American Burger Part 2!

Last year, McDonalds had a special promotion based on themed hamburgers named after different American cities. The connection between the taste of the burger and the city it's named for is pretty mysterious sometimes and the American Burgers from last year were kind of so-so. But today Nozomi & I tried the Miami Burger. No, it has nothing to do with a formerly trendy and successful cop show from the 80s or a trendy and successful cop show from the 00s. In fact, I have NO idea WHAT it has to do with, since it is basically a taco burger named after Miami. But it is pretty tasty; in fact, good enough that I might have another before the promotion ends. There was also a Manhattan Burger that looked like it had Canadian bacon on it (and while we're at it: what does Canadian bacon have to do with Canada?) so on my next visit I'll have a difficult time choosing between randomly named city burgers...

Walking in a Winter Wonderland...

This afternoon, Nozomi & I went for a walk in the snow. This morning I was surprised it was cold enough to snow, but the temperature dropped during the day as the snow continued, and after walking for 30 minutes, my fingers were so cold they hurt even though I was wearing the warmest gloves I have. I took that as a clue that it was time to stop taking pictures and go inside. (Yup, I'm pretty clever about things like that...) The weather report says a bit more snow tomorrow, but then up to 9 degrees by the day after tomorrow (that's 50 for all you Fahrenheit people). There's an old expression that people start saying here around mid-February: "three days cold, four days warm". It was true last year, and looks like it might be this year too. One day last week it was warm enough I almost wore a T-shirt outside. Not today.

The ?th Snow of 2011

It has snowed for almost five hours now, and looks like it's going to continue for a while. In the last few weeks it has snowed several times, usually not staying on the ground, or if it does, melting soon. It seems about the same today, but right now it barely feels cold enough to snow.
Spring, come soon!
The picture was taken looking out the back window of our apartment.

First snow of 2011

It snowed for a couple of hours tonight, but I don't think it's deep enough to be very dangerous for driving. That's what I like-just enough to make the trees beautiful.
This picture is right outside our apartment. I saw the neighbor trimming these trees in the summer and fall to keep them shaped; I think they look even more interesting covered in white.

Happy New Year!

Some of you outside of Japan may be thinking "so, Rob.... what's this weird image with rabbits on the moon that I received as a New Years card?" I'm glad you asked!
Sending New Years cards is a part of Japanese culture; if you want more details, click here. The short version is that it's common for the card to have an image of the animal from the current year's Chinese zodiac sign, and 2011 is a rabbit year. One other culture connection is that in East Asia the perceived image of the surface of the moon is not a human face, it's a rabbit.  Also, Nozomi and I both liked the retro, quirky design of the image (I'm retro and we're both quirky...)
So, once more: Happy 2011 (that's "twenty eleven"!)

Tokyo museums part two

The second museum we visited on our trip last week was The National Art Center, Tokyo. It has no permanent collection, but was designed as an enormous exhibition space (four floors). The building has a very striking appearance that's a bit hard to fully capture in photos; the first two pictures are the interior and exterior of the building.
We saw this year's installment of the annual "Domani: Art of Tomorrow" show that features works by artists who have returned after studying art abroad on grants. As an expat living in Japan, the concept of re-exploring and re-evaluating your own culture after living abroad is fascinating to me. And, of course, the cultural assimilation I'm experiencing here is ongoing. After being here for nearly four years, I've started to understand the Japanese cultural concept of "cuteness" ("kawaii") rather well, even though I still find some aspects of it rather strange. One of the artists that was featured, Ryoko Suzuki, uses her photography to satirize this cultural concept. She superimposes her own face on photos of dolls and other images that would be considered very cute by this standard, but she exaggerates the physical characteristics and styles of the images even more than is done usually to accentuate their absurdity and comment on gender roles. As is common, no photos were allowed inside, but I'm including two small images of the photographer's works from the show that I borrowed from her website.
We're hoping to return to this venue again for one of the next shows which will focus on 20th century surrealism and include works by Dali and Duchamp.
The final picture is one more photo that I took of ume blossoms.

Tokyo museums part one

The "lonely statue" from the last post is actually in the garden outside the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum. "Teien" means garden, usually formal or decorative style, for example, Japanese garden or rose garden. This garden had both of those, and art incorporated into different sections. Ume (plum) trees were just starting to blossom; a little earlier than usual this year.
The museum building is the former residence of Prince Asaka of the Japanese imperial family. It was built in 1933 shortly after he and other family members had an extended stay in France during the height of the art deco movement. French artists contributed to the design of the house, and it is now known as "The Residence of Art Deco" in Japan. The actual collection of art inside the museum is fairly small, but the building itself is a work of art. Photographs were only allowed in certain areas inside, so I have only included two. In one, Nozomi is standing in the entryway in front of elaborate glass doors. In the other, the large vase/lamp/whatever-it-is looks like the very definition of art deco to me.
Part two next time...

We found a lonely statue that needed friends...

International Restaurant Tour in Tokyo

Nozomi & I took a short trip to Tokyo mostly to go to museums and eat food we can''t find in Utsunomiya. I'll post pictures of the museum parts later, but for now, here's the food:
The first night, we had dinner with Nozomi's sister (who lives not far from this part of Tokyo) at a Peruvian restaurant. I was checking on a website that lists international restaurants in Tokyo before we left, and when I saw that there is one restaurant there with cuisine from Peru, I thought that would be a fun adventure (especially when the review said it was delicious and not too expensive). The review was absolutely right-we had a table full of new, wonderful tastes! It turns out that Peru's embassy is not far from the restaurant, and as we were eating dinner, it looked like some of the other diners might have a connection there. My brain was doing strange language mixing for much of the time we were there; I started to think in Spanish part of the time, but sometimes some Japanese words got inserted in my mind...confusing but fun. I asked the waiter, "excuse me (in Japanese); can you take a picture of us? (in Spanish)" and thanked him and said the food was delicious in Japanese and Spanish as we left.
For lunch today, we ate at a bakery restaurant that's part of a chain that has a location here in Utsunomiya. It has sort of a general European fusion style-nothing surprising, but both of our dishes were great, and the bread was VERY VERY good! Sorry--we didn't take any pictures there.
Dinner today was at a Jewish deli ("David's Deli"-successful enough that they had their own personalized dishes). We had a hummus and baba ganoush plate with pita bread, falafel sandwich, tabouli salad, and chicken. It was fantastic!
And, our snack we ate just now was.....  donuts from Mister Donut-YUM! That's a little international because the chain started in America, became very successful, opened branches in Japan, became even more successful here than it was in the States, and eventually closed all the stores in America, but that's another story...

New Years Fun

On December 30^th, Nozomi & I went to her parents' house to help with preparations for the traditional New Years Day meal. I can't say that I really helped THAT much, but it was interesting to try to make one of the special dishes. Konbu-maki (fish wrapped in seaweed and tied with gourd fiber strings). On the way home, there was a little snow falling. It was just enough to make a beautiful dusting of white on the ground before it melted.

Today (January 1^st) we returned for lunch. We ate many kinds of traditional foods arranged in stacking lacquerware boxes (osechi). Before eating we took family pictures and after lunch Nozomi, her mother and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. (I'm using the word “neighborhood” a little loosely: her parents' house is in a rural area, and there are only two or three houses within a five-minute walk.) We were looking for kiji (pheasant), which is common in this area, but didn't see any. We did see a large heron (sagi) fairly close, and a few cranes (tsuru) on the other side of the rice fields.

I'm thankful for another calm, relaxing vacation day!

Joyful Christmas 2010 was fantastic!

After many weeks of planning, preparing and practicing, Joyful Christmas happened Saturday. Thanks to everyone who was off stage, on stage, and all the others who helped in many other ways. And especially thanks to everyone who prayed!
I'm sure MANY more pictures will be coming to Facebook soon, but here are some that might be a little different (sorry they're a little blurry).  Two of the pictures were taken on stage RIGHT before the curtain went up. The other two were in the lobby after the event.

Christmas cards from one of my first grade classes

I was pretty amazed by these cards-the pictures are great, and the writing (in Japanese AND English) is wonderful! Most of the cards say "Merry Christmas, Robert Sensei" and the student's name, but others have longer messages. The larger images have some examples; two cards have similar messages, "thank you for Monday's English class-I will do my best!". Another says, "Merry Christmas! Happy Year of the Rabbit!" and one other says, "Christmas is fun, isn't it?" I actually read most of the Japanese on my own, and was so excited that I said to Nozomi, "I can read! I can read!" (First graders' writing is about my reading level...)
I really like the free mixing of Santa Claus, Christmas trees, the year of the rabbit, and Pokemon characters.
If I don't get a chance to post again before:  MERRY CHRISTMAS! Happy birthday, Jesus!

Starbucks mini-concert

We played a short set to promote the Joyful Christmas concert coming this Saturday. Earlier in the afternoon, there were people standing RIGHT over my shoulder on the other side of the rail in the mall, which kind of made me nervous, but then security came through and told them they couldn't stand there. It looks like I'm still making my "concentrate! concentrate! imagine there's nobody behind you! keep playing!" face...
It went great-thanks everybody!

Thanksgiving dinner

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Nozomi and I had dinner with her family. Turkey is expensive and hard to find, so we roasted three whole chickens. We also made green bean casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, mince pie, and pecan pie. Nozomi's mother made salads, including one with kabu no tsukemono (pickled Japanese turnip) which made it into a delicious international Thanksgiving dinner. My original plan of having an early dinner/late lunch at 3:00 turned out to be, well, unrealistic... After the chicken took longer to roast than the recipe said, which meant the drippings weren't ready to use to make the gravy (I see that making Thanksgiving dinner is a series of dominoes now...) we finally sat down to eat at about 5:00. It was later than planned, but very delicious, and Nozomi's family said they enjoyed their first Thanksgiving dinner.

Mont Blanc Pepsi was actually pretty good!

I'm not quite sure what the fascination is here with unusual promotional flavors. If you read my blog, of course you know about all the KitKat varieties. (And Nozomi found a VERY unusual new one today which I'll post later...)
So, friends/family from the States (or Australia or New Zealand or ...), has that become more popular there recently? I just can't imagine Pepsi making "New York Cheesecake" flavor (just an example, but who knows, it might show up here...) or anything similar in the US.

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".