Good for a Giggle

"Whaaat? Don't you like my outfit?"

Announcer's voice: Today, young H.D. Felker could be seen sporting a jaunty canary yellow Japanese school-children's hat accentuated with a very nice pair of Thomas the Tank Engine sunglasses. His sporty red soccer shirt was set off nicely by the silk cape and matching boots. Notice that our daring young man is so bold today as to wear his shoes on the opposite feet. This outfit just screams to us, "Gotta love me!"

Diego the Wildlife Rescuer

In this picture, the boys are completely absorbed in watching "Diego the Wildlife Rescuer," a DVD my mom sent us. Apparently, Diego is Dora the Explorer's cousin. Ryuya has come over on more than one occasion and requested this DVD. It's hysterical. Diego and his cousin, Alicia, speak a fair amount of Spanish and encourage loads of audience participation. I thought I'd die laughing the day I heard Ryuya and my boys singing, "nademos!" (basically, "we're swimming")

Here are two short movie files of the boys jammin' to the DVD.
Video One
Video Two

Car Blessing, German Chocolate Cake, and Snacks

Recently, Ridge and Holt have both become total sugar fiends. It’s difficult to control how much they have due to the generous nature of Japanese adults. It seems that hardly a day goes by without someone offering or giving the boys some sort of sugary treat. For a while, we just tried to ignore it and write it off as something we would have to not worry about. However, when Ridge told me that Holt eats chocolate everyday for his school snack, Aaron and I decided enough was enough. Holt is quite a picky eater and usually refuses to eat the snack offered by the school. So, instead, the teachers fill his chubby cheeks with candy. Even the other students sometimes have cookies or cake for snack. Holt’s daily chocolate intake combined with increasing demands from both of them to buy candy forced our hand.

It’s pretty important here to “go with the flow” and do what the group is doing. Standing our ground and insisting on less sugar was not an easy feat for Aaron and I. Once our decision had been made, I slapped together a weeks worth of crackers and organic peanut butter to send to school. On Monday, a reluctant and uncomfortable Aaron tried his best to explain to the teachers our plan. Instead of chocolate, Holt could have a “home snack”. If school snack was to be sweets, Ridge could have “home snack” instead. I made sure Ridge understood and we gave it a try. The next day, I decided to clarify the issue and went to Fusae for help. She translated a note I had written and Aaron passed it on to the teachers. Poor guy. I know it was uncomfortable for him. The teachers weren’t upset, just a little confused, I think. Kurata assured me not to worry about irritating the teachers because they are “very generous with Americans”. I laughed and asked him if that was a nice way of saying that Japanese people cut some slack for the “crazy gaijins”. We all agreed in the end that it could be written off as a “cultural learning experience”. The end result is that Holt no longer eats chocolate everyday and Ridge eats a non-sugary snack when the other kids are eating cookies. Since I found a place to buy 100% fruit leather, his favorite, he doesn’t complain about no sweets. Holt, on the other hand, has finally caught on. At first, he told me, “They didn’t make chocolate today, so I ate crackers.” He now knows about the no-more-chocolate rule and is slowing coming to terms with hit. Fortunately, he loves peanut butter and crackers.

German Chocolate Cake…ahhh…a birthday tradition in our family. I decided to attempt this wonderful cake with my English class as our next cooking project. The night before, I had to practice, as I had never actually made this cake myself. Prior to last week, I had only watched Mom make it and then eaten the results. Here’s my first ever German Chocolate Cake, made with real Baker’s German’s brand chocolate, courtesy of my mom.
Cake


Thursday, I had nine women come to the middle school kitchen to make cakes. We actually only made three recipes and then used smaller cake pans. In all, there were ten cakes. Everything thing went smoothly and nothing burned! That was a feat considering the fact that I was trying desperately to keep my eye on all ten cakes while the ladies worked on the frosting. They don’t have pecans here (I ordered some from the internet), so the frosting was quite exotic for them. As the frosting and cakes cooled, we cut and ate the cake I made the night before. Everyone loved it, but they also agreed that it was very “heavy”. I need to teach them the word “rich” so they can use it when describing food.

Lastly – I’m sure you are just dying with curiosity about the Car Blessing. Thursday afternoon, as I prepared to leave the office around five, Mr. Kamaya caught me and said I should come with him for a short ceremony. He explained the village had bought a new car and the “chairman” (i.e. the mayor) was going to do a very short ceremony. So, we went outside into the parking lot and waited for the car to arrive. As we waited, several other men, about a dozen, from the village offices joined us. Mr. Tasaki poured plastic cups of sake and put some dried fish onto a plate (not pieces – the whole stinking fish – each one was about three inches long). Finally, the car was driven up and all the men ogled and played with it. It’s a big van, seating about 11 to 12 passengers. The sliding door on the side is automatic and was a great source of amusement for a good five minutes. Finally, everyone gathered at the front of the car and faced it, standing in a semi-circle. We bowed twice, clapped twice, and bowed once. The mayor said something and then proceeded to pour sake on each tire. A man followed him, sprinkling salt on the ground and tires as they made their way around the car. Then, everyone was given sake to drink and most munched on a couple of fish (I stayed far away from the fish and faked drinking my nasty sake). Apparently, it’s quite common around here, at least in the country, for people to bless new cars. Sometimes they even hire a Shinto priest to come out and do more serious blessing ceremony. Considering how sturdy Japanese cars are, perhaps we should adopt this practice!

Father's Day, part 2

We had a lovely Father’s Day yesterday. The morning began with my instructions to the boys to allow their father to sleep as late as he wanted. Unfortunately, due to the energetic nature of the boys, this involved Aaron moving to another room to continue sleeping. If he remained in our usual room he was sure to be awakened in one manner or another. Ridge and Holt then spent some time coloring a large “Happy Father’s Day” poster. Afterwards, Ridge and I made some fruit salad for Aaron’s breakfast. I found a small wooden knife at the store on Saturday and this was Ridge’s tool for safe cutting. He worked very hard to do a nice job.

Working on the poster
Ridge's picture for Aaron
Holt's picture for Aaron
Cutting kiwi

After a lazy morning and fancy breakfast (involving American-style bacon – a real rarity around here!) the boys spent a large portion of their day playing with the neighborhood kids outside. The weather was fantastic. Shortly after a quick lunch, we decided to do a little exploring based on a conversation I had had a few days earlier. Apparently, there are several locally famous waterfalls near the village. We set out to find them. Before locating the falls, we made a stop at Kamu, a flower park in Kamiokoppe (about 10 minutes away). They have wonderful flowers and this awesome slide made with rollers. It’s super long! So, of course, we had to stay and play a bit.

Slide 1
Slide 2
Slide 3
Ridge on hangie thingie

This was the first of three waterfalls along the route. Unfortunately, the road was blocked off and we were unable to drive to the other two further down the road. These falls are a popular spot among the locals. Usually, there is a rope across the top, just like the ropes that are hung outside a Shinto shrine. The spot could be considered sacred to some, and there was evidence of many alcoholic offerings that had been set out in the past in honor of the local “kami”, or spirits.

A sign at the waterfall
Waterfall
I can't read this either (at the falls)

I hope to return with better luck at viewing the other two waterfalls.

Happy Father's Day

Here are Ridge and Holt posing with a local wild plant called, "Fuki". This leaf, as you can see, is big enough to cover both boys! We had a lovely Father's Day today, which I will try to write about tomorrow.

Sleepy Boy

Here is Holt, asleep on the kitchen table after having eaten only half of his bowl of rice. With no nap, he was a very tired boy! After eating a little bit, he finally gave up, laid his head on the table, and closed his eyes. In seconds, he was out completely. Ridge told Holt over and over the following moring that, "Mommy took your picture while you were sleeping, Holt!" I guess Ridge just thought it was super funny.

Photos from Last Week

[NOTE: I wrote this post last week, but it's just now getting posted due to my busy schedule and uncooperative internet connection.]

Just thought I’d post an odd assortment of photos for you today. Last Tuesday [actually, Tuesday before last], when Aaron was in Kitami to take his driving test, I had needed to borrow another car so I could drive to Kamiokoppe. This is my loaner care, believe it or not! I’m not sure why the village has a car like this. It certainly got my students’ attention when I drove up.

Here’s some artwork courtesy of Ridge and Holt. They made the little posters for Mother’s Day. All the kids in the pre-school made similar posters.
Holt's work
Ridge's work

Here is a picture Ridge drew on some cardboard. I’m not sure what inspired him, but I thought it was lovely.
Ridge's , Holt's

A couple of weeks ago, Grandma Otasaka had chatted with Aaron (with our friend Colin’s translating help) about our container garden. She said we could use some of the garden space out behind our houses. Being very excited about this, we jumped on it as soon as we had both time and decent weather. Aaron and Ridge spent the day on Saturday weeding and turning the soil. Then on Sunday, we all went out back and transferred our plants to the garden area. I couldn’t believe how much space we had!

Ridge is working hard – Family shot , Ridge digging

Holt is relaxing in the shade of his umbrella – Working, again, Holt, close-up

The plot after planting – The garden

Keep your fingers crossed for us. We are really hopping to end up with so many tomatoes that we don’t know what to do with them (we planted nine tomato plants).

By the way...

...I have been so busy I haven't had a chance to write about my own driver's license experience. Hopefully, I will have a bit more free time next week. The bottom line is that I passed with no trouble. Aaron and I are now free and clear to drive legally with our new licenses. Hooray! We are very excited to be finished with the whole ordeal. More to follow...

A Day Trip to Kitami

As I mentioned in my post about Aaron’s driver’s license experience, he had to go to Kitami again for a lesson last Monday (May 29th). Since the pre-school teachers had to work during Undoukai the day before, Monday was a comp day for them. This meant I had taken the day off to be with Ridge and Holt while Aaron was in Kitami. Once we realized that we all had the day off, Aaron suggested we make it a little “day o’ adventure” for the family. So, we left Nishiokoppe at about 9:00 a.m. and headed towards Kitami.

Along the way, we stopped in a few places Aaron had discovered on his first two trips. The first place along the way was in a town called Kamiubetsu. This little town is home to an annual Tulip Festival. Apparently, Kamiubetsu used to be a big producer of these lovely flowers, until they could no longer compete with Holland. Once a money crop, the tulips now become more of a habit for the town, eventually morphing into a tourist attraction. Each year from mid-April until mid-June, the town hosts a huge “festival”. More than two million bulbs are planted on these grounds. Tourists come from miles around to walk among them, shop, and eat. For those who are truly flower-obsessed, a short helicopter trip can be bought, so that one can have a bird’s eye view of the tulips. If I read the flyer correctly, you can fly for about 10 minutes for $40.
Here are various shots of the flowers:
red tulips, white tulips
white close-up, black close-up
Higher view, Tulip shape
Yellow,etc., Helicopter
More red tulips, Red/orange tulips
Ridge posing

We wandered amongst the flowers for a bit, and then moved on to check out the museum. The outside is really eye-catching and unusual. Inside, it was surprisingly small. We enjoyed walking around, though. The architecture was beautiful.
Outside shot
Inside shot of the celing
Inside view with Holt

After about an hour in Kamiubestsu, we loaded back up into the car to proceed onward.

Our next stop was about another hour away in another small city by the name of . This is the home of “Cha Cha World,” another wooden museum. The Komu is billed as a wooden museum, but you can see from my many photos that it is really more of a playground and workshop than a museum. Cha Cha world really was a wooden toy museum. They had a wonderful collection from all around the world. Though we couldn’t read the information, we nonetheless enjoyed looking at the toys. The upper floor contained a small play area in which the boys happily played for quite some time.
Cha Cha World!
The play house
The Climbing structure


In these photos, you can see them riding the biggest rocking horses I’ve ever seen. Ridge really loved it.
Ridge
Holt

We easily spent a couple of hours here, enjoying the opportunity to allow the boys some time out of the car. Finally, though, it was time to head out so Aaron would arrive in Kitami in time for his driving lesson. We dragged the boys away from the toys and piled back into the car. The drive was lovely and full of newly planted onion fields and rice paddies. Once we arrived in Kitami, Aaron showed me where the licensing office was (since I will have to jump through all the same hoops) and then took me to a large department/grocery store called Postful. Here, the boys and I killed about an hour and a half while Aaron drove around the same driving course about 30 times.

I took the opportunity to play with our new camera and took some shots of the McDonald’s located in the food court of the store. On of the sandwiches on the menu is a Shrimp Croquette. Pretty wild, eh?
McDonald's
Menu


Also, I took some shots of the little watermelons they have here. You can pick one up for 3,000 yen, or, for a bargain price of 1,500 yen if you get one of these on sale! If you don’t feel like doing the math, that comes out to between about $12 and $25 for one of these little guys.
Watermelon: full price
Watermelon: on sale


After Aaron picked us up at the store, we made one last stop for dinner. In his never ending quest for American sized portions of beef, Aaron had spotted a promising place bearing the name, “Billy the Kid”. The inside was decorated like a steak restaurant from the U.S. Well, sort of. Sorry for the blurry picture. I just had to get a shot of the wagon wheel “chandelier”. Despite my initial misgivings, Aaron was very pleased with his 500 gram steak. This is the largest portion of steak he has been able to find to date. Remember some of those restaurants you can find out in West Texas where they’ll give you an 80-ounce steak for free if you can eat it all (and the side dishes). That sort of thing is inconceivable to the Japanese.
Sign
Inside shot

Anyway, we had our fill of steak and then headed home. Thankfully, the boys slept most of the way home. Poor Aaron, though. He had to go home, go to bed, and then get up and go back to Kitami at 6:30 the following morning! Well, at least he had company for the drive to his lesson, and we all had a nice little mini-adventure.

Undoukai ("Sports Day")

Last Sunday, May 28th, was “Undoukai”. When referring to Undoukai in English, people say “sports festival day”, but that description really doesn’t do justice to the event. As I told my mom last weekend, it’s something like a combination of an elementary school field day and a Fourth of July block party/picnic. A large portion of the village turns out to either watch or participate in the events and all the students have been working hard for weeks to prepare. In fact, students and teacher alike go to school the day before (Saturday) for a final practice. Since everyone is “working” on Saturday and Sunday, then Monday and Tuesday serve as comp days and school was not in session.

The event started with both elementary and middle school students marching onto the field in formation. They were divided into two teams: white and red. Each team consisted of multiple grade levels. To designate which team they are apart of, middle school students tie a headband around their head and elementary students wear little ball caps. After some Important People make opening comments, one of the ninth grade students came to the front and raised his right hand. I assume what the then said was something along the lines of promising (on behalf of everyone) to play fair and show good sportsmanship. Then everyone (including teachers) did warm up exercises. Of course, this was all done in unison. Warming up

For the first hour or so, the students competed in a multitude of sprint races based on grade level. The program moved along at a very fast pace. Each race was started by the junior high school social studies teacher shooting a start gun (while wearing protective earphones, of course). Interspersed among the races were an occasional dance performed by various grades of elementary students all bearing shiny pompoms. Here is everyone doing the Bunny Hop. Hop,hop,hop

Then it was our turn! The kids and moms had been practicing a very simple dance (with pompoms, of course) to perform. With a little bit of convincing, both Ridge and Holt put on brave faces and lined up as they had practiced at school. Aaron, like the other dads, was on paired with one of the kids (Ridge) and on his own to follow along. Only the moms had practiced. Apparently, Ridge did his best to point out to Aaron all the mistakes he was making. Holt took a bit of time to warm up to the performance, but soon he was waving, hopping, and turning right along with everyone else. I was so proud of them! After the dance, we walked in formation back to the middle of the field. Once there, the parents took possession of the pompoms and left the kids lined up and sitting on the ground. The teachers then quickly organized the kids in to their little racing groups. Each group of four held hands as they approached the start line. (Lining up) As they reached the line, the gun wielding social studies teacher fired his weapon and the kids all took off running. I think that maybe they ran 15 yards. As everyone finished, they were given huge plastic gold medals.

Here is a happy Ridge following his race. Ridge with medal
Here is Holt, happily running with his age group. Running Holt
As they left the field, they walked in lines and held hands with a friend (this is how they walk everywhere – holding hands). Holt is holding hands with Mr. Terada’s little girl. Buddies
Not long after the sprint race was the cake-building race. Teams of three worked together in a relay-style race to build giant birthday cakes. The kids had to carry the cake pieces and the adults carried the kids back to tag the next team member.

Aaron and Ridge placing their slice of cake
Carrying Ridge
Michelle and Holt
Racing back with Holt
Holt is yelling, "My hat!!!"

After the pre-school turn, the older kids took over again, racing in a very unusual series of relay races. Most required contestants to do strange things, such as drag a tire, push someone in a wheelbarrow, or walk with another person carrying balloon between you (no hands). There was even one race just for the old folks. Teachers and middle school kids walked along with the seniors to help them pick up dropped items, etc.

Here's one relay, involving walking on your classmates, (here)
and then throwing as many bean bags into the basket as possible. (one team) , (another team)
There was some giant jump rope jumping, (jumping)
and a huge tug-o-war (pull!)

Up until about 11:00, the weather had been warm and sunny. Families had arrived early and set up around the edge of the field to watch the events and eat. Aaron was offered his first beer at about 9:00 a.m. He declined, explaining that he really preferred coffee in the morning. Unfortunately, as the morning worn on, the clouds came in and eventually held true to their threats of rain. As the drops began to fall, folks began to pack up. Some left and some, like us, took shelter under one of the tents that had been erected for the occasion. The kids kept racing and playing as the rain began to fall harder and harder. Finally, an announcement was made. Due to the rain, the schedule would not stop for lunch. Instead, it would skip to the end and finish with the middle school students’ performance.

It’s difficult to explain what exactly the middle schoolers were doing. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll simply refer to it as a Movement Demonstration. Basically, it was like watching synchronized swimming on land. They ran and did multiple formations, including a variety of human pyramids. Over the previous few weeks, I had seem them work their hearts out preparing for this day. It was amazing to see them steel their nerve and go out there to perform in the mud and rain. By the time they were finished, their uniforms were yellow with dirt and their black hair was absolutely plastered to their heads. It was quite impressive and Ridge has been wanting to imitate them ever since!