Happy Birthday Tsuyu...

Apologies for having not updated in so long. Life here in Yosano is plodding along nicely, though we are both keeping pretty busy.

June in Japan brings with it the rainy season or tsuyu in Japanese (hence the birthday pun in the title - Liz's birthday was this month, in the rainy season). It’s a wet time of year (not surprisingly). It has rained most days this month. There have been a few days (and even a few days in a row) of nice sunny weather this month, but they have always been followed by days of rain. This is the time of year when the rice paddies seem to grow before your very eyes. The warm temperatures, high humidity and regular rain help the rice plants grow so quickly! Now most of Yosano is a vast field of emerald green rice paddies.

As I mentioned, the humidity is through the roof, and my bikeride to and from school each day is becoming a pretty unpleasant one.

The hydrangeas are starting to flower all over the place, too. June is traditionally the month when hydrangeas flower here, and so they are closely associated with the rainy season. The frogs are also in full chorus every night, and this morning I heard my first cicada of the year (a sign that Summer is pretty much here). The cicadas here can get so loud in summer that it almosts drives you balmy! Haha

A couple of weeks ago, Sally and Mark came to visit us from London. It was great to see them again. We managed to get in a bit of sightseeing in Kyoto (not helped by the extreme heat!) and then some downtime here in the countryside. Ippei, Junko and Yoko also enjoyed catching up with Sally and Mark.

Mark, Sally and Liz at Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto

after touring around the city, we boarded out limited express train home to Tango, shopping in hand

At one point, I took Junko, Sally and Mark to see Itanami Hachiman Shrine in Iwataki. It is one of my favourite shrines. I don't know exactly why, but I have lots of memories associated with that shrine, and I there's just something about the history of the place and the mystery and the massive hike up the many stairs you have to make to get there that appeals to me. So anyway, I dragged them all up the seemingly endless steps through the forest to the shrine. It was there that I had my brush with death. I was walking near a big rock when I heard a rattling sound in the leaves at the base of the rock. I stepped closer to investigate. Again, I heard the rattling sound. It was then that I saw it. There in the leaves was a snake, with its tail raised up and rattling. It was a grey/brown scaley snake with a semi-diamond pattern and a triangular head. I was pretty sure that rattlesnakes didn't live in Japan, but it sure looked and sounded like one! Rattling aside, I thought it looked like a mamushi (Japanese pit viper). It's a poisonous snake. Junko agreed that it looked like a mamushi, so I backed off and left it alone. When I got home, I researched online and found somewhere that mamushi have been known to rattle their tails like rattlesnakes when threatened. (However, aparently they don't actually rattle their tails as such, but rather they shake them and if that hits against something it makes a rattling sound) Scary!! 

Here's a short Youtube clip showing a mamushi "rattling" its tail: 

We all went out for dinner at a local izakaya in Yosano

In just a few weeks time (21 days to be exact) Lee and Prad will come visit us. Liz and I can’t wait. It will be much better weather then, and we’re planning a whole bunch of stuff… of course, including as many beer gardens as we can fit in!!

I LOVE Japanese beer gardens! You just pay a set amount (usually very reasonable) and then it’s all you can eat and all you can drink until closing (usually three hours or so). The ultimate summer evening passtime :)

Really Exciting Stuff!

I have a pretty slow day at school today – as far as my schedule has been lately. There are only 5 shortened periods today in order to give the students lots of last minute practice for tomorrow’s chorus festival. There were three English classes today, all of which I made an appearance in (I say appearance since I only went to 10 minutes of two of those classes). I am also camera-less at the moment since my battery is dead and the charger is in transit from the states (it failed to make the last trip back with us) and Bryn’s camera has been acting silly lately…so I apologize for the lack of pictures! I just thought I would give an update about the really really exciting stuff Bryn and I have been up to. You think that the ride on the Navy destroyer sounded exciting…just you wait!

First some random things from Amino JHS…one of the 2nd grade classes has a plastic tub with some crayfish in it. I always take a look at them when I am in that classroom, and most of the time they are mating, haha. Just random! Also, like I mentioned earlier, I often only go to a class for 10 or 15 minutes for whatever reason. Whenever I leave, I say “bye!” as I leave the room (as you do…). Lately, a lot of the classes have started responding with, ”bye! I love you!” Nice. Everyone can use a little bit of love every now and then!

While we were in St. Michaels for the wedding, we went to the Build-a-Bear store in the mall and made a stuffed rabbit for Toru and Kana’s new baby. Last night Bryn and I went to Toru and Kana’s house for dinner to show them pictures and deliver the bunny. Toru has been taking cooking classes and made us really nice pasta! Japanese men don’t cook or go into the kitchen at all as a general rule, so this is pretty impressive. Their little girl, Kaede, is so cute (Japanese babies are way cuter than western babies if you ask me). She’s only about a month old and is super-tiny! It was fun to see them and catch up.

If you’ve never clicked on the link to Robyn’s blog on the right, you should right after reading this one. She is taking a page from Julie and Julia and cooking her way through the Edmund’s cookbook (think Joy of Cooking in New Zealand). That has little to do with anything other than that I am going to talk about cooking next. A few weeks ago Bryn and I decided to re-create the thai chicken pizza a la California Pizza Kitchen (if you’ve never had it I highly recommend it!). Our version turned out REALLY good and it’s so easy! Last week I got the brilliant idea (although I’m sure it’s anything but original) to use some Vietnamese rice paper wrappers and make thai chicken spring rolls…also so easy and soooo good. Yay for attempting to be inventive!

Sally and Mark (we went to their wedding in New Zealand and they came to ours) are coming to Japan at the end of this week! (yay!) We will go meet them in Osaka on Friday night and tour around Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe for the weekend, then they are coming back to Tango with us for a few days. Bryn and I have two of everything (plates, bowls, etc…hey, there are only two of us, why do we need more?!?) and decided that if we will have house guests we better have enough plates, cups, etc to go around because eating in shifts is no fun. We found some ideal stuff at the 100 yen store over the weekend, so, Sally and Mark, you are in luck! You don’t have to eat out of the pot! (Same goes for our future visitors as well!) Yay!

While we were on the hunt for dishes, we found some new curtains for the bedroom. The old curtains were dark and very thick, so they let no light in at all. For me, dark equals sleep, so if there is no light in the mornings, I don’t wake up. Also, waking up to light is just nice, so we wanted something that would let in some morning sun for summer. The new ones are quite good, so I packed away the black ones until next winter.

I got an email from the place where I rent my car the other day. Apparently the maker has a new policy to try and keep low mileage on rental cars, therefore it looks like I am getting a replacement sometime next month! Fingers crossed that’s the only policy they changed and they haven’t tripled the cost or something…that would not be cause for a “yay”…

The last little piece of news I have for you…I only have 28 days of school lunch left in this term! YAAAAAAAY!!!!! I wonder how many happy pigs will be on the menu between now and July 16th (a happy pig on the menu equals a very unhappy Liz). Speaking of the number 28…for those of you who don’t know for whatever reason (and a friendly reminder for those of you who do…) it’s almost my birthday (June 28)! Please send all packages and cards to:

Liz Thomas
102 Aaban Nawate C
Migochi 737-1
Yosano-cho, Yoza-gun
Kyoto, JAPAN
629-2313

And remember international mail takes time.

Haha, just kidding. You don't have to send me anything...emails or Facebook messages will do ;)

That's all for now!

We Took a Ride on a Japanese Destroyer

The other week, our friend Jun called us up. She is Japanese and works at the Naval base in Maizuru (well, technically, Japan's post-war constitution forbids it from having a military, so it has a self-defense force instead. When I say "navy" what I mean is the naval division of the self-defense force). She had really wanted to come to our wedding in May, but has a wee baby boy, and is very busy with everything she has going on here, so in the end wasn't able to come. She decided that since she couldn't come to the wedding, she wanted to do something for us instead. So anyway, getting back to the phonecall, Jun had bought us two tickets to take a ride on the destroyer JS Mineyuki. The naval base holds yearly(?) public open days, whereby members of the public can purchase tickets to ride on the ships. It was such a cool thing for Jun to do for us!! Neither of us had been on a Japanese destroyer before, so we were well excited about it.

So yesterday we drove to Maizuru to meet Jun and ride on the ship. Three other friends came along too - Eric, Yumi and Kazushi. It was a hot day. Big blue sky, a fairly high degree of humidity causing the horizon to be blurred out, and beads of sweat starting to form on my sun-screen-lathered forehead. Perfect weather for a boat ride. (boat...haha!)

Actually, I'm calling it a "destroyer" but actually it was a destroyer escort ship. The English translation on the information booklet we got called it a destroyer but the Japanese called it an escort ship. It certainly wasn't big enough to be a destroyer. But destroyer is easier to say and type than "escort ship" so I'm going to stick with destroyer, if that's ok...haha

This particular ship, the JS MINEYUKI was commissioned in 1984. It's 130m (426.4ft) long, has a beam of 13.6m (44.6ft), 2950t displacement, 45000 horsepower, max speed about 30 kt. It has a crew of about 200. And in true Japanese fashion, it was made by Mitsubishi.

It has the following armaments:

76mm 62cal single mount rapid fire gun
20mm phalanx CIWS (Close-In Weapon System) 
8 cell missile launcher for sea sparrow SAMs (Surface to Air Missiles) 
Harpoon SSMs (Surface to Surface Missile) - 2 quad launchers
Anti-submarine rocket launcher
324mm torpedo tubes MK32 (2 triple tube launchers)

It also has a helicopter deck.

It was awesome walking around (fairly) freely on the various decks. We could have gone into the control room, but the queues were too long and so we couldn't be bothered.

At one point we were relaxing on the fore-deck, when they started to give a demonstration of how the rapid-fire gun (cannon) could maneuver. It was great fun to watch it rotate 360 degrees and point up and down... but then it turned and pointed RIGHT AT US!! AND STOPPED!!! It was a bit too unnerving standing there staring into the barrel of a 76mm rapid-fire cannon, so we moved. We were the only people to move from where we were standing! haha...  Confucius say "when looking down the barrel of a cannon, move out of the way"

We were out on the sea for about two hours. It was a fantastic experience!!!

Early Morning Exercise

Liz and I went for an early morning walk this morning. We left the house just before 6am, and went for a brisk walk around the rice paddies and along the river. It was really great, actually. Getting out of bed wasn't entirely welcome (slight understatement...), but once up and out the door, it was really fun. It wasn't very cold, either, which is always a plus. We saw a couple of pheasants, several white herons (rare in New Zealand, but common as mud in Japan! haha), frogs, slugs, swallows, and an old man.

The rice paddies were quite reflective...