Yay for credit card points!

I've been umm-ing and ahh-ing about getting a breadmaker for ages. I fancy the idea of making lovely fresh bread but fear that the novelty may wear off and the machine will end up just sitting around gathering dust. I'm certainly not interested in the top-of-the-line models that make mochi and pasta dough, but even a decent mid-range one would still set me back 20,000 yen or so.

So when I realised my credit card points would expire at the end of this month, I knew just what to swap them for. This breadmaker is very basic; it's one of the cheapest ones around and isn't what I would have chosen if I were paying for it, but it was free! And if it ends up as a dust-magnet I can just give it away and not feel too guilty about it. It arrived on Sunday morning and H straight away announced that he wanted bread for dinner...

One cycle of the machine takes almost 5 hours and, after going out at lunchtime and buying bread flour and yeast on the way home, this loaf was ready just in time for a light dinner of soup and fried chicken. The instruction book for the machine has pages of trouble-shooting advice, but this bread was just about perfect :o)

The leftovers made great toast today too...

So now I'm full of ideas of nutritious winter lunches: soups and stews with fresh bread studded with bacon, cheese and onion, homemade pizza, curry with naan bread cooked in the frying pan, all finished off with cinnamon rolls or walnut bread... Let's see how long it lasts!

And while I was at it, I traded in points from my other, less-used credit card. They didn't have much that I wanted (frying pan lid anyone??) but I did find this nice map-of-Japan game/puzzle. You can't really tell in this picture, but it has 3 layers. The top one is a jigsaw of the prefectures of Japan, underneath that is a second, easier puzzle of regions of Japan and at the very bottom is a board game. Obviously K is not quite ready for this yet but when he is, I will be able to magic it up out of nowhere for him. Assuming I don't forget where I put it in the meantime...

Dog Day

You know how every year is represented by one of the animals of the Chinese zodiac, right? Did you know that every day, and even every hour of the day*, is also allocated one of those 12 animals?

It's not something that comes up very often in life in Japan, but there is one exception - dog days during the 5th month of pregnancy. Since dogs are seen to give birth easily, it's a tradition to visit a shrine to be blessed and to pray for a smooth pregnancy and easy labour on that day. Dogs days and all the rest aren't noted in calendars and diaries here but the clinic kindly marked them on the 'pregnancy calendar' they gave me, along with dates of classes, when certain tests would be performed and that all-important due date.

Anyway, last Friday was that day so H, K and I went over to our local shrine (about 2 minutes walk away, even at K's pace) where the priest (H's uncle) performed a simple ceremony for us. At large, popular shrines these blessings are done in groups but in our case it was just us, so my name was included in the blessing. Although the priest's prayers are in Japanese, they are said in such a strange, chanting way, often using archaic or highly formal language, that it is virtually impossible to understand, and it's quite funny when you suddenly notice your name in there.



At the end of the ceremony, which only took about 15 minutes, I was given a good-luck charm for pregnancy and childbirth, and a wooden tablet to place in the little shrine we have in our home. I had also taken a hara-obi, a belly band, to have blessed. Traditional ones are very long and wrap around you sash-like, but mine just fastens at the back with Velcro :-)

I'm now supposed to wear this everyday to keep the bump warm and offer support. With K, I think I wore it for a few months, and then couldn't be bothered anymore... Keeping your stomach warm is a really big thing in Japan, and more so than ever when you're pregnant. You won't find pregnant young women in cropped tops, low-rise trousers and bare bumps here! Last time I did look into why, and I did find one small, non-essential but medically-sound, reason why it was a good idea. Now I can't quite remember what it was, but I suppose I will wear it again, at least until I get fed up with it...

*It's actually every-block-of-2-hours-within-a-24-hour-period, but that wouldn't have made such a catchy question...

Tottori Burger Festival

I love autumn in Japan. The days are sunny and warm (well, unless you're planning a barbecue...), the evenings are pleasantly chilly and there are a total of 5 public holidays in September, October and November.

Monday was one of those holidays - Sports Day, but we did nothing even vaguely sporty. Instead we headed to Mount Daisen for the 2nd Tottori Burger Festival. We did intend to go last year, but that didn't quite work out. Anyway, this year's festival was bigger and better, with 60 different burgers on offer, spread over 3 different sites. About a third of the burgers available were from restaurants based here in Tottori prefecture, and the rest were from all over Japan. As well as all the types of burgers you might think of (beef, pork, chicken, fish), there were also a lot you probably wouldn't think of: venison, ostrich, deep-fried octopus croquettes...

We went to two of the three sites. The first one didn't have such a great choice of burgers, but it did have our prefectual mascot, Tori-Pi...



Tori-Pi is a cross between a bird (tori in Japanese) and a pear. That's why he is green and round and has a black stalk sticking out of his head. Obvious, right? 'Bird' is in the name of the prefecture, Tottori, and the area is famous for its pears. So that all makes sense now. Every place and every event in Japan seems to be required to have some odd mascot. Do you remember these bizarre characters (scroll to the bottom of the post)?

The second site we visited was much better; better burgers, more people and it wasn't located in a car-park.

Most people seemed to be in the 2 hour queue for Kobe beef burgers, so there wasn't long to wait for any of the others. In the end, I had a chicken burger, a pork burger and a really good American-style beef burger. H just had a pork tendon burger (?) and a beef burger; I think he was still recovering from excessive curry consumption the previous day. And K? He had that octopus thing...

Something new...

...in my shop.

Yesterday and today I added some Japanese craft books. Something completely new!

There's a book of cute knitting and crochet patterns like this...

One on sewing little things with Japanese fabric like this...

A beginners crochet and knitting book with things like these bags...

And a lovely book (my favourite!) of animal patterns for sewing, applique, embroidery and more...

All the books have beautiful, clear diagrams so that the instructions are easy to follow even if your Japanese is not quite up-to-scratch :-)

And last week I added a few new pieces of fabric too, so if you haven't visited for a while why not pop over and have a look?

The un-barbecue

Lisa, Cian, Gray and Holly came over for a barbecue on Sunday. Unfortunately the weather had been bad for the previous few days and early that morning it still looked like it might rain, so I wimped out and made it an indoor lunch instead. Of course, it turned out to be a lovely sunny afternoon....


I made a couple of curries, a chilli and a big pot of rice and my guests brought assorted doughnuts, cakes and drinks. It turned into one of those lovely relaxing Sunday afternoons where lunch carried on until about 4 o'clock... After that we just about mustered enough energy for a game of Scrabble. K was quite interested in the game and came to have a look sometimes, but playing with H and Holly was obviously much more fun and we managed to finish the game without any tile-scattering disasters.

Holly is 9 and K loves her. All morning he was asking after her, waiting for her to arrive. She made a great baby-sitter for the afternoon!

I think everyone ate their fill at lunchtime, but there was still enough left for lunch on Tuesday for K and I, and several portions went in the freezer too. In the evening we couldn't be bothered to cook again and nipped out in the car to a nearby noodle shop.

Here was K's summary of the day, at bedtime:

Did you have a nice day today K?

Holly-chan! Holly-chan! And cake. Eat cake. And ABC (I'm guessing that's the Scrabble).

(Quiet for a minute. I thought he'd finished)

And Cian. And Gray. And Lisa. And Mummy. And Daddy. And K!

(Quiet again)

And rice. And noodles. And car. Dark.

The Magic Box

Although I have a lap-top I don't have wireless Internet at home, so the computer always stays in one spot. Unfortunately it's a spot which K has access to, so I can't use it without him climbing onto my lap, pressing random buttons, playing with the mouse and prising off the keys... Now that he doesn't sleep in the daytime and demands that I stay with him until he falls asleep at night, free time to use the computer in peace has become more difficult to find.

Enter H, answer to all technological problems, and The Magic Box! The main box plugs into the LAN socket and into a normal electric socket. Then I plug another little box into my computer and any electric socket in the house, and by the powers of, well, magic, I'm connected to the Internet!

At the moment I've got the lap-top in the kitchen, so I can still keep an eye on K. I can easily check my e-mail (and blogs...) anytime, check a recipe, read the news, google anything that comes to mind and, best of all, listen to the radio. H may soon come to regret his wonderful idea, as I am playing Absolute Radio non-stop. I'd forgotten how much I love listening to the radio. That feeling when a great song you haven't heard in ages comes on is fantastic. If you don't know it, Absolute Radio is the radio station formerly known as Virgin and may well appeal to you if you're a 30-something Brit. And even if you're not.

What to do? What to do?

Compulsory education in Japan begins with primary school, in the April following a child's 6th birthday. However, most children go to some kind of pre-school before that, and we are now wondering what would be best for K.

If both parents go out to work then children usually go to hoikuen (daycare). There are publicly run hoikuen all over the city that provide full-time childcare for children from as young as 6 months until they start primary school. Most don't offer a part-time option and you have to demonstrate a need for a place in order to get one. There are also privately-run daycare centres such as the one K goes to for one day a week at the moment.

The other pre-school option is youchien (kindergarten/pre-school). Children usually attend for three years, from the April after their 3rd birthday until they start primary school. Some children don't go until they are 4 though, and recently youchien around here have introduced 2 year-old classes too. The schedule here is closer to primary school, with 'full-time' meaning from around 9 till 2, Monday to Friday, with holidays in the spring, summer and winter like school. Youchien have a more educational base and offer a variety of interesting activities - several around here have English classes for the little ones!

Since K was born in March, he will be one of the youngest in the school year. Because of that, and to give him chance to get a good grounding in English before entering a full-time Japanese environment, I had always thought that he would go to youchien when he was 4, and stay at home with me until then. Now I'm not so sure. I think he would really enjoy youchien life, and find it much more fun than hanging around at home with me. The fact that we'll have a new baby next March comes into the equation too! On the other hand, he's only really now getting going with his speech, and I'm still reluctant to send him off to a Japanese-only environment every day. Sadly, part-time youchien is not an option.

There is one other possibility though. Amazingly, in our small city there is an international pre-school. That sounds rather grand, when actually it's about a dozen kids in one room. It doesn't have the facilities of the youchien, but it is entirely conducted in English, with native-speaker teachers. My friend Jason teaches there and his older daughter attends, with his younger daughter due to start next year. It also has the advantage that it is possible to go part-time. The downside? It costs about double the regular youchien fee....

So that's what's going round my head nowadays. What do you think about it all? For those of you with children in Japan (I know there are a few of you reading!), what did you do and how did it go? I promise I will actually reply to comments this time :-)

The Big Boy's Bed

K's Big Boy's Bed was delivered last Thursday and K was Very Excited. He watched the men put it together and then helped me to make it up. I bought the duvet cover and pillow case while we were in the UK and hid them away until now, apart from making the pillow case smaller to fit Japanese pillows.*

So here is his room now, taken from the doorway:



And if you stand where K is in that shot and look back to the other corner, it looks like this:

And a little boy who has just got a new bed and construction-vehicle bedding looks like this:

Even now he's still really excited to go to bed each night, and likes to point out 'digger!' 'tractor!' 'Muck!' (that's 'bulldozer' to those of you who don't speak Bob The Builder). Unfortunately though, the enthusiasm for the Big Bed has not diminished the need for Mummy to lie with him till he falls asleep, nor has it cured the waking at 4am and shouting for Mummy either... Lately I'm so sleepy that I often end up falling asleep first. The other night I slept in K's bed from 8.30 till 10, when H came and woke me up. Then I came downstairs and fell asleep on the sofa. This time H left me to it and I slept until K shouted for me at 4, when I went back to his bed. Slept there till 6 and then finally moved to my own bed for an hour, before K woke at 7 and the day began...

*That was my first use of the sewing machine since this happened, and I'll sure you'll be relieved to know that it seems to be fine, although I had great problems getting that cover on again...

Baking

Lately I seem to be in constant need of snacks, so on Sunday I thought I'd make a couple of things to make a (healthier??) change from crisps and shop-bought cookies. Aided by my trusty assistant, I make some oatmeal raisin cookies and a carrot cake.

K enjoyed smelling the cinnamon. When we were staying with Mum and Dad in August, he would line up all the spice jars on the kitchen floor and walk round with the Mixed Spice, offering it to everyone to smell.

He did a good job mixing. The recipe for the oatmeal cookies is here, but I found it originally on Salt and Chocolate, one of my favourite blogs. The only thing I did differently was to use baking powder instead of baking soda (no-one seemed to notice) and to leave out the nuts.

The carrot cake recipe is this one. As I was making it the amount of sugar seemed huge; I even went back to the website to check that I'd copied it down correctly. I cut it down to just over 300g but could have reduced it even more I think. Other than that I followed the recipe as it is, oh, except that I left out the bicarb. Notice a pattern here? Didn't bother with the topping either. I'm sure it would have been lovely but this was supposed to be a somewhat healthy snack, remember?

One of the great things about both of these recipes is that they only use very basic ingredients, easy to find here in Japan (apart from the baking soda and bicarb...). I'm always on the lookout for simple recipes that don't use golden syrup, or treacle, or crushed pineapple or any of those things which are so hard to come by here. Let me know if you have any, especially if the measurements are in grams or ounces. Why do American recipes always list things by the cup? How exactly do you measure a cup of butter??

And in other baking (?) news, and to see if people really bother to read to the bottom of my posts, I have a bun in the oven myself. Yes, K will be getting a little brother or sister next spring. That helps to explain the urge for snacks, and the lack of energy and enthusiasm for doing anything earlier this month. I'm feeling much better now though, and the cooler weather helps too, so I'm hoping I'll be able to Get More Things Done from now on.

From our meteorological correspondent

As I may have already mentioned, this summer has been very hot, and very long. Luckily I escaped the worst of it by heading to the UK, but many parts of Japan recorded their hottest summer since records began and here in Yonago temperatures of 36 or 37 degrees became daily events in mid-August. Usually by mid-September it is much more comfortable but this year we were still using the air conditioning until a couple of days ago, with temperatures still hitting 30 degrees.

Now the temperature has suddenly dropped and it's almost cold. The last couple of days have been cloudy and blustery, with quite strong winds and occasional rain. While the temperatures have still been reaching 26 or 27 in the middle of the day, it's been about 10 degrees cooler at night and the forecast for tomorrow has a high of just 22. If you're in the UK that probably sounds positively balmy but with chilly winds and compared to what we have been having, it's definitely autumnal. Instead of switching on the air conditioning, we're closing the windows at night to stay warm, and digging out long-sleeved tops and warm pyjamas; which suits me just fine...

Choo-choo!

K loves trains. We had lots of fun in the UK riding on various trains, which I will write about here at some point, honestly... He also enjoyed playing with the train set Mum found for him.

Back in April we bought K a nice wooden train set which has a figure 8 layout:


At that time he was happy to play with it as it was, or just demolish it for the fun of it. Now though, he wants to make his own layouts and keeps asking for 'more pieces!' when he can't join the ends of the track. Last week I finally got 'more pieces' for him, including some points so that we could make some fun intersecting routes.

At first I made this layout; it was surprising difficult to get it all to connect together while using as many pieces as possible and incorporating the bridge/tunnel feature...

K played happily with it until he spotted the 3 or 4 pieces that I hadn't used, and then there was uproar! All pieces of track must be used! And so my lovingly created layout was destroyed and K came up with this instead:

Lovely as these wooden tracks are, they are also rather expensive. As always, H has the solution and has been trawling Internet auctions for second-hand originals and cheaper, compatible knock-offs. Two deliveries arrived today and we will hide them away for the time being, ready for the next call for 'more pieces!'...

K's blanket

My Mum knitted this blanket for K. Isn't it great? Every square is different, in colour and texture. As well as all the different knitting stitches, she embroidered various shapes and the letters of K's name onto squares too. There's even an appliqued Japanese flag and a St Piran's flag - the patron saint of Cornwall, in the unlikely event that you don't know it ;-)

While we were in the UK, K used the blanket on his bed every night. Our excessive shopping meant we couldn't fit it in our suitcase, but Mum kindly posted it to us and it arrived a few days ago. K opened the parcel and cried out 'K's blanket! Gran and Grandad's house!', before pulling it down onto the ground, wrapping himself up in it and announcing 'Night-night'. I think it's fair to say that he was pleased to see it.

It's still very warm here so we don't actually need the blanket at night yet. Instead it's draped over the sofa for the time being, earning well-deserved compliments from visitors and being enjoyed by K.

Ridiculous places I have fainted...

At a Plymouth department store (I think that one may have been an almost fainted)
During a Home Economics class

At the Witches Museum in Boscastle (and no, I wasn't scared...)

At Donna's house, just after putting down a kettle of boiling water

During a speech by the Minister of Education at a flash hotel in Tokyo - while seated

While teaching an English class at Yonago Kosen

And now, at the entrance to Giardinos restaurant. Doh. I was then helped inside and slumped on the lovely cool tiled floor for a while, making it rather difficult for people to come in. Sorry.

I never seem to faint in the comfort of my own home. No, always somewhere designed for maximum embarrassment and potential injury. I'm sure I've missed some from the list too, so do remind me if you know of others...

We're back!

Well, we've been back for a week now actually, but I am only now emerging from my haze of jet-lag, travel tiredness and heat-induced laziness. It was quite a shock to the system, coming back to the summer heat and humidity here. I've just been hiding away in the air-conditioned living room for a week...

I had a great time in the UK though. It was lovely to visit family and friends, and to stay with Mum and Dad and be generally spoilt for a month! No cooking or housework to do, and all-you-can-eat bacon sandwiches; what more could I ask for? We did do some touristy things too, especially when H was there, and I will be blogging about that another day - probably....

K had great fun with his Gran and Grandad, and his talking has really developed. Just today he was telling me some (largely unintelligible) story about 'Gran and Grandad's house'. Unfortunately while we were away he also developed the habit of waking at 3am and shouting for Mummy. He has brought that little gem home with him and, while Gran was a good substitute, it seems that Daddy just won't do. Yet another reason for my laziness, and for why K and I have been struggling to get up by 9 every day this week! Last night though, he slept through, so keep your fingers crossed!

********* In other news, I have reopened the shop. I have lots of new things to list too, but that's been put on hold until I get the camera back from the repair shop :-( Watch this space! *********

Off we go!

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, K and I will be heading to the UK. H will travel with us as far as Tokyo, then he's off to Bangkok for a long weekend, though he will come and join us for 10 days in the UK later too.

I had several blog posts planned for before we left, but somehow I didn't quite get round to writing them. Things weren't helped by K having bronchitis, but he seems to be over the worst of it now (fingers crossed...). For now, a little K update. His language is improving little by little and he is really into counting. He also likes telling us what things aren't as well as are. Recent examples: 'Red car! No blue car' and (my favourite) 'One moon! No two moon'.

Hopefully we will be seeing a lot of you in the next month. I'm really looking forward to the trip, less so to the 12 hour flight with K... I doubt I'll be blogging while I'm away so, if we don't see you in person before, see you in September!

Mini-beasts

Spotted in the garden over the last week or so, a variety of little creatures. There's a lot of green-on-green camouflage going on here, so look carefully...

(a praying mantis)

(a dragon fly)

(3 little baby grasshoppers)

(a cute little frog)

(another grasshopper, all grown up this time)

(a different type of grasshopper; this one was huge!)

(kanabun; a kind of scarab beetle)



(a stink bug)

(another praying mantis)

That's about it for my insect knowledge. If you want to know more, I'll ask H :-)

In the garden

Things have been growing like crazy lately, with all the rain and hot weather. The morning glories on the net against the patio have finally realised what they are supposed to be doing and we see some beautiful blooms every morning.

Most are this pale purple or light blue colour but there are also some lovely dark blue ones and some light and dark pink flowers too.

The vegetable patch appears to be entirely corn, but there are a couple of mini-tomato plants hidden away in there too. We're getting about half a dozen little tomatoes a day; nothing compared to last year, but enough really. The mystery, possibly-a-cucumber, plant turned out to be a stray gourd which is now winding it's way around everything in its path...

There's a lot of variety in the development of the corn, but the bigger stalks are forming ears now. It looks like H will soon be able to harvest some, but I suspect that K and I may miss it all :-(

No-one feels much like cutting the lawn in this weather (or doing housework for that matter), but it did get done in the end yesterday. Luckily it grows much slower that a British lawn, so it won't need to be cut again for a while now. I think it's looking pretty good...

Project Shade For The Patio is finally coming to fruition - just as we're about to leave the country. It'll still be very hot and sunny when we get back though, so hopefully I'll be able to enjoy it then. As well as the morning glories, there are a couple of gourd plants climbing up the net and there are several cute little gourds hanging around there now too.

To give you an idea of how quickly it's all growing, the following photo was taken on July 11th, back when it was still very wet and not quite as hot as it is now:

And here's how it looked this morning, about 2 weeks later:


Pretty much all the credit for the garden must go to H, who weeds and waters every day after work. Thank you H, you're doing a great job!

Feeling hot, hot, hot

Japanese people often ask me what things have been difficult for me in settling in Japan. I think they are expecting me to reply about cultural differences, language barriers and the like but, honestly, I think the thing I find hardest to live with here is the climate. The winters here are pretty cold and snowy, but I can cope with that; put on warm clothes, move about a bit, take a hot bath... There are lots of ways to warm up. Summer heat, on the other hand, is inescapable, and relieved only by the power of air-conditioning.

The rainy season has now come to an end here, and we're well and truly into summer. In other words, up until last week it was hot, humid, cloudy and rainy. Now it's hotter, slightly less humid, bright and sunny. Last Friday seemed to be the turning point, though in a surprising direction; the day started very hot and bright so I did 2 loads of washing, hung my duvet outside to air and opened all the windows before going out to Jusco. Emerging from the shopping centre about 90 minutes later, I found black skies, torrential rain, thunder, lightening and a temperature 9 degrees lower.



Arriving home I quickly closed all the windows, mopped up the few wet bits of floor and dumped the sodden duvet in the bath. Luckily it was a washable one so I took it to the laundrette the next morning. As for the washing, I realised that there was no point in rushing to bring it in as it was completely soaked anyway. So I just left it there and started all over again on Saturday...

Since then, it's really been summer. This morning it was 30 degrees at 8am, and 35 degrees at 1pm, according to roadside temperature displays. The thermometer on the car read 42 degrees at lunchtime... Even today's temperatures wouldn't be so bad without the high humidity, but leaving the safety of an air-conditioned room still feels like walking into a greenhouse. Of course, it looks lovely when you admire it from afar - blue, blue skies with the occasional fluffy white cloud contrasting with the beautiful rich green of the rice fields. It seems like the perfect day to go to the beach or play in the garden, until the heat of the sun and the humidity hit you, that is!

Anyway, enough whinging! I am making my escape next week, for the less predictable but also less taxing delights of a British summer - do I need to pack shorts and T-shirts or jumpers and a coat?

I'm in a treasury!

Well, my fabric is...

If you're not a big Etsy user, let me explain... Etsy users can put together little galleries of favourite featured items, called treasuries, for everyone to see and browse. Today I got a message from SunSan, creator of lovely jewellery, letting me know that she had included my red and blue cherry blossom print fabric in her flower-themed treasury. Yeah!

I am so pleased to have been included in this lovely collection of beautiful items. Check it out if you have time!

Look what I found!

Yes, more of this adorable Little Red Riding Hood fabric! I had already bought all that was available in this city and in the next one and it all sold out from my shop immediately. My new thought now, whenever I go to a different city, is 'I wonder if they've got any of that fabric...', and this time they did! I have put one metre (4 fat quarters) for sale in my shop here but I actually have 5 metres (all they had) so if you would like more just get in touch!

In other shop news I have added some more fat quarter sets today - this time, bright cherry blossoms on red and blue or yellow and green backgrounds. I've also recently added some super-cute owl print fabric in red or blue, glittery hearts on a black background, cute little cats about town and more!

Finally, an advance warning! I will be closing the shop for the month of August to go to the UK with K so, if you need some cute Japanese fabric for your summer sewing, get your orders in soon! Thank you :-)