Yeah.. So I haven't blogged in a while

I went to my blog today and saw that my blog picture said Merry Christmas. Wow! Where does the time go?

In short:

A trip to the States.

A trip to Australia.

A visit from my son.

A trip to Nagasaki.

Large amount of volunteer work in Tokyo.

Japanese study, no, I am not fluent yet.

Examining the meaning of life.

So, highlights....

Our visit to the States was wonderful as usual. Christmas celebrations, visits with friends, lots of snow, large amount of carpentry on the house, doctors' visits (No, not because of the carpentry!).

We briefly came back to Japan and then were off to Australia for vacation and a little bit of work time for Marcia. Australia was very hot, but totally awesome.

We visited Gillian a friend of mine from Tokyo, who now lives in Sydney. (picture below)

Stayed in Melbourne and visited friends formerly from Yokohama.

BREAK TIME

Then spent some time in Brisbane driving and exploring the coast.

Stephen visited in May and we explored Tokyo and Yokohama, and traveled to Nagasaki where we stayed for three days and saw many things including Peace Park and the Atomic Bomb Museum (Very moving).

This black obelisk marks the exact point above which the atomic bomb exploded.

Explored Toykyo and Yokohama incuding experiencing Sumo, and Sankeien Gardens.

Since then, I guess I've just been distracted........... or lazy!

Ja mata,

Gary

Happy Holidays!

Off to the USA for a family visit and to celebrate the holidays. Did a little celebrating here before we left. Thanks to Nakanosan's outstanding Christmas party.

Nakanosan leading party games.

Partiers!

Elvis makes surprise guest appearance.

Chistmas carols and good feelings.

Marcia brightened our own house with her decorations.

Thanks to Nakanosan from the Aussie Bar for a great Christmas party and to Marcia for her home Christmas decorating.

Happy Holidays to all and to all a goodnight!

Ja mata,

Gary

After the Turkey

We did indeed go to our local pub for Thanksgiving dinner. We actually blended Japanese and American cultures by downing a bottle of sake before we left for the pub.

I think the scorpion on the label might have been some kind of warning, but what do we know?

Anyhow, fortified and definitely in a Thanksgiving mood we descended on Laser Rush (our pub). The dinner was everything that we could have hoped for. David, a Kentucky boy, and Kimberly kept with the Thanksgiving theme and switched to Wild Turkey. Marcia and I stayed with the sake.

Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, broccoli, and even cranberry sauce. Looks like Thanksgiving to me!

The topper on the evening was homemade pumpkin pie. Definitely homemade and absolutely delicious!

We had an absolutely great celebration. However, the evening did have a touch of poignancy to it. In addition to celebrating Thanksgiving, Marcia and I were bidding farewell to David and Kimberly. They will soon be moving to Australia. They were our friends and neighbors and helped us settle in when we first moved here.

We will miss them greatly.

Ja mata,

Gary

Happy Thanksgiving!

Not much of a Thanksgiving celebration here in Japan (none), but Marcia and I and our neighbors, Kimberly and David, are going to our local pub that serves turkey and mashed potatoes. Works for me!

May we all be thankful and count our blessings.

Gary

What's Cooking?

Since one of my roles in Japan is still CC&BW (chief cook and bottle washer), I thought that I should document that I am actually performing these duties. With Marcia working full-time, the responsibility of providing a varied and interesting menu of home-cooked meals has fallen squarely into my lap. After all, you can't eat out every night. Cooking has definitely been a challenge and has certainly stretched my culinary skills. I'm not overly imaginative when it comes to cooking so my first task was to find some inspiration. I started by taking cues from my environment.

In Japan, presentation is very important in many aspects of daily life. In stores, any purchase, no matter how trivial, is wrapped, bagged and presented to the customer as if it were the Hope diamond. The exchange of business cards is done with great respect and ceremony. The presentation of food in Japan is also done with great flair.

Our neighborhood grocery store has a takeout section of prepared foods that is awesome. The food is prepared during the day and is put out in the afternoon ready to be taken home for an evening meal. The food is delicious, but the point I want to make is: even this takeout food has a nice presentation.


Union Market Takeout Meal
(Pork cutlets, egg, potato salad, rice, pink tofu creation)


Of course, restaurants are all about presentation. This simple dish of chicken and vegetables from a local restaurant is a work of art.



So......., since I knew I would never get into the intricacies of Japanese cuisine, I thought I'd better keep the cooking within my limited ability and work on my presentation. The thinking being: if it looks good, it probably doesn't taste too bad.

My first foray involved no cooking, so I knew I was on safe ground.

Avocado, tomato, and potato salad



I do know how to cook meat so this one was pretty easy.

Spinach wrapped in flank steak, tomatoes, and potato salad

Okay, now I'm rolling. I own a rice cooker. I've found good places to buy sashimi and sushi. And I know some basic condiments to serve.



Sauteed asparagus, tuna sashimi on shredded daikan, pot
stickers, and rice. Soy sauce, spicy oil, and wasabi condiments.

I must say that Marcia has been very supportive and has eaten some of my experiments that have been far from successful. The first time I attempted a fried rice concoction, it came out like a very thick wallpaper paste. Marcia dutifully ate it and said it wasn't that bad. I think she was being polite. I threw my serving out!

Ja mata,

Gary

Stream of Consciousness

Wow I guess I really haven't blogged in a while. I just spent an hour trying to log on to my blog dashboard. But I'm now up and running so here goes. First of all, I just found a partial blog that I never finished from June.

It began:

Last month, my neighbor (David Hodge) and I were very lucky to celebrate Memorial Day in a very traditional American way.......We went to a baseball game and drank lots of beer. It was an absolutely beautiful day in Yokohama, warm and sunny.

Not a bad lead in. So, first things first, I'll finish my baseball blog.

It really was a perfect day for watching baseball.

It was also a perfect day for drinking beer.

David had recently purchased a new camera so most of the pictures for this post are from him. (More about this later.)

After settling in with our first beer, our hometown Baystars were quickly behind 0 to 4 by the end of the first inning.

After another visit from the beer girl, David's photographic interests began to shift. (see below)

We weren't seeing double the beer girls were starting to multiply! I guess they knew who the good customers were.

Good weather. Good baseball. Beer girls everywhere. It doesn't get much better than this!

I should mention that the Baystars were making a comeback and were actually leading the game at this point.

We focus on the game for a minute.

Celebrating the Baystars making a comeback!
One of the few pictures that I took with my camera. A self portrait. I'm holding the the camera at arm's length. The green thing in David's mouth is not a caterpillar. It's called an edamame. They are green soybeans in the pod. Cooked and dipped in salt, they go great with beer.

Maybe we should have switched to coffee at this point? Nah!

coffee girl

Anyhow, we had a great time and the Baystars won the game 9 to 5. A perfect ending to a perfect day.

Okay.... Now I'm only 2 months behind in my blog.

I don't know what happened to the month of June. It just sort of disappeared. I'm sure we did stuff, but it seems to be a blur. Oh well........

Most of July was spent on a home visit to the USA. Marcia and I spent a lot of our time going to doctors, dentists, and optometrists. In other words, giving our bodies their 6 month tune-ups. In addition, Marcia had to spend some of her time working at Moog and I worked on the house and did maintenance on the snowblower, our car (including 4 new tires! Ouch!!) and the weed wacker. I also built stairs on a deck that Steve and I built last summer.

I did finish these stairs, but must have been too tired to take any more pictures.

We did manage to visit a few friends, enjoy our son's company, and have a music session with my band buddies. I also had a great golf afternoon and evening with Stephen and his roommate Jeff. One thing that we did plenty of, was eat. We are definitely caught up on American food for a while.

Our return trip to Japan was less than perfect. Our flight from Buffalo to Chicago was uneventful, but then our luck changed. We left Chicago and flew for more than an hour and then it was announced that we were returning to Chicago because we had no running water. This included water that was necessary for flushing the toilets! We returned to Chicago and waited 4 hours until we were able to leave again.

Once again in the air, I thought to myself, "What else could go wrong?" Bad thing to think! Within five minutes I had broken off a sizable piece of one of my teeth. The good news was that it didn't hurt.

Since we've been back in Japan, we had visitors from the US (Frank and Cecily) and had a wonderful time showing them some of the local sights.

Although, we bought a new camera in the States, Marcia and I seem to have gotten somewhat lax about taking pictures. I will definitely do better in the future.

More blogs to come. Hopefully in a more timely fashion.

Ja Mata,

Gary