Another Great Friday Night

Our neighborhood is great - I think I've said that before, but it really is.  We're like one big family here and we spend a lot of time outside playing with the kids, chatting and just being neighborly. 

So it's not unusual for us to "fire up" the fire pit on a random Friday night and people - young and old - to just migrate outside and join us.  Sometimes there's hot cocoa, sometimes margaritas, sometimes marshmallows, sometimes cookies.  This Friday, Stevie made the ladies a special tent as it started to spit rain on us.  Don't we look a site!

Let the Games Begin!

Yep, it's officially soccer season again.  We had the weekend kickoff for both Cannon and London on Saturday taking up the better part of the day.

London's team is the Strikers - they were doing great until the other team scored a goal with two minutes to go...

And Cannon's team is the Oki Waves - they were doing great for the first two minutes until the other team took over the game...

Ah, well, there are plenty more games to go!  Both boys played their hearts out and that's all you can really ask for.

Tokyo Earthquake and Tsunami

Friday afternoon, right before I left to go pick London up at school, Emmy was sitting on the front step eating a sandwich and Kelly and I were chatting.  Emmy looks up at me at one point and says, "Mommy, I'm shaking."  Since she had been off school sick, I felt her forehead, but she didn't seem feverish.  So I joked, maybe it was an earthquake!  You see, these phenomenon actually happen quite frequently here.

It wasn't until later in the afternoon that some of the neighborhood kids asked me if I had heard about the earthquake on mainland Japan.  So I guess Emmy had felt an earthquake - the big one in Tokyo!

As the images are flooding in, the devastation revealed, and the death toll rises, it's hard to conceive the enormity of this disaster.  Fortunately for us, the effects of this one-two punch of natural disasters has been on mainland Japan, and not Okinawa which sits several hundred miles north of our little island.  In fact Tokyo is almost 1,000 miles from Okinawa.  I do have to say, though, that the concern from close family and distant friends has been very touching.  I've been contacted by people that I knew in middle school who I didn't even know knew that I was living in Japan.  We thank you all for your concern, and, yes, we are fine.  We were under a tsunami warning on Friday night, but because we live on a hill and overlook the East China Sea not the Pacific, we weren't too concerned.  Turns out our wave was just 8 inches high.

The American military here has now jumped into action as we are close, available and willing to help.  Several people we know personally have been sent to help fly rescue missions, get power up and running and deliver supplies.  Here's a video of our friend Chuck's plane getting loaded up with supplies (he's a pilot).

http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=200532283307684&oid=145647335459000&comments

Another friend of mine was actually vacationing in Tokyo when the earthquake struck.  She wrote a story that ended up in the Idaho State Journal.  It makes for a personalized read...

http://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/world/article_41d7d008-4d48-11e0-b00f-001cc4c03286.html

Sushi Go Round

Starting this year, I have decided to incorporate a new aspect into Cannon's studies - culture - and what better way to do that than to eat at a different restaurant each week?  So I guess it's more like culinary culture than political or economic culture, but I will argue that you can learn a lot about a culture by its food, right? Right.

So this week's lesson was Japanese food (we've already covered Vietnamese, Indian and Jewish -that is if you count bagels as Jewish food...)  But I've been having a hankerin' for sushi and what better place to eat sushi than at the Sushi Go Round.  Yes, that is not a creative title to my post, but the actual name of a restaurant (at least the Americans refer to it as that).  And why is it called a sushi go round?  Because that is what those tasty morsels do - ride around the restaurant on a skinny little conveyor belt. 

The idea is that you peruse the tasty delicacies gliding past your table until one that you think looks good floats by and then you grab it, devour it, then start looking some more.  Brilliant!  And tasty too!

Lydia searching for another selection.

And if you think that this concept is brilliant, then wait until I tell you what other good ideas those inventive Japanese have done...  There are six different colored plates that the sushi sit on and each plate has a corresponding price - from 90 Yen to 520 Yen.  You know how much your choice is by the color of the plate.  Brilliant! 

So you could get a cuttle fish for 90 Yen or a roasted cattle's tongue for 360 Yen (I know what my choice was...) 

The salmon with avocado and roasted eggplant were my favorite while Cannon loved the roasted duck (he first thought it was ham) and the egg sushi.

Brilliant idea number three - make your own tea.  When you sit down the waitress brings over a tea cup and on the table is a box containing green tea bags.  When you want tea you make your own by adding boiling hot water out of a spigot on the side of the table!

Making tea.

Brilliant idea number four - check out. 

These were not all mine!

When you've  finally had your belly full of sushi and the plates are stacked high, the waitress comes by with a handy dandy scanner. 

She waves the contraption down the side of the plates presses a few buttons and hands you something like an oversized camera battery. 

Place that object on the reader at the register, and they automatically knew how big your appetite was.  Amazing!

Shortly after we first moved here, in fact while my mom was here the first time, we visited this restaurant.  I can't believe it has taken me so long to go back!  Thanks Liz and Lydia for going with us and showing us how it works!

The Stowaway

Yesterday afternoon we (along with Lydia and Liz) decided to drive up island to the Azalea Festival in Higashi Village.  We went to this affair last year with my mom and it was a really impressive display of hundreds of azaleas blooming on the hillside overlooking the Pacific ocean on the east side of the island.  Very pretty.  Well, this year has been a little cooler than normal and I think we saw the effects yesterday on the blooms.  What I'm trying to say is that after we drove an hour an a half stuffed into the blue beater, there were only a handfull of blooms a bloomin'.

Love this one of Emmy - she's got attitude!

Love this one of the boys - so sweet!

Yes, I know she needs a haircut...

The motley crew with no azalea blooms...

A lone pretty one!

Never daunted by trivial things like no flowers at a flower festival, we took a leisurely stroll through the green bushes and then piled back into the van.  The east side of the island, especially when you get to the north end, is really beautiful and mostly undeveloped.  Consequently there are beautiful, deserted beaches all along that have always seemed enticing.  So yesterday we found a pull off on the side of the road and headed down a short path to one such beach.

Beautiful beach...

The girls busy collecting treasures.

It was a great beach for collecting shells, rocks, sea glass and other treasures that entertained us probably more than the azaleas did.  After filling our containers we headed back home with another excellent adventure under our belt.

So what about the stowaway???  Well, the story continues today as I'm washing off yesterday's treasures in the kitchen sink.  First Cannon's cup, then Emmy's, then as I'm working on mine, I notice that one of the shells is moving across my kitchen counter!  Yes, Emmy had a stowaway, a little hermit crab, in one of her shells.  Scared the begeezes out of me! 

Note the legs popping up under the shell in the middle.

And I must add, in case there was any ever doubt that I value all living things, I actually put the little guy back in the cup, drove it to the nearest beach and safely returned it to its proper habitat (Cannon had lectured me that it would not live in the ditch behind the house because it was the wrong water type and it would not have access to its favorite food!)

Fly, be free little hermit crab!

Girl's Day

Today is March 3rd which means it is one of the many Japanese holidays - this one dedicated to girls everywhere.  Hina Matsuri, or Doll Festival, is the day that Japanese families with girls wish their daughters a successful and happy life.  There are no big, elaborate festivals to go to (and photograph) for this day, just elaborate doll (hina) displays that people put in their private homes along with peach blossoms. 

This display is in the hospital - this is only the top three levels.

The Empress

Love the face on this guy.

Emmy's hina that she made at school today.

I wrote a great post last year about this day so I'm afraid I don't have much to add for this year except that I wish Emmy, Hailey, Hannah, Sydney, Abby, Megan, Candice and Karaline (and all other girls out there) a long, successful and happy life!  (I'll drink some sake and eat some chirashi sushi for you tonight! - that's what the books say to do...)

And if you feel like singing, here's a song...

Japanese version:

“Akari o tsukemashou bonbori ni

Ohana o agemashou momo no hana

Go-nin bayashi no fue taiko

Kyo wa tanoshii Hinamatsuri”

English translation:

“Let's light the lanterns

Let's set peach flowers

Five court musicians are playing flutes and drums

Today is a joyful Dolls' Festival.”

Or this is a peppier version by a band called Mini Moni and is classic Japanese.  Believe it or not, this was a number 1 hit!

Old McDonald's

Well, I did it, after more than a year and seven months on this island, I finally visited a McDonalds!  In principal more than for any other reason, I've been avoiding the Golden Arches since we moved.  Granted, I'm not one to choose to go to McDonalds even when we're in the States, so it seemed like a waste of time, money and a meal to eat at one while in Japan.  But my middle child finally convinced me today that it was a Japanese McDonalds so maybe it was different than an American McDonalds.  And since he had early dismissal from school today, I broke and took the boys to McD's.

Do you think that says "Over 5 billion sold"?

I've had some limited experience with American fast food restaurants since living here since the Exchange has a food court hosting the old familiars like Burger King and Subway, and I have to say I've been very impressed with them.  There is no comparison when you have a friendly person behind the cash register who, despite the language barrier, always gets the order right.  And if you ask for something like an extra ketchup, they don't mosey over to get it but take off with a jaunty jog to get the requested item.  Try that in the States!

But that's on base and McDonalds doesn't have a contract to be on base so this was my first encounter with an off-base establishment, and I have to say that I wasn't disappointed!

First off, the menu is different from the American variety. 

Ever tried a teriyaki burger or shrimp burger at your local McD's?  We have them!  Of course the menu looked a little daunting at first since it was all in Japanese, but then I remembered a little trick, usually the flip side to the Japanese menu is English!  The boys each chose a Chicken Fillet-O (not sure what the "O" was for?).  Of course, my sweet Cannon asks me if he can get that without lettuce and mayo and with bacon to which I promptly replied - NO!  How was I supposed to communicate that?  I opted for the teriyaki burger, thought about that EBI Fillet-O, but opted to play it a little safe.

Yes, that would be a shrimp burger...

The food came out before I could finish ordering with courteous smiles, maybe a bow or two, and served by a worker dressed in a retro-1950's uniform (except I don't think they were going for the retro look...)

The overall experience was fun, and Japanese-y in its own way, but when I asked the boys what they thought - London said "It was great!" (no surprise, the boy eats anything) but Cannon said, "We should have gone to the noodle restaurant."

How can you tell if you were charged for the right things???