Sunflower Ville

An impromptu day trip to Yamanashi prefecture. We left early in the morning and drove. After some konbini stops, car sleeping, and conversation, we arrived at the flower park.

The seven of us who went are here in their own unique poses.

There I am.

There James is.

There Subaru is.

There's crazy Chizuru.

There's Riya, who dug in the flower and found a sunflower seed.

There's Emi and Michael.

There's a bee having some lunch.

And now we're having some lunch. (Mmmmm, nasu pasta and free soup and salad bar!!!)

James and Emi in the "JUST MARRIED" pose.

Don't forget the Sunflower flavored soft cream! (like i did)

Now, for some videos of playing in the park.





TAKING OVER THE PLAY YARD

Chizuru Ride


Emi's Ride


James' Ride


Subaru's Ride


Michael's Ride


Toby's Ride



THE FISH VIDEO BELOW


THE DEETS

There's a bus from Nirasaki Station, which is only 2 stations from Kofu, the capital of Yamanashi Prefecture.

Here is the exact location of the park.

OPEN HOURS:
9:00am – 6:00pm (April 1st – July 20th / September 1st – November 20th), 9:00am – 9:00pm (July 21st – August 31st / November 21st – December 27th ), 9:00am – 5:00pm (January 2nd – March 31st)

For more details, consult the information website here.

While you're in Yamanashi, check out some of its famous foods. ほうとう, or hottou, is a delicious soup with the fattest noodle available, the hottou noodle. It's made with mountain vegetables and a miso broth. It's really delicious!

Yamanashi ken is also famous for a variety of fruits. If you happen to be there during peach or pear season, then you're lucky. Eat some of that.

Also, basashi, or raw horse meat, is popular in this area around Yamanashi's capital.

Once in a Blood Moon

I was visiting my childhood home in Commerce, CA. Our family hasn't lived in that house since the early nineties, however, this past year, my mom and stepdad have moved back in. When I came in, the first person I wanted to meet was my parent's new son who was born while I was away living in Japan. He's already two years old, and this is the first time I'm meeting him. He's absolutely darling with a round, fresh face and charm that oozes out of him. In fact, when I was down on the floor, playing with him below the flat screen TV in the living room, I had a wave of jealousy. Why does my mom get to have this darling charmer of a child, when she said that she was done having children, yet I can't have one? I wanted to steal him. I was seriously considering it.

After spending some time playing and talking to him, I noticed two very particular things about this little fair-faced boy. First, that he was of above-average intelligence for a two-year-old child who was able to have full conversations while we were playing with the tiny cars on the floor. Second, he touched on a bit of macabre topics, wanting to crash the cars, cut open the cars with the jaws of life and chew on the bodies inside. I was a bit grossed out by his descriptive play and didn't think that was very normal for a little kid. HOW did he LEARN that kind of language, I wondered. I considered chalking it up to poor television censorship on my mom's part, but decided to go and talk to her about it.

I found her in the bedroom folding laundry and I lied down in a comfortable talking position, because I thought it might take some time to make my point. Surprisingly, all I had to say was "Mom, have you ever felt that something's not right with the baby?" She stopped folding and looked down at me, looking so sad and said, "yes, yes there is. He's got PSPT Syndrome. I didn't know what that was, but I decided to pretend that I did and figured I'd just Google it later, after she told me what happened. She didn't get a chance to tell me anything though, because somebody called her outside and she scrambled to look for her phone, then asked me to borrow mine. Her voice was urgent, so I just obliged. I didn't follow her out, and instead wondered what PSPT syndrome was, and was thinking about how I can figure it out before she came back to talk about it. I wondered what was going on outside, so I wandered out there.

I heard my name and my mom handed me my iPhone, and her face looked pissed off. Deciding that asking her what was wrong might warrant a long list of complaints, I decided to keep quiet for a little while. However, she couldn't hold it in. "Why do you have me listed in the Do not reply list? I was confused, and still am. I didn't know then, nor now what the "do not reply" setting on the iPhone meant, nor why my mom was added to that list. I told her that, but she didn't believe me. She wasn't yelling, but I could tell by her tone and facial expression that her feelings had been really hurt by finding out her status on my cell phone. As I was fiddling about with my phone, trying to figure out what that stupid "do not reply" check box even meant, as well as how to uncheck it. While messing around with my phone, I noticed the list of dialed calls that my mom had made when she was borrowing my phone. There were 2 calls to, and 4 missed calls from a Bellevue Mental Hospital. At first I thought it was some kind of trick, joke or mistake because I don't even think that mental hospitals are called mental hospitals anymore.

Anyway, I also saw a message sent to them, and I opened it. It had an attachment file, which I also opened. It was a help request form and had a bunch of boxes. It took awhile for my eyes to adjust to the format of the boxes and to figure out what it was. It was written in my mom's writing style describing an incident where the baby was found outside in the backyard fucking a cat. I was horrified and shocked by the words, so much so that I dropped my iPhone in the rose bushes, and I couldn't find it in the darkness, as it blended with the black soil. I again heard some commotion as well as cars parking in front of the house and I decided to find my phone afterward, and go see what was going on.

I walked in after my mom, some doctors who were dressed more like dog catchers, actually, they were wearing shirts that looked just like the Kuroneko worker's uniform.

I ran in behind the group and went the opposite route as them into the living room, since there's another entrance that wasn't blocked with people. As I was walking I heard the doctor shouting, "hey, how's the baby? I've missed the baby. Haven't seen him in a while." While he was saying those words in a loud, semi-condescending tone he looked toward my brother, Ricky, to guide him to the baby's whereabouts. Without a word, Ricky pointed to the closed closet doors. The doctor opens the door suddenly, and the baby runs out, holding a giant cooking knife, swinging it at the doctor, trying to slice his knees, shins, and stabbing down as if to pin the doctor's foot to the floor. Within seconds, the doctor successfully subdues him, pulls the knife from his grubby little hands and hands it upside-down to my mother who's standing by his side.

She takes it from him, and the doctor kneels to the ground, holding and calming the boy. My mom starts reprimanding the baby for his actions. "You're a bad boy! Bad boy!" And just as sudden as the child bolted out of the closet doors, my mom swipes the knife down very quickly as if to swipe it against his skin. At first, it seems like a very small cut. I'm extremely shocked by my mom's behaviour, of physically reprimanding the baby in front of the hospital staff. But suddenly, the wound is found to be bigger than expected. Suddenly the small line of blood leaking from the fissure turns into an all-out gushing wound, immediately covering his tiny body with blood. My mom, shocked by what she has done, grabs him from the floor by his neck, the way mommy cats do to their kittens. And that was the point, when I saw her running past me, with a dying bleeding baby in her hands, with me soooo sad for the baby, crying "don't let him die, don't let him die", when I woke up with a start.

My heart was racing. I was so scared. I felt vulnerable, that I could be stabbed at any moment, and wondered if I had locked the door. I woke Chu up. She quickly went back to sleep. I walked around the house, making sure nobody was inside, and I locked the door, and woke up Chu again. I told her the dream, but realized halfway that she went back to sleep again. I was so scared. So scared and bewildered, that I even considered Skyping home to my mom to tell her of this freaky ass dream that I had about her. It was 2;47am when I looked at the clock, which would be around 9-10am in the morning. But i decided against it, I had to work in the morning.

Chicken Taquitos

In order to make some flavorful chicken breast, boil it with water, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and tomato sauce. If you have extra chicken, you can keep some of it for chicken soup, or even tortilla soup. Feel free to add carrots, green pepper, corn or potato.

After the chicken is cooked, pull out a few pieces and shred it with a knife, or pull it apart using your fingers.

Place the chicken in the center of a corn tortilla.
Corn tortillas can be found at any Kaldi shop, but if you're lucky to live near a Costco, they're very cheap at Costco in the refridgerated area. For a list of stores in your area, visit this website. Kaldi Coffee Shop is located in many cities around Japan. It has many varieties of coffees, wines, and other foreign foods and snacks. In Shizuoka, there's a few Kaldi in Hamamatsu, Iwata, Shizuoka station, and Fuji. Check the website to find where they are.

Roll it up and place it in a pan of hot vegetable oil. If the taquito seems unstable, feel free to use toothpicks to close the edges shut, and to keep it tightly rolled.

After they have browned and turned crispy, pull them out using tongs, shake out excess oil, and roll them around on a plate covered by a paper towel. The towel will soak up the extra oil. Feel free to put a little salt on the top while they're still piping hot.

You can make tortilla chips like this as well. Cut them into triangles and throw them in the pan. You can also make tostadas by throwing a whole tortilla into the oil. Make sure to keep an eye on them and turn them over so they can cook fully on both sides. Place them on a paper towel, and salt or squirt some lemon for taste.

Whip up some guacamole and salsa, and you've got some yummy dinner action.

In Japan, it's difficult to get certain items, for example, chili. I make my salsa using a california red pepper, tomato sauce, garlic, salt, pepper and onion. Very simple, although, I do have to ask nicely for friends at home to bring them whenever they come to Japan from California.

Chipotle is also very yummy.

Finally, finding sour cream is very difficult in Japan, however I have found that using plain yogurt is an awesome substitute. This is the one i use.

Finally, if you still have some chicken left, you can serve with a little bowl of chicken soup. However, if you've used all the chicken, you can put the broth and veggies in a bowl, throw in a few triangular tortilla chips, and some shredded cheese, and you've got yourself a bowl of tortilla soup.

How to have a box of fresh, organic, local vegetables delivered to your doorstep

This Autumn, I am planning to do a raw food cleanse in order to rid my body of all the toxins from this summer's junk food and beer-drinking. Since vegetables and fruit shopping can be a bit expensive in Japanese supermarkets (for example 200 yen for one zucchini, 2000 yen for a watermelon, 300 for a few eggplants), I decided that I need to find some other option.

When I worked in Yokohama, a vegetarian co-worker used to have his vegetables delivered to him from a farm in Ibaraki. That was before the earthquake when radiation fears frightened people from produce grown in the northeast part of Japan. At that time, he gave me the website to the farm, where you could order and pay from your boxes through a form on their website for their farm, called Mananouen . I was very impressed.

He used to bring a beautiful and healthy bento to work everyday, full of colorful vegetables which were in season at the time. After browsing the website's pictures of sample boxes during each season, I noticed some vegetables which I couldn't recognize. I asked him how he was able to use the vegetables that he wasn't familiar with. He answered that he would merely look it up on the internet and search for recipes on how to prepare the mystery vegetable.

Autumn is often regarded as the most delicious season in Japan. Since this is the time when many vegetables are harvested, it's probably also the best time to start up your farm fresh vegetable box delivery system. I figured that it would be cheaper and fresher to search for a farm within Shizuoka, preferably in a city close to mine, where I might even be able to pick up the box. After searching the kanji 農園の有機野菜 + prefecture's name in kanji
農園 のうえん nouen---farm, plantation 有機 ゆうき yuuki---organic 野菜 やさい yasai---vegetable

So for example, I searched for 農園の有機野菜 静岡県.

The one I liked the most because of the proximity to me was:
Agrigraph

To inquire about how to set up the delivery system, send them an email

EMAIL: info@agrigraph.jp

The email that I first composed was the following.
こんにちは、
野菜のセットは興味があります。たとえば、せっとBとせっとCの中には何ですか。全部の野菜は静岡県からですか。
そろそろ秋になるので、どんな野菜がありますか。
そしてその野菜のセットはどう注文しての。振込みで買えますか。農園でピックアップできますか。

Afterwards, I asked somebody to check it, and they corrected it to this. I had made some grammar mistakes, and there were some things that were a little too difficult for me to ask.

こんにちは、
野菜のセットに興味があります。I am interested in the vegetable sets.
たとえば、セットBとセットCの中身は何ですか？For example, What is inside sets B and C?
ABCのセットの野菜は全部静岡県からですか？Are all of the vegetables in sets AB and C from Shizuoka?
そろそろ秋になるので、どんな野菜がありますか？Since it will be autumn soon, which vegetables will be sent?
そしてその野菜のセットはどう注文したらよいでうか？ Also, how do I order these boxes?
振込みで買えますか？　Is it possible to pay via furikomi? (bank transfer)
農場に直接買いにいくことはできますか？Is it possible to pick up instead of home delivery?
毎回違うセットを注文することができますか？Is it possible to order different sets each week?
以上が質問です。Those are all the questions I have.
よろしくおねがいします。Yoroshiku Onegai Shimasu (the thing you say when you're asking for something to be done, such as for them to answer these questions)

Kittydioms (猫の慣用語）

My favorite book at the moment is 2001 Japanese Idioms.
It accompanied me to our camping trip to Lake Aoki.
We met a new feline friend at the campsite, which ended up coming home with Ko.
I found the idioms about cats quite fun. So here we go.


literal: 文字通り
idiomatic: 慣用語句

Japanese Idioms

猫 ねこ cat

1) 猫も杓子も（ねこもしゃくしも）
文字通り意味：literal meaning: the cat and also the ladle
慣用語句意味：Idiomatic meaning: every Tom, Dick, and Harry
Everyone, or everyone and their mother.

最近は猫も杓子も日本語を勉強しています。
Recently, everyone and their mother is learning Japanese.
These days, every Tom, Dick and Harry is learning Japanese.

So I don't know how "everyone" can be compared to a cat and ladle, or soup spoon. Sounds funny, but I am reminded of how English translates "everything" to "everything and the kitchen sink".

There are two idioms that English speakers use to express this Japanese idiom about the cat and the ladle. An older way is to say "every Tom, Dick, and Harry"....which are common boys names that were popular when the idiom was invented. It's saying that every common person is doing this thing.

The other is "everyone and their mother", which suggests that not only everyone is doing this thing, but their mother too. It's a sarcastic way to say that everyone is doing this thing.

I wonder if the Japanese idiom is has the same sarcastic meaning. What do you think?


2)猫に小判（ねこにこばん）
文字通り意味：Literal meaning: give coins to a cat
慣用語句意味：Idiomatic meaning: give a present to someone who can't appreciate it or isn't interested in it
彼に本をあげても、猫に小判です。
Giving him a book is like giving coins to cats. (he doesn't like to read)

There's another idiom that is the same in both Japanese and English. It is "like giving pearls to swine". In Japanese, it is said (豚に真珠).　This idiom suggests that giving pearls to pigs is wasteful and they have no use for it, just like cats don't have any use for coins. Often, in Japanese, the 2 idioms are said in unison.

3)猫の手も借りたい (ねこのてもかりたい)
文字通り意味：Literal meaning: to borrow even a cat's paw
Idiomatic meaning: wish you had an extra hand, extra time, or to be two people (said when you are REALLY busy)
昨日は引越しで、猫の手も借りたいほどの忙しさでした。
When I moved yesterday, I was so busy that I wished I could be two people.

I think this idiom is quite cute. The idea that someone is so busy that they'd even borrow a cat's paw, which wouldn't be very efficient at all, considering cats don't have any fingers or opposable thumbs.

English Idioms

1) to let the cat out of the bag
意味:口を滑らす　（くちをすべらす）
英語の意味：to tell a secret


On the day before the surprise party, I let the cat out of the bag.
サプライズのパーテイーの前に、口を滑らす。

Okay, who let the cat out of the bag?
誰は秘密を言う？

2) to look like something the cat dragged in
意味：どぶネズミのように見える
英語の意味：to look dirty and yucky like a dead mouse

She didn't bring an umbrella and she got all wet. She looks like something the cat dragged in.


3) when the cat is away, the mice will play.　
意味：鬼の居ぬ間に選択
英語の意味：when nobody is watching, people will act normally and sometimes break the rules

As soon as their boss left for the day, everybody relaxed took a break. When the cat's away, the mice will play.

Camping in Aoki Lake, Nagano

Another of my favorite summer pastimes is camping. This year, we visited Aoki-ko in Nagano. This lake is near Hakuba, the famous skiing spot in Nagano, where the 1998 winter Olympics were held. However, this city also has great summer attributes as well. Lake Aoki, being one of the top 3 clearest lakes in Japan, does not allow motorboats on the lake. It's a beautiful place to go swimming and is the perfect temperature for such activities during summertime.

This campsite, which was recommended by our camping veteran friends, isn't listed on any internet website, is only 800 yen a night, and is very clean, small and private, with an excellent swimming area.

The nature around this place was astounding and the local area of Hakuba is convenient and foreigner friendly.

The area is full of beautiful scenery and nature.

We had a very good time.

Here are a couple of photos of where this great site lies.

Atami Summer Hanabi

Fireworks, or hanabi in Japanese, are one of my favorite things about summertime in Japan. This year, I watched the Atami Hanabi from the roof of Dominic and his friends' hotel in Atami. It was 30 minutes of firey coolness. There are still more chances to watch these fireworks. Here are the details.

Summer Schedule (From 8:20pm – 8:50pm):

Thursday, August 18
Sunday, August 21
Wednesday, August 24
Saturday, August 27

Autumn Schedule (From 8:20pm – 8:45pm):

Monday, September 19

Winter Schedule (From 8:20pm – 8:45pm):

Sunday, December 4
Sunday, December 11
Friday, December 23

For more information (in Japanese):

View Google Map
Atami Kaijo Hanabi Taikai

Below: The city of Atami

Photo's from the roof

Chinese Inspired Breakfast Fritatta

Yesterday, I was hungry in the morning, and besides that, I had quite a few veggies to go through before leaving for camp. Inspired by a breakfast once made by my Chinese-Japanese friend, Subaru, who made dish from egg and cooked cucumber, I decided to try that cucumber in my usual Fritatta style. With the lack of zucchini's availability in Japan (and when you do find it, it's almost 200円 for one, cucumber makes an excellent substitute. I was quite surprised when I saw Subaru throw the cucumbers in the pan for the first time. But after tasting the end product, I was amazed at its yumminess.

First, I sautéed the onion in a bit of vegetable onion. Then I added the eggplant and cucumber. Since these three veggies have different cooking times, allow about 3 minutes between the onion, then eggplant, then cucumber.

I seasoned the veggies with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Another option with seasoning is something I learned from my friend, Dave. He likes to put a miso soup packet (not the powder kind, but the one with actual miso)into the beaten egg mixture. The taste was fantastic. Feel free to try it sometime.

After you spread the vegetables around the pan evenly, pour the eggy mixture over the vegetables. Keep the pan on a low to medium heat. You want the egg to cook slowly. After it hardens a bit, slide your spatula around the sides to check its firmness. After it's stable, try to flip the whole thing like a pancake. It's quite difficult, and if you can do it on the first try, then you are a born chef.

As you can see, I failed in this attempt to flip it like a pancake. I am not a natural born chef. Enjoy!