Just keep rolling.

Well here we are again, fancy that.  I am back to the dinner pictures.  Mostly because I am having to wait my turn for dinner these days.  The table is packed. 

Last night we had the daughters favourite, Gyoza.  These were home made beauties thanks to my wonderful mother in law.  I fed my face in a serious manner and all the garlic in my system gave me a wild night.  My dreams were so vivid I felt like I was actually awake.  When I woke up I was slightly confused as it felt like I hadn't been asleep. 

On a different note I have been trying to catch the mother in law in action.  She is very camera shy.  Two nights ago I caught her with her fingers in the gyoza mix.

Tonight I was too slow and slipped away.

We are eating maki sushi this evening.  It looks lovely and I can't wait for a seat at the table.  People are gobbling it up.  I sure hope there is some salmon left by the time I get going.  In other news I went fishing with the father in law today.  The weather report was calling for 2.5 m waves but the day broke sunny and calm.  So we decided to go for it.  We went with another of his local fishing buddies.  Below is the picture of all the fish I caught.

No you aren't missing anything.  I pulled in a big fat goose egg.  Also the called for weather did arrive in the end.  Brutal.  However, I managed to keep all of my cookies.  It was a wild ride home but we made it safe and sound.  Hopefully I will manage to catch at least one more fish before we head back.  That is it for tonight.

Love out.

Fish: Day 1

Well we did it. Our family now owns a pet. It is a siamese fighting fish, a boy named Hoi-kun. It is already running my life. Every half an hour or so I am implored to go in and see how well he is doing. Not that the daughter is worried, she just thinks he is doing so darn well and wants to share it with the world. Of course we do have some issues. The darn pilot light will not go out on the heater no matter how low I turn it down or how hot the water gets. I have unplugged it for the night. Could it have been the complete submersion that the son decided would be for the best while no one else was looking. It specifically says on the package to not submerge. Right on the side is written large "Maximum water level" this writing is not at the top. Even with explicit instructions I figure he would have done it anyways. So yeah, will our fish die of pneumonia or heat stroke. If it dies does it need to be replaced? Obvious yes. Do I have to go back to the shop the next day and claim that our heater is faulty and ask for a replacement? Only if I can find the receipt. Speaking of which where did I put that receipt.

In the bigger picture I have a knot of dread that is taking over my abdomen about trying to find a fish sitter for while we are out of town. Do you pay a fish sitter? Will one of our retiree neighbours be thrilled at the possibility of coming to our house once a day to feed Hoi? I am telling you there better be great joy had by all because of this fish for me to be putting this level of thought and worry into it. Damn heater. Darn son.

In any case it was a happy "real" birthday for the daughter today. Asides from the heart wrenching decision to buy her a pet I also put in some time with the wife in the kitchen making her a Birthday feast. It consisted of gyoza, rice, greek salad, and a special order of bean soup. I was on soup and salad detail the Mrs. was on gyoza and rice. She really can whip up some gyoza. I will start with the soup which is not pictured here.

Half and onion, three cloves of garlic and six small mushrooms chopped fine and sauteed. Add a cup of water and simmer. Can of broad beans drained and rinsed. Food processed with a cup of water to a porridge like consistency. Porridge aside the sauteed and simmer onions et al are also food processed. Everything added back to the sauteeing pot with another cup of water. Half a head of broccolli and the heart along with a celery stalk chopped up. This is added to the now simmering soup along with salt, pepper, coriander (not really noticeable) dried dill and three bay leaves (we just bought a new package and wow is that a step up from the old bay leaves we had. Who knew fresh bay leaves were that much better). After taking it off the heat I added maybe half a cup of half and half. Mix and serve.

The Greek salad was just my best guess, half a red onion diced and put in the salad bowl, salted and mixed, added equal parts balsamic vinegar and olive oil (nice little pond in the bottom). Mixed and left to sit. Diced two large tomatoes, a whole long english cucumber and one and a half red peppers. This was all poured into the bowl and then mixed. Finally about 3 tablespoons of finely crumbled feta cheese on top and I was done.

This is what the kids looked like once dinner was ready. Now this is hard on the heels of a, "I'm starving when is dinner." Not five minutes later both totally sleepified.

The baby at least had the excuse he was talking to someone and couldn't come to the table.The wife and I had a very pleasant dinner and some adult conversation. Nothing risque, we talked mostly about jogging.

Gyoza and Yoga

Well the wife got up to some hijinx today. She managed to get some yoga in this morning while I was out for a run. The picture below might have been foreshadowing as she was already stretching even before getting her breakfast this morning.While she stretched these two were still conked out in the living room where they slept last night. I just didn't have the fight in me last night when bed time came and they still hadn't watched the movie they had been promised. So I set up the living room bed (two comforters and two pillows) and by the time the movie was 30 minutes in they were both asleep and I was into the movie. Back to this morning the littlest was engaged thusly as mom and I partook of our morning meal.
Now back to the wifely activties of today. She made those gyoza that were going to be made last night. Then to kick it up a notch she whipped up some sushi rolls with the leftover sushi rice from the night before. Who is this woman? Oh not to mention the salad.As is usual with gyoza I had trouble holding back. Fortunatey I was holding the littlest so I couldn't get into the usual feeding frenzy mode. And some were leftover for lunch tomorrow so there must of been restraint all around. To top it off, a bunch got frozen for next time. Yippee.

Just so you don't think I was totally slacking I did go into work today, did the shopping for this evening with the kids in tow, and made the chili for tomorrow nights dinner.

Packed

That is the best way to describe today. Not that we went out anywhere or had anything special planned. It wasn't like that. It just seemed packed with importance. I will explain. Oh yeah and there is even a dinner picture.

Yesterday, I brought home some marking and planned to do that today while at home. Of course this meant the wife could get out for some errands and I could be here for the kids. Not emotionally but on an emergent parent in charge basis. As I explained it to the daughter there would be some playing in the morning. Then some lunch. Followed by some outside playing. Followed by a movie. Followed by dinner. Followed by brush teeth/book time/bed time. Well the kids playing inside this morning was great. Maybe it was the whole wheat pancakes but they were fully into playing together. I uploaded some cd's so that I could transfer them onto the daughters Ipod. After this I set her and her brother up in her room dancing and got down to work. Surprisingly this lasted for almost an hour. Then they started pestering me and lo and behold. It was lunch time. So I set up some lunch and then packed them outside to play. While the wife and I facilitated from inside they got up to this outside...

The dancing with drums came later. I felt like pretending to do a Chinese new year dragon type dance (do not want to offend anyone, it was just the whole cymbal type sound) with a washed and dried pot and lid I was putting away and everyone else wanted to get in on the act. I thought they did a marvelous job. Especially my son's high kicks right at the end.

After the festivities we sat down to watch The Bridge to Terabithia. Really cute kids movie until it cut my heart out and stomped it on the floor. The sadness was all done off screen so the kids didn't really pick it up. However, they were both sitting in my lap and my sobbing kind of shook them up. Literally. I can't quite recall having been that overcome by a movie. Ever. They watched it a second time right away because it is a good kids movie and I got the last of my marking done. Meanwhile, my starlet of a wife was whipping up some wicked gyoza for dinner.

Well I scarfed down a bunch of these home made honey's but the daughter has the new record as she just kept going back for more. I think she must have had more than 20. I mean she was unstoppable. We made her finish her rice, salad and miso soup (which was outstanding miso soup, I mean its always good but it was at that peak level tonight) so it wasn't like she was lacking anything. Just feeling the gyoza fever.

After dinner we did a quick home reading and then we read about swans before I sent the kids off to join their mom in the bath. At this point I headed back to school and was about to get to work when I noticed a colleague of mine was also burning the weekend candle. So I went in for a quick chat and an hour later I was emotionally limp after talking about things ranging from our fathers to the stresses of the job. During that conversation I tried to recall an idea I had come across recently and I couldn't clearly recall it or where I had found it. When the conversation ended I got back to work for an hour and then came back home. Then I realised, it was in the book I was reading last night just before bed. Another colleague had recommended it to me(gotta love having great colleagues), "Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot", by Jim Stockdale. The image I was searching for was that of Job, from the bible. The virtuous man to whom life is unfair. And there is no answer. The virtue is in the struggle, even though there may be no reward.

To me this seems like a Monumental idea. Life is not fair. (I by the way may be monumentally naive but the verdict isn't in yet) But that doesn't mean you should give up. One of the main beliefs I have is that I should be working toward making the world more fair. Redistribution of wealth, universal properly funded social programs like health care and education, inheritance tax. Sometimes the lack of inequity in the world makes me angry. That may just be the way the world is. However, it doesn't mean I have to stop trying to change it. But the anger doesn't help.

Something else that I touched on in the conversation with the first colleague was my pride. I mentioned that my pride in who I am may be a problem. Searching for recognition for the things I do, or have done, from the outside world may or may not come. But does it really matter. The virtue is in doing the things I can, to the best of my ability. And I am the only one who can really judge that. As the colleague put it, " you are just the same as everyone else, not worse, not better, just a person trying to live." I messed up his words but it was something like that. So for tomorrow, keep trying to change the world, lose the pride and false modesty, and don't sweat it if things don't seem fair. Life is supposed to be challenging. In the challenge lies the virtue.

What a day. And on a Sunday to boot.

Fabulous First

Well the first day of the school year went great. After the walk to school as a twosome my daughter had a great day in grade one. A colleague of mine was in her school and commented on how pretty she looked, the daughters response, "Don't I" honestly I have no idea where she gets it from. She also introduced one of her friends to the teacher when the teacher asked the other little girl her name. Talk about having to be in the middle of everything. As for my son these are his tonsils. Gotta find a higher shelf for the digital camera. The batteries are already low again and I just changed them. On the food front we had an awesome day. There were boxed lunches for the whole family. I could get used to this. And then dinner was an amazing assortment of dishes. The miso soup is pretty standard, there was a mostly from the garden green salad which had the left over feta crumbled over it. There was a slightly spicy, potato and vegetable stir fry and there were home made gyoza served over rice. So good I didn't even have chips and salsa. The amazing dinner along with my 7 k run today and I am feeling like a king. The only down side was not getting in my afternoon nap. How many days is it till christmas vacation?

Japan, the final installment

So we are officially back in Grand Forks. After two marathon days of travelling we stayed in our own beds last night and it was great. The Jet Lag is still affecting the daughter as she was up from 3 to 5 pestering me about this and that. I finally gave in at 5 and put on a video while I caught up with some banking. So here is the final installment.

What you see in this picture is where we slept at night while at the great grandmothers place. The three mats lined up in a row housed, myself, the wife and kids and one of the cousins. In the foreground you will see the second dining table that had to be put away, well this is put away, between meals so that we could use the room. Six kids and seven adults living in a little more room that what some lunatics live in in Downtown Vancouver. It takes all types.

This is the kids playing with their second and first cousins. They have appeared in previous offerings and really we would have liked to get in even more play days but everyones schedules didn't always match up. How are one's children and one's cousin's children related. Are they second cousins. Third cousins. They share a great grand parent. Maybe this is the whole once removed thing. Well if you believe everything you read on wikipedia then they are second cousins. I of course am nothing in all of these relationships as I don't share an ancestor but everyone was nice enough to call me uncle or at least David, to my face.

Here we are in ishiki new town, or something new town. One of my old colleagues from my Kagoshima English teaching days runs her own school from inside her house. She is also the owner of the wonderful blog about her life and dog that I have listed in my links I likes. Of course it is in Japanese but the photos are real cute. You can check it out here. She had us over for lunch and my children spent the whole time chasing the dog. He is old and really timid and wasn't as in to my kids as they were into him. We had a nice afternoon and I caught up on some gossip about my old work place. Gossip never gets old does it.

Does everyone like Ramen? We sure do. This is a picture of Uncle Kanefumi, atomu, the son, and I. We are pretending to be lions outside the chinese food restaurant. I can see it. The uncle took us for lunch after we spent a gruelling morning gardening at the sis-in-laws place. I was feeling like a giant slug after not having done anything for three weeks so I decided to take on the yard. The uncle who was on his day off and came over to hang out ended up coming out and lending me some tools and getting in up to his elbows. Really I was way out of my league but with his tools, pick up truck, and know how we managed to put a good scald on that yard in about 3 hours. I was soaked in sweat and after a shower we all went out for the aforementioned lunch. This was also the only night on the whole trip that I drank Sho Chu. I paid for it for the remaining 7 days. Word to the wise, just say no to Sho Chu. People who drink it know what they are doing. People who don't just shouldn't. Nuff said.

I liked this action shot of the wife cleaning the tub for the evening bath. Notice the son hanging out in a bucket of water. That is what you do when it is 36 degrees 80% humidity and there is no relief in sight. In the foreground is my son's arch nemesis, Lilo. Lilo and he spent a lot of time together and she spent most of it pinching or biting him. She was really interested in whatever he was doing or holding and wanted it right now. If she didn't get it appropriate actions were taken. Hopefully, the next time we are there she will have her words and will not torture my son quite so frequently.

My mother in law is actually a hair dresser by trade and decided to dress up the wife and daughter for some glamour pics.
I really like the authentic hair do. We have a couple of family shots which may grace any christmas cards we make this year. Not that I have ever made christmas cards but I have always imagined myself as a christmas card sender. So this may be the year.

We planned to go fishing on this trip and this is a picture of us on my father-in-laws boat. This is unfortunately where it ended. There were large seas that day and we didn't want a puke fest. The kids enjoyed chasing the sea cockroaches and trying to find crabs.
I could have gone on any of a number of night fishing trips but I didn't think 12 hours from 5 pm to 5 am with six or seven guys who I barely understood when they are sober was that nice of a prospect. That and the staying up all night really didn't catch my idea of a good time. So there was no sea fishing this trip. I did go for a morning of sea shore fishing with Uncle Kanefumi and he caught a tiny little fish. I once again struck out. Maybe I should be a hunter instead.

Getting to the end of the trip here.

Can you imagine cooking on a gridle in the middle of the table when it is 35 degrees out? Well I can. No air conditioning and we are all sitting and sweating around the table eating some really delicious okonomiyaki. They had the yamaimo which makes all the difference.
Atomu unfortunately had the seat right where he is standing and got scalded with little oil burns numerous times during this meal. We had another griddle meal our last night as the daughter requested gyoza. Probably like her sixth gyoza meal of the trip. But homemade gyoza with home made chicken karage(my request) were an awesome last dinner. I ate way too much at both of these sittings but didn't have any beer the okonomiyaki night and only a few the last night. I came down with the stomach flu as a result of the sho chu night and really lightened up on the partying the last week.

Self taken picture by the wife. I think she did a great job of getting her sisters, herself and yours truly all in the shot. Here is a shot of the kids playing in a park the last morning we were there. Notice the brilliant sunshine and everyone hiding in the shade of a tree. Well they had to be rescued from this park by the father in law because a torrential downpour came and trapped them under the awning of a near by apartment building. Tropical weather is a weird thing. From here they drove us out to the airport and we made our return journey. It took most of a day for the whole flight -- lay over -- flight but we arrived 3 hours before we left. Gotta love crossing the international date line the other way. We stayed a night with the Harry bear and then made the trek home yesterday. It is now time to return to our regularly scheduled life.

It was a great trip and we really spent a lot of quality time with our relo's. Can I live in Japan again? Well lets just say the summers would be tough. But being near family would be awesome. The next blog will be back to dinner and hopefully the daily stuff that our lives are made of here.

One week and Counting

So I don't need a lot of grief about not posting. I apologize but I just don't have easy access and I am currently skipping a lovely home cooked meal so lets work on being nice to each other. Now where did I leave off. Right we had a big day in Kagoshima shopping, well not really shopping but buying our tickets to Nagasaki for our side trip. This is the kids having lunch right before that.

Gotta love getting drivethrough in the basement of a mall. We ended up doing some reminiscing down town and this is the kids in one of the main shopping arcades after having played in a fountain in the main park. Fountain was all about video. You will have to see that later.

This was a lovely Yaki-niku dinner we have. Basically you organize all the ingrediants and then cook them on the big teppan (portable griddle/grill) in the middle of the table. After being cooked you dip the items in one of a couple of sauces. Goes very well with beer. As do most things when its 35 with 80 percent humidity. Currently I go through two outfits every day.

This next shot is of a lunch we had with the wife's cousin and her kids. Everytime we get together with other kids it is great. I was being a little pissy today as we had to break plans with one of my friends to get together with relatives who called at the last minute. In the end out went out that evening with my friend and the kids as I mentioned had a good time so I really shouldn't have got my knickers in a twist. This cousin is also the owner of the car (7 passenger van) that we have had unlimited use of the whole time we have been and will be here. They claim they don't use it but I mean come on. So yeah it was important we got together and we want to get together again some time in the next week.

Here are the semi that we caught in the park. Dad did his magic with bug net in the park behind the house and everyone had a semi to play with. If you ever get a chance to see the video I have taken the constant buzzing noise you will hear is these critters at work. They are only above ground for two weeks of their lives and they sure make the most of it. Also for those of you who were there can you believe the kid beside the daughter is the same baby that was at our wedding 7 years ago. Wow. So I don't know if this means he will be a serial killer but our son is definitely torturing this cat. He loves the cat so much he grabs and cradles it in his arms all the time. Sometimes he grabs it by the tail, sometimes by a leg, sometimes by a big fold of skin, I had to tell him off sharply the other day when he picked it up by the head. The funny thing is the cat hasn't turned on him yet. It will actually sit there and enjoy the petting it gets sometimes. Truely the most mild mannered cat I have ever met.

So this is us the afternoon we arrived in Nagasaki, which it turns out is even more hot and humid than Kagoshima. Something about being in a valley. Here we are up by glovers garden. I am still undecided whether the stroller was more of a help or a hinderance. Too many stairs in Nagasaki. It reminded us a bit of San Franciso. This is a famous catholic church which has been here since 1600. I think it must have been damaged in WWII but it is pretty far from the bomb epicenter so it may have survived. Under this is a picture of gyoza. The daughter is truly crazy for Gyoza. I think she could live on Gyoza. We had a double order and she was hungry for more. However we had also ordered this lovely saraudon (crispy noodles with stir fry ladled on top) and the Japan famous Nagasaki Champon (picture not shown but it was taken). These were also lovely and the place we ate them at was so cute, seating for 12 -14 people. One guy running the whole show. Super reasonable prices. We almost ate here twice. The next day we went to the Nagasaki Peace Park and Atomic Bomb museum. This was August 6th, 3 days before the annual memorial service commemorating the dropping of the bomb on Nagasaki on the 9th of August. It was a pretty heavy day and the daughter was pretty shaken up after the visit to the museum. Some of the pictures were pretty brutal and she had the usual questions. No pictures allowed in the museum but I recommend going. Something we should never forget.

That afternoon we went back to the hotel and enjoyed napping the airconditioned climate controlled environment. The wife went out for a long walk and found a nice place for dinner. It is an Izakaya, basically a pub, but there are not age restrictions and the food is cheap and good. They also had a 2 hour nomihodai (all you can drink) for about 12 bucks. I was prohibited from taking part as the wife mentioned that I had begged off having beers with the inlaws the night before we left claiming I had been drinking too much. So I couldn't really get into it, but I sure wanted to. The shish kabobs are called yaki-tori and were awesome. They also made amazing tempura. I had the best tempura shitake mushroom I have ever eaten. I may never have them again so as not to soil the memory of that one. The last day in the morning we walked around and visited some temples, had lunch at the station and got back on a train bound for Kagoshima. We sat beside a mom and 10 year old son from San Fran. She is originally from Miyazaki so we had some great english/japanese conversations and Kiyomi got to play some card games so the trip went faster.

Okay we are up to yesterday. We went and visited one of the wife's friends who has a brand new (1 month) baby and a 5 year old daughter. This friend and her husband are both teachers and just had a brand new house built. It was very lovely. Some day, some day. I didn't realise this but if you get stuck at the wrong high school you basically don't get a summer vacation. Now they only teach about half time compared to what I teach, way more prep time during the day, but the vacations are way worse and they have tonnes of meetings to go to. Tough comparison but I still like my current situation.Then last night we have te-maki sushi done up so well. I also managed to put back about 5 500 ml beers. Well what do you expect. The olympics are on live, in prime time and Japanese feature in everything. There is Judo on everday, which reminds me, when I am done this I have to do some research on Judo so I can better understand what is going on. Kitajima just won the gold medal in the 100m breast stroke and watching that live with the fam was great. The koshien high school all Japan baseball tournament continues and the team from Kagoshima has made it through to the third round. On top of all that I am getting some pretty good runs in. Life is treating me, us, very well and we are having a great time. I am getting close to wanting to be back in the Forks, and I really want to see how my poor garden is fareing in my absence. But hey, that is what vacations are all about.

Will I get another post off before heading back east, to the west coast. Only time will tell. Lots of fun to be had and I am loving everyone elses blogs. Wish I had a chance to sit back and give them all a leisurely read and comment. But time is money. I am outtie. Love to all.

The longest day

So thiswas the longest day ever. We started in Vancouver at about 6 am and finally went to bed in Japan the next day at 6 am, Vancouver time. It was a good day, the kids slept in the plane, the trains all connected. However, 10 hours in a plane is more than this cowboy needs. We actually managed to have five meals today but we are going to consider the last meal as dinner. The plane food wasn't bad. The adults had chicken then beef. The kids had noodles and cheese then the daughter had a rice dish and the son had noodles in sauce. At both meals the kids got a wicked brownie and at both meals they barely touched it. I also managed to put back a few ceasars on the plane and I was feeling no pain. That was then.

As for Dinner here at the Hirano's house we had te-maki sushi. We also got some really nice gyoza. The te-maki was authentic as they had the cupid mayonaise and fresh sashimi. I made some of my favourite lettuce maki and with the kagoshima soy sauce it was like I had stepped back into 1997. Good times.Oh it was good. We played a little after dinner and all the kids got to know each other. Shota is great. Soooo cute. We are here for another night and then we head off for the Kag. Having a good time in Tokyo. We made it.

Father knows best

Happy father's Day to everyone. I sure had one. I was the guest of honour at dinner this evening and so was able to select the menu. We had home made gyoza (dumpling with pork, and other stuff inside) cauliflower with cheese sauce, green salad, rice and soup (notably not miso though very miso-esque). The beauty part about gyoza is the sauce, a vinegar, soy, hot chili combo. Went beautifully as a salad dressing by the way. I thought I was loving the gyoza but then my daughter got going. She may have eaten upwards of twenty dumplings when we finally sealed the tupperware and put it in the fridge. They don't stand a chance come tomorrow's lunch. The salad was made from a bunch of leftover produce that I actually took out today in a weeding frenzy. Small volunteer cilantro and lettuce was taken out to make way for their stronger brethren. To top off this evenings meal we had healthy chocolate brownies with the last of the strawberry ice cream. My son took this picture and I think he did a damn good job of framing me. You may also notice the mosquito bites on my leg. A small price to pay for the arrival of summer in all its glory. Only two weeks of school left. Lets hope the lettuce holds out in this heat and doesn't go to seed. No menu yet for next week. But it is only 9:30. Anything could happen before midnight. Yee haw.