Some Family News

Here's the first photo of Sydney's sibling! Can you see that he or she is looking right at us and waving?

I apologize to those of you I haven't had a chance to tell personally...I haven't been feeling too well. At 13 weeks now, I figure I have 8 or 9 more weeks to go before I feel better, if this kiddo is anything like Sydney...early November seems so far away!

Anyway, my sickness has put a damper in our travels and outtings, which is why the blog has become stagnant lately. But we're still planning to get a few trips in before it gets too complicated to travel (meaning I'll have to wear a kid in a backpack, too.) Next stop: China (Beijing, Xian, and Shanghai) in June.

Golden Week in Japan
This weekend begins the celebration of four Japanese national holidays within a seven-day period. Many companies give employees the week off and this is a popular time for Japanese people to travel. Brian tells me even hospitals shut down for the week.

The holidays celebrated include:

• April 29 Showa Day (Showa no hi): April 29 is the birthday of former Emperor Showa, who died in the year 1989. Until 2006, Greenery Day (see May 4) used to be celebrated on this day.


• May 3 Constitution Day (Kenpo kinenbi): On this day in 1947, the new post war constitution was put into effect.


• May 4 Greenery Day (Midori no hi): Until 2006, Greenery Day used to be celebrated on April 29, the birthday of former Emperor Showa.The day is dedicated to the environment and nature, because the emperor loved plants and nature. Before being declared Greenery Day, May 4 used to be a national holiday due to a law, which declares a day, that falls between two national holidays, a national holiday.
  
• May 5 Children's Day (Kodomo no hi): The Boy's Festival (Tango no Sekku) is celebrated on this day. Families pray for the health and future success of their sons by hanging up carp streamers and displaying samurai dolls, both symbolizing strength, power and success in life. (The Girl's Festival, you may recall, is celebrated on March 3.) From our neighbors' display, I'm gathering that the number of carp streamers flying (10) does not correspond to the number of boys in the household.

Culture: Food For Thought
Speaking of culture, I heard this random quote over the American radio station here in Japan: "Do not clean the bathroom. Bacteria are the only culture some people have." I laughed out loud. Must be my science background. Or the fact that I was once again procrastinating about cleaning my bathroom. Of course, I assume it was meant to be a joke. Otherwise it's just gross. But there may be some truth to it...

The longer we live here, the more I realize how lucky we are because many people don't ever have the chance to experience other cultures through travel, let alone through the experience of living abroad. And one of my favorite ways to learn about culture is to try different foods, of course. I'm not saying I eat everything (for example, I drew the line at raw crab in Sapporo), but I've come a long, long way from my picky-eating behaviors of childhood. Maybe there's hope for Sydney. She does already love edamame.



Of course, I'd eaten at a Japanese steakhouse and I'd learned to love sushi, miso soup, edamame (soybeans) and tempura before I moved here. But I have tried many other Japanese foods (listed below) since moving to Yokosuka and rarely find one I don't like!

• Sushi
  
• Miso soup
  
• Edamame
  
• Tempura
  
• Yakitori
  
• Soba and Udon
  
• Tonkatsu
  
• Sukiyaki
  
• Shabu Shabu
  
• Gyoza (Chinese)
  
• Ramen (Chinese)
  

I'm just beginning to try my hand at making some of these dishes at home. I'm not exactly sure I'd win any authenticity contests with my cooking, but we enjoy it! As complicated as Japanese cooking may seem, most Japanese foods can be made with 4 ingredients: dashi broth (a fish broth made with dried bonito flakes and dried kelp), soy sauce, mirin (Japanese sweet wine) and a type of sake made for cooking. The proportions just change depending on the dish. Of course, I haven't figured out how to determine those proportions...but I do have 2 more years.

Trivia Contest #2:

My Japanese friend taught me this piece of trivia:

Who was the last samurai?

For your correct answer, you will win an authentic Japanese prize...
This way I can make sure the prize fits the person! Thanks for playing!

Just Where Are All the Cherries?
Cherry blossom season begs this question. Well, I never thought twice about it, but Brian did. And as it turns out Sakura, Japanese cherry trees, don't actually produce cherries. They are a variety of cherry trees which are bred to produce extra flowers rather than cherry fruit. So, alas, we will have to wait for California cherries come June.

Chasing Cherry Blossoms
Life definitely slows down and rules are relaxed for the two week cherry blossom season in Japan. Private parks full of cherry blossoms open up to the public. People take days off--or at least longer lunches--to have picnics under the canopy of cherry blossoms, complete with celebratory sake and bento lunches. So, of course it makes sense that we joined in, this being our first cherry blossom season in Japan.

But even though things slow down and cherry blossoms are meant to be enjoyed, there is definitely a race to enjoy them before they disappear. One especially rainy and/or windy day and you will have missed the opportunity of a lifetime. Since the blossoms first started to appear last Wednesday, we've had mostly rainy and chilly days, making it difficult to enjoy the outdoors. But nonetheless, we have managed to get our share of the blooms--for this season anyway. We have two more to look forward to.




We returned to Kamakura at night last weekend to see lanterns lit up among the canopy of cherry blossoms down the center walkway of a main street in Kamakura, the ancient capitol of Japan.



We also went to the Cherry Blossom Festival on base last weekend, which drew many Japanese people.

(Or was it the American pizza that drew most of the Japanese folks out? Can you believe this line of people waiting for a carry-home pie?! We contemplated waiting, too, since dinner time was approaching, but no pizza is worth this wait. And I like pizza.)

Today, we finally had nice enough weather to venture out with our playgroup to have a picnic in a cherry blossom park near our house. (Sydney was hell bent on trying to eating carmel popcorn, but I won that battle. But I did learn that we should have picnics more often...and I should give other people her food so she will only think she's mooching.)

Look at the photo gallery for more cherry blossom photos!