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The Winter Solstice

Today (Dec 21st, 2008) is the winter solstice. That is, the length of the day is the shortest, and the length of the night the longest in the whole year.

In Japan it is traditional to have a yuzu bath. I love to eat yuzu in various ways, so I rarely have any left over to drop into the bath, but tonight I had an extra one :)

It is really interesting to read about many solstice celebrations and traditions from around the world, both past and present.

But the best thing is that from tomorrow, the days will be longer. That's important because last week it was REALLY hard to wake up on freezing and dark mornings ....

Ishigaki Island

Have you ever fallen in love at first sight? Well, at the end of October I instantly fell in love with Ishigaki Island. (Map) "ishi" means rock, and "gaki" means wall, so the island gets its name from the typical protective walls that surround the traditional houses. The islands don't seem to get many earthquakes (so the walls don't fall down) but there are quite a few big typhoons each season, so I suppose the walls help protect the buildings from the wind.

We hadn't been on a vacation in MANY years, and when I had the chance of a five day vacation from work, I decided that a tropical place would be nice to visit, because I had never been to anywhere like that. I'm not so interested in popular destinations like Hawaii or Guam, Australia is too far, and the Maldives too far and much too expensive. So I decided to go to Japan's own tropical paradise.

Ishigaki is part of the Yaeyama Island chain and is very close to Taiwan. I'm surprised how many people I have spoken to that say they have never been. I'm amazed how easy (and cheap) it is to go to Hawaii, but how people forget the beauty in their own backyard :) We stayed for 4 nights, 5 days and it was so wonderful I really didn't want to come back.

There was still a chance of a late typhoon as it was the very end of October, but the weather was hot (about 30 C) and sunny. The sea temperature was still 26 - 27 C, so I could snorkel for the first time in my life. The island is great for beginners as nice reefs can be found right near the beach. There were so many fabulous things about Ishigaki, and it is difficult to do justice to it in words. Please enjoy my photos, and some day, be sure to go for yourself!

Mount Tsukuba

Tsukuba City is very unusual because it is a mixture of the very old and the very new.

The old is the original villages that merged to become a city more than 20 years ago. The new was the creation of the "science city" that made such a merger necessary. Now there is a very high concentration of research centers, international companies, and of course, Tsukuba University.

Even in the past 7 years that I have been here, the city is changing again. There are 3 shopping malls, the latest being IIAS (strange name!) that is the largest mall in the Kita-kanto area. And many new residential areas creating a property boom.

The stimulus for much change has been the Tsukuba Express Line that opened two and a half years ago. The line is so profitable that the company has applied for an extention of the tracks from Akihabara through to Tokyo Station.

But despite all these old and new things, the most defining feature of Tsukuba is its mountain. Mt. Tsukuba is not so high, 877 meters, but is very beautiful with an unusual shape. My favorite view is from due south, but many people like different views. And I think winter is best because the sky is so clear.

One of the most beautiful scenes I have ever seen was last Sunday - very cold rain had been falling in the city all day, and the cloud finally lifted just after 4pm. Tsukuba-san, which had been hiding all day, was suddenly revealed in the glorious orange sunset. Capped with snow!

Mount Fuji is certainly a "must see" mountain of the world, but last Sunday, Mount Tsukuba was in a class of its own!


A big "thank you" to K-san who kindly sent me this photo. (I didn't have my camera when I went out last Sunday afternoon.)

German vs. Germany

One regular mistake I hear is the use of "German" to mean the country.

The noun (country name) is "Germany".

"German" is an adjective. For example:

I like German bread.
German people are really friendly.


In this case, the noun is longer than the adjective. Most country adjectives are longer than the noun.
Australia -> Australian
Japan -> Japanese

BUT
Germany -> German

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A return to blogging

Hello again,

After a long time (and some computer trouble!) I'm restarting the blog with a new design.

Please check back regularly!

A.K.

If I won the lottery......

Blogging is not the only thing I took a break from. Last night was the first time I had been swimming in about 10 months! Aghhhhh!

My work schedule changed (my pool membership is only for the evening so I can't go in the day time, even if I do have free time), winter came, work was busy, and most of all - I was LAZY!

I think exercise is something you have to continue. I love swimming but it is hard to go if I don't make it a habit. Last autumn I was going 3 times a week and swimming 2km on two days and 1km one day. Last night I could barely make 1km and by the end of 40 minutes, my body had nothing left to give. My style in the last 200m was pretty bad!

If I won the lottery I would drill for a hot spring and make my own indoor warm water pool. I have never tried an "onsen" pool but I think it would be nice to swim in warm spring water with lots of minerals. Maybe I wouldn't have to use chlorine???? And I could go swimming every day, whenever I felt like it.

Hmm, I should go buy a lottery ticket!

New style blog

Here I am again after a break of almost ONE YEAR from blogging.

What happened? Well honestly speaking, I lost motivation to write. I was using the computer so much for work that I couldn't find the energy to write for fun.

I'm going to start up the blog again and change the content a little. PLEASE write some comments - then I will know that I have an audience of interested readers :)

Thanks for waiting!

Thanks for being so patient and waiting for 4 months!

The big news is that I am moving the classroom from Takezono to Onozaki. It took quite a long time to find a good space to rent. Most office spaces are way too big and of course, expensive.

My goal is to keep R.E. as a place for students to learn, rather than just a business. I want to know everyone's name, and to be sure that every student can study in a class that is best for them. Please don't be worried that moving is the first step to becoming "another eikaiwa school".

I'm looking forward to hearing your ideas and suggestions for the new classroom.

Quiche recipe

Would you like to make a quiche? It is really easy and also quick - just about 25 minutes in total.

Ingredients:
1 x 200ml carton 35% cream
3 eggs
vegetables*
bacon/ham/chicken sasami meat/mini sausages**
shredded cheese if you like it

Method:
Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C
Use a brush or a small piece of kitchen paper to coat a pan*** with olive oil.
Put the vegetables and meat into the pan.
Break the eggs into a bowl, beat with a fork.
Add the cream.
Add a little salt and pepper.
Pour the egg mixture over the vegetables.
Top with shredded cheese.
Bake for about 20 minutes in the center of the oven.

* Vegetables
You can use almost any vegetables that aren't too wet. Big tomatoes are not good, but mini tomatoes cut in half are great. For hard vegetables like broccoli or fresh asparagus, cut them into small pieces and microwave them for a few minutes. Spinach should be microwaved with just a very little water, then drained on kitchen paper. Any kind of onion or negi is okay.

** Meat
It is not necessary to add any meat. Mostly I make vegetarian quiche because the eggs and cream are high in protein and fat.

***Pan
Any size pan is okay. Sometimes I use a pound cake pan, sometimes a flat quiche pan, sometimes a muffin pan for mini-quiche! Pyrex glass dishes are fine, as are gratin dishes.

You will notice I don't use any pie sheet. Pie sheet is troublesome and is not healthy :)

Tsukiji Fish Market

In Golden Week I went to Tsukiji Fish Market for the first time. Of course I have been to Tsukiji many times before, especially when I lived in Tokyo. But for some reason, I had never been to the market.

It was a rainy day so I didn't look around so much, but I did have the best sushi I have ever eaten! We chose a restaurant at random, and the one we entered, Sushizanmai, was more of a real restaurant rather than a place for a quick, cheap lunch.

Here is our lunch, plus I had miso soup. The cost was about 4, 500y for the two of us, which was reasonable considering the wonderful quality. The sea urchin that you can see in the bottom right corner just melted in the mouth :)

Be sure to go to Tsukiji next time you are in Tokyo!

Pheasants

Well the pheasant near my house finally has a girlfriend! He has been waking us up for the past few weeks and on fine sunny days likes to sit on a mound of soil near my house watching the world go by and calling 'ken ken' every few minutes.

Yesterday afternoon I looked outside of my bedroom window and found him with his new partner, eating grass seeds or something in the field. Sorry I couldn't get better pictures, but I couldn't open the window or the fly screen.

He is particularly nervous these days and yesterday though he couldn't see me, he was aware something was watching him because he kept looking around and fluffing up his feathers.

They are not there today because it is too windy.

Vista!

I've been gone for a while again because I've been spending a lot of time 'playing' with my new computer :)

Ninety-nine percent of the time I write this blog on my home computer rather than at work. But my poor old computer was becoming slower and not so user friendly. It is now 6 years old and the hardware is quite basic. That means the computer can't cope with multiple tasks and really got slow when website used Flash players etc. It became so frustrating to do the smallest of tasks.

So after more than 6 months of thinking about it, I bought a new computer. At first I really regretted that I didn't buy before the end of last year - my work computer runs on XP so I wanted to have two XP computers to make my life easier. But now it is impossible to buy a new computer with XP so I have to make do with Vista.

Believe me, starting out on Vista is not that smooth. It is similar enough to XP that you are fooled into thinking you can master it quickly. But tasks like 'Save As' took me 30 minutes because Vista hides the tool bars in new places :( Finally I went over to the Microsoft website and watched a few tutorials. I really wish I had of done that before I even began.

But it is not all bad, Vista (in Microsoft Office 2007) has some wonderful new functions that makes using Word a breeze! So many great quick shortcuts that I wish they had years ago. Now I feel my work computer is slow, so maybe I will get another Vista????? But I don't have enough money so I will have to check the price of a hard memory upgrade and keep the same machine.

So now that my computer using is becoming smoother, and I can access this blog software without wanting to scream, I hope I can update the blog more :)

Swimming update

I have a new record! I can now do my 1.5km in 40 minutes :)

I've been able to do this the last 3 times I've been swimming by cutting down on the rest time between laps.

Hmm, my new challenge is to build up the distance to 2km. Let's see how long it takes!

Golden Week!

Yay, it it Golden Week! Well, actually there are only 3 days left but I'm happy I'm on holidays :)

This April was one of the busiest times I've had in the past few years. Many things seemed to come up at once and I found myself spending over 12 hours working each day. That's okay for a while, but after a month I was mentally exhausted .... Teaching can be a tough job because you constantly have to be thinking, asking, guiding - there is no "down time". I love that part of my job but doing paperwork, reports, etc becomes a real chore!

Anyway, this week I've mostly had no work to do so I had a few special plans, like a BBQ with friends on Monday and a trip to Tokyo on Tuesday.

For some reason, GW always seems to have nice weather for most of the days. Tuesday was rainy but the other days have been glorious! I often find myself doing spring cleaning in GW and this year is the same. You can wash heavy winter blankets and they dry in half a day. (I love washing many things and even wash the kotatsu futon in the bath by hand!!!!) There is some kind of satisfaction to bring in all the laundry in the late afternoon with it smelling fresh and clean :)

This picture shows a typical Australian clothesline called a "Hills Hoist". Everyone has one in their backyard. One day I will buy one for my garden here in Japan. You can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hills_Hoist

The picture comes from here and you can see lots of other models and designs.
http://www.onlinedirect.hills.com.au/cattleprod/products/A1000PRO
If I become rich, I'll import one and you can come look at it. Oh, and you need to buy a special basket and trolley like you can see in the picture. That way you don't have to bend down to get the wet clothes.

They are not only good for hanging clothes on, but you can also buy specially made covers so they can be used like a giant beach umbrella in your backyard. And when I was a child, my sister and I held onto the crossbars and spun ourselves round and round like a ride at an amusement park! My mother or grandmother were NOT amused if they caught us though :)

Champion

I've been very lazy about writing in the blog recently. Please forgive me, there is a reason!

In January I promised myself to try as hard as I could to become healthier. In the last two months I've been going to the pool at least 2 times a week, mostly 3 times a week. And in those last two months I've increased from swimming 800 meters to 1.5km!

I'm so happy that in the past two weeks I can do 1.5km in less than 50 minutes. (I think my record last week was 48 minutes.) Now my new goal is to do 2km in 60 minutes. Actually, I can already do 1km in 30mins, but I get more and more tired as the laps increase .....

If you're wondering, I do 60 laps of a 25m pool to make up the distance. One goal is to reduce the time I rest between laps, though some of that time is stretching my legs. Oh, and just to make it more interesting, I don't really swim - I only use my legs! (I stretch my arms out above my head.) I swim 4 laps face-down, then 4 laps face up.

The reason I can swim so fast with no arms is that I use swim fins. Please don't think I am cheating because these specially designed fins are ONLY for swimming (not diving), are short and make your leg muscles work harder. By the end of 50 minutes my legs are like jelly!

The best fun is when no-one else is in the pool. It is very rare, but there were no other swimmers for about 30 minutes last Wednesday. I could be really selfish and swim dolphin kick (the kick for swimming butterfly) on my back. It makes tidal waves in the pool so not a good idea when there are other customers! I only did 125m before I was tired and then a man came and I really had to stop.

I am certainly getting healthier but often I am so tired I go to bed at 9pm!!! No time for using the computer outside of work.

A broken microphone

I'm really sorry there has been no podcast for a while. My computer microphone was broken - well, not really broken but not working!

I found out the problem was my digital camera software. Be careful when you install viewing software for a camera etc. Sometimes the software over-rides your normal computer settings and strange things start happening. The video section of my camera software 'broke' the sound and microphone settings that I had taken years to set up perfectly! :(

All fixed now, so as I get time I will start recording the old posts and put them in the podcast.

How is your 'new year'?

It is the new school and business year in Japan. How are you doing?

Actually I still like to think in terms of a calendar year, so my year begins in January. But it means the first business quarter just finished for me. April is the the start of my SECOND season!

All in all, January through to May is the busiest time of the year for most people. Thankfully this year I didn't have any moving to do. Sadly one of my good friends moved away, but luckily another is coming back this week! I can't wait to catch up with her and her family.

Whatever you are doing in this season, be sure to take care of yourself. Influenza still seems to be striking people - don't believe that the flu only appears in winter!

Rainy days, sunny days

The weather is so changeable lately. Some days feel like early summer but other days like the end of winter.

But truly it is spring so the trees are blooming. Please enjoy the sights from my garden. The big tree with white blooms is a magnolia and the pink blosooms are apricot.

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A new restaurant

A new Italian restaurant opened two weeks ago in Tsukuba. New restaurants open (and close!) all of the time, but this one is really worth visiting.

Trattoria e Pizzeria Amici (トラットリア・ピッシェリア・アミーチ）can be found at 286-1 Teshirogi, Tsukuba. Phone 029-852-5885. It is between Umi-to-shima Okinawan restaurant and Hotel Suwa, on the west part of Doho Park Street. If you want to go please make a reservation because every time I drive past the carpark is 'choc-a-block'!

It opened on March 12th and I've been twice. Once for "White Day" dinner, and once again for lunch two days ago. Um, yes that means I've been twice in two weeks. My husband and I decided we REALLY like the food!

Dinner was a little expensive but the taste was great - it seems they use the best authentic Italian products. For dinner we had a simple pizza with rocket (herb) and prosciutto raw ham. The proscuitto was of the best quality and so delicious - no wonder the prices are a little expensive. At lunch we each tried a different pizza: mine was with tomato sauce and oregano, and my husband's was four kinds of cheese. They were both wonderful, too.

The pictures are of the first course at lunch and the lunch pizza. The dessert is one you can only get at night. It is called a 'baba' and is kind of like a cake that is soaked in liqueur. It was the first time for me to find it in Japan.

By the way, the coffee is nice too. Oh, and the whole restaurant is non-smoking. All in all, it's a great place for eating out.