Travels

Ah-ah....  Another month gone.  I must be keeping busy if I can't even find time to blog...

Tetsu and I did get away for a couple of days when we went for our annual trip to Morioka.  The city of Morioka is Tetsu's hometown and it was the city I was assigned to when I first came to Japan as a missionary.  47 years ago there was no Bullet Train and the only foreigners there, the only ones teaching English, were the missionaries.  I met Tetsu in the first few months of arrival and we married two years later... and then his job transferred us to other parts of northeastern Japan.  Still, even for me, Morioka is our hometown and along with good friends from Tetsu's high school days, we also have our eldest daughter's and Tetsu's mother's grave there.  Thus our annual trip. 

It is a six hour drive from Nikko to Morioka on the expressway, but the drive is easy and we made numerous stops along the way at Service Areas to stretch our legs, take advantage of restroom facilities, eat, and buy coffee and snacks.  The Service Areas in Japan are practically tourist attractions in themselves!  They often have restaurants, dog runs, gasoline stations, playgrounds etc.  There are also Parking Areas which usually only have small convenience stores, lots of vending machines and restrooms but anyway, it is easy to drive long distances and I noticed some small camping cars with curtains closed so maybe people even take naps in the parking lots while traveling.  

Tetsu enjoying a ramen breakfast at our first Service Area stop.

I know this is a strange photo but both Tetsu and I took a picture of the pretty flower arrangements that were adorning the restroom sink areas.  Japanese Service Area bathrooms are extremely clean!

Tetsu did all the driving this day, with us leaving at 3:30 AM from Nikko and arriving in Morioka around 10:30.  The first thing we did was stop at a home and hardware store to buy flowers to take to the cemetery.

As always, our gravesite was overrun with weeds and as the weather forecast heavy rain for the next day, Tetsu and I spent about three hours weeding and scrubbing and decorating the site before the weather changed   A job well done!

We stayed in a hotel in downtown Morioka the first night and once there we went exploring in the city looking for things that we remember from when we lived and worked there.  We found an old restaruant that we had often gone to when we were dating and whether because it was really tasty or because of nostalgia, the hamburger steak dinner was delicious!

The next morning we took a quick jaunt to an old Japanese house that is open to the public and we enjoyed the beautiful garden and polished floors and interior.

The rain made the garden all the more beautiful!

How would you like to wax THAT floor?!

Here and there in nooks and crannies were these colorful little pinecones...  The little balls are just colorful scraps of kimono fabric but aren't they cute!  I should be able to make something like that...

One more garden photo.

We went to our friends' house after our bit of sightseeing and we spent the whole day there, chatting and EATING!  Tetsu and the husband have been friends from high school and Iku-chan (wife) and I became close after we were married.  One topic of conversation that came up was "What are we going to do with all the STUFF we have?!"  As we age, this topic comes to mind a lot.  In Tetsu and my case, our kids are in the States and neither of them are going to want or have use for any of the paraphenalia that we have accumulated over the years.  Iku-chan was bemoaning the fact that she has all of her mother's kimono and she started bringing out things from her closet to show me.  She says that taking them to the recycle shop is depressing but she has no use for them and is on ther verge of throwing most of them out!  I started pawing through them and claimed a couple of kimono coats for myself and some scraps of kimono fabric, but I don't have any use for the beautiful kimono and obi either!  "Take MORE!" Iku-chan kept saying...

A sketch of me in one of Iku-chan's mother's kimono coats.  I can see myself wearing it over jeans and sweaters.

And once I got home I wore a dark blue one on a cold day.

Another high school friend of Tetsu's stopped by while we were visiting.

Sunday we worshipped at our home church and were happy to see that there were more people there than in previous years.  

After church we headed to the home of MY first friend when I arrived in Morioka.  Nobuko-san and her husband live in an old farmhouse in the mountains of the prefecture.  It is pretty rugged but so beautiful!

My sketch of Nobuko-san's house.

The entryway with original dirt floors.

Nobuko-san's husband is a somewhat famous potter in Japan and he showed us around his workshop and explained passionately about digging up clay from the mountainous areas that no one knows about.  

He showed us blueprints of a stove he is building to heat his workshop and took us out to see the kiln that he recently rebuilt so that his larger pieces could be placed inside and taken out again.

One of Ito-san's larger pieces.

Nobuko-san served tea from the hibachi that was warming the living room.  I was most impressed that she can still sit on her knees!

I, on the other hand, could hardly get up from the floor!

It was such a wonderful weekend with friends.  The last night we stayed at an onsen.  (Of course!)

The next day, on our way home, Tetsu wanted to make a stop in a town that makes ironware which Morioka and the prefecture is famous for.  We went to a little museum but the real draw for Tetsu, was a display of Shohei Ohtani's things!

This was the town where Ohtani-san grew up!

"Shaking hands" with Ohtani-san was a highlight for Tetsu on this trip!

My happy husband.

I guess that's enough of a photo cascade for this blog post!

The first week of October

It has been nearly a month and sometimes I'm afraid if I don't get back to my blog, I never will.  I remember when I used to blog daily... maybe my entries were shorter but there were always things to say.  Now I feel like very little happens that's worth writing about but when I think about writing a post I realize that so MUCH has been going on (all incidental) and it will take me awhile to put it all down!  And then I procrastinate!

So, the weather has finally become bearable.  This week at least I can report cool evenings though the days are still quite warm and sometimes even get hot!  We did put blankets on the bed though so nights can become chilly (sometimes).  I'm really supposed to be in the fall/winter uniform for my crosswalk job but I'm chosing to stay in the spring/winter uniform which is lighter weight and I don't have to wear a vest, jacket and tie.  Next week maybe?

Farmers are harvesting their rice fields so I guess that means that autumn is officially here.  M-san brought us a bag of her family's rice and so we are enjoying New Rice (as opposed to old rice which was harvested and has been in storage since last autumn.)  Connoissiurs of rice will tell you that new rice is stickier and shines when cooked and that each rice kernal becomes plump.  I'm not sure I can tell the difference but M-san's rice is definitely tasty so there must be something to it.

Other signs of autumn have been fall morning glories, golden fields...

...chestnuts, and thunder storms (and M-san's rice). 

We had a surprise visitor this month when Tetsu's sister showed up at our front door.  She'd lost Tetsu's phone number and she needed something so she rode her bicycle (albeit a chargeable one) for 3 1/2 hours to get to our house!  After some chatting and lunch (and ice water and a cold towel!) Tetsu loaded her bicycle in the car and drove her home.  She's 74!  I'd never be able to do it!!!

I had an interesting afternoon one Sunday when I attended a trial-run of a pot-sticker making class with the Nikko International Association.  Next month the group (there are only 6 of us plus City Hall staff) will lead a group of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders in making authentic Chinese pot-stickers (we call them gyouza) and the Chinese lady who will be teaching the class wanted to make sure that we volunteers knew what we were doing before we tried to teach the children.  This was a major undertaking as we made the gyouza wrappers from scratch so it took a lot of kneading, a lot of letting sit, more kneading, more sitting and then rolling each wrapper out individually in very specific hand motions.  A lot of work!!!  But the teacher told stories of how she learned to make gyouza with her grandmother, she taught us how to stuff the wrappers the Chinese way with a chant and a wish over each one for health, a happy family and wealth.  The 9 of us made 80 gyouza and ate our fill of them!  They were SO delicious but it will take me a while to work up the motivation to make homemade gyouza in my own kitchen.  

I have sort of an upsetting story (to me and to Tetsu) to relate about our sunroom and garden.  Sigh.  Some bigwigs came last week to let us know that at the beginning of next year, construction will start on a factory and parking lot right where all that green is from the window...  We have enjoyed our garden and the view from our sunroom and from our bedroom for the past 5 years.  Tetsu has made a vegetable garden and planted flowers, he has kept the weeds from encroaching by weed whacking a large area behind our house.  We have been thrilled to see the sunset over Mt. Nantai and look out over morning mist but alas...  There will be a factory next our neighborhood from sometime next year.  It is hard not to be sad over this upcoming change...  But it was never our land to begin with, and as I say, we have basked in beauty for 5 years.  I was very upset when the huge forest that had been originally behind our house was felled those 5 years previously and we even went looking for somewhere else to live but the scenery that we were gifted after the removal of the forest made me see that even things that I consider terrible may bring blessings and gifts I couldn't imagine.  I can't imagine what a factory behind us is going to bring that may be good but I'm trusting that God's timing and plan is better than any I could come up with...  

Tersu and I have both taken so many pictures out our bedroom window and I've shown only a fraction of them.  We have loved watching the clouds move across the sky.

Different colors, different times of day.

Well, the clouds and the mountain will still be there but we just may not be able to see them so easily.  Life is like that.

I'm working on another Mexican Star quilt and M-san is working on her own version.  I need to get the final border in this weekend.

Can anyone guess who this is?!  It's Yuma-kun!!!!  I had just finished up at the pool and was waiting for Tetsu when Yuma-kun noticed me and came over to say hi.  He has been working in another prefecture, but is now back in his old home and he was on his way to the pool himself.  For people who don't know what I'm talking about, Yuma-kun came to me for English when he was in the first grade and he was quite a handful!  I sort of took him under my wing for a number of years and he continued to come to me for English (and sewing and cooking and walking the dog and taking pictures) until he went to high school.  He is 23 now and he assures me that he will be at the pool often so I hope to see him regularly!

This week my friends and I (until Covid hit we often went traveling together) went to Nikko to the shrines and temples for a day trip.  Hiroko-san (carrying the folder) is an English volunteer guide and she wanted to go through her tour with us in English and that is why we were off for the day.

It was such an interesting day and Hiroko-san could answer almost any question we had and she explained the history of the area and the relationship between the shrines (Shintoism) and temples (Buddhism).  It was a wonderful day and once home I put snippits in my sketchbook.

Our itinerary, and a sketch of the fortune hoop that people could step through for good luck (and with a partner to ask for blessings on a happy relationship.)  The Imperial Crest which I found in front of a temple.  The 5 story pagoda which is on the shrine grounds but is a symbol of Buddhism.

A sketch of our group, of the Rinnoji temple and of the Sacred Bridge that is another famous site in Nikko.

Pictures from Leiya last month include Tony with his hands full...

...Taiga-kun and Luka-kun I guess in a hotel somewhere...  They are in Tennessee this week.

...And a cute family photo while traveling.

And that takes us to this first week in October!  Thank you for sticking with me!

The month of August vanished...

I am so sorry to be AWOL for so long.  Life is a strange balance of not doing anything worth writing about and then actually having so many details that it is hard to get started!  It has been nearly a month since my last post so now I fear today's post will be too long!

The weather hasn't actually changed that much from my last post in the middle of August.  The days are still hot and sweltering,

I still worry about Tetsu spending so much time time outdoors cutting weeds in the middle of the day.  

I can't convince him to limit his outdoor work to early morning and when he finally does come back into the air conditioning he collapses onto the sofa and can barely talk with me.  A nap, something iced-cold and a big meal usually revives him! 

This summer I have drawn him numerous times weed whacking and he is somewhat annoyed that I depict him as only ever doing yard work...  But honestly, that has been his main activity!

Not long after my last post, Tetsu came down sick and I followed soon afterwards.  Tetsu never went to the doctor's though I did and I took a Covid test and it was negative.  I was told, though, that it might be too early to tell and so to take Covid precautions.  Actually, I'm pretty sure that both Tetsu and I had Covid because we both lost our sense of smell!  Tetsu bounced back fairly quickly but I was knocked out completely for a week and then just sat around in a brain fog for the next week and even now nearly a month later I am still coughing.  The brain fog and lack of motivation and the fatigue was the worse and I ended up sitting in front of the TV watching Olympics and high school baseball all day and every day!  And I HATE the TV!  It was pretty bad!

While I was still laid out, Tetsu discovered that there were hornets trying to build a hive in our balcony wall (they were buzzing in and out of a very small crack) and then he discovered a small hive up under the eaves of our house. 

I slept through all the excitement of Tetsu dealing with the hornets with extra strength wasp repellant and then getting up on a ladder and knocking down their hive.  He managed to wrench his knee while he did that but he did win out over the hornets!  He counted 63...

Not a great photo but you can see that we survived the hornets and Covid.  Here we are with the end of the season crop of blueberries from our garden.

Once I was back up and about I finished off the Mola wall hanging I had been making.  

This goes with the Mola from last year.  I think the top piece is supposed to be sprouts in a field and the bottom piece are the tomatoes after the crop comes in. 

I'm done with Mola for the year!

Japan had a couple of typhoon visit us in August and the southern part of Japan had quite a bit of flooding and landslide damage.  In our part of Japan, though school was canceled for the day, we actually didn't get much wind and in the evening the sky was just beautiful!

The scenery from our bedroom window.

You can see how the rain has hit the windows on this side of the house but once that passes we get some fantastic sunsets!

I made cookies one day...

M-san and I went out fabric shopping for our next project and we stopped for gelato on the way home.

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Taiga-kun has two bottom teeth now!  He is getting past baby stage.

He is also beginning to stand and try to pull himself around.

Luka and Leiya and Taiga made a trip to Texas a couple of weeks ago and they spent a week with Leiya's good friend and her three boys.  Luka loves having some older "brothers".

And that's pretty much our month...

A couple of lessons from  Skillshare classes.