Tea

I have recently rediscovered my love of tea.  Black tea, green tea, but mostly just any sort of loose leaf tea.  I lost my love in the hot days of summer - owing mostly to the fact that the idea of drinking something hot in 40 degrees with 100% humidity seems like the worst idea ever imagined.

But today, with the growing onset of my first winter cold setting in, the idea of some creme earl grey and a little sugar was my motivation to get out of bed.  With winter beginning to set in, getting out of bed needs that little bit of motivation.  My hardwood floors, once wonderful in their easy clean up and and clean lines have become uninsulated cold conductors, reminding me that I'm no longer in my cozy bed.  So now here I sit at my computer with a festive box of Christmas kleenex, grandma slippers, and a cup of sweetened Creme earl grey.  I may be getting sick - but I'm going to make myself as comfortable as I can while I sneeze my weekend away.

Christmas is Coming!

Christmas is coming!  Japanese Col. Sanders says it's so!

Oraise in Fall

Back home you never really get to enjoy watching the leaves change colour before they fall.  I don't know if it just gets to cold to quickly, or if Saskatchewan trees are just defective - but I remember kicking green leaves down the street.  Here, if you drive about an hour and a half you can go where there are multicolour trees overhanging a beautiful babbling brook.  

We were maybe a week or two too late to get the full "Fall foliage" experience, but their was still enough colour to enjoy or little hike along the water.

Fall in Misawa is rather uneventful - but if you take a bit of a trip you get learn what fall is really suppose to look like.  All of the photos are from the Oraise Gorge, along side Lake Towada in Aomori Prefecture.

Cool Breezes, Falling Leaves, and Quiet Contemplation

I managed to go (almost) the entirety of October without posting.  For shame!  I shall slap my own wrist and send myself to bed early.  [Oh the decadence!] 

Winter must be coming because the laundry basket now contains bunnyhugs, and sweaters.  A trip to the Cafe Mokuteki now requires more thought - do I still want that latte iced, or maybe today I should get it hot.  Showers and baths have become more fun again, no longer just a way to become clean but a relaxing and steam filled way to warm up and wind down.  Gone are the days of standing under cold water wishing for an escape from the ever oppressive humidity. 

My cards and pictures no longer crinkle in the heat, giving in to the pressures of the humid air and refusing to remain sturdy and straight.  A crochet hook and yarn now sits on the coffee table, waiting to be used.  Gone are the days that bread must be kept in the refrigerator, and blankets in the linen closet.  In a land so far north, the sun has started to set before 5:00 making evenings seem longer.

The leaves have begun to change colour and fall, people from southern States have began discussing the coming snows in earnest, always with a mixture of fear and excitement.  Will driving be safe?  Can we survive in weather below freezing?  Exactly how much snow do we need to get before they will shutdown the base and call it a snow day?

Fall for me has always been a time for quiet contemplation.  It was one year ago yesterday that I left Korea to venture forward into a relatively uncertain future.  A decision that I made in the pursuit of love and happiness - and new adventures.    I have found all three tucked away in this tiny little city so far away from where I started. 

Bring on Fall - and all the new adventures that will arrive with the cooler air and the changing leaves.

Halloween

I've become a bit of a Halloween scrooge through the last few years.  I really enjoyed living in Korea over two Halloweens, I didn't have to dress up, or be pressured into watching horror films late at night.  Some people go all out with their costumes planning and sewing (or ordering online) months in advance.  I am not one of those girls.  So when the head teacher at Misawa English school announced they were planning a costume party for the kids the weekend before Halloween I was not thrilled.  After some encouragement from a friend and fellow teacher at the school I made an effort (albeit a SMALL one) to procure a costume and a bit of holiday cheer. 

These are teachers at the Halloween party.  My costume consisted of a pair of bunny ears from the 100 Yen store (dollar store anyone?), some eyeliner and lipstick used in ways other than their intended purpose, and a rather fluffy cotton ball tail.

One thing I had failed to take into account during my Halloween Scroogery [Look Ma, a new word was born today!] was how much kids LOVE Halloween.  Even ones who aren't really sure what the holiday is, why the are celebrating, and why it requires dressing up.  ...Lets be honest, I don't think the Canadian/American kids are really sure why they do it either - they just know it leads to candy!

I ended up enjoying myself tremendously, simply because I got to celebrate the holiday through their eyes.  We had a pinata, cookies to decorate, and English Halloween word guessing games.

Some kids decorated their cookies to eat later....

...and some kids just ate their icing right then and there.

From now on I'm spending every Halloween with children.  I'll take them trick-or-treating, I'll hand out candy, and I'll hand them back to their parents once the sugar high starts to set in!

Hope everyone had a fun and festive Halloween!

Sushi

I thought that I'd post the pictures I took from the last time Travis and I went out for sushi.  People seem to be confused as to why I would WANT to eat sushi - or why we like it!  It's delicious, and this is why:

 The best sushi always comes with excellent sides.  Like above, we got pickled ginger (YUMMO!) and wasabi that was so fresh they grated it in front of us, and gave us a bit of the root!

 This is the assorted set that we enjoy the most.   It's nice to be able to have a little bit of everything.  I don't remember exactly what everything is - but I know their is salmon, tuna, shrimp, yellow fin, crab, and scallops there.  (I have to admit, I always give my scallops to Travis, just not my favorite!)

If you get one of the bigger sets you get more (go figure!) as well as some specialty sashimi, like this raw shrimp sashimi that Travis got that still had it's head and some of the legs.  

 As an added bonus - you get to eat with chopsticks!  Dinner is always more fun with chopsticks!!!

Misawa Air Show

This past Saturday Misawa Air Base hosted an Air Show, opening up the base to the Japanese to come and demonstrate both the USAF (United States Air Force) and JASDAF (Japanese Air Self-Defense Force).  These are some of the pictures we got from the event.

JASDF fighter

 This is the Miss Veedol  it was her last flight before her retirement.  The Miss Veedol was the first plane to fly non-stop across the Pacific Ocean.  The flight left from Sabishiro beach outside Misawa - and traveled for 41 hours across the pacific ocean where the pilot and copilot crash landed in the middle of Washington state.  (The plane had to crash land, because they jetisoned the landing gear after take off to drop some of the weight from the plane).  Obviously it has been recreated and reattached since October of  1931!

 USAF demonstrating formation flying with the F-16's

Learning from Wilton

Through the month of August I took a Wilton cake decorating class on base.  I figured I loved to bake - and I love being creative with my cards and scrapbooking... so why not?

What I discovered was that scrapbooking and card making may be creative, but not necessarily artistic.  My artistic talent is little to nonexistent. 

We started learning what each of the icing tips did, and what shapes they made.  I decorated some sugar cookies, but they were so pathetic I didn't even think to take pictures.  The cookies looked better without icing!  The next class we were told to bring a cake, and she would show us how to layer it, fill it, and ice it.  If their was time we would learn "3 dimensional icing"

So the cake turned out well, filling it and layering it was easy... but covering it was a pain, and my 3D artwork on top inspired this coversation:

Kristen: "Check out the cake I finished in class today"
Travis:  "Looks great"
Kristen: "Do you know what that is on top?"
Travis: "uhhhhhh....."
Kristen: "Take a guess, I know it sucks - what is it?"
Travis: "It looks like the mushroom from Super Mario??"
Kristen: *laughs* "It's suppose to be a cupcake, but that is awesome!"

...we referred to it as the mushroom until the cake was gone.  I personally thought it looked like spaghetti worms in a cup, so the mushrooms from super mario was definitely a step up!

It was a tasty cake though!  Don't judge a book by it's cover!  Chocolate fudge two layer 8" cake.  Filled with Almond mousse, and covered in chocolate icing.

The next class we were learning how to make icing flowers, and decorate cupcakes.  I improved ten-fold over the 3 dimensional icing lesson that I failed so miserably.

First a large spiral of white icing.  (let it be noted that this is where Travis and I later determined that I should have stopped.)

Then I piped on some leaves - I think the leaves turned out fairly well actually!

And then.... I practiced the flowers on top of the cupcakes.  Destroying them, and making them look ridiculous!

When it was all said and done though, I got the practice I needed, and they still tasted fine.  Even if they did look like a cross between a bad 80's wedding and something from Cakewrecks.com!

Vanilla bean cupcakes filled with strawberry preserves, topped with an almond flavoured icing.

For the last class we brought a cake and were allowed to decorate it in any way that we wanted, utilizing the lessons we had learned from our instructor.

I'm actually fairly proud of this cake.  The icing was completely smooth until I had to drive home with it in the passenger seat.  Seriously, how do professionals do that???  It was a dense vanilla bean 4 layer cake with kahlua cream filling.  It was iced with chocolate icing, and the polka dots are flavoured vanilla, chocolate, and kahlua.  I avoided drawing any pictures and stuck to basic shapes - a move that I think made me look like I was more talented that I actually am.

It was a fun class, and I may take level two in October... we'll see!  (I passed level one and they told me I could - I have a certificate to prove it!)

The Misawa End of Summer Festival

Their is nothing better than celebrating the end of summer than a giant festival that includes floats, drums, costumes, and entertainment.

 The day began with a parade.  Most of Misawa came out to watch the parade.  The people performing in the parade danced down the streets in traditional Kimono's, shoes, and hats to music being piped in from speakers that were installed up and down the street.

 In the evening their was a float competition.  I never did fully learn what was going on - but from what I gathered the best looking float that could go up and down, and spin around faster than all of the other floats was going to be the winner.

 This float was done by the United Nations club that gathers here in Misawa.  Made up of mostly Americans and Japanese they work on learning the cultures of others - and teaching their own culture to the rest of the club.

 Thse guys were my favorites!

 After the floats were finished this Japanese drum club came in to perform.  They had drummers as young as about 8 years old. 

Homemade

As many of you know, I scrapbook quite a lot - I love being creative with my pictures, and being able to relive memories and moments as I put them together in a book. 

Recently I've started to branch out into greeting cards.  It is something that I've done a little bit of using up scrapbooking scraps over the years, but never with a whole bunch of seriousness to it.  However a few weeks ago I found out that the base was holding a flea market.  Anyone could sign up to have a table, and you could sell whatever you want.  I thought about it, and realized that I could (possibly) sell these cards.  They would be cheaper than the Hallmark section in the bookstore, and more personal.

I opened a table in the flea market at 8:00 and had a little bit of success.  I made money - but not an awful lot.  However, I met lots of people, and got a few great ideas from many of them.  I plan on tweaking my prices a little, and adjusting how I sell the cards.  (In bunches as well as individually, etc.)  For my first time I was fairly pleased with myself!  The flea market opens once a month, and I'll be there with my revised marketing strategy on August 27th.  I'll let you know if business improves.

Couponing?

Got together with a bunch of ladies yesterday to cut and collect coupons - honestly more of a social event for me than a productive one.  I did end up cutting a few coupons and collecting some as well, but I don't ever think I'll be featured on an episode of TLC's "Extreme Couponing".  I love the idea of saving the money, but damn those women are intense!

It was great to hang out with some girls for a change!  Travis is great, I love him to death but hanging out with him, or the friends he's made at work has me ensconced in a testosterone filled zone. 

I actually realized while I was there that it was my first time hanging out with females since I came to Japan!  (excluding while I was back in North America of course).  Craziness.  It may have been just a few hours, but it was nice to get out of the house, socialize, and gab about things guys just wouldn't care less about. :D

See all that paper... those are all coupons!  Many of them were set to us from lovely ladies back in the States.  I took muffins, someone brought grapes, and there was pop and chips for all.  Reminded me a bit of being back in my University residence - only with a lot more kids running around!

Misawa's Tanabata Festival

The story of Japan's Tanabata Festival is below:

Separated by the milky way, two star crossed lovers are only able to meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month based on the lunisolar calendar.  The legend of Hikoboshi (the star known as Alter) and Orihime (the star known as Vega) has roots in China but has been associated with Japan’s Tanabata festival since the sixth century.

Orihime, the daughter of Emperor Tentei, was a skilled weaver and made lovely clothes for her father.  On day as she sat alongside the the river of heaven ( amanogawa – the milky way) she was overcome with sadness as she had been so busy with her weaving that she hadn’t had time to fall in love.   Tentei, believed to be the ruler of the heavens, witness her woeful state and arranged a marriage for her with Hikoboshi who lived across the river.  The couple was very much in love and were very happy but Orihime was neglecting her weaving.  This angered Tentei so much that he decided to separate the couple putting them back on opposite sides of the river.

Tentei decreed that the couple would only be allowed to see each other on one night each year – on the seventh day of the seventh month.  On that evening a boatman (the moon) comes to ferry Orihime over the river to her beloved Hikoboshi.  But if Orihime has not given her best to her weaving Tentei may make it rain causing the river to flood so the boatman cannot make the trip.  In this case the kasasagi (a group of magpies) may still fly to the milky way to make a bridge for Orihime to cross.

The Tanabata festival (also know as the star festival) celebrates the reuniting of these lovers separated by the milky way and the word tanabata can be translated as “weaving with the loom (bata) placed on the shelf (tana)”.

This version of the story was what I found via Google: HERE

Travis and I went to the festival last Saturday, though it did run all weekend.  We watched them hang some of the wonderful streamers and trees up over the road, witnessed a very intense match of tug-o-war, and ate Turkish food.  Yes, TURKISH.  A very nice group of guys had set up a Donair stand - we had a delicious lunch.

He looks like he's enjoying it - right?

Tanabata is a Japanese tradition wherein people write their wishes on tanzaku papers (colorful, small strips of papers) and hang them on bamboo branches. People also decorate bamboo branches with various kinds of paper decorations and place them outside their houses. The most common decorations are colorful streamers. Streamers are said to symbolize the weaving of threads. Others are toami (casting net), which means good luck for fishing and farming and kinchaku (hand bag), which means wealth. 

 I'm not going to lie, these trees looked like there were either dead, or near death.  Probably not what the festival was going for!  I guess that's what you get when you just randomly place little trees on a meridian for a sunny 28 degree weekend without much water!

 In true Japanese fashion the decorations were colourful and cute.  I found Hello Kitty! right away.

Though Travis preferred the Care Bears.  

We had a great time with the exception of one thing... they piped music into the streets for the festival - the same song, over and over and over and OVER again!

Harry Potter

I blame my friend Amanda for getting me into Harry Potter.  She did it way back in High School.  I had avoided all of the books, believing that with all the hype surrounding them they couldn't possibly be as good as people were making them out to be.  I didn't see the movie when it came out - and frankly my life moved on.  One weekend however we were hanging out in my parents basement, and decided to rent a movie.  Problem was, we did this a lot.  A group of us would get together, rent a movie (or 3 usually) and watch DVDs well into the wee hours of the morning.  When we got to the rental store, between the two of us, we had seen every new release currently available that looked even remotely good.  Manda had already seen "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" - but since I hadn't she convinced me it should be our movie for the night.  It looked fairly interesting, and since my only point against it was "it can't possibly be as good as people keep saying" we rented it.

Needless to say - I fell in love.  Enough to remember sitting in my parents basement watching it (since it happened so often those days, most of them run together into a conglomeration of friends, giggling, and chick flicks).  I know where on the couch I was sitting, where Amanda was sitting - and I remember thinking - but what happens next?

I became what I swore I would never be - a Potter groupie.  I went the next day and secretly stole the 4 books (all those currently published) from my brothers bookshelf.  To this day, I don't think he knows that I stole his books from him... sorry Rob! lol  I read all of them in a week, no small feat considering I was attending school all day, and working a part time job.  I'm sure my sleep schedule suffered - but it was totally worth it.

When the 5th book came out, I was in second year University.  A girl in my dorm had bought the book, and she lent it to me when she finished.  Just following dinner at the res cafeteria I began to read.  I read all night, and finished the 870 page 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' just in time to shower and leave for my 8:00AM Computer Science class.  I don't think I had ever pulled an all-nighter with a book before (or since!) 

Needless to say, when I found out that the last and final installment of the movie franchise would be released while I was in Japan I began searching for movie theaters near me that would be showing the film.  Normally not a problem - Harry Potter is huge everywhere, not just in the English speaking world.  The trouble was to find one in ENGLISH.  Japan likes to dub foreign language films instead of just subtitling them.  Thankfully Travis and I only had to drive 25-30 minutes to a theater that was playing and English 3D version (with Japanese subtitles).  The theater was sold out - and I would estimate there were only 4-6 Japanese people in the theater.  A good portion of the military community had made the trek with us, making it obvious why this theater was showing a subtitled film over a dubbed one - clearly they profited from it!

It was a great movie, and a great story.  I'll admit I love the books more than the movies - but I hold the films in a special place in my heart, after all it was the first MOVIE that got me addicted to the series to begin with.  Now my mission is to get Travis to read the books... what do you think my chances are???

Our House

A few of you who have Skype have seen bits and pieces of our place here in Japan.  However, I thought I'd give you a more comprehensive look at our place since 99.99999% of you will never be coming over for a visit.  Sad for me!  (I hold out 0.000001% hope that someone will stop by... you never know. lol)

So.... Welcome to our house!  You will enter through the garage, and into the boot room.

 Super duper exciting, I know.  The door you see goes out to the garage, then we have a cement floor, raw wood shelved boot room.  How serviceable!  (As a side note - if I get any more shoes I''m going to have to start using Travis' shelf.  hee hee)

 From the boot room you enter the house facing the washing machine and dryer.  (Hey, it's the back door - what were you expecting?) Notice the not one, not two, but THREE garbage cans?  That's because we have to sort our garbage by plastic, paper, and cans/jars.  If we don't the garbage men will stop picking up our garbage.  I also have another garbage can under the sink for 'food-type trash' like carrot peels, strawberry tops, etc.

 And when you turn right out of the boot room door you see the kitchen.  A fairly decent size, it is the biggest I've had since living with my parents.  The sink is HUGE - and it's all one big basin.  No double sink for us!  You could wash several small children in there at once without a problem... or you know, 3 watermelon... or just a lot of dishes.  ;)

 A view back into the boot room from the eating area.  Our fridge is all by itself on that wall, something that I originally thought was weird - but have since decided is rather convenient and serviceable. 

 Here is the eating area.  I've got the family calendar up on the wall - the first wall decor I hung when I got here!  Our "backyard" *cough cough* is out those sliding doors.  Our "backyard" *cough cough* includes a small patio for our BBQ - and about 2 feet of moss/grass before the fence. If you look hard you can see the patio railing, and the fence.  Basically - no backyard.  The cube in the bottom right of the picture is one of our heaters.  They are room specific and run on gas.  They actually work really well - but with the price of gas in this country, we didn't even turn that one on this winter.

 This is the view of the living room when you enter from the eating area/kitchen.  The dividing wall separates the TV from the fridge, and carries down until about the end of the kitchen table.  We do have a tiny little air conditioner in this room (above the heater in the corner), but it really doesn't work all that well, so we have just been using the ceiling fan.  Those bookcases became a necessity pretty quickly after we moved in - we have a lot of books!  (I've got even more in storage at my parent's place that I haven't gotten up here yet, and I donated roughly 75% of my book collection when I moved up here.)

 A view exactly opposite of the last picture - the entry to the left goes into the eating area of the kitchen, and the hall goes down to the bedrooms.  In general, the house needs more artwork and pictures for the walls, but from this angle it looks like I've actually decorated a little bit on the walls!  The cherry cabinet in the back opens up into a full bar and is from Korea.  I love it because it is pretty closed, but really functional open.

 This is our front door boot room.  We never use it ourselves, but if people come over this is the door they would come through.  Like our lack of front yard?  That gravel is the road...

 The wooden sliding doors on the left open to the front boot room, and then we have the huge sliding doors that double as great light for the room - and a great way to get big furniture into the house!  Don't you love how the curtains don't even reach the floor?  These windows didn't have any drapes or anything when we moved in, and since the road is RIGHT there we really needed some for privacy sake.  Those were the longest ones the BX carried.  (think a itsy bitsy teensy tiny Wal-mart.)

 This is the view of the living room as you come in from the front boot room.  The three cutouts in the wall look into the eating area.

Down the hallway... and on the first door on your left you will find:

The guest bathroom!   In the back you can see the second door way the opens into the literal BATH room.  The bathtub can be closed off to the rest of the bathroom - which is actually a little weird the first few times you bathe. It is a tiny little room.

 The first door on the right down the hallway is command central!  I think this picture is hilarious, because it looks like our chairs should be switched.  Travis gets the big desk for his multiple monitors, and I get the big comfy desk chair.  This room is suppose to be one of three bedrooms, but we use it as an office/computer room.

I also have my tower o' scrapbooking stuff right there if I get a hankerin'.  The tackle box works perfectly to hold all of my little bits and bobs.

The second door on the right leads here.  This is our guest bedroom.  No takers yet, but Travis and I hold out hope.  Don't you love the ugly blue blinds?  They are yellowing on the edges!  We have them in both the smaller bedrooms - such a fashion statement.  Heater, closet....basic room.

 At the end of the hallway is a big walk in closet.  Mostly it has become a catch all - but I go in and organize every so often.  Luggage, linens, paperwork... hey it's nice to have the place to put it all!  Our new comforter set is still in its packaging in the closet - it is just too warm to be adding any extra blankets to the bed at the moment!!!

 This is the view of our bedroom from the door.  Travis' Nana made him the quilt on the bed.  Notice above the bed another air conditioner.  Thankfully, this one works really pretty well, so we run it at night and get a decent nights sleep.  The green out the left window is over the fence of the "backyard" *cough cough*.  Out my window is the house next door.  The blinds stay down most of the time, but today was actually a bit cool and I desperately wanted to open the house up and get some of the fresh breeze in.  We have had so much heat and humidity this past week that the house was beginning to feel stuffy.  After today and this evening it should be much improved.

 The room from the corner by the end of the bed.  We share the drawers in that dresser... but I have 100% taken over the top of it with perfume and jewelry boxes.  Oops?

Our walk-in closet.  His and hers.  :)

 A view of the room from the dresser.  The banner on the wall is something I picked up in China.  The four characters in the middle say "Peace and Love follow you always"  the artists signature is the series of characters along the left hand side, and the little characters running down the right say "to my Canadian friend Kristen Haver".  The guy who made it for me ran a tiny art gallery in Beijing and when he found out I was from Canada he offered to do some calligraphy for me.  Of course, after I accepted he talked me into buying the rice paper and silk banner that he did it on... and then asked for a tip!  Cheeky man or good salesman?  You decide.

 Our bathroom is an en-suite, and considerably smaller than the main bathroom of the house.  It works just fine for our needs though - and the shower totally makes up for the rest of it.

That's right, I took a picture of the shower... sort of.  Its huge and walk in, and has it's own separate door.  I couldn't figure out a good way to get a shot of it - but yeah.  Yay shower?

So that's our house - I hope you enjoyed your tour.  Also, I hope the tour made sense and you aren't completely confused as to how all of these rooms work together.  Aside from the humidity and warmth of it during the really hot and sunny days we love it.

P.S.  This does not get you out of coming to see it in person if time/money/logistics allow!  Just an FYI.

LOVE YA!