We're Making Plum Wine!!!

Yesterday we went out for a random shopping trip/drive. While out we noticed the small green plums used to make japanese plum wine (umeshu) were out on sale. This wasn't the first time we had noticed them, but on this particular occasion we randomly decided to make it! So we got the fermenting jar, rock sugar and "white liquor" needed and went home and mixed it all up in the jar, put the lid on, and hid it away in a cool dark cupboard as per the instructions. It was all stupidly easy to do, and this time next year we'll be opening it up to drink and to eat the softened and sweetened plums. Our friend Kimiko made some a couple years back and let us try some of the plums from it. They were SO SO good! Fingers crossed ours turn out like hers.

After mixing up the plum wine ingredients and tidying up just a little, it was time to head out to Ippei's house to pick him up and head out to Omiya for dinner with Junko and Yoko. It was the first time all of us had met up together since coming back from America, so we were all really looking forward to it. Ippei was wearing his "NAVY" T-shirt that Owen bought him in Annapolis. We went to a traditional Japanese izakaya restaurant. 

We sat on cushions on tatami floors (as usual). We ordered a tonne of dishes. We really should have paid more attention to the size of our table before ordering half the menu, but we didn't... and so the food just kept coming and coming and it wasn't long before there was no spare room on the table to put the newly arrived dishes! haha.

 We had so many different dishes, including this sashimi platter (raw fish) complete with a flying fish fin as decoration.

 And these grilled chicken kebabs (yakitori) were awesome!

Ippei had a bowl of ramen noodles to finish off with. So incredibly Japanese! haha

Everyone brought photos along, so we had fun looking through the different photos from our America trip/wedding and reminiscing.  

We had a really great night.

An Afternoon Bike Ride

Saturday morning we woke up to beautiful sunshine and it was actually WARM! It's almost like Tango had decided to accept the fact that it was late May and the temperatures should be in the mid 20s - not in low teens! We were stuck at home for most of the morning as we were waiting on the NEW COUCH to be delivered. It finally came around 11:30 and we were able to get on with our big plans for the day - a bike ride to Amanohashidate.

We got on the bike path that runs near our apartment and set off. The path runs right beside tons of rice paddies that are all filled with water and freshly planted in the last few weeks. When the wind isn't blowing,

the mountains (which are now a really pretty shade of bright green) reflect in all the mini-lakes - it's not the

One of the rather infamous signs in Tango - at first glance it REALLY looks like 'I LOVE Satan'...

Upon arriving at our destination - Amanohashidate, we decided to stop for a late lunch. There are lots of dining options at what is probably the number one tourist spot in Tango, but we headed upstairs to a little place that specializes in noodles, and had cold soba and udon. The waitress even went out of her way to bring us an English menu, and then seemed a bit embarrassed about it when Bryn ordered in perfect Japanese! It was nice to just park our bikes directly in front of the place and pop inside for a bite though. After lunch we hopped back on the bikes and headed across the peninsula to ride home along the other side of the bay. 

Don't mind the picture - Bryn's hat hair was doing it's own thing!

"Bryn, do I have seaweed in my teeth?"

Once we had made it home we set out in the car to collect the ingredients for that night's dinner - thai chicken pizza inspired by California Pizza Kitchen! The pizza's turned out really nice (almost like the real thing) and we spent the rest of the evening on the couch drinking gin and tonics and watching Lost. Over all a really perfect Saturday!

Sunday morning didn't greet us with sunshine, but rather steady rain and wind. We both slept in a good deal later than usual before dragging ourselves out of bed. Once we were up and clean, we settled onto the couch and I turned on the TV. I was flipping through the channels when out of nowhere the announcer said "Kyotango City Amino Minami Elementary School" (in Japanese though...) What?!? That's my elementary school! Sure enough some guy had gone to school and done baseball like activities with one of my 6th grade classes! I can't wait to go back to that school and tell that class I saw them on TV :)Sunday's big event - my haircut! I spent the last year and a half growing my hair out for the wedding. Well, the wedding is over, and it was time to chop it all off again! So, that's what I did. It later got a bit wet and wind-blown while we were out running errands, but you can get the basic idea!

Well, it sounds like Bryn has dinner about ready! He has made yorkshire pudding and roast beef...I've never had yorkshire pudding before so I am quite excited!! (It smells nice too!)

Monja-Yaki!!

Yesterday (Thursday) was a long day at school, but it was made all the easier knowing that we were going out for dinner with Yoko that night. For those of you who were at our wedding, you will know Yoko as the bridesmaid who changed into the red kimono. I was at  work until about 5:30, and then I walked speedily home thinking about nothing other than all the yummy things we could order at the restaurant. As I approached the house, the sun was setting slightly in the sky, and the way it hit the newly-planted rice paddies was really beautiful, so I tried to take a picture of it with my cellphone... but as always, it didn't really turn out. Here is is though, for your viewing pleasure...haha.

Anyway, when I got home we relaxed a little before heading out. The restaurant was about a 20~30 minute drive away in a town called Mineyama. Yoko was going to meet us there. Actually, it was Liz's first time to this particular restaurant, called "Uchinku". It specializes in a kind of food called "monja-yaki". Monja-yaki is basically like a really runny okonomiyaki (think of flower, water, eggs, shredded cabbage and whatever meat/seafood/veges you want to add in to the mix, then fried like a pancake on a hotplate... only it's runny so it's more like the consistency of bubbling glue... doesn't sound very appealing, but it's nice enough).

Each table at the restaurant has a large hotplate built into the tabletop. When you order at monja-yaki, the staff bring the bowl of uncooked mixure to your table, and cook it infront of you on the hotplate. It's quite high-speed and really interesting to watch. It seems there's quite an art to preparing it right. To start with the fillings (in our case, seafood) are in bite-size pieces, but when they cook it for you at the table, they chop away at it at high speed with two sharp spatula-like things until they are all chopped up into tiny bits (for the most part). If you have ever seen a Japanese Teppanyaki performance, it's a bit like that. It's really fun to watch. Here (above right) is a picture of the monja-yaki while the waiter is chopping away at it. His hands are moving so fast that it's all blurred.

So when it's all done, it looks like this...(see right)
The lumps you can see are bits of squid, I think. It was really good!!
You get given little metal spatulas to eat it with. There's a tricky wee technique to using the spatulas, though, which adds to the fun of eating it. Basically, you take your flat spatula and squish it down into the bubbling monja-yaki and slowly pull/scrape it towards you. As you pull (in theory) it sticks to the spatula so that you can eventually lift it up and eat what you caught... it didn't always work out so easily, but it was fun, as you can see in the picture below!! haha. As the bits around the edges cooked more and more on the hotplate, they got darker and yummier...

 In the picture above, Liz and Yoko have fun trying to scrape up some monja-yaki with their wee metal spatulas. You can see how hot it is!! It's steaming up a storm! The big black bowl has salty cabbage and dressing in it. It was REALLY good!!

Liz and Yoko ordered ginger ales. This may not seem like much to those of you who live in countries where ginger ale is commonly found on drinks menus, but here in Japan it's not so common. Not only was it on the menu, but you could chose between sweet or dry!! AMAZING! haha

So, we ordered corn!! Yes, store-bought corn fried in butter, with salt and pepper. Basically (remember there's a hotplate in the table) they brought a bowl of corn to the table, threw a lump of butter on the hotplate and then piled the corn on top! So simple, and not something people back home would pay much for, but it was really yummy.We used our spatulas to scoop it up, because it was taking too long to eat it bit by bit with chopsticks!! ;)

We had a really fun time. Liz still wasn't fully recovered from her cold/flu, but we still managed to enjoy ourselves and leave anxiously looking forward to the next time.
We have some really great friends here.

Hospital Visit

Hi everyone! I'm still coughing, sniffling and being overall pitiful, but Bryn seems to have promised y'all an entry on my behalf. So, please ignore any typos or sentences that make no sense, since everything's still a little foggy!

I woke up on Thursday morning with a scratchy throat and headache - you know when you can just feel a cold coming on? Yeah, that was me. I managed to make it though the school day, then came home and Bryn and I bought a couch (as one does on a Thursday evening!). That night was NOT pretty, and when I woke up with a temperature of 38.4 (that's over 100 I think) Bryn told me to call school and let them know I wasn't coming.

I called Oda-sensei and she promised to pass on the message to the vice principal. I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. A few minutes later, my phone rang - it was Oda-sensei. She had been asked to inform me that if I stayed home sick, I had to use a day of my regular leave, unless I went to the hospital and got a receipt from them. I tell you what, with the way I was feeling, the LAST think I wanted to do was go to a Japanese hospital and sit and wait for lord knows how long. Also, I was fairly certain I just had a bad cold or stomach bug, not something one usually goes to the hospital for where I come from. In Japan, however, it's perfectly normal to go see a doctor the second you start sneezing.

I texted Bryn to tell him what the school had said. He suggested I go to the hospital for no other reason that to prove that I really was sick, not faking it for a long weekend. Seeing as he had elementary school all day, he couldn't come home to go with me, so I called the Yoshida's. Since I was a bit out of it (and my Japanese is out of practice after being in the states for two weeks) I misunderstood "can you go to the hospital by yourself" for "are you by yourself now", to which I answered yes. Ooops.

I sat around for a few more minutes, then picked up my dictionary and decided I would go try it by myself. I got the the hospital, walked inside, and was completely lost. I immediately turned around, walked back outside and called Kumi to beg her to come help. She and Masami came to my rescue and helped me get signed in and such.

I was prepared to wait several hours before anyone saw me at all, but it was only a matter of minutes before they called my name, and low and behold, the doctor spoke English! He asked some questions, then did a quick examination - the usual stuff, checked my blood pressure, eyes, etc. Then out of nowhere he says, "ok, next I do rectal exam."

WHAT?!?!?!?!? I asked if that was really necessary, and he said yes, because I was sick. So, I said back to him, I am pretty sure I have a stomach bug. (I wanted to add that the only reason I was even there was because the school insisted I go to the hospital to use sick leave). He gave up and said he would give me medicine, and if i don't get better I should come back on Monday.

I spent the rest of the day sleeping and watching Gossip Girl. Saturday was spent much the same way, only we watched Lost instead. Today Bryn has school, so I am waiting patiently for the stores to open so I can go try and get some cold medicine (the little packets of white powder the doctor gave me just weird me out...) Fingers crossed this cold or whatever goes away soon though...as nice as it is to lay around doing nothing all day I do like breathing!

Hopefully the next time you hear from me I will be a much healthier Liz!

Wedding Pics

We had a professional photographer at the wedding, who was totally fantastic. She keeps a blog of the weddings and other photo shoots she does. She has posted some sneak preview pics on the blog. They are awesome. Click here to check them out

Under the Weather

Well, we had some wonderful weather in St Michaels. Unfortunately, we haven't been so lucky since coming back to Japan. The weather here has been pretty rubbish actually. It feels more like March than like May! Yesterday the high was 12 degrees (53.6 Farenheit), but today the high is supposed to reach 14 (57.2). It seems strange to get excited about 14 degrees at this time of year, but it's an improvement and I'll take what I can get! haha. Tomorrow it's supposed to reach 15 or 16 I think, and the SUN is supposed to come out!! Imagine that!!!
Also, I managed to pick up a cold in America a couple of days after the wedding. It really wasn't so bad while I was there, but it got pretty bad for a couple days after we got back to Japan. I'm feeling considerably better now (not 100 percent yet though)... however it seems I might have passed my germs onto Liz, who is feeling very unwell today. She has taken the day off work (unheard of for her) and will go to see the doctor later on. Unfortunately I'm not able to leave school today, so I can't go with her. She's gonna have to  work it out by herself, but I'm sure she'll be fine. Perhaps it will make for a good blog entry in a day or two! Stay tuned...

In other news, we bought a sofa last night!!! HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We have wanted a sofa for ages. Yes, that's right, we haven't had one. We have been sitting on cushions on the floor of the lounge for several months now. It's not very comfortable doing that all the time...
Anyway, last night we had to go to the local shopping centre to get some digital camera photos printed (to show friends here what our wedding was like). We had to wait 30 minutes for the photos so we wandered around the shops to kill time. That is when we stumbled upon the PERFECT sofa! AND it was affordable. In fact, I had almost that much cash in my wallet right then and there!! So we went to the ATM, took out a few more bills and then purchased it on the spot. It was impulse buying at its most brilliant!
Well... actually, to be honest it wasn't all that impulse in a way because we had been on the hunt for a new sofa for months, but hadn't really committed to anything. So one more time, please join us in a huge HOORAY for furniture!! haha
It will be delivered on Saturday 22nd. We can't wait!!

Last night I soaked and boiled dried kidney beans. Tonight I think I might make us chili con carne for dinner with them. We were supposed to be going out for a celebratory dinner with my former English conversation group in Iwataki, but since Liz is feeling under the weather I don't think we'll be making it.

 Anway, that's all for now. I have to get my stuff ready and head off to elementary school.

Back to life in Japan (posted by Bryn)

After two weeks of what seemed like a whirlwind dream in America, it was time for us to come back home to Japan and continue on with life. It was a long flight!
Allow me to reiterate that point: it was a long flight!! It seems trans-Pacific Delta flights are on old planes that don't have in-flight entertainment systems installed. 13 hours of nothing on, what was without a doubt, the most cramped plane I have ever been in, was less than desirable. It was a sharp and sudden whack back into reality for us.
It was great to set foot back in Japan again once we finally made it to Tokyo, but of course we still had a domestic flight to Osaka, followed by a ferry ride to Kobe, followed by a three hour car ride to go before we could get home and sleep, which was ALL we could think about!

Huge thanks to Ippei for organising the ferry and driving us all back.

After a heavenly sleep, Liz and I spent Sunday relaxing at home, catching up on all the TV shows we had missed while we were busy getting married in America. It was a good day.

Monday brought with it work. Ugh!  It also brought with it a sudden drop in temperature. It now feels like early March, not late May!! Hopefully the weather will improve in time for the weekend :)