember that if you eat a certain amount of rice balls it is supposed to protect you from cold germs...

The fire department and volunteer firemen were out at the festival dressed in their traditional silver fire protective garb. The onlookers were toasting their rice balls and drinking warm osake or sweet sake which is low in alcohol content and even the children can enjoy.

Choco didn't like that popping and crackling from the huge fire and she pulled us by very quickly but she found that rolling in the smokey ashes was quite satisfying and came home more black than white. Got a scolding from Tetsu when she tracked sooty footprints into the house!

Happy Fields

I can finally show you a picture of my Happiness quilt... That's not really the name but I guess the recipient can name it herself.

Remember when I bought my dish that said Happiness on January 2nd? And how I said that I couldn't really see the character at first sight? Well, Julie commented that she spotted the character easily.

"I saw that "fuku" right away. Add a paddy field and I could quilt my name on everything... "

Well, you said it Julie. Yeah, I can make a "fuku" block (happiness). And a "ta", paddy field block is sure a lot easier than the fuku part. So there we have a "fukuda" block. Happy Field. Which is Julie's last name....

Now what am I going to do with a block that belongs to Julie? There's nothing else to do but make a quilt and send it to her. (I'm not changing MY name!)

Julie has been a blog visitor for a few months and she is a "senpai" (senior) to me as a foreign wife living in Japan. Let's see. She also loves the Lord and does quilting. (Go see a fantastic quilt she is working on for her church). So Julie and I have a lot in common though we've never met. She knows people I know. She has been to places I have been. She makes comments on my blog and mostly reconfirms my observations on Japanese life.

So I made a Happy Fields quilt and found an appropriate Bible verse to stamp around the border. Now what to do about quilting. I decided that the quilt is small enough (the fuku block is about 15 inches square) that hand quilting wouldn't be a big job... Just stitch in the ditch and I was done in a day.

By the way, a couple people asked me about the stamps. These are FOAM stamps (not rubber) and I found them at JoAnne's (but someone said you can get them at Michael's too) in the children's craft section. The alphabet is attached to a plastic sheet that is all connected and was hanging on the wall. There were two or three fonts that one could chose from and I'm thinking I'd like to pick up another set the next time I'm in the States. I realized after I was almost finished stamping that I only had the ALPHABET, no numbers, which caused me to tear my hair when I wanted to stamp Psalm 128:2! The 1 is an I. The 2 is a Z rounded off by hand. The 8 is an E right side up and upside down together. That's the breadth of my creativity.

I'm HAPPY the Happy Fields quilt is where it belongs... in the Fukuda home!