The ginkgo trees have finally changed color

I might have already posted pictures of these trees last year; they're in a park not too far from the church. Last year, they were this shade of yellow two or three weeks earlier. Many people come to this park just to walk along this sidewalk and others that are lined with fall colors. Nozomi told me that the title of the statue of the girl simply says "bubble".

Fall colors

I think I mentioned before that fall started late this year-many trees are just starting to have rich autumn colors now. I took this picture in the play area at the school where I taught today. I just used my cell phone camera, so the light isn't balanced, but you can get an idea of what things look like now. The weather has been fantastic for the last several days, and the blue sky is supposed to continue for a while. Thank You, God, for a beautiful creation!

Kaki + Nashi = yum!

Persimmons and Asian pears are two very good things about fall in Japan. I ate Asian pears in Oregon sometimes, but they were expensive, and I think I only ate a persimmon once in my life before coming to Japan. Now they are two of my favorite fruits. (Another is karin (quince), but I'll save that for another time.)
The nights are getting a little cold, but during the day the air is warm and dry. (Hurray! No humidity!) I hope this lasts for a while, but the prediction is for an unusually cold winter, so I'll enjoy fall and the harvest as long as I can.

Wow! A morning earthquake and an evening earthquake!

The first one, this morning, was small and short. The second one, about twenty minutes ago, was strong enough to make me get up and go stand in a doorway. I started counting seconds because it was lasting so long-I got up to 30, and probably started counting at least 10 seconds after the earthquake began. That's a pretty long quake... But don't worry-no damage and no problems!

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Saturday's Tokyo (Chiba) trip

On Saturday, Nozomi & I had made a plan to meet our friends Mondo & Aiko and go to Umi Hotaru together. A typhoon decided that we should not go to Umi Hotaru, but to LaLa Port and Costco instead...  (I think I've mentioned Umi Hotaru before, but I included a link above, if you're interested in reading more). LaLa Port is one of the biggest shopping malls in the world; it has about 540 stores and many parking structures. We had lunch at a Hawaiian hamburger shop (DELICIOUS!) then looked around the mall for a while. After that, we went to Costco to stock up on some food that's hard to find at other stores including refried beans, salsa and CHEESE CHEESE WONDERFUL CHEESE!!!

Mondo & Aiko, thanks for a fun time!

My last Halloween lesson this year!

After talking about jack-o'-lanterns and trick or treat more than 50 times (to most of my classes) in the last three weeks, I'm ready to say goodbye to Halloween until next year, but the students had a fun culture experience, so it was a success!
These pictures: my entrance into the English room in my Darth Vader costume and the students playing a board game that I made with Halloween vocabulary.
(FYI: one student's face was a little too visible; for privacy concerns there's a blank spot.)

Early Christmas wreath

Last week, some of the second graders that I teach gave me a wreath that they had made in class. I'm not sure why they're making what looks like Christmas wreaths in October, but I was pretty impressed at how well they did.

My Halloween costume for school

I've been teaching many Halloween lessons at all the schools for the past two weeks. I wasn't sure what to wear for a costume, but then I found a cheap cape at the 100 yen shop, and reproductions of paper Star Wars masks from the late 70s. So, say hello to Darth Rob...

Halloween at the mall

Some of you have already heard me mention that Halloween seems to be getting more popular in Japan. This October I've seen the most decorations and store promotions so far. Saturday, Nozomi & I went to the Bell Mall (biggest shopping mall in the area, and closest in style to malls in America). There were jack o' lantern decorations throughout, and even a themed area to take free pictures that provided hats and costumes, so we stopped for a quick photo op...

Star Wars car?

Every time I see this model of car, I hear C3PO in my head: "R2! Where have you been?!"

Wasps and frogs

A couple of experiences with small animals... Yesterday I was teaching at one of the smaller schools I work at a bit out in the countryside. In the morning the JTE (Japanese Teacher of English is what I've always assumed it stands for...) and I were getting ready to go to the 2^nd graders' class. The teacher came into the staff room and asked us to wait a few minutes (I understood that part) and then quickly said something to the principal (I didn't understand that part). The JTE then explained to me that there was a large bee in the classroom where we were going to teach. I asked her if it was THE big bee that is a bit infamous here. She said yes that it was. Suzumebachi. That's usually translated into English as giant Asian wasp, but it literally means “sparrow bee”. Yes, the wasp is so big it's compared to the size of a sparrow. Check on Wikipedia if you're interested; they're amazing, but kind of scary (the biggest wasp in the world). The principal came back into the staff room a few minutes later holding a can of insecticide and said everything was fine, no problem.

Later, right before lunch, I was in the restroom. I reached to take some toilet paper from the dispenser (I was, *ahem*, just blowing my nose). As I pulled on the paper, a small green object brushed against my hand as it plopped out of the dispenser onto the floor. I jumped a bit backwards, and then noticed that it was a small green frog. My startled reaction changed into laughter as the frog seemed to become pretty startled himself and almost hopped into the squatty potty. I picked him up and put him on the outside window ledge, noticing that another small green frog was already sitting there. There was a large rice field right next to the school. The frog had apparently crawled up the wall into the open window. Why he decided to take a nap inside the toilet paper dispenser is a bit more mysterious...

The picture I included is one I took a few weeks ago-I thought the frog looked sad because he was in jail. ("Hey! Let me out!")

Yum!

Nozomi baked homemade butter rolls this afternoon. I ate one with some of the last quince (karin) jam that we made last fall. YUM!
(If anyone knows where we can pick some quince this year, please tell me!)

BIG moth at UICS family camp

The insects here definitely get MUCH bigger than they do in Oregon. Later in the day I saw a very large mantis too.
Actually, this isn't the biggest moth I've seen here; last year at one of the schools where I teach I saw one that might have been almost twice as big, but it was sitting on a window high in the wall, so the perspective made it hard to see exactly how big it was.

Nozomi, my cousin Elaine, and me at my uncle & aunt's house

We returned to our long tradition of taking a crazy "jumping shot picture" this year during our visit to America. Friends who have never seen any of the pictures from the past, if you really want to see others, let me know...

Pictures from my father's birthday party/family reunion

This post is mostly for my family to download pictures, but friends who want to see them are welcome to look!

Update: these pictures were originally posted as a gallery on my other blog, but this blog doesn't seem to have a way to make a gallery, so this is going to be a BIG post... you'll have to do a lot of scrolling...

Nozomi & I made pickles!

During our vacation in Oregon, I copied my mother's dill pickle recipe. The recipe came from her mother (or maybe even her grandmother; she's not sure). I remember eating these pickles on hamburgers when I was growing up, so I'm excited to see how they taste. We'll try them in a few weeks and see...

Roller skating!

Monday evening, my cousins, sister, aunt, and Nozomi & I all went to the roller skating rink together. I hadn't been skating inside since we all went together about five years ago. Very fun, and very nostalgic for us. It was Nozomi's first time on roller skates, but since she had ice skated several times before, she learned very fast and had no problems.

Friday we took an all-day trip to Crater Lake

Crater Lake is a very beautiful place, and all Oregonians, if you haven't visited yet, you should! The water is one of the most amazing colors of blue I have ever seen. We also stopped in the Cascade Mountains closer to Eugene on the way (that's the picture of me with the mountains in the background.)
It seems like this is the "animal tour"--we saw turkeys and a buzzard at my sister's house, a horse and a mule while we were walking, and a chipmunk took food out of Nozomi's hand while we were at Crater Lake.
Shortly before we left, some clouds moved in and made amazing shadows on the surface of the lake. The picture gives you an idea of what it looked like, but the light was much more interesting in person.
It was a busy day and a lot of driving, but it was worth it: a great trip!

Today was my father's 80th birthday party

We had a fantastic dinner and birthday party with family to celebrate my father's 80th birthday. My sister-in-law arranged to have surprise guests: two musicans playing bagpipes and Scottish drums (my father loves bagpipe music). A wonderful time!

My sister's chinchilla, and mule and WILD TURKEYS!

My sister's condominium is on the edge of town, up in the hills. As we were driving, we saw five wild turkeys crossing the street-it was the first time I'd ever seen turkeys in my life (other than cooked on a plate)-amazing!
She has two chinchillas, which are very interesting animals and fun to play with and feed.
Yesterday, on a walk near my parents' house, we saw a horse and a mule. I guess this is going to be the America animal tour!
More later...
P.S. Sorry-bad picture quality-the settings on the camera were wrong, but now they're back to normal.

here we go!

LightHouse Concert

We had a great time playing at a youth event this afternoon. The concert lasted about two hours, and the small (well, very small) concert hall (club) was very full. It was fun to be able to experiment with my keyboards a bit and just have fun making crazy sounds (noises?)...

We took Gale to Oya

Oya is a very interesting place with very characteristic and famous stone that is quarried there (Frank Lloyd Wright used it to build a famous hotel in Tokyo, but that's another story...) People that have read my blog for a while might remember I posted about it before-you can go into the enormous, underground quarry, which is quite amazing. The area above ground has some cool sights too.
Sometimes the literalness of the translations on some signs is kind of fun: "Unusual Shaped Stones Viewing Spot" struck me as an odd combination of words... Some of the unusual shapes were natural, and some of them were giant, carved art.
Gale is standing in front of the huge Kannon statue carved out of the hillside as a peace memorial. It was SO hot that day that we looked at it for a couple of minutes, took the picture and jumped back into the air-conditioned car. We went to the quarry after that; it's a constant, cool temperature all year, so it was a good way to end the trip.

Four o'clock at the temple in Nikko

I had never heard a temple bell ring so close-they are LOUD!!!

P.S. Update: this video is temporarily offline.

My friend Gale from my church in Oregon is visiting this weekend

Today Nozomi & I took her to Chuzenji Lake and the temple at Nikko. Very fun time! The next couple of days we'll see how many other sights we can see here around the area before she has to leave.

My newest KitKat discovery: cola & lemon soda combo pack!

They got a little bit melted (it's still rainy season here, which means hot and humid-we usually keep chocolate in the fridge during this season). The lemon one tasted pretty good-very similar to the taste of lemon soda. The cola one was, well, so-so. It tasted a lot like that fizzy cola candy we all used to eat when we were kids...

The little green frog has moved from the lettuce to the eggplant

I am amazed at how big the tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplant are getting. We only planted the garden about a month ago, but vegetables seem to grow faster here than in Oregon.

Very silly birthday card my cousin sent (thanks Elaine & Tim!)

Like Elaine wrote inside the card, "better late than never"-this card was definitely worth the wait-very funny! I laugh every time I open it... (and I'm happy that K.C. keeps getting little royalty payments for such a fun song, even from birthday cards)

P.S. Update: this video is offline, hopefully temporarily.

Happy anniversary to us! We went to "Apple Restaurant" for dinner-yummy tacos!

This is at a restaurant where Nozomi & I went a couple of times when we were dating, so we thought it would be fun to go back for our anniversary (and like I said, the tacos are great-better than anything I've found anywhere else in Japan, including in Tokyo!)

There's a frog in my lettuce!

This afternoon, I was looking in the garden boxes on our veranda (patio, deck, balcony...whichever word you prefer) and noticed the little green frog that I had seen a couple of days earlier was still there, and today he was sitting on a lettuce leaf. It's not surprising at all that there are a lot of frogs around here because there's a rice field RIGHT next to our apartment. What DOES surprise me is that this very small frog got all the way up to our second-floor apartment balcony and crawled over the tall plastic wall to get into our garden boxes. If he eats some of the ugly little caterpillars and bugs that killed my bok choy, he's welcome to stay.

More strange sodas

I thought the Pepsi was so-so, but Nozomi liked it. The label says there's no baobab flavor in it. Hmm...
The green cola was "green" as in "natural"-no artificial flavors or colors. It tasted like...generic cola.

Ever wondered what ALF would sound like in Japanese...?

I never watched more than an episode or two of ALF-the one or two that I watched didn't seem.... well ..... funny, which is a problem for a show that's supposed to be a comedy. Nozomi told me that the Japanese version features a fairly well known comedian voicing the ALF character, and that his lines are pretty funny. I'm thinking maybe this is a show that GAINS something in translation... (P.S. Sorry the quality isn't very good-I recorded it pointing my cell phone at the TV. Hmm...considering that, I guess the quality isn't that bad.)
P.S. Update: this video is temporarily (probably) offline.

Utsunomiya Art Museum Park

This afternoon we took a walk in the park near Utsunomiya Art Museum; there are several large, outdoor sculptures there. We've walked there a couple of times before, but I had never noticed the huge rabbit sculpture.
About an hour after we got back home, it started pouring, so good timing!

Saturday afternoon in Ichikai Town

We went to visit Nozomi's parents' house to celebrate Fathers Day. Nozomi brought an apple pie that she made to give to her father, and we all enjoyed it together after a delicious dinner that her mother made. After dinner we went outside and watched fireflies. I had only seen fireflies once before (in New Jersey, where my brother and sister-in-law used to live). I was amazed the first time, and was still amazed the second time-I think it's something like seeing "real magic"-kind of a slow-motion miracle, if you understand my meaning. The moon was partly, then completely, then partly hidden by clouds. The temperature was perfect. The fireflies were reflected off the water in the rice field as they flew back and forth and then hovered, turning dim and then bright green. We caught a couple in our hands, and watched them up close, and I could barely believe that they are real, living things. Much too beautiful, complicated, and amazing to be accidents-what a fantastic creation...
Nozomi's mother took the picture of us in front of their house.