Wild turkey

Well, we did it! There wasn't quite a turkey but we had all the fixings. My two fellow American JET teachers and our Brit buddy Alex came over and we had a proper Thanksgiving dinner. The guys drank some Wild Turkey with my dad in honor of the day and we had stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, candied yams with marshmallows, green beans with bacon, salad, and bbq-ed chicken. Good stuff!

The guys did most of the work which was very impressive! We had a quite a feast and had a good time chatting and playing a few rounds of UNO. I think it was my dad's first time playing and it was pretty funny because we all made our own original cards with various consequences. Hee!

It was nice to have some comfort food and good company. Thanks Greg and Nathan for coming all the way over! Hope everyone had a great holiday.

What's a turkey?

Hope everyone had a lovely thanksgiving! We are delaying ours a bit and having some friends over tomorrow for a dinner. Unfortunately though I've heard there are places to buy a turkey, no one around here (including me) has ovens so it would be way too hard to cook one. Sniff sniff. But we we still have a little dinner with a possible BBQ and my mom sent me Stove Top stuffing (thanks mom)!

Ok, I wrote that and then got busy doing stuff so now I will report that Thanksgiving dinner was a success! My dad came to visit me for the last couple weeks so we've been busy hopping around Kyushu trying to see as much as possible. I will post new pics and bloggies soon...!

Pounding it out

This weekend, the elementary schools celebrated Culture Day (Bunka Sai) by making mochi. Mochi is a rice cake made from soft rice that's pounded down into a sticky cake. Nowadays, people have mochi makers but this was a special occasion so we were able to watch the traditional process. They used wood burning pots to cook the rice and then the soft, hot rice is transferred to a big clay pot where it's pounded with heavy wooden hammers.



The hammering is pretty intense! Parents kept asking Scott and I to try it and I finally nudged Scott into doing it. He had fun but slightly broke one of the hammers! Everyone was breaking them though so it was no biggie.



The kids and their parents made a variety of mochi. Some were unfilled and colored pink and eaten with nori (dried seaweed) and soy sauce, some were filled with sweet red beans, and even filled with chocolate! The chocolate was a new treat and was quite delightful with the warm mochi melting the chocolate in the center. In the end though, the mochi making turned into a flour throwing contest. Kids were covering each other's faces with flour and Scott and I were victims as well. No one was safe! This kid in the photo probably got it the worst though. Ha!

More halloween treats

I did some Halloween games and such with the kids to give them a little taste of what Halloween is like at home. I wish I could've arranged a party or some trick or treating but I did my best. With the younger kids, I gave them their own pumpkins to draw and color. It was neat to see their ideas of spooky or funny faces. Some made pumpkins that were crying or winking or they put faces on the moon. Adorable! I also had them make ghost noises and I guess in Japan, ghosts sound more like old ladies or someone with a bad cold that's lost their voice. Who knew!

Blue skies

Sometimes we have these amazingly beautiful skies I think that the sky must be bigger here in our town. The fall has brought some chilly winds but with it some lovely clear skies and gorgeous clouds. We also have fields of beautiful flowers around. I just had to take a moment to share them.